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Locally, as it is nationally,
many African-American men have criminal records: it is
usually the norm as oppose to the exception. We are
continuing to witness senseless crimes, including the
senseless killings of young black men by other young black
men. Over the past two decades as a probation officer, I
have lost many young black men whom I have supervised, due
to violence. They have been both perpetrators and victims of
killings.
However, the recent killing
of a young man I had on probation has compelled me to write
this article. This young man’s bio is that of many young
African-American men, many arrested first as a juvenile and
then as an adult. This young man was truly trying to grasp
the concept of a good life. He had been employed with the
city in leaf pick up.
I recall seeing him on a
Friday cashing his first check. His face beamed with pride
and confidence. I was truly happy for this young man to
witness him experience the joy of earning a living. So when
I opened the newspaper and saw his name as a murder victim,
this tore at the fabric of my being.
African-American men
currently residing in urban areas of the United States
generally face negative consequences due to lack of
education and disproportional representation in the court
system. This affects employment, healthcare and criminal
involvement, which ultimately leads to crisis across the
lifespan. Yet as a society we are reluctant to connect the
problem with one of our great loves: sports.
The beginning of these
problems can be traced to the young men’s dropping out, or
being pushed out, of school, in high school or even earlier.
But before that and often leading directly to it, we have
the problem of the glorification of sports. From a young
age, African-American boys are surrounded with the dream
that sports is their key to success—a dream created in large
part to support the exploitation of athletes,
disproportionally black males, for the entertainment of the
dominant culture, disproportionally white.
As young boys are steeped in
sports, investment by the larger society in their intellect
drains away. The problem is huge: As we look at the
graduation rates of African-American males, over 50 percent
nationally and in some urban areas over 70 percent fail to
graduate high school.
The unemployment rate of
black men, particularly young black men between the ages of
16 to 25, is three times that of other groups. The majority
of these young African-American men killing each other have
been failures in school. Schools have failed to help them
achieve academically.
If these young men are not
educated, then they do not develop critical thinking skills
which help develop conflict resolution abilities. They are
thus not prepared for the workforce, but also are not
prepared for social life. The failure to graduate from high
school does not relieve these young men of their
responsibility to avoid violence. Make no mistake: they and
they alone are responsible for killing each other and
leaving a community devastated with its aftermath.
All of the most important
quality-of-life indicators suggest that black males are in
deep trouble. They lead the nation in homicides, as both
victims and perpetrators, and in what observers regard as an
alarming trend, they now have the fastest growing rate for
suicide.
African -American males’
arrest, conviction and incarceration rates have been at the
top of the charts in most states for some time. Even as they
grow older, they face the unfortunate reality of being the
only group in the United States experiencing a decline in
life expectancy. In the labor market, they are the least
likely to be hired and, in many cities, the most likely to
be unemployed.
We have to get more strategic
and analytic about addressing this huge and persistent
problem, and using social theory can help us to do so.
Whenever there has been a public health crisis, educating
the public to that crisis has been the most successful
strategy used, as in the current heroin problem which has
been recognized as a public health crisis and rightfully so.
Equally important and equally a public health crisis,
African-American young males killing each other deserves the
same level of outrage from not only the African-American
community, but also from policy makers who can address the
crisis in the same way as the heroin crisis is being
addressed.
Policy makers and politicians
knew of the potential crisis and the consequences of not
addressing the problems facing this group of American
citizens and what the outcome could mean. Their solutions?
During the 1980s and President Reagan’s leadership in the
War on Drugs, there was an explosion of both prisons and
sport complexes across America. Society built prisons to
lock young African-American males up for violating minor
drug laws, and sports complexes for young African-American
male athletes to entertain Americans.
The two building projects
were not unrelated. Thus, comes the school-to-prison
pipeline. When students of color, particularly black males,
do not graduate high school, several years after leaving
school many fine themselves in prison or on probation. I
know. I talk to them every day.
Those who are athletes are used as entertainers in the newly
built sports complexes. The school-to-prison pipeline is not
a new phenomenon. In what is perhaps the most ominous and
obvious sign of distress, for the past several decades,
there have been more African-American males between the ages
of 18 and 24 in prison than in college.
There is considerable
confusion about why being black and male causes this segment
of the population to stand out in the most negative and
alarming ways, in both school and the larger society.
Sociologists have long known that socioeconomic status
impacts culture, and young African-American males have
adopted a totality of socially-transmitted behavior patterns
including oral and non-verbal expressions, that are in
direct contrast to the dominant culture.
From very young ages, black males in the 21st century have
found themselves at odds with society, and a large portion
of African-American males have found themselves struggling
with the concept of dignity, intrinsic value and the
structure of good human life.
The question of why
African-American males seem so directed to pursuing an
athletic career is of considerable interest. Seemingly,
African-American males who are in search of role models
observe African Americans as successful athletes and
entertainers, but do not see or have contact with the
disproportionally few who have succeeded in the professions
or in the corporate world. Consequently, these youths commit
considerable intellectual and physical energy to becoming
professional athletes rather than to a variety of other
occupations with which they have difficulty identifying.
Yet a closer examination of
the assumptions operative in such contexts reveals how often
they negate attributes such as honesty, integrity, and
intellectual ability and serve to limit and constrain the
development of a well-rounded personality. Moreover, having
others assume you can play sports is not a compliment when
you are being considered for a job to take care of your
family.
Scholars suggest that a human
right to an education is justified and necessary on the
basis that education is the foundation for building
necessary social opportunity for the actualization of the
individual capability. Good education develops critical
thinking skills that help people make decisions in their
lives that make them good citizens and help them contribute
to the overall betterment of society. Education provides us
with knowledge about the world.
Research tells us that
concern for human rights of African-American males should be
a major priority for the leadership in the United Sates to
consider. The systemic problems facing African-American
males in education such as high dropout rates, suspensions,
expulsions and teachers’ low expectations for academic
success are issues which negatively impact their ability to
achieve human rights.
The urgency facing African
American males today calls for a different strategy than the
strategies used during the civil rights movement. The
policies today appear to be race neutral; however, the
impact of these polices have created conditions for a group
of individuals, black males, that have placed them in
critical conditions and the only way to address these
problems is from an human rights perspective.
Anthony L. Bouyer is a
candidate for the Ph.D. in Social Foundations of Education
in the Department of Educational Foundations and Leadership
at the University of Toledo, specializing in
African-American male student success. He is writing his
dissertation on how African American young men who are on
probation succeeded in graduating from high school and how
they view life success. Bouyer has been a probation officer
for 20 years, as well as a parole officer, police officer
and mental health professional. He is a licensed drug and
alcohol counselor with the State of Ohio.
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