Holding on to Black males

7th November 2011   ·   0 Comments

By Andre M. Perry
Contributing Columnist

Bang! Bang! Bang! Halloween night in New Orleans saw fifteen people shot of whom two men were killed in five separate shootings in the city’s historic and populated French Quarter. The ages of those involved pop off the page — 16, 19, 25, 24 — and we’re left asking the same questions: How does a child become a murderer? How does a school system lose track of its students? Why can’t the police get violent crime under control?

In the past we’ve labeled youth in a ways to describe those in peril. “At-risk” and “endangered” have become synonymous with Black male. The Mayor’s Save Our Sons initiative also identifies the black male the object or focus of the problem. I understand and appreciate the sentiment, but there is something very impractical with singling out Black men as a means to solving a problem. By the time a young person as been ascribed the label, he or she is by definition disconnected, lost or engaged in negative activity. The goal should always be to prevent incidents like the Halloween shootings – not deal with the aftermath.

In addition, the clear and ever present consequences of system failure suggest that the labels are misplaced. Whenever, I hear that school aged children (15-24) are involved in violent crimes, I ask ‘didn’t that person belong in school or college?’ Did the parents know his or her whereabouts? Shouldn’t he be working or interning?

The individuals who perpetrate these crimes are too young not to belong to an organization or association.

From this perspective, institu­tions’ inability to hold on to our youth reaps deadly results.

Schools, recreation departments and employers must be rewarded and penalized on the basics – keeping students in the building. Let’s call this “holding power.”

In particular, if schools and other institutions where youth belong exhibit low holding power over time, then those institutions should be labeled as wayward, at-risk and disconnected. We’ve been labeling kids to no avail.

This amounts to blaming. Schools in particular must excel at the basic functions of enrollment and attendance if youth are to ultimately feel like they count.

Bang! Bang! Bang! It’s time to start asking where young shooters last attended school. Did his father or mother take them to church? When was his last soccer match? As a parent and educator, there is not a minute of the day where as I should not know my son’s whereabouts. I would not suggest that we levy fines on parents, churches, schools or employers, but they should be the focus of our labeling. We should have a means to measure their holding power.

We have colleges and universities whose holding power is abysmally low. Public schools show high suspension and expulsion rates, which may help the school community but certainly doesn’t help the city. School reform without truancy prevention misses the mark. Parochial schools must also be accountable for holding on to our children. There should not be a school or business without a significant number of Black males. Every young person should have a home, school, place of worship, summer educational or work experience, etc. Instead, of viewing Black males as problems, let’s examine institutions that create social gaps.

It’s a sad reality that a culture of violence can rear and capture the attention of young men more effectively than our families, schools, churches and business. Structural gaps in our most important institutions release boys to a critical mass of others who are teaching lessons violence.

Instead of labeling and further marginalizing young people, we can start to measure and reward institutions’ holding power. There are community-based organizations that are filling the gaps and holding on to males. The Urban League of Greater New Orleans, Youth Empo­werment Project, Children’s Defense Fund, Kingsley House, Café Reconcile, Liberty’s Kitchen, Puentes, The Re­thinkers, Total Community Action, Cove­nant House, Family Service of Greater New Orleans and others are invested into holding the youth that our mainstream institutions have not.

Bang! Bang! Bang! Shootings and labels will steal our attention from preventing the institutions from increasing their holding power and closing the gaps that led to violent crime and social decay. New Orleans needs to be a city where everyone belongs and we hold each other responsible for our collective belonging.

This article was originally published in the November 7, 2011 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper