Being A Black Man
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<font size="5">At the Corner of Progress and Peril</font size>
Michael A. Fletcher
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, June 2, 2006; Page A01
What does it mean to be a black man? Imagine three African American boys, kindergartners who are largely alike in intelligence, talent and character, whose potential seems limitless. According to a wealth of statistics and academic studies, in just over a decade one of the boys is likely to be locked up or headed to prison. The second boy -- if he hasn't already dropped out -- will seriously weigh leaving high school and be pointed toward an uncertain future. The third boy will be speeding toward success by most measures.
Being a black man in America can mean inhabiting a border area between possibility and peril, to feel connected to, defined by, even responsible for each of those boys -- and for other black men. In dozens of interviews, black men described their shared existence, of sometimes wondering whether their accomplishments will be treated as anomalies, their individuality obscured by the narrow images that linger in the minds of others.
This unique bond, which National Urban League President Marc Morial calls "the kinship of the species," is driving many black men to focus renewed attention on the portrait of achievement and failure that hangs over the next generation. A recent spate of scholarly studies have brought urgency to the introspection, as the studies show the condition of poor, young black men has worsened in the past decade despite the generally strong economic conditions of the 1990s.
Black men now number 18 million, and many are pondering their roles in a country that is undergoing significant social and demographic changes.
In the coming weeks and months, The Washington Post will explore the lives of black men through their experiences -- how they raise their sons, cope with wrongful imprisonment, navigate the perceived terrain between smart and cool, defy convention against the backdrop of racial expectations. On Sunday, The Post will publish the findings of a major poll conducted jointly with the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation and Harvard University. The nationwide survey measured the attitudes of black men on a variety of issues and asked others for their views of black men.
More than 50 years after the publication of Ralph Ellison's "Invisible Man," black men appear more visible than ever -- a freshman senator from Illinois, Barack Obama, is the American Idol of national politics, and Will Smith is perhaps the most bankable star in Hollywood. Yet black men who put their kids through college by mopping floors, who sit at home reading Tennyson at night, who wear dreadlocks but design spacecraft, say it sometimes seems as if the world doesn't believe they exist.
The dueling realities of their history -- steady progress and devastating setbacks -- continue to burden many black men in ways that are sometimes difficult to explain.
"As a black man, you often think that things can go either way," says Todd Boyd, an African American who has carved out a niche exploring race and popular culture as a professor at the University of Southern California. "You could be that guy in the penitentiary, or you could be that guy on everybody's television screen."
You could be Gilbert Arenas, an NBA all-star who makes millions of dollars a year but still feels he relates to the "young brother" who catches the bus every day to fry burgers for a living. "We have an unspoken bond about life," he says.
The statistics that spell out the status of black men are often conflicting, sometimes perplexing.
The percentage of black men graduating from college has nearly quadrupled since the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, and yet more black men earn their high school equivalency diplomas in prison each year than graduate from college. Black families where men are in the home earn median incomes that approach those of white families. Yet more than half of the nation's 5.6 million black boys live in fatherless households, 40 percent of which are impoverished. The ranks of professional black men have exploded over four decades -- there were 78,000 black male engineers in 2004, a 33 percent increase in 10 years. And yet 840,000 black men are incarcerated, and the chances of a black boy serving time has nearly tripled in three decades, Justice Department projections show.
So where does that leave 17-year-old Jonathan McMaster as he ponders his future? The statistics show that fewer than half of black boys graduate from high school four years after entering the ninth grade. And yet here he is, a junior at Baltimore's exclusive Gilman School, running track, playing the viola in the school orchestra, approaching fluency in French. He has visited nearly 30 countries and is spending a month studying in London. It used to be "a hindrance" to be a black man, McMaster says he's been told by his elders. "But with everybody trying to diversify now, I think it has become almost an advantage."
Where the nation was once largely segregated along a black-white divide, the country has become more racially and ethnically mixed, creating opportunities -- and new sensibilities.
Erin Smith, 23, who recently graduated with a business degree from Howard University, once considered himself a militant. "You kind of get groomed, in a way, in that totally pro-black environment at Howard." But as he began to pursue his business dreams -- a fledgling multimedia company he created his freshman year and a real estate venture with his father -- Smith started to expand his thinking.
"I saw myself as potentially being kind of racist," he says "of closing myself off to people. I'm still pro-black, but we don't need to totally focus on race. We're all part of the human race. I kind of grew a little bit. I look at life as a puzzle -- day by day, you get a new piece. Some young men think success is 20-inch rims, flat-screen TV. They only think of success as what they see -- and that's what they see."
What does it mean to be a black man?
Marc Morial was leaving the downtown Madison Hotel when he got into an impromptu conversation with a doorman. The doorman, also black, wore a uniform and a whistle around his neck; Morial was dressed in an immaculate gray suit with a crisp white pocket scarf. When the chat concluded, the two locked arms and pulled each other close in a signature embrace that is common to black men across the country.
"Black men relate to each other in a special way," Morial says.
On the streets, strangers frequently give each other an uptick of the head when their eyes meet, a nod of black male acknowledgment. Black men have invented so many special handshakes that a recent McDonald's commercial turns on this fact. Their commonality is often defined by their style, their walk, their slang and even how they refer to each other ("Slim," "Shorty," "Dawg," "Mo," "Brother"). Wherever black men congregate, there is often a comfort level that crosses class and generational lines. There is even a universally acknowledged black men's club, the barbershop, where no subject is off limits.
"It's the cohesion that comes from knowing whatever your situation in life is you're carrying a special burden," says Morial, a former mayor of New Orleans. "But also that you're strong enough to do it. Whatever they put on you, you can handle it. You can knock me down, but I'm getting up. You can't knock me down with no love tap."
* * *
Over the past 100 years, perhaps no slice of the U.S. population has been more studied, analyzed and dissected than black males. Dozens of governmental boards and commissions have investigated their plight, scholars have researched and written papers on them, and black men have been the subject of at least 400 books.
In the early 20th century, researchers pioneered a still-evolving movement to pinpoint a biological link between black men and crime. After the social turmoil of the 1960s, experts spotlighted the rampant deprivation and lack of opportunity among black men that lent urgency to President Lyndon B. Johnson's War on Poverty.
Later, the focus became the diminishing opportunities in cities, where well-paying manufacturing work was vanishing, locking many unskilled black men out of the job market. That gave way to concerns about drugs and crime and the fraying of the family structure, as 70 percent of black babies were being born to unmarried mothers and incarceration rates soared.
The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund hosted a 1985 panel discussion that called young black men "an endangered species," a label that stuck even as some black men were making strides toward the middle class and a new level of social acceptance.
In 1995, the Million Man March, spearheaded by Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, drew hundreds of thousands of black men to the Mall in an unrivaled show of unity and concern for one another. The gathering seemed to signal a watershed moment of self-reflection.
Since the march, black men have met in thousands of groups to address their problems, reinforce their progress and understand their lives with greater clarity. Perhaps the latest, most dramatic evidence of this involvement is "The Covenant," a book charting a plan for black self-improvement that was an outgrowth of commentator Tavis Smiley's State of the Black Union forums. The book has been a No. 1 seller on the New York Times nonfiction paperback list.
"What we have seen in the last 10 years is increasing concern among successful black men in terms of trying to help other African American men succeed," observed Courtland Lee, a University of Maryland professor and former editor of the Journal of African American Men. "Even successful black men are victims of this crisis. They know they walk around with a target on their backs."
* * *
For black men, being poor has grown more perilous with time -- especially for the young. The 1960s sociological classic "Tally's Corner" charted the lives of what it called "Negro streetcorner men" in the Shaw neighborhood of Northwest Washington, painting a portrait of a group hobbled by weak education, dead-end jobs and fracturing families. Over four decades, wages and opportunities for uneducated workers have diminished, while the ranks of men disconnected from much of society have grown.
The path to the corner is set early for some black men. While school achievement has been a growing concern for boys of most every ethnicity, the problem is most acute among black boys, who are far more likely to be left back, be assigned to special education, score poorly on standardized tests, be suspended from school or eventually drop out than any other demographic group, numerous studies show.
Once they leave school, nearly three-quarters of black men in their twenties are jobless or incarcerated, an unemployment rate much higher than that of similarly situated white and Hispanic youth, according to a report from the Urban Institute.
"There has been a big change in what is thought of as normal in poor black communities," says John H. McWhorter, a senior fellow at the conservative Manhattan Institute, which is hosting a conference on black men this month. "Back in the old days, there were always black men who were not interested in working. They were called corner men. But years ago, if you were a black man and you didn't work, it was a shame. Now, the shame is gone."
A black man is more than six times as likely as a white man to be slain. The trend is most stark among black men 14 to 24 years old: They were implicated in a quarter of the nation's homicides and accounted for 15 percent of the homicide victims in 2002, although they were just 1.2 percent of the population, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics.
Also, black men are nine times as likely as white men to die from AIDS, and life expectancy for black men is 69.2 years -- more than six years shorter than that of white men.
Trying to reverse these trends through a broad public policy strategy is at the heart of the Dellums Commission, named after former congressman Ronald Dellums (D-Calif.). The commission will issue its report later this year. "This is beyond a crisis," says Gail Christopher, a vice president at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, who is overseeing the commission's study of the problems affecting young men of color. "It is a catastrophe."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/01/AR2006060102184.html
<font size="4">
Part Two
At the Corner of Progress and Peril
</font size>
It doesn't always start as a catastrophe.
Growing up in New York City and San Jose, Rahsaan Ferguson, 27, remembers his father's mantra: "You are a black boy. That's two things you will always have against you."
Now, Ferguson understands that his father, an employee of the Santa Clara County transit system, was merely trying to prepare him for a harsh world. But in his young mind, his father's message was confusing -- and a little disabling. "It kind of brings you down," he says. "I know it is supposed to make you strive harder. But when you hear that over and over, it makes you believe you are not supposed to succeed."
After being left back in third grade, Ferguson says, he lost confidence. As he continued to struggle in school, he worried about failing, as he had been taught so many black men do. Ultimately, he stopped trying, dropped out of school, fathered a son, now 7, and fell into crime. First, it was a few stolen cars. After a while, he sold crack cocaine, eventually serving a four-month jail term after authorities confiscated more than three grams of the drug from an apartment he shared with his girlfriend. Now, Ferguson is struggling to find stability, earning $10 an hour working for a sign company in one of the nation's most expensive areas.
<center>
"I can't help but think about the white kids I know.
They were raised to think they are going to succeed and
be better than everyone," Ferguson says.
</center>
The Rev. Elwood Gray, chaplain at the Patuxent Institute in Jessup and president of the National Coalition of Prison Ministries, has been working with inmates and ex-offenders for nearly 30 years. Many of those black men feel left behind and stigmatized by their behavior, he says, and as a result are sometimes difficult to reach when they leave prison. It's almost like they are in "an intensive-care unit," Gray says. "The approach must be holistic because they need employment, food, shelter and mental health care."
The plight of poor, young black men has fueled some attitudes and practices that affect all black men. In a 2001 article defending racial profiling as a rational police tactic, journalist John Derbyshire wrote in the National Review Online: "A policeman who concentrates a disproportionate amount of his limited time and resources on young black men is going to uncover far more crimes -- and therefore be far more successful in his career than one who biases his attention to, say, middle-aged Asian women."
These images not only shape how others see black men but also can affect how black men see themselves. Warren Simmons, 55, executive director of Brown University's Annenberg Institute for School Reform, recalls waiting in his car at a stoplight in downtown Washington and locking his doors when he spotted a black man approaching. Incredulous, the man began yelling at Simmons.
"For a moment, I found myself caught in a cultural quandary," Simmons says. "I'm a black man, and I know what it is like to have people respond to me with fear. Yet I did this. He assumed my response was to him as an individual, but it was directed to him as part of a larger group."
If these images distort the rich complexity of the lives of black men, they also have been embraced by some of the nation's most prominent icons of popular culture. A long, lucrative stream of music videos and movies extol the "thug life" fantasy of fast money, fast women and fast living.
Rapper 50 Cent has built his chart-busting, multimedia career on his being shot nine times and left for dead during his days as a drug dealer in Queens. Similarly, rapper, actor and pitchman Snoop Dogg has ridden music referring to his gang-life past, and his playful public persona as a would-be pimp, to fame.
In some ways, black men have always stood on the leading of edge of popular culture, often through the very imagery that offstage or off-screen inspires fear and contempt. Minstrel shows, widely regarded as the nation's first form of mass entertainment, burst on the scene in the decades after the American Revolution. The shows most often featured white performers in blackface mocking aspects of black life.
While the wide-eyed parodies are widely condemned as racist, in their heyday they helped shape society's perception of African Americans. Similarly, some scholars say, popular music -- including hip-hop -- and sports play an outsized role in forming contemporary notions of black men.
"When you look at American popular culture, it is really driven by hip-hop, and young, African American men are the face of hip-hop," says S. Craig Watkins, a University of Texas researcher. "It speaks to the fear-fascination relationship the nation has with black men."
* * *
The nation's most accomplished black men usually have a story to tell about what they overcame, who influenced them, how they survived.
Edward T. Welburn, chief of global design at General Motors Corp., says his interest in cars was stoked by observing his father operate a West Philadelphia auto repair service.
Guidance counselors at John B. Slaughter's high school in Topeka, Kan., laughed aloud, Slaughter said, when he told them he wanted to be an engineer. They had never heard of a black engineer, and they told Slaughter he should pursue a trade. Slaughter ignored them and graduated from Kansas State University in 1956 with a degree in electrical engineering, launching a career that took him to the helms of the National Science Foundation, the University of Maryland and Occidental College in Los Angeles.
