Focusing Attention on the Real Impediment to Black Progress

Some black critics have argued that the problems faced by young African Americans is primarily a result of racism in American society.

(WASHINGTON, DC) - In February, President Obama launched an initiative for black young men. As he announced a $200 million, five-year initiative, My Brother's Keeper, he declared: "I didn't have a dad in the house. And I was angry about it, even though I didn't necessarily realize it at the time. I made bad choices. I got high without always thinking about the harm that it could do. I didn't always take school as seriously as I should have. I made excuses. Sometimes I sold myself short."

He called the challenge of ensuring success for young men of color a "moral issue for our country" as he presented troubling statistics: black boys are more likely to be suspended from school, less likely to be able to read, and almost certain to encounter the criminal justice system as either a perpetrator or a victim. "These statistics should break our hearts," he said, "and they should compel us to act."

The president challenged black men to do better themselves, and said they must not make excuses for their failures or blame society for the poor decisions they have already made: "You will have to reject the cynicism that says the circumstances of your birth or society's lingering injustices necessarily define you and your future. It will take courage, but you will have to tune out the naysayers who say if the deck is stacked against you , you might as well just give up or settle into the stereotype. Nothing will be given to you."

In a show of support, leaders from more than a dozen nonprofit foundations and executives from some of the nation's largest companies joined the president, along with Magic Johnson, the retired basketball superstar, and Gen. Colin Powell, the former Secretary of State.

The initiative features $200 million worth of commitments by organizations such as the Annie E. Casey Foundation, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and Bloomberg Philanthropies to invest in programs that help young black and Hispanic men.

Some black critics have argued that the problems faced by young African Americans is primarily a result of racism in American society, Mark Anthony Neal, a professor of African and African-American studies a Duke, for example, said the president's initiative did not focus enough on the more systemic forms of racism in America. He said: "These young men weren't killed because of structural situations that didn't give them opportunities. It's other kinds of racism that those boys were dealing with. The initiative is not addressing those things."

No problem in society can be properly addressed if it is misdiagnosed. To blame "racism" for the problems of young black men addressed by President Obama is to miss the point of what is, in fact, taking place in contemporary American society. This is not to say that no racism exists---that it has been completely eliminated from our society. Sadly, wherever men and women of diverse backgrounds live together, tensions are often to be found. It is to say, however, that the real dilemma is more complex.

The reality is, as the respected black economist Walter Williams points out, "...that black Americans as a group have made some of the largest gains over some of the highest hurdles in the shortest time of any group in history. If black Americans were a nation, they would be the sixteenth richest on earth. Some of the richest, and most famous, people in the world are black Americans. Colin Powell led the mightiest army in human history. In 1865 neither a slave nor a slave owner would have believed this kind of progress was possible in a little over a century, if ever. As such it speaks to the intestinal fortitude of a people and, just as important, to the greatness of the nation where such gains were possible---gains that would have been impossible anywhere except in the United States."

Yet, Williams notes, "For many blacks, these gains are elusive---perhaps for 30 per cent of our community. It does the poor no favors to blame their problems on racism---which has been diminishing as the pathologies got worse. In 1940, the black illegitimacy rate was around 14 per cent. Now, it's 75 per cent. In 1870, right after slavery, 70 to 80 percent of black families were intact. Now, only 30 per cent of black kids live in two-parent families. Some 51 per cent of homicide victims are black, as are 95 per cent of their killers. You can't blame this on white people. The rotten schools black kids attend are mostly in cities where black adults are in control and spending a lot of taxpayers' money on those schools."

Census statistics indicate that nearly 70 per cent of black children have single mothers, and estimates are that an even larger percentage will grow up without a father in the home. As comedian Bill Cosby said during a visit to Milwaukee, a city with a high murder rate, black children are hurt by the absence of parents and eagerly follow any example of leadership---from gangs to older friends to parents who offer bad examples. So they get a gun, and then, as Cosby described it, "you're asking for trouble...you have guns in the hands of people who are already angry because they've been abandoned by a father or mother, or they have lives with very low self-esteem, the anger level is so high."

