<p>“In many schools, an African American boy who does well academically is likely to get beaten up – or at least ostracized – by other boys of the same background”</p>
<p>I recently flew with a guy who told me a story about flying with a black pilot. (All of our black pilots are amazing, by the way, and I recently was treated to a flight with an extraordinary black female pilot). But he told me that after the flight, they were walking into the layover hotel, in uniform, and a group of young black men were just glaring at him, with absolute hatred. When he asked the other guy why they hated him so much, he said, “It’s not you they hate, it’s me. I’m used to it by now.”</p>
<p>I remember when President Obama was elected, the news had some quotes from black kids (from grade school to high school) saying things like, “It was amazing, I suddenly saw I could be more than an athlete or a singer.” And I saw statements like this several times from different kids, reported from different areas. I was startled at first, then saddened. Think of a kid growing up thinking those were the ONLY ways he could achieve success. That’s just not right.</p>
<p>It’s a complicated issue. No doubt there are a lot of contributing factors.</p>
<p>If one were born into a family without much financial, emotional, and intellectual support, then that baby would be in big trouble growing up regardless of race or gender.</p>
<p>You may be right, but it’s sad to have to lose your culture and sense of community to get away from attitudes that inhibit success.</p>
<p>I work in an office where there are African Americans (all of them women, not incidentally) at both the professional and support staff levels. The professional women do not seem culturally African American – for example, with regard to hairstyles or dress. The support staff women do. But the same trend is not present among the Asian or Hispanic employees (and now we’re talking about both genders) in the office. Among them, some people at the professional level seem to identify strongly with their cultures and others don’t, and the same is true of the support staff.</p>
<p>I don’t think the problem is simply a lack of male role models. I see many successful black males attributing their success to their mothers and grandmothers. I think the lack of ANY role model is a problem, not the lack of same gender role models.</p>
<p>“I suspect that we may be approaching the time when African Americans who “leave the community” become more and more successful, while the “African American community” they leave continues to disintegrate.”</p>
<p>This phenomenon–in my view, the single most important factor in the collapse of inner-city African-American society–has been happening on a large scale since African-Americans were given entree into the economic opportunities of white society in the mid to late 20th century. I am not either blaming those who left or arguing that the civil rights movement was a bad thing, but merely observing that this was an unintended consequence of the movement.</p>
<p>Aside: Please folks, terminology / language / unintended racism / personal pet peeve:</p>
<p>Black men, women, mothers, fathers, teenagers, children, etc.
White men, women, mothers, fathers, teenagers, children, etc.</p>
<p>NOT BLACKS. OR WHITES. OR goodness help me MALES. Male what? When I read black male I unconsciously add in a silent noun like, oh, say, monkey or uhhhh, criminal, or uhhhhhhh, robber. So do you but you may not be aware of it. </p>
<p>Yes: African Americans. No need to say African American MALE. Or white MALE. etc. </p>
<p>The wildlife biologist in me hears the unintended (perhaps…) unconscious (for most?)noun following the adjective. Male is an adjective to describe the sex of an animal. Male what? Man, woman, ape, etc. You see? Please? </p>
<p>So: Black man. White man. African American. White American. </p>
<p>I think there’s a reason for the usage. In the bad old days, all African-American males were referred to as “boys,” even if they were grown men. Deciding where to draw the line between boys and men and women and girls can be problematic. Newspapers starting referring to males so nobody had to draw the line at which a boy morphed into a man. </p>
<p>That’s my theory anyway </p>
<p>And in this particular case, the usage is appropriate because the differences show up at an age when referring to African American “men” would be just plain silly.</p>
<p>I’m talking about language and how it changes over time. But many other social rules change over time now don’t they? Think about it. Most have gotten far more liberal from allowing the right on red to accepting gay relationships etc etc. Divorce once carried a huge stigma–now–meh.</p>
<p>“Actually being common makes it right. That’s how language adjusts to reality.”</p>
<p>Really? I guess that’s why we are so careful these days about using the N word, which was so common a few short decades ago. I guess that’s why we changed usage from Negro to black to African American so deliberately. /sarcasm off.</p>
<p>Sometimes language evolves by accepting slang and every day useage. Sometimes language evolves because people carefully decide to guard what they are saying for the greater good. I asked for your consideration of one of my pet peeves. Thank you for your consideration!</p>
<p>Jonri your logic makes sense re/ males vs. boys. Now maybe we can consider moving ahead again and use teenagers or young men. Just pointing out something that bugs me.</p>
<p>Good luck with that. It sounds stilted and less precise. Science typically defines sexes as male and female (and a few undefined). I think we’ll stick with that.</p>
<p>Hugcheck, given the topic of this thread, I think the posts have been very sane, logical, and even-tempered. Maybe you could start a separate thread to get all of your issues re language out of your system.</p>
<p>I am an elementary school teacher a parent of biracial (AA and white) sons. I see two prevailing reasons that many black boys don’t do well in school:
They often are raised in an intellectually sterile environment- absence of books, absence of enriching experiences, and especially- absence of adult-child conversation. Research has shown that the number of words spoken in the home directly correlates to learning to read. If only short, repetitive commands and remarks are directed at children, they don’t acquire vocabulary needed for school readiness. From there the gap only widens.
Teachers and parents have diminished expectations of black boys. Parents truly don’t understand what children really need to be successful in school. Teachers see the huge disparity between the student’s performance and where he needs to be and feel overwhelmed. It takes so much effort to close the performance gap.</p>
<p>Hate to be so negative, but it is immensely complicated. An earlier poster referenced Geoffrey Canada’s idea of “baby college.” Intervening before birth is the only way things are going to change.</p>
<p>Minny - How do you propose we implement the intervention? Does the goverment make it mandatory? and how do you decide who must go? I’m not challenging you by any means - your analysis is helpful! This is a serious issue that has long been swept under the rug. When our college enrollment is only 5% young black men - something is oh, so wrong. And what do we do about the generations that have been lost?</p>
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