Colin L. Powell recalls that he had only a 78 average at Morris High School in the Bronx and was considered a late bloomer at City College of New York, but the Army's robust affirmative-action program accelerated his rise through the ranks.
"It doesn't bother me if people say I made it with affirmative action," says Powell, who joined the Army ROTC in 1954, just six years after President Harry S. Truman ended segregation in the armed forces, and eventually became chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. "All that matters is what you do afterwards. When I heard complaints, I'd say: 'It doesn't matter if it was affirmative action or not. I got it, you didn't.' "
Powell, who is now active in an array of mentoring programs, offers his own history to young black men who worry about the limitations others may place on them. Your achievements, he tells them, need not be accompanied by apology.
"Of course you're offended," he says. But "you can choke with something in your craw. I've seen too many people grind themselves to death worrying about what other people say about them. Frankly, we don't have time for that."
And yet even among the highest achievers, doubts sometimes intrude.
Curtis Symonds, 50, was one of the youngest African Americans to run a cable TV business in the nation in the early 1980s. He eventually wound up at Black Entertainment Television, where he helped expand the reach of the cable network from 18 million to 70 million homes over 14 years.
He left BET a multimillionaire and became chief operating officer of the Women's National Basketball Association's Washington Mystics. He also dreamed of opening Hoop Magic, a $7 million, 65,000-square-foot gym in Chantilly.
Despite his wealth and business experience, the first five or six banks he talked to did not want to touch his idea -- a reluctance that, rightly or wrongly, Symonds laid to the fact that he is a black man. "A lot of those bankers could not see my dream," he says. "All they could see is this black guy who wanted to borrow X millions of dollars."
Symonds got his financing and opened his gym.
Several years ago, Franklin D. Gilliam Jr., a political scientist at UCLA, set out to understand more deeply the perceptions people have of black men. He chose a provocative topic for his experiment: crime. In his test, he showed groups of viewers a mock newscast, which included a short account of a robbery at an automated teller machine during which the victim was killed.
Gilliam manipulated the image of the "suspect" in the newscast, sometimes depicting him as black, sometimes as white and other times not at all. Afterward, the participants were asked to identify the suspect's race. Most of the viewers accurately recalled whether a black or white face was shown. But 60 percent of those shown no image remembered seeing one, and an overwhelming majority of those said they saw a black face. In fact, they had not seen a face at all. To Gilliam, that meant that when people saw crime, they often expected a black man to be linked to it -- not necessarily because of blind racism but because of the images they had consumed their entire lives.
He sees evidence of that in his own life. As a vice chancellor, he is the highest-ranking black man on UCLA's campus. "Within 200 yards of my office, people genuflect when they see me," he says with a laugh. But a few blocks away on the street in Westwood, his colleagues often walk right by him, particularly when he is dressed casually.
"All they see," he says, "is a black male."
`
For all the diversity within their numbers -- as in this group gathered at Bunker Hill Elementary
School in Northeast Washington -- black men in the United States often feel a connection to, and
responsibility for, one another.
Staff writers Hamil R. Harris and Robert E. Pierre contributed to this report.
`
Part Two
At the Corner of Progress and Peril
</font size>
It doesn't always start as a catastrophe.
Growing up in New York City and San Jose, Rahsaan Ferguson, 27, remembers his father's mantra: "You are a black boy. That's two things you will always have against you."
Now, Ferguson understands that his father, an employee of the Santa Clara County transit system, was merely trying to prepare him for a harsh world. But in his young mind, his father's message was confusing -- and a little disabling. "It kind of brings you down," he says. "I know it is supposed to make you strive harder. But when you hear that over and over, it makes you believe you are not supposed to succeed."
After being left back in third grade, Ferguson says, he lost confidence. As he continued to struggle in school, he worried about failing, as he had been taught so many black men do. Ultimately, he stopped trying, dropped out of school, fathered a son, now 7, and fell into crime. First, it was a few stolen cars. After a while, he sold crack cocaine, eventually serving a four-month jail term after authorities confiscated more than three grams of the drug from an apartment he shared with his girlfriend. Now, Ferguson is struggling to find stability, earning $10 an hour working for a sign company in one of the nation's most expensive areas.
<center>
"I can't help but think about the white kids I know.
They were raised to think they are going to succeed and
be better than everyone," Ferguson says.
</center>
The Rev. Elwood Gray, chaplain at the Patuxent Institute in Jessup and president of the National Coalition of Prison Ministries, has been working with inmates and ex-offenders for nearly 30 years. Many of those black men feel left behind and stigmatized by their behavior, he says, and as a result are sometimes difficult to reach when they leave prison. It's almost like they are in "an intensive-care unit," Gray says. "The approach must be holistic because they need employment, food, shelter and mental health care."
The plight of poor, young black men has fueled some attitudes and practices that affect all black men. In a 2001 article defending racial profiling as a rational police tactic, journalist John Derbyshire wrote in the National Review Online: "A policeman who concentrates a disproportionate amount of his limited time and resources on young black men is going to uncover far more crimes -- and therefore be far more successful in his career than one who biases his attention to, say, middle-aged Asian women."
These images not only shape how others see black men but also can affect how black men see themselves. Warren Simmons, 55, executive director of Brown University's Annenberg Institute for School Reform, recalls waiting in his car at a stoplight in downtown Washington and locking his doors when he spotted a black man approaching. Incredulous, the man began yelling at Simmons.
"For a moment, I found myself caught in a cultural quandary," Simmons says. "I'm a black man, and I know what it is like to have people respond to me with fear. Yet I did this. He assumed my response was to him as an individual, but it was directed to him as part of a larger group."
If these images distort the rich complexity of the lives of black men, they also have been embraced by some of the nation's most prominent icons of popular culture. A long, lucrative stream of music videos and movies extol the "thug life" fantasy of fast money, fast women and fast living.
Rapper 50 Cent has built his chart-busting, multimedia career on his being shot nine times and left for dead during his days as a drug dealer in Queens. Similarly, rapper, actor and pitchman Snoop Dogg has ridden music referring to his gang-life past, and his playful public persona as a would-be pimp, to fame.
In some ways, black men have always stood on the leading of edge of popular culture, often through the very imagery that offstage or off-screen inspires fear and contempt. Minstrel shows, widely regarded as the nation's first form of mass entertainment, burst on the scene in the decades after the American Revolution. The shows most often featured white performers in blackface mocking aspects of black life.
While the wide-eyed parodies are widely condemned as racist, in their heyday they helped shape society's perception of African Americans. Similarly, some scholars say, popular music -- including hip-hop -- and sports play an outsized role in forming contemporary notions of black men.
"When you look at American popular culture, it is really driven by hip-hop, and young, African American men are the face of hip-hop," says S. Craig Watkins, a University of Texas researcher. "It speaks to the fear-fascination relationship the nation has with black men."
* * *
The nation's most accomplished black men usually have a story to tell about what they overcame, who influenced them, how they survived.
Edward T. Welburn, chief of global design at General Motors Corp., says his interest in cars was stoked by observing his father operate a West Philadelphia auto repair service.
Guidance counselors at John B. Slaughter's high school in Topeka, Kan., laughed aloud, Slaughter said, when he told them he wanted to be an engineer. They had never heard of a black engineer, and they told Slaughter he should pursue a trade. Slaughter ignored them and graduated from Kansas State University in 1956 with a degree in electrical engineering, launching a career that took him to the helms of the National Science Foundation, the University of Maryland and Occidental College in Los Angeles.
Colin L. Powell recalls that he had only a 78 average at Morris High School in the Bronx and was considered a late bloomer at City College of New York, but the Army's robust affirmative-action program accelerated his rise through the ranks.
"It doesn't bother me if people say I made it with affirmative action," says Powell, who joined the Army ROTC in 1954, just six years after President Harry S. Truman ended segregation in the armed forces, and eventually became chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. "All that matters is what you do afterwards. When I heard complaints, I'd say: 'It doesn't matter if it was affirmative action or not. I got it, you didn't.' "
Powell, who is now active in an array of mentoring programs, offers his own history to young black men who worry about the limitations others may place on them. Your achievements, he tells them, need not be accompanied by apology.
"Of course you're offended," he says. But "you can choke with something in your craw. I've seen too many people grind themselves to death worrying about what other people say about them. Frankly, we don't have time for that."
And yet even among the highest achievers, doubts sometimes intrude.
Curtis Symonds, 50, was one of the youngest African Americans to run a cable TV business in the nation in the early 1980s. He eventually wound up at Black Entertainment Television, where he helped expand the reach of the cable network from 18 million to 70 million homes over 14 years.
He left BET a multimillionaire and became chief operating officer of the Women's National Basketball Association's Washington Mystics. He also dreamed of opening Hoop Magic, a $7 million, 65,000-square-foot gym in Chantilly.
Despite his wealth and business experience, the first five or six banks he talked to did not want to touch his idea -- a reluctance that, rightly or wrongly, Symonds laid to the fact that he is a black man. "A lot of those bankers could not see my dream," he says. "All they could see is this black guy who wanted to borrow X millions of dollars."
Symonds got his financing and opened his gym.
Several years ago, Franklin D. Gilliam Jr., a political scientist at UCLA, set out to understand more deeply the perceptions people have of black men. He chose a provocative topic for his experiment: crime. In his test, he showed groups of viewers a mock newscast, which included a short account of a robbery at an automated teller machine during which the victim was killed.
Gilliam manipulated the image of the "suspect" in the newscast, sometimes depicting him as black, sometimes as white and other times not at all. Afterward, the participants were asked to identify the suspect's race. Most of the viewers accurately recalled whether a black or white face was shown. But 60 percent of those shown no image remembered seeing one, and an overwhelming majority of those said they saw a black face. In fact, they had not seen a face at all. To Gilliam, that meant that when people saw crime, they often expected a black man to be linked to it -- not necessarily because of blind racism but because of the images they had consumed their entire lives.
He sees evidence of that in his own life. As a vice chancellor, he is the highest-ranking black man on UCLA's campus. "Within 200 yards of my office, people genuflect when they see me," he says with a laugh. But a few blocks away on the street in Westwood, his colleagues often walk right by him, particularly when he is dressed casually.
"All they see," he says, "is a black male."
`
For all the diversity within their numbers -- as in this group gathered at Bunker Hill Elementary
School in Northeast Washington -- black men in the United States often feel a connection to, and
responsibility for, one another.
Staff writers Hamil R. Harris and Robert E. Pierre contributed to this report.
`
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This article and the recent New York Times article <b><font color="#d90000">Plight Deepens For Black Men</b></font> fail to significantly address entrenched systemic institutionalized racism. It’s as if American Apartheid doesn’t exist. Black men except perhaps the so-called “Native Americans” are the most devalued males in the United States. We are the official “public enemy”. We are the permanent “suspects”. The Black middle-class and the emerging small Black affluent class needs to do a lot more than pursue the “Bling-Bling”. Unfortunately based upon my own efforts to be an advocate and “get involved”, I’m not that optimistic. For too many “well off” Blacks, if the mega-trends discussed in these articles are not directly affecting them or their family members, they won’t get involved. They won’t even write a letter. Earl Graves Jr. publisher of Black Enterprise is “Skull & Bones”. Yes “Skull & Bones” the same fraternity bush & kerry are in. In another post on this board I highlighted the reality of illegal immigrants being hired by the nation’s largest homebuilders for construction jobs, meanwhile Black male unemployment is 50%. Would Earl publish an article, highlighting this inequity in Black Enterprise magazine? No. The article below reveals that <b><u>white men With criminal records</u></b> have a greater chance of getting hired than Black men <b><u>with No criminal records</u></b> . AmeriKKKa 2006.</font>
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<img src="http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/misc/nytlogo379x64.gif">
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Race a Factor in Job Offers for Ex-Convicts</font>
<b>by PAUL von ZIELBAUER
June 17, 2005</b>
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/17/n...673fd6a3d&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss
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<font color="#0000FF" size="4"><b>
White men with prison records receive far more offers for entry-level jobs in New York City than black men with identical records, and are offered jobs just as often - if not more so - than black men who have never been arrested, </b></font>according to a new study by two Princeton professors.
The study, the first to assess the effect of race on job searches by ex-convicts, also found that black men who had never been in trouble with the law were about half as likely as whites with similar backgrounds to get a job offer or a callback.
Black men whose job applications stated that they had spent time in prison were only about one-third as likely as white men with similar applications to get a positive response.
For every 10 white men without convictions who got a job offer or callback, more than 7 white men with prison records also did, the study found. But the difference grew far larger for black applicants: For every 10 black men without criminal convictions, only about 3 with records got offers or callbacks.
"It takes a black ex-offender three times as long to receive a callback or a job offer," said Devah Pager, an assistant professor of sociology and one of the study's two authors.
More than 630,000 people nationwide leave prison each year, including 27,000 in New York State, most of whom are from New York City, said Jeremy Travis, the president of John Jay College of Criminal Justice, which announced the results of the study yesterday. Nationwide, one in three black men with only a high school diploma will go to prison before turning 40, Professor Pager said.
Beginning in February 2004, Professor Pager and the study's other author, Bruce Western, also a sociology professor, sent 13 white, black and Latino men posing as ex-convicts to more than 3,500 job interviews throughout the city, most of them in Manhattan. (The study did not form any conclusions about Latino ex-convicts.) Saying they had completed only high school, they applied for a broad spectrum of jobs, from couriers to cashiers, deli clerks to telemarketers.