Writing in the Los Angeles Times in June 2004, Cosby asked, "What can the future hold for us with a 50-percent high school dropout rate in many urban areas and with a 60-percent illiteracy rate among inmates and a prison population that is 45 percent black." HIs goal in speaking out at the time of the commemoration of the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision, said Cosby, was to "ignite righteous indignation" as a basis for action against this scourge. He was embraced by Washington, D.C.'s police chief Charles Ramsay (now police chief of Philadelphia). Ramsay, who is black, declared: "I'm with you 100 per cent. Behavior has to change. Responsibility for your own behavior has to change. We have people who just let TV and video games and music raise their kids and instill values...and then we wonder why we have a problem."

Within the black community more and more respected voices are speaking out against those who tend to blame the problems we face upon "white racism." In his book "Enough," the journalist and commentator Juan Williams laments that in the face of mounting crime rates, "...civil rights and black church leaders pointed a finger at white cops, prosecutors, judges, and jailers as the source of the black crime problem. They said the increase in incarcerated black people was largely the result of an unfair increase in sentences for drug possession and drug dealing as part of the late-1970s and early-1980s 'war on drugs.'...Instead of speaking out against gangs, drug dealers, and pimps---and the clothes and hip-hop music that celebrated these outlaws as black heroes----left-wing intellectuals preached against the sins of the white racist American establishment."

Williams laments that, "Never a word was spoken about the need for black Americans to take up their own war on drugs and on crime as a matter of personal responsibility. And no one testified that crime by black hands undercut the advances in racial justice and the opportunities opened up by the great civil rights movement...By 2004 federal data showed that black Americans---13 per cent of the population---accounted for 37 per cent of the violent crimes, 54 per cent of arrests for robbery, and 51 per cent of murders. Most of the victims of these violent criminals were their fellow black people....Oddly, the increase in the black prison population begins around the time of the 1954 Brown decision.

At the start of the 1950s, 65 per cent of all state and federal prisoners were white and 35 per cent were black. At that mid century point , poverty, bad housing, racist cops, legal discrimination, and high unemployment all were cited as the reasons that the percentage of black people in prison was more than triple the percentage of black people in the nation. By the end of the century the percentage of white prisoners had declined to 35 per cent, while the black inmate population approached 50 per cent. Something terrible had happened."

If the "My Brother's Keeper" initiative seeks to examine the real dynamics at work in the problems faced by young people in minority communities, all of us will be the beneficiaries. If it simply recites the clichés of the past, it will not move us forward. All Americans have an interest in promoting the upward mobility of all our citizens. But a proper diagnosis of the problems we face is essential if we are to succeed.

Salem-News.com contributor Allan C. Brownfeld received his B.A. degree from the College of William and Mary, his J.D. degree from the Marshall-Wythe School of Law of the College of William and Mary and his M.A. in Government and Politics from the University of Maryland. He has served on the faculties of St. Stephen's Episcopal School, Alexandria, Virginia, and the University College of the University of Maryland.

The recipient of a Wall Street Journal Foundation Award, Mr. Brownfeld has written for such newspapers as THE HOUSTON PRESS, THE RICHMOND TIMES DISPATCH, THE WASHINGTON EVENING STAR and THE CINCINNATI ENQUIRER. For many years he wrote three columns a week for such newspapers as THE PHOENIX GAZETTE, THE MANCHESTER UNION LEADER, and THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER. His weekly column appeared for more than a decade in ROLL CALL, the newspaper of Capitol Hill. His articles have appeared in such journals as THE YALE REVIEW, THE TEXAS QUARTERLY, THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW, ORBIS and MODERN AGE.

Mr. Brownfeld served as a member of the staff of the U.S. Senate Internal Security Subcommittee and was the author of that committee's 250-page study of the New Left. He has also served as Assistant to the Research Director of the House Republican Conference and as a consultant to such members of Congress as Reps. Phil Crane (R-Il) and Jack Kemp (R-NY) and to the Vice President of the United States.

He is a former editor of THE NEW GUARD and PRIVATE PRACTICE, the journal of the Congress of County Medical Societies and has served as a Contributing Editor AMERICA'S FUTURE and HUMAN EVENTS. He served as Washington correspondent for the London-based publications, JANE'S ISLAMIC AFFAIRS ANALYST and JANE'S TERRORISM REPORT. His articles regularly appear in newspapers and magazines in England, South Africa, Sweden, the Netherlands and other countries. You can write to Allan at abrownfeld@gmail.com