Single Mothers Become Scapegoats in Britain - by Katrin Bennhold - NYTimes.com

NYTimes.com, by Katrin Bennhold, 27/09/2011, extracto.-

When a wave of youth riots swept across the ethnically mixed suburbs ringing France’s cities in 2005, one popular catchphrase was a much-cited (if ill-defined) clash of civilizations. “Muslims” were burning cars and “Muslims” were facing off with the French riot police, or so one was told.

Across the Channel, Britain right now is still coming to terms with its own bout of rioting last month. The explanation that seems to have captured the imagination at London dinner parties and among pundits is that of “broken families” — a phrase used to suggest a demise of values among certain youths, rooted not least in the crumbling of the two-parent family.

What Muslims were to the French riots, single moms seem to be to the English ones.

“The rightwing press and politicians have pondered the burning of Poundland and delivered their verdict,” Tanya Gold wrote recently in the left-leaning newspaper The Guardian. “Who brought us here, to this terrible place? Single mothers, yah.”