The study's authors said they took pains to minimize all applicants' nonracial differences - in personality, interpersonal skills, education levels, work history and the neighborhoods where they said they lived.
Applicants told prospective employers that they had spent 18 months in prison on a drug conviction, and listed a parole officer as a reference, the study said. The city's correction commissioner, Martin F. Horn, said he hoped the study would persuade elected officials to do more to integrate former prisoners back into society. "The world continues to be a very hard place for ex-offenders to succeed in," he said in an interview, "and it's clear that it's harder still if you're a black ex-offender."
Because ex-convicts with jobs are far less likely to commit further crimes, r, the ability to find work "is every bit as important as putting more police officers on the street," Mr. Horn said.
The chairwoman of the New York City Commission on Human Rights, Patricia L. Gatling, said that beginning next year, her office would invite employers willing to hire people who have been in prison to informal discussions about how to break down the racial disparities in hiring found by the Princeton study.</font><p>
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This article and the recent New York Times article <b><font color="#d90000">Plight Deepens For Black Men</b></font> fail to significantly address entrenched systemic institutionalized racism. It’s as if American Apartheid doesn’t exist. Black men except perhaps the so-called “Native Americans” are the most devalued males in the United States. We are the official “public enemy”. We are the permanent “suspects”. The Black middle-class and the emerging small Black affluent class needs to do a lot more than pursue the “Bling-Bling”. Unfortunately based upon my own efforts to be an advocate and “get involved”, I’m not that optimistic. For too many “well off” Blacks, if the mega-trends discussed in these articles are not directly affecting them or their family members, they won’t get involved. They won’t even write a letter. Earl Graves Jr. publisher of Black Enterprise is “Skull & Bones”. Yes “Skull & Bones” the same fraternity bush & kerry are in. In another post on this board I highlighted the reality of illegal immigrants being hired by the nation’s largest homebuilders for construction jobs, meanwhile Black male unemployment is 50%. Would Earl publish an article, highlighting this inequity in Black Enterprise magazine? No. The article below reveals that <b><u>white men With criminal records</u></b> have a greater chance of getting hired than Black men <b><u>with No criminal records</u></b> . AmeriKKKa 2006.</font>
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<img src="http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/misc/nytlogo379x64.gif">
<font face="arial black" size="5" color="#d90000">
Race a Factor in Job Offers for Ex-Convicts</font>
<b>by PAUL von ZIELBAUER
June 17, 2005</b>
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/17/n...673fd6a3d&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss
<font face="georgia" size="3" color="#000000">
<font color="#0000FF" size="4"><b>
White men with prison records receive far more offers for entry-level jobs in New York City than black men with identical records, and are offered jobs just as often - if not more so - than black men who have never been arrested, </b></font>according to a new study by two Princeton professors.
The study, the first to assess the effect of race on job searches by ex-convicts, also found that black men who had never been in trouble with the law were about half as likely as whites with similar backgrounds to get a job offer or a callback.
Black men whose job applications stated that they had spent time in prison were only about one-third as likely as white men with similar applications to get a positive response.
For every 10 white men without convictions who got a job offer or callback, more than 7 white men with prison records also did, the study found. But the difference grew far larger for black applicants: For every 10 black men without criminal convictions, only about 3 with records got offers or callbacks.
"It takes a black ex-offender three times as long to receive a callback or a job offer," said Devah Pager, an assistant professor of sociology and one of the study's two authors.
More than 630,000 people nationwide leave prison each year, including 27,000 in New York State, most of whom are from New York City, said Jeremy Travis, the president of John Jay College of Criminal Justice, which announced the results of the study yesterday. Nationwide, one in three black men with only a high school diploma will go to prison before turning 40, Professor Pager said.
Beginning in February 2004, Professor Pager and the study's other author, Bruce Western, also a sociology professor, sent 13 white, black and Latino men posing as ex-convicts to more than 3,500 job interviews throughout the city, most of them in Manhattan. (The study did not form any conclusions about Latino ex-convicts.) Saying they had completed only high school, they applied for a broad spectrum of jobs, from couriers to cashiers, deli clerks to telemarketers.
The study's authors said they took pains to minimize all applicants' nonracial differences - in personality, interpersonal skills, education levels, work history and the neighborhoods where they said they lived.
Applicants told prospective employers that they had spent 18 months in prison on a drug conviction, and listed a parole officer as a reference, the study said. The city's correction commissioner, Martin F. Horn, said he hoped the study would persuade elected officials to do more to integrate former prisoners back into society. "The world continues to be a very hard place for ex-offenders to succeed in," he said in an interview, "and it's clear that it's harder still if you're a black ex-offender."
Because ex-convicts with jobs are far less likely to commit further crimes, r, the ability to find work "is every bit as important as putting more police officers on the street," Mr. Horn said.
The chairwoman of the New York City Commission on Human Rights, Patricia L. Gatling, said that beginning next year, her office would invite employers willing to hire people who have been in prison to informal discussions about how to break down the racial disparities in hiring found by the Princeton study.</font><p>
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There is a lot going on in this expose and it's hard to know where to begin. There is a lot to consider so this quote is just as good a place as any. Summing up this quote, it suggests that the need to succeed for a black male is a principal cause why they might get involved in crimes like selling crack and car theft.
This quote also suggests that because his father "prepared" him by saying how much better he has to be to make it causes him to be unprepared when the road is more difficult than he was expected so he falls back into crime. Something about this cause and effect is troubliing but I've heard this more than once.
I'll have more on this later I'm sure.
Another good post QueEx.
-VG
N
Nu-Lojik
Guest
Dawn Turner Trice
Cosby needn't look far to find fine black men
Published June 2, 2006
A few hours before entertainer Bill Cosby gave his recent commencement address at Spelman College, Atlanta's historically black women's college, I was sitting in the audience at a graduation ceremony across the street at the historically black men's college, Morehouse.
I was there for Harold Lee Whack Jr., a young man I've watched grow up. Four years ago, he graduated from Homewood-Flossmoor High School and began his post-secondary education at Morehouse, majoring in international studies.
Around the world, Morehouse is perhaps best known as the alma mater of Martin Luther King Jr. It's also known as the private liberal arts college that often graduates more black men at one time than any other college in the U.S.
What I didn't know and wasn't quite prepared for was just how moving the school's 122nd commencement ceremony would be. (And not solely because I have a crush on actor Denzel Washington, who was in the audience on behalf of his graduating son.)
As is tradition, the ceremony began with the young men--decked out in their robes and Sunday best, and led by drummers--marching from the Martin Luther King Jr. International Chapel across campus to the quadrangle, where the ceremony is held.
We audience members viewed the pageantry of the march on two video screens over the stage.
We watched more than 500 graduates pass through the campus gate, which was closed behind them, symbolizing the end of an era. They were joined by alumni who held signs indicating the decade in which they graduated. Some went as far back as the 1930s.
It rained on and off that Sunday morning, but little could detract from the moment or these impressive men.
Perhaps this is why I was troubled when I later heard about Cosby's comments to more than 500 Spelman graduates across the street.
According to a transcript, Cosby told the women that it was time for them to lead because too many black men were incapable of doing so.
He said, "The men as young boys are dropping out of high school, but they have memorized the lyrics of very difficult rap songs and they know how to braid each other's hair."
He said the black race depends on the young sisters graduating all across this United States.
It's true that you don't have to look far to find any number of grim studies or statistics regarding young black men. Here's one: For every white male in prison who is college age, there are 28 in college; for black men, that ratio drops to less than 1 in 3.
Though statistics like these can no longer be ignored, they tend to overshadow the achievements of young black men who are marching forward.
During the Morehouse ceremony, we learned about a young man whose father died in the Sept. 11 terror attacks and another who spent part of his teen years in homeless shelters. Both still found a way to graduate Phi Beta Kappa and magna cum laude.
The class valedictorian, an English major who had a perfect 4.0 grade-point average, was a star athlete in high school but wanted to prove himself as a scholar. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa and summa cum laude. Although he has been accepted into Harvard Law School, he's deferring his entrance a year so he can study and work in Asia.
Whack, my young friend, graduated Phi Beta Kappa and magna cum laude, and is heading to Northwestern University for a graduate degree in journalism.
This year, nearly half of Morehouse's seniors graduated with honors. The students excelled in activities from mentoring to athletics. Many already have traveled the world.
What's ailing black males is such a complex stew that some folks have reached the point of utter frustration. I understand this.
And I don't deny that Cosby offered up some truths as he called on Spelman's graduation class to step up. They should, but not because there are no brothers willing or able to do so.
Cosby knows better. He's on Morehouse's board of trustees.
I agree that we can't ignore the young black men who are falling behind. But neither should we disregard the ones who, in the face of all these negatives, are standing tall.
Cosby needn't look far to find fine black men
Published June 2, 2006
A few hours before entertainer Bill Cosby gave his recent commencement address at Spelman College, Atlanta's historically black women's college, I was sitting in the audience at a graduation ceremony across the street at the historically black men's college, Morehouse.
I was there for Harold Lee Whack Jr., a young man I've watched grow up. Four years ago, he graduated from Homewood-Flossmoor High School and began his post-secondary education at Morehouse, majoring in international studies.
Around the world, Morehouse is perhaps best known as the alma mater of Martin Luther King Jr. It's also known as the private liberal arts college that often graduates more black men at one time than any other college in the U.S.
What I didn't know and wasn't quite prepared for was just how moving the school's 122nd commencement ceremony would be. (And not solely because I have a crush on actor Denzel Washington, who was in the audience on behalf of his graduating son.)
As is tradition, the ceremony began with the young men--decked out in their robes and Sunday best, and led by drummers--marching from the Martin Luther King Jr. International Chapel across campus to the quadrangle, where the ceremony is held.
We audience members viewed the pageantry of the march on two video screens over the stage.
We watched more than 500 graduates pass through the campus gate, which was closed behind them, symbolizing the end of an era. They were joined by alumni who held signs indicating the decade in which they graduated. Some went as far back as the 1930s.
It rained on and off that Sunday morning, but little could detract from the moment or these impressive men.
Perhaps this is why I was troubled when I later heard about Cosby's comments to more than 500 Spelman graduates across the street.
According to a transcript, Cosby told the women that it was time for them to lead because too many black men were incapable of doing so.
He said, "The men as young boys are dropping out of high school, but they have memorized the lyrics of very difficult rap songs and they know how to braid each other's hair."
He said the black race depends on the young sisters graduating all across this United States.
It's true that you don't have to look far to find any number of grim studies or statistics regarding young black men. Here's one: For every white male in prison who is college age, there are 28 in college; for black men, that ratio drops to less than 1 in 3.
Though statistics like these can no longer be ignored, they tend to overshadow the achievements of young black men who are marching forward.
During the Morehouse ceremony, we learned about a young man whose father died in the Sept. 11 terror attacks and another who spent part of his teen years in homeless shelters. Both still found a way to graduate Phi Beta Kappa and magna cum laude.
The class valedictorian, an English major who had a perfect 4.0 grade-point average, was a star athlete in high school but wanted to prove himself as a scholar. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa and summa cum laude. Although he has been accepted into Harvard Law School, he's deferring his entrance a year so he can study and work in Asia.
Whack, my young friend, graduated Phi Beta Kappa and magna cum laude, and is heading to Northwestern University for a graduate degree in journalism.
This year, nearly half of Morehouse's seniors graduated with honors. The students excelled in activities from mentoring to athletics. Many already have traveled the world.
What's ailing black males is such a complex stew that some folks have reached the point of utter frustration. I understand this.
And I don't deny that Cosby offered up some truths as he called on Spelman's graduation class to step up. They should, but not because there are no brothers willing or able to do so.
Cosby knows better. He's on Morehouse's board of trustees.
I agree that we can't ignore the young black men who are falling behind. But neither should we disregard the ones who, in the face of all these negatives, are standing tall.
Black men need to stop listening to this bullshit and start defining who and what we are, it's been over 100yrs since our emancipation and we still give credence to studies done by the same people that put us in this shit in the first place. I know it is hard on a brotha being born and raised here I mean we really are in the belly of the beast but it is way past time we gave the beast some heartburn, indigestion or something. The first step in this process is to shut them out of our lives as much as possible. Stop listening to radio shows that focus on race, stop watching FOX and last but not least stop reading shit that cast Blacks in a negative light. "As a man thinketh" I believe the saying goes and it is way past time for us to start making up our own minds. Anything else is weakness.
J
JUju2005
Guest
QueEx said:
Too simply put it, it is a gift and a curse. I don’t need to explain that just look at the influences of our cultures like Jazz, hip-hop, reggae just to name a few. Now look at our job opportunities, educational opportunities, neighborhood crimes, and prisons and then you will understand why I say being a black man is a gift and a curse.
From today's post.
Poll Reveals a Contradictory Portrait Shaded With Promise and Doubt
By Steven A. Holmes and Richard Morin
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, June 4, 2006; Page A01
Black men in America today are deeply divided over the way they see themselves and their country.
Black men report the same ambitions as most Americans -- for career success, a loving marriage, children, respect. And yet most are harshly critical of other black men, associating the group with irresponsibility and crime.
Black men describe a society rife with opportunities for advancement and models for success. But they also express a deep fear that their hold on the good life is fragile, in part because of discrimination they continue to experience in their daily lives.
