I will not subscribe to the notion that our young Black boys are destined for destruction and that there is no need to invest in their future.
I refuse to believe that young Black men growing up in this city are starved for opportunities for growth and success to the level that their future is already handicapped, and that there is little we can do to salvage what some have already called an endangered species.
I will not buy into the theory that for some reason we can’t figure out how to address the crisis of young Black men in Detroit, and the only time we are forced to think about the problem is when the faces of children as young as 15 or 12 are splashed on our television screens with their booking photo as they are catered away into the criminal justice system.
It is very troubling and lately I’ve found myself wrestling with the question of saving Black boys, the majority of whom are born into environments with little or no opportunity. They look up to society to give them a helping hand but that comes with a price. Because peer pressure coupled with the fear that others have of young Black men that President Obama himself explained in his race speech (about his grandmother’s fear of Black men) at the Constitution Center in Philadelphia at the height of the 2008 presidential campaign, does not make the situation any better.
The last of couple of weeks have made this issue surreal for me. I’ve read a lot of the research that has been written about Black boys in the past but nothing is more significant than when you see for yourself the evidence in display.
I accepted the invitation of the East English Village Preparatory Academy, Detroit Public School to deliver the commencement address June 4 for the 12th Grade Class of 2014 held at Detroit Symphony Orchestra Hall. Humbled by the invitation, I was looking forward to engaging and rendering my own advice to the 300 students who were now ready to enter college. It is always gratifying when you are invited to share or give the final message on the most important day of a student’s life.
Beautifully dressed in their maze and blue uniforms with bulldog mascots, the jubilating students were accompanied to the Orchestra Hall by their parents, guardians and friends.
I listened to the students who were selected to speak that morning, including the valedictorian, chronicle their own struggles and tribulations, and other hardships they underwent to make it successfully to graduation day. It was telling because it allowed me to weave in some of their stories about defying the odds into the address I was delivering that morning.
After my address, and a couple of remarks and housekeeping rules announced by officials of the school, it was time for the moment the students had been waiting for. It was time for the moment their parents, guardians and sponsors had been craving for. It was time for the students to walk up on stage one more time to receive their diploma before departing to their colleges of choice. Most of them were granted scholarships.
The principal of the school, Patricia Murray, asked me to join her to greet the students as they walked up the stage for the much sought after prize — the diploma — they worked for all these years.
I reveled with them in their joy with handshakes and sometimes patting on the back. They’ve made it, and they’ve proven the skeptics wrong, that something good can come out of Detroit’s education. In fact, in my remarks I talked about the need for them to remember that this city will not thrive until its own sons and daughters return from college to contribute their part to its growth.
All the while I stood with Principal Murray shaking the hands of the graduates I noticed something was missing. The number of Black boys that walked up to that stage to receive their diplomas and prepare to enter college was dismal. The majority of the graduates that morning were young African American women, ready to begin a journey to fulfill their dreams.
“Where were the young Black men?” I asked myself in silence as I took my seat. The statistics we all know have already given us the answers: they are not graduating, they have the worst grades, the lowest test scores, the highest dropout rates and they are in prison.
While I sat up there waiting for the remaining part of the program to end I kept thinking about another recent experience I had with the Detroit Chapter of the National Association of Black Accountants Emerging Leaders Conference held at Deloitte offices in the Renaissance Center.
At that conference, which should have been aptly titled “The Black Accountants Conference of Emerging Female Leaders,” it was also reminicent of what I witnessed at the graduation ceremony of East English Village Preparatory Academy. Very few Black males where in the room and that also lends itself to the foundational problems with young Black boys. If the majority of them are not graduating, how many of them can we expect to be accountants?
If a significant number of them are in prison or headed to the penitentiary at 16 or 17 years of age when they should be preparing for college or engaging in a meaningful trade, how many of them can we expect to be engineers, doctors and lawyers?
That is the dillema that we face, and it is a conversation that should begin with city leaders, not just advocates.
The Milestone Agency, headed by Emmet Mitchell, an enthusiastic and driven Detroiter, is playing its part to address the crisis of the Black male, and to rightly respond to the challenge that President Obama unveiled at the White House recently called “My Brother’s Keeper,” because according to Obama society has given a “numbness,” to the plight of Black males.
What the Milestone Agency is doing is helping to provide resources and training for young African-American men to be successful. The group is holding its annual Black male gala (fundraiser) July 5, 6 pm, at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History.
But beyond what Mitchell and others have taken upon themselves to do, we need an agenda from city hall to address this crisis and to the larger community. Black institutions, civic leaders, the foundation community, corporations and the media all have a stake in this issue. No one group has ownership over the crisis of the Black male.
A few years ago I took part in a conference at Morehouse College discussing the role of the mass media in creating the perception of Black men. I recalled at that conference telling attendees that we can lay the blame on the media all day, but at the end of the day what matters is what organizations and those in government are doing to address the crisis.
I’m not abdicating the media of any culpabilit. But we can do better channeling our energy into solutions to fight this problem. It is not a lack of resources that’s the problem . It is a question of whether we have the will to do it.
To fight this issue all hands must be on deck. We know the statistics and the numbers. Let’s go for action. Whether it is in formulating appropriate and effective mentoring programs to crafting other measures that prevent young innocent Black males from slipping down the slippery slope, now is the time for Detroit to act.
Saving Black boys is integral to saving Detroit and our future. It is time that we stop playing lip service and address the heart of the crisis facing us. If not, we will continue to attend more graduations with fewer and fewer young Black men participating.
Bankole Thompson is the editor of the Michigan Chronicle and author of a forthcoming book on Detroit. His most recent book, “Obama and Christian Loyalty,” deals with the politics of the religious right, Black theology and the president’s faith posture across a myriad of issues with an epilogue written by former White House spokesman Robert S. Weiner. He is a senior political analyst at WDET-101.9FM (Detroit Public Radio) and a member of the weekly “Obama Watch” Sunday roundtable on WLIB-1190AM New York. Email bthompson@michronicle.com or visit https://www.bankolethompson.com.
