Every African American boy (to include B-W, Bi-Racial males) is born into a country which assures him that he is not worth the dirt he walks on. (From James Baldwin, et al)
We have failed Black boys overall and, as Ron Edmonds said, the way we feel about our failure will determine whether we will do anything about it.
At an early age, Black boys begin getting extensive and intensive presages from American society that they have low human value. They view large numbers of adult images of themselves in the dominant media that are demeaned, exploited, exaggerated, or ridiculed. Consequently, Black male youngsters are much less likely to initiate efforts to succeed.
A disproportionate percentage of adult African American males have perished too early and are perishing every day. Even those of us who survived and thrived usually paid massive psychological costs.
The success/failure gaps in education and the incarceration rates are prime indicators of the difference in negative socialization signals sent to and inculcated by Black boys. The disparity gaps are not simply a result of Black or male genes because Black girls are doing significantly better than Black boys and the gaps between white girls and white boys are considerably narrower.
The Black male-female gap in high school graduation rates is more than 27 percentage points.
At the college level, the undergraduate enrollment gap is nearly 27 points and nearly 41 points at the graduate level.
In terms of college graduation, the Black male-female gaps are: 37 points in Associate’s Degrees; 32 points in Bachelor’s Degrees; 44 points in Master’s Degrees; 24 points in First-Professional Degrees; and 33 points in Doctoral Degrees.
Nearly 50% of Americans in America’s “Cradle-to-Prison Pipeline” are Black men, who make up only about 6% of the population!
Education and income are tightly correlated. The incidence of institutionalization among young people who drop out of high school is more than 63 times higher than among college graduates. Nearly 70 percent of incarcerated men are high school dropouts.
In 1980, about 2% of the Black males incarcerated were college educated; and about 10% were high school dropouts. By 2008, the college number had barely changed, but the high school dropout incarceration rate had jumped to nearly 40%. (Pew Public Safety and Mobility Project, Harvard University).
College completion is the most powerful predictor of economic success. In 1979, the average college graduate earned 38 percent more than the average high school graduate. The figure today is nearly 80 percent.
The conditions of seeming inevitability are usually present at birth and worsen as the outside world becomes more understandable to children. The laws of society will not consider in perpetuity the conditions that lead some Americans along a trajectory that makes failure disproportionately more likely, such as poor education, poverty and unfair treatment of one’s ancestors.
Even today, male descendants of slaves who have amassed certain levels and types of formal education and personal power are thriving quite well.
While we should never stop trying to transform the overall American culture to ensure greater safety and opportunities for all children, it is more obvious than ever that we must transform our tactics and strategies to equip the children to save themselves by virtue of their own assets. African American male youth must understand that the purpose of their culture is to ensure that they survive, thrive, and achieve and maintain self-determination, or freedom, for themselves, their families and for their people.
The African American cultural tenets that sustained, propelled, and advanced us through the sixties admonished Black youth to keep themselves in a strong enough condition — spiritually, mentally, intellectually, physically, and morally — so that they will be able to avoid the general and specific pitfalls in an America which, like human nature, does not respect powerless people.
Evidence is convincing that youth who understand that hard work, not genetics, controls outcomes, strengthen their own capacity to delay immediate gratification and overcome adversity; use truth in the decision-making process; set realistic, success-oriented plans; implement their plans; and persevere. If youngsters graduate high school, get fulltime work, marry after 22, and delay child-production until after 25, they will have only a 2% chance of being in poverty and a 72% chance of joining the middle class.
The admonitions I perceived from the adult generation during my youth, e.g. from First and Second Generations, Post Slavery, to the Third Generation, my generation, was that I would not live long enough to earn the right to do less than my best. And that less than my best in academics, personal behavior and service was a sin and a disgrace to my family, my people and to myself.