This portrait of the divided black man emerges from a survey conducted by The Washington Post, the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation and Harvard University. The survey of 2,864 people, including a sample of 1,328 black men, aimed to capture the experiences and perceptions of black men at a time marked by increasing debate about how to build on their achievements and address the failures that endure decades after the civil rights movement.
In many ways, the outward and inward struggles of black men appear to reflect where the nation is on its journey toward racial equality -- unquestionably further along and, yet, at risk of moving backward.
Many are left behind: The suicide rate among young black men has doubled since 1980.
One in four black men have not worked for at least a year, twice the proportion of male non-Hispanic whites or Latinos. And trends suggest a third of black males born today will spend time in prison.
"I just get frustrated with my brothers. With black men . . . wasting life. But then, on the other hand, I wonder: Is there something in society that keeps us down?" said Edward Howell, 57, a D.C. resident who was interviewed in the poll.
But the harsh realities also obscure what the survey results illuminate so clearly: Black men in America are a diverse group, and the truth of their experience can be found as much among the ordinary lives of the vast middle as in the extremes.
"This country is filled with highly successful black men who are leading balanced, stable, productive lives working all over the labor market," said Hugh Price, former president of the National Urban League. "They're stringing fiber-optic cable for Verizon or working the floor at Home Depot. . . . It's a somewhat invisible story."
On the whole, survey respondents showed a powerful connection to a common history that crosses lines of education, income, age and geography, and stands in sharp contrast to the perceptions of many of their white counterparts.
The poll also documents how the enormous changes in society over the last generations have rippled through the lives of black men. But as the distance between the races begins to narrow, new tensions have emerged in the way black men perceive themselves and their lives:
· Six in 10 black men said their collective problems owe more to what they have failed to do themselves rather than "what white people have done to blacks." At the same time, half reported they have been treated unfairly by the police, and a clear majority said the economic system is stacked against them.
· More than half said they place a high value on marriage -- compared with 39 percent of black women -- and six in 10 said they strongly value having children. Yet at least 38 percent of all black fathers in the survey are not living with at least one of their young children, and a third of all never-married black men have a child. Six in 10 said that black men disrespect black women.
· Three in four said they value being successful in a career, more than either white men or black women. Yet majorities also said that black men put too little emphasis on education and too much emphasis on sports and sex.
· Eight in 10 said they are satisfied with their lives, and six in 10 reported that it is a "good time" to be a black man in the United States. But six in 10 also reported they often are the targets of racial slights or insults, two-thirds said they believe the courts are more likely to convict black men than whites, and a quarter reported they have been physically threatened or attacked because they are black.
· Black men said they strongly believe in the American Dream -- nine in 10 black men would tell their sons they can become anything they want to in life. But this vision of the future is laden with cautions and caveats: Two-thirds also would warn their sons that they will have to be better and work harder than whites for equal rewards.
Samuel Thompson, 57, grew up in the South, coping with Alabama's Jim Crow laws. Despite it all, he went to college and became a special-education teacher in Chicago. But when he thinks of black men, he doesn't conjure up an image of older, accomplished black men such as himself. He thinks of young black men, and he is appalled at what he sees.
"They tend to goof off, and very few are going to college. I don't see in them a will to succeed," Thompson said. "They don't see the point of using good language. They emulate who they see on TV or on videos or who they hear on the radio."
Thompson said he was not surprised that so many black men in the poll adopted a harsh view of African American males as a group.
"That's the reality," he said. "The ones that sit back and blame things on other people, they're the ones who don't go very far. They just want sympathy and handouts."
Thompson was among the majority of black men in the poll who said the group's problems stem from its own failures. Black men were more likely than whites to express such sentiments. And while such negative views were held across the board, better-educated, affluent black men are most likely to criticize black men for not taking education seriously enough.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/03/AR2006060300695.html
Poll Reveals a Contradictory Portrait Shaded With Promise and Doubt
By Steven A. Holmes and Richard Morin
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, June 4, 2006; Page A01
Black men in America today are deeply divided over the way they see themselves and their country.
Black men report the same ambitions as most Americans -- for career success, a loving marriage, children, respect. And yet most are harshly critical of other black men, associating the group with irresponsibility and crime.
Black men describe a society rife with opportunities for advancement and models for success. But they also express a deep fear that their hold on the good life is fragile, in part because of discrimination they continue to experience in their daily lives.
This portrait of the divided black man emerges from a survey conducted by The Washington Post, the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation and Harvard University. The survey of 2,864 people, including a sample of 1,328 black men, aimed to capture the experiences and perceptions of black men at a time marked by increasing debate about how to build on their achievements and address the failures that endure decades after the civil rights movement.
In many ways, the outward and inward struggles of black men appear to reflect where the nation is on its journey toward racial equality -- unquestionably further along and, yet, at risk of moving backward.
Many are left behind: The suicide rate among young black men has doubled since 1980.
One in four black men have not worked for at least a year, twice the proportion of male non-Hispanic whites or Latinos. And trends suggest a third of black males born today will spend time in prison.
"I just get frustrated with my brothers. With black men . . . wasting life. But then, on the other hand, I wonder: Is there something in society that keeps us down?" said Edward Howell, 57, a D.C. resident who was interviewed in the poll.
But the harsh realities also obscure what the survey results illuminate so clearly: Black men in America are a diverse group, and the truth of their experience can be found as much among the ordinary lives of the vast middle as in the extremes.
"This country is filled with highly successful black men who are leading balanced, stable, productive lives working all over the labor market," said Hugh Price, former president of the National Urban League. "They're stringing fiber-optic cable for Verizon or working the floor at Home Depot. . . . It's a somewhat invisible story."
On the whole, survey respondents showed a powerful connection to a common history that crosses lines of education, income, age and geography, and stands in sharp contrast to the perceptions of many of their white counterparts.
The poll also documents how the enormous changes in society over the last generations have rippled through the lives of black men. But as the distance between the races begins to narrow, new tensions have emerged in the way black men perceive themselves and their lives:
· Six in 10 black men said their collective problems owe more to what they have failed to do themselves rather than "what white people have done to blacks." At the same time, half reported they have been treated unfairly by the police, and a clear majority said the economic system is stacked against them.
· More than half said they place a high value on marriage -- compared with 39 percent of black women -- and six in 10 said they strongly value having children. Yet at least 38 percent of all black fathers in the survey are not living with at least one of their young children, and a third of all never-married black men have a child. Six in 10 said that black men disrespect black women.
· Three in four said they value being successful in a career, more than either white men or black women. Yet majorities also said that black men put too little emphasis on education and too much emphasis on sports and sex.
· Eight in 10 said they are satisfied with their lives, and six in 10 reported that it is a "good time" to be a black man in the United States. But six in 10 also reported they often are the targets of racial slights or insults, two-thirds said they believe the courts are more likely to convict black men than whites, and a quarter reported they have been physically threatened or attacked because they are black.
· Black men said they strongly believe in the American Dream -- nine in 10 black men would tell their sons they can become anything they want to in life. But this vision of the future is laden with cautions and caveats: Two-thirds also would warn their sons that they will have to be better and work harder than whites for equal rewards.
Samuel Thompson, 57, grew up in the South, coping with Alabama's Jim Crow laws. Despite it all, he went to college and became a special-education teacher in Chicago. But when he thinks of black men, he doesn't conjure up an image of older, accomplished black men such as himself. He thinks of young black men, and he is appalled at what he sees.
"They tend to goof off, and very few are going to college. I don't see in them a will to succeed," Thompson said. "They don't see the point of using good language. They emulate who they see on TV or on videos or who they hear on the radio."
Thompson said he was not surprised that so many black men in the poll adopted a harsh view of African American males as a group.
"That's the reality," he said. "The ones that sit back and blame things on other people, they're the ones who don't go very far. They just want sympathy and handouts."
Thompson was among the majority of black men in the poll who said the group's problems stem from its own failures. Black men were more likely than whites to express such sentiments. And while such negative views were held across the board, better-educated, affluent black men are most likely to criticize black men for not taking education seriously enough.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/03/AR2006060300695.html
Post Article Continued
Poll Reveals a Contradictory Portrait Shaded With Promise and Doubt
But the survey also suggests that this negative self-perception is in contrast to other features of black men's lives. In addition to the intense ambition displayed by black men, nearly half own their own homes. Two-thirds said they pray at least once a day, a much higher percentage than white men, and 59 percent said they work full time, compared with 66 percent of white men and 40 percent of white women.
Even young black men, the focus of the debate over black men's problems, defy familiar stereotypes. Nearly nine in 10 respondents ages 18 to 29 said they are either working or in school, the same proportion who reported that being successful in a career is personally important to them. The survey was not conducted in jails or prisons, where about 8 percent of all black men are incarcerated.
Sociologists and social psychologists say that black men's poor view of themselves may have its roots in several factors. Movies, music, television and the news media are full of unflattering images of black men, they say.
"We got this outside system putting this lens on black people, especially black men, that says 'toxic demon,' and this lens is transmitted to the general public," said Carl Bell, president and chief executive of the Community Mental Health Council, a clinic in Chicago that provides mental health services on the city's predominately black south and west sides. "You get black people buying into it, and black people saying we have no strengths, no redeeming qualities."
But the experiences of black men may play as large a role as cultural stereotypes in shaping their view of themselves. In the poll, one in four black men said they have been victims of a violent crime, the highest proportion of any group in the survey. Since the vast majority of crime occurs within racial groups, the fact that so many black men have been victimized by other black men may negatively influence the way they perceive the group.
Regarding the obstacles black men face and their prospects for the future, whites were the most optimistic. Black women tended to be the most pessimistic, even more than black men, with only 44 percent of black women saying that now is a good time to be a black man in America . Black women were also just as likely as their male counterparts to see the economic system as biased against black men.
"I've worked in corporate America for 20 years, and I see a lot of white males, but I don't see a lot of black males," said Theoloa Dubose, 45, a projects administrator from Stone Mountain, Ga. "I see more black women than black males."
Asked why, she replied, "Because of prejudice." Black women, she said, are "less threatening than black men."
But black women were not entirely sympathetic. More than half of black women said one big reason the average black woman is better-educated and makes more money than the average black man is that black women simply work harder.
More positive views can be hard to come by, even among black men.
Reggie Hall, 36, a Web site developer in Cleveland, says that when he gets together with friends and the talk turns to black men, rarely does a group compliment pass their lips.
"I can't remember the last time I heard a good word about black men," Hall said. "If we're out in public and see young black guys -- the way they talk or act, we always discuss that lack of respect. . . . I can't remember the last time we said anything positive about black men as a whole. It's always about isolated individuals. But, as a group, no."
* * *
Worries, Experiences, Values
Despite their clear achievements and general optimism about their prospects, black men worry more than virtually everyone, the survey found. About four in 10 black men said they are fearful they will lose their job, nearly double the proportion of white men who said the same thing. Even more affluent, better-educated black men are far more anxious about being fired or laid off than their white male and white female co-workers.
More than half of all black men said they fear they or a member of their family will get AIDS, nearly triple the percentage of white men. Six in 10 said they worry that they'll be treated unfairly by the police, and more than a third said they fear they will be arrested -- fears that hardly trouble whites. A good job and education do little to ease these fears: college-educated, upper-middle-class black men were about twice as likely to say they are worried about being arrested, losing their jobs or falling victim to violent crime as upper-class whites.
"With a black man, first you're black. And that carries a lot of baggage -- false and real," said Jerome Tucker, 52, an entrepreneur in Upper Marlboro.
This worries gap sometimes exists in areas where the survey results suggest it shouldn't. When asked if they had been laid off or fired, an equal proportion of higher-income, college-educated whites and blacks reported that they had.
"There is racism in this country," agreed Doug Ford, 42, of Havana, Fla., and a contract administrator for the state's Department of Children and Families, one of the black men interviewed in the survey. "Unfortunately, the majority of black men and women tend to seek out the racial issue where there may not be a racial issue. That comes from an historical consciousness as a black community that now imposes its own burden on black men."
Ford said black men are victimized twice: once by acts of racism that are less frequent today but still too common, and then again by the self-doubts and suspicions that are the living legacy of more than 300 years of legal and de facto discrimination.
For some black men, such concerns are background noise that occasionally prompt a wince. But for others, these suspicions paralyze them into inaction, build barriers where none exist and prevent them from seizing "the real opportunities that are out there," Ford said.
"Worries can become self-fulfilling prophecies. Too many black men go into job interviews convinced they will fail. So they do. They don't try on the job because they believe they won't get promoted. So they don't," Ford said.
But in other areas, the survey suggests that the concerns of black men are not misplaced or exaggerated. Six in 10 black men said a close friend or family member has been murdered. Seven in 10 said someone close to them has gone to prison or jail. AIDS, once a disease almost exclusive to white men, now disproportionately ravages the black community; here the worries gap, if anything, understates the relative incidence of HIV-AIDS among blacks and whites.
Worries about discrimination also are rooted in reality, the survey suggests. One in four black men said they have been physically threatened or attacked because they are black. Half said they have been unfairly stopped by police because of their race, allegations supported by studies that found black men were far more likely than whites to be stopped by police and have their cars searched but no more likely to be carrying contraband.
While college degrees and higher salaries ease many of life's burdens for whites, they do not always shield black men from painful experiences, the survey found.
Among blacks with college degrees and household incomes of $75,000 a year or more, six in 10 said someone close to them had been murdered and six in 10 said a family member or close friend had been in jail or prison -- similar to the reports of working-class, less-educated black men. Three in 10 have been physically threatened or attacked in their lives because of their race, again no different from less-advantaged black men.
If anything, the survey suggests that better-educated black men experience more direct racism than those with fewer resources. For example, 63 percent of educated, upper-middle-class black men said they have been unfairly stopped by police, compared with 47 percent of less-advantaged black men.
From the shared experiences and worries of black men have emerged a set of priorities that are very different from those of white America. Three in four black men said they highly value success on the job, fully 20 percentage points higher than white men. Black men also placed a far higher value on "being respected" by others, as well as standing up for their racial or ethnic group.
"We had to work together in the past; it was just us, together. That's how we got rid of the problems. That's how we will solve the problems in the future," said Phillip Hayes, 39, who is disabled and lives in Martinsville.
Being respected is important to Hayes, as well. "We were not respected [as a race] for so long. As individual people we were invisible. It comes from that."
But he worries that this legacy may now have deadly consequences. Some young black men "have gone too far -- they're getting themselves killed over nonsense."
* * *
Hope
"It's a good time for black men, and things will only get better," said Tyrone Haskins, 20, a sophomore majoring in social work at Virginia Union University. "America is changing, it's far from perfect, but more people are sharing more opportunities every year. . . . The future seems bright for black men."
Haskins is one of a substantial majority: Despite the problems and broad anxieties, six in 10 black men said it is a good time to be a black man in this country. Eight in 10 said they have a better life than their parents. About as many feel optimistic about their futures.
Optimism about the future is not shared equally by all black men. According to the survey, about one in six black men have largely given up, expressing consistently pessimistic views about their lives and what the future holds for them and for black people generally.
Still, more than twice as many black men are consistently hopeful and optimistic about themselves and their futures, while the remainder offer a more mixed but generally positive view, the survey shows.
"Things are better, but you still have to fight for everything you get," said Calvin Jackson, 61, a sheet-metal worker in Kansas City, Kan. "You still have to be better at your job than anyone else if you're a black man. We had trouble here with our local union. We found out we had the same number of black journeymen now as we had in 1969. How does that happen? Nobody knows, but you have your suspicions.
"Is it a good time for black men? Is it bad? It's right in between," said Jackson, who allows he is cautiously optimistic that the future will be better, though not necessarily easy.
Assistant director of polling Claudia Deane and staff writer Stephen A. Crockett Jr. contributed to this report.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/03/AR2006060300695_3.html
Poll Reveals a Contradictory Portrait Shaded With Promise and Doubt
But the survey also suggests that this negative self-perception is in contrast to other features of black men's lives. In addition to the intense ambition displayed by black men, nearly half own their own homes. Two-thirds said they pray at least once a day, a much higher percentage than white men, and 59 percent said they work full time, compared with 66 percent of white men and 40 percent of white women.
Even young black men, the focus of the debate over black men's problems, defy familiar stereotypes. Nearly nine in 10 respondents ages 18 to 29 said they are either working or in school, the same proportion who reported that being successful in a career is personally important to them. The survey was not conducted in jails or prisons, where about 8 percent of all black men are incarcerated.
Sociologists and social psychologists say that black men's poor view of themselves may have its roots in several factors. Movies, music, television and the news media are full of unflattering images of black men, they say.
"We got this outside system putting this lens on black people, especially black men, that says 'toxic demon,' and this lens is transmitted to the general public," said Carl Bell, president and chief executive of the Community Mental Health Council, a clinic in Chicago that provides mental health services on the city's predominately black south and west sides. "You get black people buying into it, and black people saying we have no strengths, no redeeming qualities."
But the experiences of black men may play as large a role as cultural stereotypes in shaping their view of themselves. In the poll, one in four black men said they have been victims of a violent crime, the highest proportion of any group in the survey. Since the vast majority of crime occurs within racial groups, the fact that so many black men have been victimized by other black men may negatively influence the way they perceive the group.
Regarding the obstacles black men face and their prospects for the future, whites were the most optimistic. Black women tended to be the most pessimistic, even more than black men, with only 44 percent of black women saying that now is a good time to be a black man in America . Black women were also just as likely as their male counterparts to see the economic system as biased against black men.
"I've worked in corporate America for 20 years, and I see a lot of white males, but I don't see a lot of black males," said Theoloa Dubose, 45, a projects administrator from Stone Mountain, Ga. "I see more black women than black males."
Asked why, she replied, "Because of prejudice." Black women, she said, are "less threatening than black men."
But black women were not entirely sympathetic. More than half of black women said one big reason the average black woman is better-educated and makes more money than the average black man is that black women simply work harder.
More positive views can be hard to come by, even among black men.
Reggie Hall, 36, a Web site developer in Cleveland, says that when he gets together with friends and the talk turns to black men, rarely does a group compliment pass their lips.
"I can't remember the last time I heard a good word about black men," Hall said. "If we're out in public and see young black guys -- the way they talk or act, we always discuss that lack of respect. . . . I can't remember the last time we said anything positive about black men as a whole. It's always about isolated individuals. But, as a group, no."
* * *
Worries, Experiences, Values
Despite their clear achievements and general optimism about their prospects, black men worry more than virtually everyone, the survey found. About four in 10 black men said they are fearful they will lose their job, nearly double the proportion of white men who said the same thing. Even more affluent, better-educated black men are far more anxious about being fired or laid off than their white male and white female co-workers.
More than half of all black men said they fear they or a member of their family will get AIDS, nearly triple the percentage of white men. Six in 10 said they worry that they'll be treated unfairly by the police, and more than a third said they fear they will be arrested -- fears that hardly trouble whites. A good job and education do little to ease these fears: college-educated, upper-middle-class black men were about twice as likely to say they are worried about being arrested, losing their jobs or falling victim to violent crime as upper-class whites.
"With a black man, first you're black. And that carries a lot of baggage -- false and real," said Jerome Tucker, 52, an entrepreneur in Upper Marlboro.
This worries gap sometimes exists in areas where the survey results suggest it shouldn't. When asked if they had been laid off or fired, an equal proportion of higher-income, college-educated whites and blacks reported that they had.
"There is racism in this country," agreed Doug Ford, 42, of Havana, Fla., and a contract administrator for the state's Department of Children and Families, one of the black men interviewed in the survey. "Unfortunately, the majority of black men and women tend to seek out the racial issue where there may not be a racial issue. That comes from an historical consciousness as a black community that now imposes its own burden on black men."
Ford said black men are victimized twice: once by acts of racism that are less frequent today but still too common, and then again by the self-doubts and suspicions that are the living legacy of more than 300 years of legal and de facto discrimination.
For some black men, such concerns are background noise that occasionally prompt a wince. But for others, these suspicions paralyze them into inaction, build barriers where none exist and prevent them from seizing "the real opportunities that are out there," Ford said.
"Worries can become self-fulfilling prophecies. Too many black men go into job interviews convinced they will fail. So they do. They don't try on the job because they believe they won't get promoted. So they don't," Ford said.
But in other areas, the survey suggests that the concerns of black men are not misplaced or exaggerated. Six in 10 black men said a close friend or family member has been murdered. Seven in 10 said someone close to them has gone to prison or jail. AIDS, once a disease almost exclusive to white men, now disproportionately ravages the black community; here the worries gap, if anything, understates the relative incidence of HIV-AIDS among blacks and whites.
Worries about discrimination also are rooted in reality, the survey suggests. One in four black men said they have been physically threatened or attacked because they are black. Half said they have been unfairly stopped by police because of their race, allegations supported by studies that found black men were far more likely than whites to be stopped by police and have their cars searched but no more likely to be carrying contraband.
While college degrees and higher salaries ease many of life's burdens for whites, they do not always shield black men from painful experiences, the survey found.
Among blacks with college degrees and household incomes of $75,000 a year or more, six in 10 said someone close to them had been murdered and six in 10 said a family member or close friend had been in jail or prison -- similar to the reports of working-class, less-educated black men. Three in 10 have been physically threatened or attacked in their lives because of their race, again no different from less-advantaged black men.
If anything, the survey suggests that better-educated black men experience more direct racism than those with fewer resources. For example, 63 percent of educated, upper-middle-class black men said they have been unfairly stopped by police, compared with 47 percent of less-advantaged black men.
From the shared experiences and worries of black men have emerged a set of priorities that are very different from those of white America. Three in four black men said they highly value success on the job, fully 20 percentage points higher than white men. Black men also placed a far higher value on "being respected" by others, as well as standing up for their racial or ethnic group.
"We had to work together in the past; it was just us, together. That's how we got rid of the problems. That's how we will solve the problems in the future," said Phillip Hayes, 39, who is disabled and lives in Martinsville.
Being respected is important to Hayes, as well. "We were not respected [as a race] for so long. As individual people we were invisible. It comes from that."
But he worries that this legacy may now have deadly consequences. Some young black men "have gone too far -- they're getting themselves killed over nonsense."
* * *
Hope
"It's a good time for black men, and things will only get better," said Tyrone Haskins, 20, a sophomore majoring in social work at Virginia Union University. "America is changing, it's far from perfect, but more people are sharing more opportunities every year. . . . The future seems bright for black men."
Haskins is one of a substantial majority: Despite the problems and broad anxieties, six in 10 black men said it is a good time to be a black man in this country. Eight in 10 said they have a better life than their parents. About as many feel optimistic about their futures.
Optimism about the future is not shared equally by all black men. According to the survey, about one in six black men have largely given up, expressing consistently pessimistic views about their lives and what the future holds for them and for black people generally.
Still, more than twice as many black men are consistently hopeful and optimistic about themselves and their futures, while the remainder offer a more mixed but generally positive view, the survey shows.
"Things are better, but you still have to fight for everything you get," said Calvin Jackson, 61, a sheet-metal worker in Kansas City, Kan. "You still have to be better at your job than anyone else if you're a black man. We had trouble here with our local union. We found out we had the same number of black journeymen now as we had in 1969. How does that happen? Nobody knows, but you have your suspicions.
"Is it a good time for black men? Is it bad? It's right in between," said Jackson, who allows he is cautiously optimistic that the future will be better, though not necessarily easy.
Assistant director of polling Claudia Deane and staff writer Stephen A. Crockett Jr. contributed to this report.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/03/AR2006060300695_3.html
`
<font size="5"><center>Poll Reveals a Contradictory Portrait Shaded
With Promise and Doubt</font size></center>
As the distance between the races narrows,
new tensions have emerged in the way black
men perceive themselves and their lives.
(Michel du Cille / The Washington Post)
Washington Post
By Steven A. Holmes and Richard Morin
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, June 4, 2006; Page A01
Black men in America today are deeply divided over the way they see themselves and their country.
Black men report the same ambitions as most Americans -- for career success, a loving marriage, children, respect. And yet most are harshly critical of other black men, associating the group with irresponsibility and crime.
Black men describe a society rife with opportunities for advancement and models for success. But they also express a deep fear that their hold on the good life is fragile, in part because of discrimination they continue to experience in their daily lives.
This portrait of the divided black man emerges from a survey conducted by The Washington Post, the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation and Harvard University. The survey of 2,864 people, including a sample of 1,328 black men, aimed to capture the experiences and perceptions of black men at a time marked by increasing debate about how to build on their achievements and address the failures that endure decades after the civil rights movement.
In many ways, the outward and inward struggles of black men appear to reflect where the nation is on its journey toward racial equality -- unquestionably further along and, yet, at risk of moving backward.
Many are left behind: The suicide rate among young black men has doubled since 1980.
One in four black men have not worked for at least a year, twice the proportion of male non-Hispanic whites or Latinos. And trends suggest a third of black males born today will spend time in prison.
"I just get frustrated with my brothers. With black men . . . wasting life. But then, on the other hand, I wonder: Is there something in society that keeps us down?" said Edward Howell, 57, a D.C. resident who was interviewed in the poll.
But the harsh realities also obscure what the survey results illuminate so clearly: Black men in America are a diverse group, and the truth of their experience can be found as much among the ordinary lives of the vast middle as in the extremes.
"This country is filled with highly successful black men who are leading balanced, stable, productive lives working all over the labor market," said Hugh Price, former president of the National Urban League. "They're stringing fiber-optic cable for Verizon or working the floor at Home Depot. . . . It's a somewhat invisible story."
On the whole, survey respondents showed a powerful connection to a common history that crosses lines of education, income, age and geography, and stands in sharp contrast to the perceptions of many of their white counterparts.
The poll also documents how the enormous changes in society over the last generations have rippled through the lives of black men. But as the distance between the races begins to narrow, new tensions have emerged in the way black men perceive themselves and their lives:
· Six in 10 black men said their collective problems owe more to what they have failed to do themselves rather than "what white people have done to blacks." At the same time, half reported they have been treated unfairly by the police, and a clear majority said the economic system is stacked against them.
· More than half said they place a high value on marriage -- compared with 39 percent of black women -- and six in 10 said they strongly value having children. Yet at least 38 percent of all black fathers in the survey are not living with at least one of their young children, and a third of all never-married black men have a child. Six in 10 said that black men disrespect black women.
· Three in four said they value being successful in a career, more than either white men or black women. Yet majorities also said that black men put too little emphasis on education and too much emphasis on sports and sex.
· Eight in 10 said they are satisfied with their lives, and six in 10 reported that it is a "good time" to be a black man in the United States. But six in 10 also reported they often are the targets of racial slights or insults, two-thirds said they believe the courts are more likely to convict black men than whites, and a quarter reported they have been physically threatened or attacked because they are black.
