Blacksmythe

Every now and then you get a forward that you in turn forward? This is almost like one of those joints…but in this case I KNOW the person sending the original. She is an educator with a pure heart.

She is a member of Delta Sigma Theta, and in the process of trying to assist a former student pursue her dream of becoming a member, she found out that the young woman was not only going to have to put her plans to pledge aside, she was thinking about leaving school in order to take care of a serious financial issue at home.

I can vouch that this didn’t happen last year, that this hasn’t already been taken care of, that this is legit. I just got wind of it after I heard the Obama speech.Please consider donating, or at least blogging about this on your own. If you DO forward this, or blog about this PLEASE attach a date to it so folks won’t try to send money ten years down the line:

Dear Friends and Family, I know I come to you often for your support but after the phone call I received this morning for one of my favorite former students, I am asking that you help me out with the request below. This young lady is strong and very humble. She did not call me for help but after hearing about her family, I could not do anything today but think about her. If you knew her, you would do what you can to help her too. I have 25 days to try and help her. If you have it to give, please consider helping Eboni out. See below and pass this on to other who may consider helping.

Every Sunday evening, I watch Home Makeovers. By the end of the show I am usually crying. It reminds me that in spite of all the negative things we see everyday on the news, there are still good people out there.

I know a young lady who is troubled right now. This young lady is a former student of mine and she is very special. We were so very proud of her when she was admitted into the university she attends. She is currently a junior and doing very well.

You see her family was just evicted from their home. She, as a college student, took out a 10,000.00 loan to help out her mother and it wasn’t enough to save them from eviction. They are currently living in a hotel and hoping to find some kind of housing very soon.

What saddens me is that this young lady did everything right. She worked hard when she was in school so that she could get into a good university. She understands the importance of an education. She understands that the degree she will earn will give her a chance for a successful future. She is very involved in community service and spends many hours a week giving to others in need.

I am going to contact local churches to see what can be done about getting them housing. What I want most for this young lady is to pay off the loan she took out for her family. She has a part-time job that helps her pay for her tuition but is struggling to pay the loan back. Her payments are behind and she is very stressed. She should be able to concentrate on school. Can you help me out? I have 25 days to raise 10,000.00 for her. She is not aware that I am doing this because I do not want to get her hopes up. Please give if you can and pass it on to those who have a heart.

Eboni’s Loan Payment

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Now that the semester is over, I’m back at the Barbershop. In this episode, me, Jimi Izrael, Reuben Navarette, and Roland Martin talk about among other things the increasing rate babies born to single mothers. It got pretty heated, as this is something I feel pretty strong about. Hopefully they’ll offer the extended version on the web, because we kicked this topic around for at least 20-25 minutes….

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Got this from a brother on a listserv:

America has lost a generation of Black boys   

There is no longer a need for dire predictions, hand-wringing, or apprehension about losing a generation of Black boys. It is too late. In education, employment, economics, incarceration, health, housing, and parenting, we have lost a generation of young Black men. The question that remains is will we lose the next two or three generations, or possibly every generation of Black boys hereafter to the streets, negative media, gangs, drugs, poor education, unemployment, father absence, crime, violence and death.  

Most young Black men in the United States don’t graduate from high school. Only 35% of Black male students graduated from high school in Chicago and only 26% in New York City, according to a 2006 report by the Schott Foundation for Public Education. Only a few black boys who finish high school actually attend college, and those few Black boys who enter college, nationally, only 22% of them finish college.  Young Black male students have the worst grades, the lowest test scores, and the highest dropout rates of all students in the country.

When these young Black men don’t succeed in school, they are much more likely to succeed in the nation’s criminal justice and penitentiary system. And it was discovered recently that even when a young Black man graduates from a U.S. college, there is a good chance that he is from Africa, the Caribbean or Europe, and not the United States.  

Black men in prison in America have become as American as apple pie. 

There are more Black men in prisons and jails in the United States (about 1.1 million) than there are Black men incarcerated in the rest of the world combined. This criminalization process now starts in elementary schools with Black male children as young as six and seven years old being arrested in staggering numbers according to a 2005 report, Education on Lockdown by the Advancement Project.  The rest of the world is watching and following the lead of America. Other countries including England, Canada, Jamaica, Brazil and South Africa are adopting American social policies that encourage the incarceration and destruction of young Black men.

This is leading to a world-wide catastrophe.

But still, there is no adequate response from the American or global black community.  Worst of all is the passivity, neglect and disengagement of the Black community concerning the future of our Black boys. We do little while the future lives of Black boys are being destroyed in record numbers.The schools that Black boys attend prepare them with skills that will make them obsolete before, and if, they graduate. In a strange and perverse way, the Black community, itself, has started to wage a kind of war against young Black men and has become part of this destructive process.  

