STANFORD, CA—Offering a concise explanation for the complex interaction of economic forces that gave rise to the widespread enslavement of Africans, a Black conservative scholar argued Wednesday that the transatlantic slave trade was the result of fatherlessness in the Black community. “The lack of strong role models and family values created a vacuum that allowed the slave trade to thrive,” said Lawrence Oldham, a senior fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution, explaining that single Black mothers were too busy working to keep their children out of the lifestyle that led to Africans being rounded up en masse, stowed as cargo on European boats, and shipped to the New World as slaves. “Anytime a West African father left his family, the lack of masculine virtues in the household left children vulnerable to enslavement. Without a positive father figure, these kids turned to the streets, where they inevitably got involved with chattel slavery and wound up in the Port of Charleston getting auctioned off to the highest bidder.” Oldham added that the slave trade would no doubt be resurgent today if the Supreme Court hadn’t finally voted to end affirmative action.