· Black men said they strongly believe in the American Dream -- nine in 10 black men would tell their sons they can become anything they want to in life. But this vision of the future is laden with cautions and caveats: Two-thirds also would warn their sons that they will have to be better and work harder than whites for equal rewards.
* * *
Image
Samuel Thompson, 57, grew up in the South, coping with Alabama's Jim Crow laws. Despite it all, he went to college and became a special-education teacher in Chicago. But when he thinks of black men, he doesn't conjure up an image of older, accomplished black men such as himself. He thinks of young black men, and he is appalled at what he sees.
"They tend to goof off, and very few are going to college. I don't see in them a will to succeed," Thompson said. "They don't see the point of using good language. They emulate who they see on TV or on videos or who they hear on the radio."
Thompson said he was not surprised that so many black men in the poll adopted a harsh view of African American males as a group.
"That's the reality," he said. "The ones that sit back and blame things on other people, they're the ones who don't go very far. They just want sympathy and handouts."
Thompson was among the majority of black men in the poll who said the group's problems stem from its own failures. Black men were more likely than whites to express such sentiments. And while such negative views were held across the board, better-educated, affluent black men are most likely to criticize black men for not taking education seriously enough.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dy...6060300695.html?referrer=email&referrer=email
<font size="4">
Part 2
Poll Reveals a Contradictory Portrait
Shaded With Promise and Doubt</font size>
But the survey also suggests that this negative self-perception is in contrast to other features of black men's lives. In addition to the intense ambition displayed by black men, nearly half own their own homes. Two-thirds said they pray at least once a day, a much higher percentage than white men, and 59 percent said they work full time, compared with 66 percent of white men and 40 percent of white women.
Even young black men, the focus of the debate over black men's problems, defy familiar stereotypes. Nearly nine in 10 respondents ages 18 to 29 said they are either working or in school, the same proportion who reported that being successful in a career is personally important to them. The survey was not conducted in jails or prisons, where about 8 percent of all black men are incarcerated.
Sociologists and social psychologists say that black men's poor view of themselves may have its roots in several factors. Movies, music, television and the news media are full of unflattering images of black men, they say.
"We got this outside system putting this lens on black people, especially black men, that says 'toxic demon,' and this lens is transmitted to the general public," said Carl Bell, president and chief executive of the Community Mental Health Council, a clinic in Chicago that provides mental health services on the city's predominately black south and west sides. "You get black people buying into it, and black people saying we have no strengths, no redeeming qualities."
But the experiences of black men may play as large a role as cultural stereotypes in shaping their view of themselves. In the poll, one in four black men said they have been victims of a violent crime, the highest proportion of any group in the survey. Since the vast majority of crime occurs within racial groups, the fact that so many black men have been victimized by other black men may negatively influence the way they perceive the group.
Regarding the obstacles black men face and their prospects for the future, whites were the most optimistic. Black women tended to be the most pessimistic, even more than black men, with only 44 percent of black women saying that now is a good time to be a black man in America . Black women were also just as likely as their male counterparts to see the economic system as biased against black men.
"I've worked in corporate America for 20 years, and I see a lot of white males, but I don't see a lot of black males," said Theoloa Dubose, 45, a projects administrator from Stone Mountain, Ga. "I see more black women than black males."
Asked why, she replied, "Because of prejudice." Black women, she said, are "less threatening than black men."
But black women were not entirely sympathetic. More than half of black women said one big reason the average black woman is better-educated and makes more money than the average black man is that black women simply work harder.
More positive views can be hard to come by, even among black men.
Reggie Hall, 36, a Web site developer in Cleveland, says that when he gets together with friends and the talk turns to black men, rarely does a group compliment pass their lips.
"I can't remember the last time I heard a good word about black men," Hall said. "If we're out in public and see young black guys -- the way they talk or act, we always discuss that lack of respect. . . . I can't remember the last time we said anything positive about black men as a whole. It's always about isolated individuals. But, as a group, no."
* * *
Worries, Experiences, Values
Despite their clear achievements and general optimism about their prospects, black men worry more than virtually everyone, the survey found. About four in 10 black men said they are fearful they will lose their job, nearly double the proportion of white men who said the same thing. Even more affluent, better-educated black men are far more anxious about being fired or laid off than their white male and white female co-workers.
More than half of all black men said they fear they or a member of their family will get AIDS, nearly triple the percentage of white men. Six in 10 said they worry that they'll be treated unfairly by the police, and more than a third said they fear they will be arrested -- fears that hardly trouble whites. A good job and education do little to ease these fears: college-educated, upper-middle-class black men were about twice as likely to say they are worried about being arrested, losing their jobs or falling victim to violent crime as upper-class whites.
"With a black man, first you're black. And that carries a lot of baggage -- false and real," said Jerome Tucker, 52, an entrepreneur in Upper Marlboro.
This worries gap sometimes exists in areas where the survey results suggest it shouldn't. When asked if they had been laid off or fired, an equal proportion of higher-income, college-educated whites and blacks reported that they had.
"There is racism in this country," agreed Doug Ford, 42, of Havana, Fla., and a contract administrator for the state's Department of Children and Families, one of the black men interviewed in the survey. "Unfortunately, the majority of black men and women tend to seek out the racial issue where there may not be a racial issue. That comes from an historical consciousness as a black community that now imposes its own burden on black men."
Ford said black men are victimized twice: once by acts of racism that are less frequent today but still too common, and then again by the self-doubts and suspicions that are the living legacy of more than 300 years of legal and de facto discrimination.
For some black men, such concerns are background noise that occasionally prompt a wince. But for others, these suspicions paralyze them into inaction, build barriers where none exist and prevent them from seizing "the real opportunities that are out there," Ford said.
"Worries can become self-fulfilling prophecies. Too many black men go into job interviews convinced they will fail. So they do. They don't try on the job because they believe they won't get promoted. So they don't," Ford said.
But in other areas, the survey suggests that the concerns of black men are not misplaced or exaggerated. Six in 10 black men said a close friend or family member has been murdered. Seven in 10 said someone close to them has gone to prison or jail. AIDS, once a disease almost exclusive to white men, now disproportionately ravages the black community; here the worries gap, if anything, understates the relative incidence of HIV-AIDS among blacks and whites.
Worries about discrimination also are rooted in reality, the survey suggests. One in four black men said they have been physically threatened or attacked because they are black. Half said they have been unfairly stopped by police because of their race, allegations supported by studies that found black men were far more likely than whites to be stopped by police and have their cars searched but no more likely to be carrying contraband.
While college degrees and higher salaries ease many of life's burdens for whites, they do not always shield black men from painful experiences, the survey found.
Among blacks with college degrees and household incomes of $75,000 a year or more, six in 10 said someone close to them had been murdered and six in 10 said a family member or close friend had been in jail or prison -- similar to the reports of working-class, less-educated black men. Three in 10 have been physically threatened or attacked in their lives because of their race, again no different from less-advantaged black men.
If anything, the survey suggests that better-educated black men experience more direct racism than those with fewer resources. For example, 63 percent of educated, upper-middle-class black men said they have been unfairly stopped by police, compared with 47 percent of less-advantaged black men.
From the shared experiences and worries of black men have emerged a set of priorities that are very different from those of white America. Three in four black men said they highly value success on the job, fully 20 percentage points higher than white men. Black men also placed a far higher value on "being respected" by others, as well as standing up for their racial or ethnic group.
"We had to work together in the past; it was just us, together. That's how we got rid of the problems. That's how we will solve the problems in the future," said Phillip Hayes, 39, who is disabled and lives in Martinsville.
Being respected is important to Hayes, as well. "We were not respected [as a race] for so long. As individual people we were invisible. It comes from that."
But he worries that this legacy may now have deadly consequences. Some young black men "have gone too far -- they're getting themselves killed over nonsense."
* * *
Hope
"It's a good time for black men, and things will only get better," said Tyrone Haskins, 20, a sophomore majoring in social work at Virginia Union University. "America is changing, it's far from perfect, but more people are sharing more opportunities every year. . . . The future seems bright for black men."
Haskins is one of a substantial majority: Despite the problems and broad anxieties, six in 10 black men said it is a good time to be a black man in this country. Eight in 10 said they have a better life than their parents. About as many feel optimistic about their futures.
Optimism about the future is not shared equally by all black men. According to the survey, about one in six black men have largely given up, expressing consistently pessimistic views about their lives and what the future holds for them and for black people generally.
Still, more than twice as many black men are consistently hopeful and optimistic about themselves and their futures, while the remainder offer a more mixed but generally positive view, the survey shows.
"Things are better, but you still have to fight for everything you get," said Calvin Jackson, 61, a sheet-metal worker in Kansas City, Kan. "You still have to be better at your job than anyone else if you're a black man. We had trouble here with our local union. We found out we had the same number of black journeymen now as we had in 1969. How does that happen? Nobody knows, but you have your suspicions.
"Is it a good time for black men? Is it bad? It's right in between," said Jackson, who allows he is cautiously optimistic that the future will be better, though not necessarily easy.
Assistant director of polling Claudia Deane and staff writer Stephen A. Crockett Jr. contributed to this report.
`
Part 2
Poll Reveals a Contradictory Portrait
Shaded With Promise and Doubt</font size>
But the survey also suggests that this negative self-perception is in contrast to other features of black men's lives. In addition to the intense ambition displayed by black men, nearly half own their own homes. Two-thirds said they pray at least once a day, a much higher percentage than white men, and 59 percent said they work full time, compared with 66 percent of white men and 40 percent of white women.
Even young black men, the focus of the debate over black men's problems, defy familiar stereotypes. Nearly nine in 10 respondents ages 18 to 29 said they are either working or in school, the same proportion who reported that being successful in a career is personally important to them. The survey was not conducted in jails or prisons, where about 8 percent of all black men are incarcerated.
Sociologists and social psychologists say that black men's poor view of themselves may have its roots in several factors. Movies, music, television and the news media are full of unflattering images of black men, they say.
"We got this outside system putting this lens on black people, especially black men, that says 'toxic demon,' and this lens is transmitted to the general public," said Carl Bell, president and chief executive of the Community Mental Health Council, a clinic in Chicago that provides mental health services on the city's predominately black south and west sides. "You get black people buying into it, and black people saying we have no strengths, no redeeming qualities."
But the experiences of black men may play as large a role as cultural stereotypes in shaping their view of themselves. In the poll, one in four black men said they have been victims of a violent crime, the highest proportion of any group in the survey. Since the vast majority of crime occurs within racial groups, the fact that so many black men have been victimized by other black men may negatively influence the way they perceive the group.
Regarding the obstacles black men face and their prospects for the future, whites were the most optimistic. Black women tended to be the most pessimistic, even more than black men, with only 44 percent of black women saying that now is a good time to be a black man in America . Black women were also just as likely as their male counterparts to see the economic system as biased against black men.
"I've worked in corporate America for 20 years, and I see a lot of white males, but I don't see a lot of black males," said Theoloa Dubose, 45, a projects administrator from Stone Mountain, Ga. "I see more black women than black males."
Asked why, she replied, "Because of prejudice." Black women, she said, are "less threatening than black men."
But black women were not entirely sympathetic. More than half of black women said one big reason the average black woman is better-educated and makes more money than the average black man is that black women simply work harder.
More positive views can be hard to come by, even among black men.
Reggie Hall, 36, a Web site developer in Cleveland, says that when he gets together with friends and the talk turns to black men, rarely does a group compliment pass their lips.
"I can't remember the last time I heard a good word about black men," Hall said. "If we're out in public and see young black guys -- the way they talk or act, we always discuss that lack of respect. . . . I can't remember the last time we said anything positive about black men as a whole. It's always about isolated individuals. But, as a group, no."
* * *
Worries, Experiences, Values
Despite their clear achievements and general optimism about their prospects, black men worry more than virtually everyone, the survey found. About four in 10 black men said they are fearful they will lose their job, nearly double the proportion of white men who said the same thing. Even more affluent, better-educated black men are far more anxious about being fired or laid off than their white male and white female co-workers.
More than half of all black men said they fear they or a member of their family will get AIDS, nearly triple the percentage of white men. Six in 10 said they worry that they'll be treated unfairly by the police, and more than a third said they fear they will be arrested -- fears that hardly trouble whites. A good job and education do little to ease these fears: college-educated, upper-middle-class black men were about twice as likely to say they are worried about being arrested, losing their jobs or falling victim to violent crime as upper-class whites.
"With a black man, first you're black. And that carries a lot of baggage -- false and real," said Jerome Tucker, 52, an entrepreneur in Upper Marlboro.
This worries gap sometimes exists in areas where the survey results suggest it shouldn't. When asked if they had been laid off or fired, an equal proportion of higher-income, college-educated whites and blacks reported that they had.
"There is racism in this country," agreed Doug Ford, 42, of Havana, Fla., and a contract administrator for the state's Department of Children and Families, one of the black men interviewed in the survey. "Unfortunately, the majority of black men and women tend to seek out the racial issue where there may not be a racial issue. That comes from an historical consciousness as a black community that now imposes its own burden on black men."
Ford said black men are victimized twice: once by acts of racism that are less frequent today but still too common, and then again by the self-doubts and suspicions that are the living legacy of more than 300 years of legal and de facto discrimination.
For some black men, such concerns are background noise that occasionally prompt a wince. But for others, these suspicions paralyze them into inaction, build barriers where none exist and prevent them from seizing "the real opportunities that are out there," Ford said.
