Let’s rethink the culture of whipping

Retired NBA star Charles Barkley has exposed a hazardous culture clash in the Texas indictment of Minnesota Vikings running back Adrian Peterson for child abuse: If parents are going to be sent to jail for giving their children a “whipping,” then “every black parent in the South is going to be in jail.” Some people were upset that Barkley, a black Alabama native, singled out black people and Southerners.

For example, an extensive study of spanking and ethnicity by Elizabeth Gershoff, a human ecology associate professor at the University of Texas at Austin, found 89 percent of black parents said they had spanked their children, compared to 80 percent of Hispanic parents, 79 percent of white parents and 73 percent of Asian parents.

Numerous theories have been raised as to why so many black parents approve of whipping.

Others point out that African-American parents are disproportionately more poor, Southern and religiously conservative, all of which are factors that correlate with support for corporal punishment, regardless of race.

“So that you have 80 percent of black parents believing you should beat them beat the devil out of them.

Police say he whipped his 4-year-old son so hard with a switch made from a tree branch that he caused numerous cuts and bruises to the child’s back, buttocks, ankles, legs and scrotum, plus defensive wounds to the child’s hands.