The two-parent families that don’t form perpetuate African-Americans’ disadvantage across generations. The economic predicament of black men, which disconnects them from their children, threatens to ripple across families and generations.

All of which raises the question: How do African-Americans in the 21st century confront the prospect of being indefinitely left behind?

The cycle that the research documents had a beginning and it can have an end. A s black women began to take advantage of the opportunities opened by the civil rights movement, black men were hit first with deindustrialization — the loss of well-paying blue-collar jobs throughout large swaths of our nation — and then with a surge in incarceration unlike anything a democratic nation had ever seen. Black children bore the brunt of their parents’ suffering. Many well-meaning Americans remained oblivious to a national tragedy.

Black men’s disadvantage has shaped not only how they are perceived but the meaning of race as well. Racial disparities — in incarceration, unemployment, school failure — fuel racial bias, which ensnares black boys, rich and poor alike. Boys like my own go from cute and cuddly to strong and manly, and so become a threat in the eyes of many. The bias, subtle yet pervasive, compounds the disparities by undermining the relationships and hope that one needs to get, and stay, ahead. And so the cycle continues.

But it need not. We can disrupt the cycle of black disadvantage. What we’ve lacked is the will to do so. We act as though economic inequality is inevitable, relegating poor children of all races to schools to which most parents would never choose to send their own children, schools often in neighborhoods where most would never choose to live. We segregate ourselves by race and class, and accept the inequality of opportunity that doing so breeds.

So many Americans profess to be blind to race, which ensures only that it will remain salient. So many worry more about appearing to be racist than working to remove the enduring taint of slavery and segregation.

We will find a way to undo intergenerational racial disparities when we find the will. And to find the will, we need to recognize what’s at stake: The conditions that challenge us imperil the future of black boys and black families and the viability of the American dream itself.