"Worries can become self-fulfilling prophecies. Too many black men go into job interviews convinced they will fail. So they do. They don't try on the job because they believe they won't get promoted. So they don't," Ford said.
But in other areas, the survey suggests that the concerns of black men are not misplaced or exaggerated. Six in 10 black men said a close friend or family member has been murdered. Seven in 10 said someone close to them has gone to prison or jail. AIDS, once a disease almost exclusive to white men, now disproportionately ravages the black community; here the worries gap, if anything, understates the relative incidence of HIV-AIDS among blacks and whites.
Worries about discrimination also are rooted in reality, the survey suggests. One in four black men said they have been physically threatened or attacked because they are black. Half said they have been unfairly stopped by police because of their race, allegations supported by studies that found black men were far more likely than whites to be stopped by police and have their cars searched but no more likely to be carrying contraband.
While college degrees and higher salaries ease many of life's burdens for whites, they do not always shield black men from painful experiences, the survey found.
Among blacks with college degrees and household incomes of $75,000 a year or more, six in 10 said someone close to them had been murdered and six in 10 said a family member or close friend had been in jail or prison -- similar to the reports of working-class, less-educated black men. Three in 10 have been physically threatened or attacked in their lives because of their race, again no different from less-advantaged black men.
If anything, the survey suggests that better-educated black men experience more direct racism than those with fewer resources. For example, 63 percent of educated, upper-middle-class black men said they have been unfairly stopped by police, compared with 47 percent of less-advantaged black men.
From the shared experiences and worries of black men have emerged a set of priorities that are very different from those of white America. Three in four black men said they highly value success on the job, fully 20 percentage points higher than white men. Black men also placed a far higher value on "being respected" by others, as well as standing up for their racial or ethnic group.
"We had to work together in the past; it was just us, together. That's how we got rid of the problems. That's how we will solve the problems in the future," said Phillip Hayes, 39, who is disabled and lives in Martinsville.
Being respected is important to Hayes, as well. "We were not respected [as a race] for so long. As individual people we were invisible. It comes from that."
But he worries that this legacy may now have deadly consequences. Some young black men "have gone too far -- they're getting themselves killed over nonsense."
* * *
Hope
"It's a good time for black men, and things will only get better," said Tyrone Haskins, 20, a sophomore majoring in social work at Virginia Union University. "America is changing, it's far from perfect, but more people are sharing more opportunities every year. . . . The future seems bright for black men."
Haskins is one of a substantial majority: Despite the problems and broad anxieties, six in 10 black men said it is a good time to be a black man in this country. Eight in 10 said they have a better life than their parents. About as many feel optimistic about their futures.
Optimism about the future is not shared equally by all black men. According to the survey, about one in six black men have largely given up, expressing consistently pessimistic views about their lives and what the future holds for them and for black people generally.
Still, more than twice as many black men are consistently hopeful and optimistic about themselves and their futures, while the remainder offer a more mixed but generally positive view, the survey shows.
"Things are better, but you still have to fight for everything you get," said Calvin Jackson, 61, a sheet-metal worker in Kansas City, Kan. "You still have to be better at your job than anyone else if you're a black man. We had trouble here with our local union. We found out we had the same number of black journeymen now as we had in 1969. How does that happen? Nobody knows, but you have your suspicions.
"Is it a good time for black men? Is it bad? It's right in between," said Jackson, who allows he is cautiously optimistic that the future will be better, though not necessarily easy.
Assistant director of polling Claudia Deane and staff writer Stephen A. Crockett Jr. contributed to this report.
`
Thank you all for the post. This is not my thread, but it would be good to bump this up on the main board... on the thought of the article, more or less, I spoke to another Black Man today, just met him, and let him know that "I See Him"...not with the eyes, in a common way, but I See You...being a good father, raising responsible sons, working like crazy to provide for your family etc. This may not be much to some, but it seems that media, and choice quotations, make it seem as though Black Men aren't good for anything. Thats wrong, to state it real simple. Most Black Men that I talk to respond to a real simple affirmation, then we can talk real. I appreciate the post.
For some reason Black Men thought that money was the great equalizer. I don't believe that..
In the eyes of most white men...The Dumbest fucks are the black men with a so called education and money...ie; rims, flatscreens and crack as solid investments
We have no mission as a people...at least the spaniards and mexicans mission is to cross the border and rob the hell out of our jobs and stuff...
One thing, I can tell the writer is a Black person living in DC
And our woman...Hell thats to long of a list to list.
In the eyes of most white men...The Dumbest fucks are the black men with a so called education and money...ie; rims, flatscreens and crack as solid investments
We have no mission as a people...at least the spaniards and mexicans mission is to cross the border and rob the hell out of our jobs and stuff...
One thing, I can tell the writer is a Black person living in DC
And our woman...Hell thats to long of a list to list.
After the 2nd article this past Sunday, I'm starting to loose faith in what the Post seems to be trying to do with this series. I had high expectations, perhaps too high. Overly optimistic maybe. But the decidedly negative impression that the latest article left me with was disapointing to say the least.
These statistics have all been published before; many times in many different venues. To have yet another feature focusing on the black man that chooses to expend a significant amount of time and effort rehashing the same old bad stuff seems to me to be somewhat counterproductive.
As an example, it's one thing to recount the statistic that one in three black men will touch the criminal "justice" system in one form or another (jail, parole, probation) at some point during their lifetime. It's another thing to stop the story there and act as though that's all there is to report. If 1 of every 3 has that experience, it's hard for me to believe that somehow, some way, there is not a bunch of positive things to report about the other 2 (the majority of us by the way) who are able to defy the odds and make some kind of progress.
And what about those of us who do fall victim to the criminal injustice system and, after doing some time, are able to get things back together and move forward? Those stories would seem, to me at least, to have a tremendous amount of merit. And I know for a fact that they exist. Why the Post has made the decision that it's not newsworthy to focus on the many examples of positivity found within us is beyond me.
Is there nothing good to talk about when it comes to black men in eyes of these reporters?
If that's the position they take than this is just another example of racist propaganda being spewed by a group of misguided social commentators masquerading as journalists.
These statistics have all been published before; many times in many different venues. To have yet another feature focusing on the black man that chooses to expend a significant amount of time and effort rehashing the same old bad stuff seems to me to be somewhat counterproductive.
As an example, it's one thing to recount the statistic that one in three black men will touch the criminal "justice" system in one form or another (jail, parole, probation) at some point during their lifetime. It's another thing to stop the story there and act as though that's all there is to report. If 1 of every 3 has that experience, it's hard for me to believe that somehow, some way, there is not a bunch of positive things to report about the other 2 (the majority of us by the way) who are able to defy the odds and make some kind of progress.
And what about those of us who do fall victim to the criminal injustice system and, after doing some time, are able to get things back together and move forward? Those stories would seem, to me at least, to have a tremendous amount of merit. And I know for a fact that they exist. Why the Post has made the decision that it's not newsworthy to focus on the many examples of positivity found within us is beyond me.
Is there nothing good to talk about when it comes to black men in eyes of these reporters?
If that's the position they take than this is just another example of racist propaganda being spewed by a group of misguided social commentators masquerading as journalists.
<font size="5"><center>The Young Apprentice</font size>
<font size="4">Marcus's Parents Agonize Over How to Protect -- and Prepare -- Him</font size></center>
By Robert E. Pierre
The Washington Post
Friday, June 9, 2006; Page A01
Marcus Yarboro had told his parents that he didn't want to play, that the game scared him, but there he was, weeks shy of his ninth birthday, standing in the lobby of Laser Quest Potomac Mills.
"Why do I have to do it?" protested the third-grader, who is small for his age and knows it. "I'm afraid of the dark, and it looks like a jungle in there."
His father leaned down and wrapped his arm around Marcus's shoulder.
"I'll be right there with you, buddy," Mark Yarboro said, his words easy, his voice even. His wife, Kim, was right. He and Marcus needed to get this done. Marcus had sidelined himself at too many birthday parties where other kids ran around shrieking and shooting light beams at each other.
These Saturday outings, to basketball games, the ski slopes and the mall, had become more precious in the year since Mark separated from his wife of nine years and moved out. As the light between husband and wife has dimmed, they've learned to swallow their own hurts and focus on their only child.
These are seasons of change for Marcus, and his parents are determined to hold him steady.
The Yarboros are both 45 and college educated with professional jobs, and they are filled with hope and with worry. They see a world of possibilities for Marcus -- maybe he will grow up to be a doctor or a scientist. And they see a world that, despite its progress, can be hostile and unforgiving to black boys.
They are among the upwardly mobile black families rearing a generation of privileged children in the suburbs and beyond. Increasingly, boys such as Marcus are growing up in places like Stafford County, where many of their experiences mirror those of other children with similar economic status -- from private music lessons to annual ski trips.
And yet, for the Yarboros it means a dual consciousness, in which they encourage Marcus to dream big while steeling him for the times when his skin color may be all that others see.
In that reality, laser tag isn't just a game. It's another chance to show Marcus that he must not be afraid to try new things, face new challenges. He will have to be better to outrun those who will expect less of him, his parents believe.
After the game, Marcus thrust his fist in the air and cheered when he heard the name he had selected -- "Dragonmaster" -- over the loudspeaker. He'd won third place, beating out bigger and older boys, a boost to his self-confidence and another small victory for his mom and his dad.
* * *
A Simple Strategy
The Yarboros make a good living. Kim is a systems engineer for the Marine Corps, Mark a contracting specialist for the Army. Together, their salaries approach $200,000 a year.
They move freely between neighborhoods and jobs. When the public schools didn't suit Marcus, his mother found a private one that did. They've read the research showing that black children -- especially boys, no matter their family income -- receive less attention, harsher punishment and lower marks in school than their white counterparts, from kindergarten through college. The Yale University Child Study Center, for instance, found in a national survey last year that black boys are expelled at three times the rate of white children -- in pre-kindergarten.
The Yarboros' strategy to overcome those odds is simple: Expose Marcus to everything. That means black history, apple picking, Spanish, professional hockey, horseback riding and, yes, laser tag.
Yet, they know that the cocoon of comfort they have wrapped Marcus in is not airtight.
In the fall, he will transfer schools to start fourth grade, a pivotal academic year when many boys, but especially black ones, start to spiral downward.
And there is his parents' separation, the possibility of divorce always playing like a musical bass line in their lives. Either circumstance could send a kid into a tailspin.
Marcus's life plays out on a quiet cul-de-sac in Stafford, a mostly white suburban enclave about 45 miles south of Washington.
He has a round, dark-brown face and a quick wit. He's obsessed with video games and turtles, which have, according to Marcus, "an excellent defense system." He has good friends, a mountain of toys and, thanks to his mother's meticulous planning, a calendar that won't quit.
There's the church choir, basketball, guitar practice, a quarterly book club that Kim co-founded. Between the book club and school, he's read hundreds of books, about Captain Underpants, Walter the Farting Dog, magic trees and crocodiles.
This year, there's also been a youth financial planning seminar, the Little Miss Crimson and Cream Ball that required a tuxedo, and an etiquette workshop for boys that his mom organized at their home and then got Mark and other fathers to lead.
The kitchen is always stocked with Marcus's favorite foods, and his friends rave about the "10 o'clock" snack they're assured before bed when they sleep over.
His best friends are Logan, 9, and Rodrick, 10. Separately or together, they are frequent visitors, getting lost for hours in Marcus's basement, playing air hockey, pinball and video games. The three are "like brothers," Marcus said. Rodrick is black. Logan is white, like most of his classmates -- a fact that means little to Marcus.
"There are kids who are white. There are kids who are black," he said. "There's no difference."
* * *
'They'll Want Marcus'
Kim Yarboro grew up in Columbus, Ohio, attending Catholic schools and making friends easily across racial lines. Unlike her husband, who is more guarded, Kim shares her concerns about Marcus with her mostly white colleagues at work, where she is a manager for a new Marine Corps amphibious vehicle. She doesn't want Marcus to dwell on racism. She certainly doesn't.
Fat people, skinny people, poor people -- everyone has a social hurdle to clear, Kim said. She is concerned that Marcus not view himself as a victim or project that image.
"I want people to see Marcus and see that he's a well-rounded citizen in the United States," Kim said. "Not some castaway, you know, 'Let's put him to the side.' People may try to do that, but he will have the equipment that won't allow them to. They'll want Marcus."
But her husband wonders whether the blurring of racial lines is a cruel ruse. He's had his share of unwarranted police stops, Mark said, like the time an officer told him that his new sports car "drew a lot of attention."
Mine wasn't the only one on the road," he said.
"My fear," he said of his son, "is that no matter how qualified he is, how smart . . . that he can't move in society as well as his education level, his skill level should allow him. I have read too much, seen too much. It's not hard for me to believe that a young black person could get jacked up and not do anything wrong."
* * *
Surpassing the Old Man
When does a boy become a black boy?
Mark Yarboro couldn't have been more than 10, on a driving trip with his grandparents and sisters from his home town of Fayetteville, N.C., to St. Louis, when they stopped for gas, pulling up next to two white men. One of the men pointed to Mark's sisters in the back seat and said, "Look at those monkeys."
Mark heard the remark with a child's ears.
"Those aren't monkeys," he told the men. "Those are little girls."
This, he would realize years later, was the first stirring in his racial awakening.
The son of a teacher and a nurse's aide, Mark lived a segregated early life in his all-black neighborhood and schools. Whites were mostly an abstraction, people he saw on television. That changed in sixth grade, when he was bused to what had been an all-white school in Fayetteville.