Who are young Black women going to marry? Who is going to build and maintain the economics of Black communities? Who is going to anchor strong families in the Black community? Who will young Black Boys emulate as they grow into men? Where is the outrage of the Black community at the destruction of its Black boys? Where are the plans and the supportive actions to change this? Is this the beginning of the end of the Black people in America?  

The list of those who have failed young Black men includes our government, our foundations, our schools, our media, our Black churches, our Black leaders, and even our parents. Ironically, experts say that the solutions to the problems of young Black men are simple and inexpensive, but they are not easy or popular. It is not that we lack solutions as much as it is that we lack the will to implement these solutions to save Black boys. It seems that government is willing to pay billions of dollars to lock up young Black men, rather than the millions it would take to prepare them to become viable contributors and valued members of our society.  

Please consider these simple goals that can lead to solutions for fixing the problems of young Black men:     Short term   1)      Teach all Black boys to read at grade level by the third grade and to embrace education.   2)      Provide positive role models for Black boys.   3)      Create a stable home environment for Black boys that includes contact with their fathers.   4)      Ensure that Black boys have a strong spiritual base.   5)      Control the negative media influences on Black boys.   6)      Teach Black boys to respect all girls and women.     Long term   1)      Invest as much money in educating Black boys as in locking up Black men.   2)      Help connect Black boys to a positive vision of themselves in the future.   3)      Create high expectations and help Black boys live into those high expectations.   4)      Build a positive peer culture for Black boys.   5)      Teach Black boys self-discipline, culture and history.   6)      Teach Black boys and the communities in which they live to embrace education and life-long learning. 

 Again, no politics. A poor conception of families (technically can’t BLACK WOMEN fill the economics gap purportedly left by black men?). And the data is a bit off too–none of the graduation rates take transfers into account. I’ve been thinking about the concept of a “poison pill” as a way of explaining the various solutions and prescriptions that people (well-meaning and other-wise) put forth for black people. This is a prime example of well meaning ideas gone awry. (Edited to add: I think Earl’s critique appeared first, but whatever the case is worth reading.) 

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The first actually isn’t against black people as much as it is part of a long standing attempt to revise the historical record with Reagan. Lou Cannon, David Brooks, and a couple of others have attempted this mission. This is part of a much longer legacy and can be also tied to the attempt to name at least one landmark in every state after Reagan. (While talking to a friend last week about business, I found out she was in D.C. and had just landed at “National.” I didn’t know where or even WHAT “National” was until I realized she meant “Reagan National Airport.” Old school DC residents don’t call it “Reagan” like the newer metro residents do…)

So his “argument” that Reagan’s speech for states’ rights made near Philadelphia, Mississippi to begin his 1980 Presidential campaign was NOT racist boils down to two simple components:

The mythology of Neshoba is wrong in two distinct ways. First, Ronald Reagan was not a racist. Second, his Neshoba speech was not an effective symbolic appeal to white voters. Instead, it was a political misstep that cost him support.

The reason why his speech wasn’t racist…was because Reagan wasn’t racist. But check this paragraph out:

As a sports announcer in Iowa in the 1930s, Mr. Reagan opposed the segregation of Major League Baseball. As an actor in Hollywood he quit a Los Angeles country club because it did not admit Jews. In 1978, when preparing to run for president, Mr. Reagan opposed a California ballot initiative that would have barred homosexuals from teaching in the state’s public schools. He was widely credited for its defeat. (Mr. Reagan was understandably anathema in the black community not because of his personal views but because of his consistent opposition to federal civil rights legislation, most notably the landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965.)

Consistent opposition. To legislation that was necessary (but not sufficient) to end racial terrorism. That was best symbolized by the murder of civil rights workers in Philadelphia, Mississippi. The place he gave the speech that has led to this controversy in the first place.

As for the second, there was a research report that the Democrcatic Party had conducted in the mid-eighties. They were trying to find out exactly why working class (white) voters were turning against the Democratic Party in droves, even though the policies of the Republican Party were anti-working class. So the people who conducted the report went to Macomb County (northeast of detroit) to interview folks at Lakeside Mall. What they found was so disconcerting they literally destroyed the report. The whites blamed almost all of their economic woes on the fact that the Democratic Party had been hijacked by blacks.

I don’t know how Reagan felt about blacks personally. But Reagan fought against black people’s political interests for all of his public career. Reagan was “understandably anathema” to black people because black people know racism, and supporters OF racism when we see it.

The second?

I hate it when literature professors try to act like economists. Hate it.

Can you spot the logical flaws in this piece? Suffice it to say that Gates doesn’t quite understand the nature of discrimination and the way that wealth built from land hamstrung black opportunity. He ends UP pointing to the black family, but his own data says that the big culprit is institutional racism that in this case withheld land from African Americans. Neo-accomodationism rears its head again.

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