As volatile as the 1960s were, when Mark was growing up, his parents spoke little of race. They simply encouraged him and his sisters to study hard and set high goals. It wasn't until 10th grade, while taking a black history course, that the legacy of slavery and discrimination became real to him.
"My parents kept a lot of things from us," he said.
Looking back now, through a father's eyes, he understands better the struggle of every parent: how to preserve a son's innocence as long as possible while preparing him for the difficulties life will bring.
How close do you hold a son? How far do you push him? He is constantly reassessing just what of his own baggage to impart to Marcus, who turns 9 on Sunday and is growing up in such different times.
Mark knows that Marcus will be able to see his father's successes, but what of the heartaches and failures, the moments that can haunt a man?
After graduating from North Carolina Central University, Mark received an Air Force commission and headed to Panama City to train as an air weapons controller.
He aced the academic portion but failed the simulator tests and washed out. What hurt more, however, was the way he was treated by a senior officer, a black man.
Sitting outside his open office door, nervously thinking about how to save his months-old military career, Mark heard the man joke to his white secretary: "I don't know what these guys are coming to see me for. They ain't got a chance in hell to stay in the service."
"I'll never forget it," Mark said, shaking his head. "I was crushed. I don't care if you're black, white, red or yellow, we have an obligation to help others or try to show them the way."
He spent six months at home with his parents regaining his confidence before heading to graduate school and spending two decades in various Department of Defense jobs, rising to near the top of the civilian rankings.
He wants Marcus to go further.
The two share a middle name: Jerome. He wasn't interested in a Mark Jr. He wanted his son to have his own identity. Kim understood.
Still, Marcus, for him, is a chance for redemption.
For Mark's grandfather, who abandoned his father and seven siblings. And for his own father, a good provider who cooked breakfast for the family nearly every day but who -- as a teacher, principal and school board member -- gave so much of himself to others that there seemed not much left for those at home who loved him.
Mark hungers for his son to remember the ballgames, the haircuts, the large and small moments spent with the old man.
"I felt if I had a son, I wanted to have a closer connection," Mark said. "I'm trying to do the things I felt like I didn't get."
* * *
At School, Finding a Niche
The students in Laurie Karr's second- and third-grade class at the Merit School of Stafford had spent part of their day sprawled across the floor, answering their teacher's questions about the origin of Mother's Day and discussing current events.
Now they were on to a word puzzle -- to unscramble "Battle Hymn of the Republic." No matter how hard Marcus tried, no matter how many letter combinations he made, he was stumped. "I don't get it," he said, then tried some more, his face twisted in frustration.
"I give up," he said finally, bursting into tears. Karr tried to calm him, let him know that the puzzle wasn't worth crying over.
This is one of the luxuries the Yarboros have given their son: a private school education, with small classes and a teacher who, they say, gets Marcus.
Mark, who dismissed private schools as "nicey-nice," would rather his son attend public school. But he finally yielded to his wife's position after Marcus spent two years at Winding Creek Elementary in Stafford, where he got decent grades but stayed in trouble for talking and not paying attention.
His antics in kindergarten became legend at Jerrilynn Hoffman's dinner table. She's Logan's mom.
"Every day, Logan would come home and say, 'Marcus was on red today' or 'Marcus was on yellow,' " she remembered. Green was a sign of good behavior. Yellow and red represented rising levels of misconduct.
It's a problem for boys in general. They talk too much, won't sit still, and account for the majority of school discipline problems. Nationally, black boys make up 8.6 percent of public school enrollment but 22 percent of students expelled. These problems, whether real or perceived, disproportionately land black boys in special education, according to scholars who study the issue.
Kim said her son's public school teachers were overworked and unable to channel his energy.
She found the Merit School, which has 59 children in kindergarten through fifth grade.
Marcus, the only black boy in his class, likes the school because his teacher "is nice to me."
On the playground, he runs and roughhouses like the rest of the boys. During story time, he's on the floor, legs folded underneath him, adding sound effects to Karr's stories.
Karr, who has three sons and 25 years of teaching experience in public and private schools, including in New York City, has seen boys start to slip away, and act out, often because they don't have supportive family structures.
Marcus arrived, she said, with his own problems.
"He was quiet," she said. "He had a very poor self-concept. He cried a lot. He never felt comfortable to get up and say anything in front of the class."
Those reports surprised Kim. Her son has always been outspoken and inquisitive.
Karr, she said, has been good for Marcus. In her class, Marcus is free to roam, to lie on the floor to read and, sometimes, to request alternative assignments. If he wants to go last for a presentation, that's okay, too, Karr said, as long as he learns.
She was alarmed at news of his parents' separation.
Eight of the 10 children in her class have parents who are separated or divorced. Grades have slipped considerably for some students -- but not for Marcus, a fixture on the honor roll. "I was worried that all the work we had done would be lost," she said.
Now she worries that Marcus may get lost in a larger classroom.
Next year, because the Merit School is closing its upper grades, Marcus is headed to St. Francis of Assisi in Triangle, a Catholic school with a good reputation. It's in fourth grade that the push for a more formalized education begins in earnest.
Private schools, Karr said, won't solve all his problems for the rest of his life, but they seem to have worked so far. He is, she said, very lucky.
* * *
Separated but United
Kim Yarboro has found a licensed clinical social worker to help Marcus if there is a divorce. "When parents fall apart," said the counselor, Marvin Sessions, "that child falls apart, too."
It's partly for that reason that Kim took in her 16-year-old nephew from Columbus last month. He had come for summer visits before but now is staying, she said. She does not want to lose him. Two of her husband's nephews have been shot in recent years. One died in a shooting that was ruled an accident; the other, who served time for a drug offense, was shot five times and survived.
The tragedies are reminders to Kim of why Marcus must not grow up, like so many black boys, without his father. She takes comfort in the pledge she and Mark have made to keep their focus on Marcus.
They attend every event at school and at their church, First Mount Zion Baptist in Dumfries. Mark is at the house every weekend, and the family continues to take trips together. It's not easy. Conversations on the phone, and in person, are sometimes stilted. There are more unilateral decisions. Kim's parents divorced when she was a teenager; Mark's 15 years ago.
"We try to operate in the best interest of the only person that matters at this point," Kim said of herself and Mark. "If someone is affecting him inappropriately, then Mark and I need to change whatever it is. . . .
"[The separation] is only hard if I think about me."
* * *
Slipping Influence
Turtles are everywhere. Marcus has dozens of them -- plastic ones, plush ones, ceramic models. He even had a turtle-shaped Easter basket. He thinks when he grows up he might like to become an "animal doctor."
Marcus loves fast-paced video games, but he is still a boy who sleeps with the covers over his head and climbs in bed next to his mother during storms.
It's the shell that fascinates him, the way the turtle lives with armor on its back.
"If you have a good defense system, that means they can't get in your house and kill or hurt you."
Life in his own house is different now.
He is up at 5:30 a.m. on school days and dresses as his mother makes breakfast. He used to make his bed every morning, too -- one of his father's rules -- but now he doesn't bother with the bed until weekends. His dad doesn't call those shots anymore. And he's not around to drive him to school in the mornings, when it would be just the two of them talking or listening to music.
Mark is living in a condominium he owns near his job at Fort Belvoir.
Once the Yarboros decided to separate, they sat Marcus down to tell him that mommy and daddy were taking a break. They told him that it wasn't a secret, that he shouldn't feel bad about it and that they both loved him. Still, it's not a subject he talks about much.
"I do want my dad to still live here," Marcus responded one day when asked, then paused.
One good thing, though, is that his father's ban on sci-fi movies is no longer in effect. "I don't have to put up with that anymore," he said.
He said this plainly, as simple fact. His father was there, and now he is not.
Mark can already feel the slippage and knows that teaching his son to be a man is more difficult when he is no longer at home every day. He replays moments again and again.
Recently he was back at the house with Marcus and told his son to hurry along.
"All right, I said I was going to do it," Marcus snapped.
Once, that kind of comment might have gotten him a spanking. But Mark is especially careful now with disciplining his son, even when Kim asks him to.
"I don't want it to be a situation where every time dad is here, he's yelling."
* * *
Joy Leavened With Worry
"Go, Marcus!" Kim yelled from the front row as Marcus did his best to break-dance during a performance with other boys. They had spent months preparing to be escorts for the Little Miss Crimson and Cream pageant. They had walked the little girls in their white dresses across the stage and bowed. And now it was their turn to show off, nearly 20 little boys moving to the crowd's shouts and cheers.
Marcus was on the floor twirling around in that black tux.
Mark was at the back of the auditorium with the video recorder.
Waiting at home was the Italian cream cheese "celebration cake" that Kim makes for special occasions, a tradition started when Marcus was a year old. Her mother, in from Columbus, had also helped to prepare ribs, green beans and sweet-potato pie.
"Did you see my pose?" Marcus asked his mom after the performance. Then he dashed off to play with the action figures he and the other boys had received as gifts.
Every so often, his parents scanned the room to make sure he hadn't strayed.
Even on days like this, the easy ones, Mark can't help but wonder about the moment when Marcus will realize that there's something different about the way a black man has to walk in the world.
"I call it his day of reckoning," he said. "I don't know when it's coming, but it's coming. I want him to be ready."
Staff researcher Meg Smith contributed to this report.
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O
One Man Army
Guest
It's like this, being black isn't easy. Black Female or Male, but the disadvantage that black men have today is that many of us have a criminal background . I'm 26 with a bachelor degree and unemployed but I hustle by the book and as a crook. I've been in and out of trouble while a teenager and caught another case at 21 trying to make a dollar; five years ago and couldn't catch a break if my life depended on it. I diffently made it harder on myself, but damn...!! And by the way if there is anyone who is reading this please tell a brother how can I get career going in my situation. Living from hand to mouth isn't why I went to school for to do.
Man some people response is to long. Being a black man is hard---Being a black american man is easy. To get what Americans see as successful conform. To be a black man you will have to define it. Black conforminst will always have a strong discontent with those who try to walk the unbeaten path. 
C
Cocoa
Guest
my fiance is 26 and is locked up right now, he was out for only 3 months, and is back in jail... sometime he seem hopeless,He has his G.E.D and is very Intelligent, but the odds are against u when u have a felony and it's hard to get back on track, when u have no $$$ flowing through....so the 1st thing he did was went back to the streets and turn to selling drugs...i know having a criminal record and a hard life aint a excuse for getting lock up and selling drugs, but sometimes black men got to do what they have to do to survive. In prison they call themselfs rehibilitating u, but 90% of the prisoners that get out are in the same boat that they was in when they went in....sometimes The Streets be calling, It's not a excuse but I been there and Understand it.
P
PlayaHater247
Guest
QueEx it means you got too much damm time on your hands. Go out and make something in the real world instead on complaining about it online.
Peace/Salam
P
PlayaHater247
Guest
I been watchin you for years on here. Even before you was a Mod all you did was whine and bitch. The Black race needs leaders not bitches and pimps. My name is simple the black race has no room for thugs and players. You want to help the black race get off your ass and do something about it. A computer and porn forum is not the anwser. In the end all you end up is mad and bad eye sight and a sore dick and nothing changes in the world. I don't give me some bullshit story you are out changing things cause I seen your ass on here everyday since '97QueEx said:
Peace
Whats your "real" beef my man??? You didn't have anything constructive to add to the subject; your only comments are directed at me, instead of the topic, hence, its rather obvious you have something else on your mind.PlayaHater247 said:
(1) If you have a personal problem with me, go ahead and state it and stop talking out the side of your neck;
(2) If you don't have anything to add to the discussions on this board, do yourself a favor and stay the fuck out;
(3) If you do have something constructive to add to the discussions, please be our guess (but I suggest you read the rules of the board with respect to personal attacks).
QueEx
P
PlayaHater247
Guest
Shit I was responding to your personal attack on me. 
That is some whitebread neocon thinking (no disrespect) Tellin me that It's "Nonconstructive" because I think we need to be out doing instead of talking about it. , it aint personal man. I just get tired of hearin folks bitchin about bein black. What happened to "Say it loud, and say it proud?" I know we got it hard I just get sick of listen about it. We aint never gonna get any better with role models like snoop dog and lil romeo as role models. We need real leaders not entertainers. I am sorry you disagree with me.
Peace/Salam
That is some whitebread neocon thinking (no disrespect) Tellin me that It's "Nonconstructive" because I think we need to be out doing instead of talking about it. , it aint personal man. I just get tired of hearin folks bitchin about bein black. What happened to "Say it loud, and say it proud?" I know we got it hard I just get sick of listen about it. We aint never gonna get any better with role models like snoop dog and lil romeo as role models. We need real leaders not entertainers. I am sorry you disagree with me. Peace/Salam
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I asked you to read the rules of the board; the "N" word is not used on this board, Brother.
Where in this thread, or any other, for that matter, do you see me "bitching" about being Black ??? Did you read the posts in this thread; have you read anything I've posted ???
You need to edit the "N" words out of your post above.
QueEx
Where in this thread, or any other, for that matter, do you see me "bitching" about being Black ??? Did you read the posts in this thread; have you read anything I've posted ???
You need to edit the "N" words out of your post above.
QueEx
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PlayaHater247
Guest
I did and I fixed it and I posted a new post called abolish the n word. Maybe I should post it in this forum.QueEx said:
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PlayaHater247
Guest
Search: Key Word(s): ni*** Showing results 1 to 25 of 500QueEx said:
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Well no luck there............
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