The Mis-Educated Young Black Male

       As an educator I am privy to observe several areas of education, from the implementation of certain curriculum designs to the actually execution and results of those designs.  One thing that remains constant in my time as an educator is the decline of black males wanting to advance beyond high school, if they accomplish that. It is are deeply embedded and thus difficult to remove the rationale some of the young black males have on life and how they will survive it as they get older. The basic things I hear range from being an athlete to being something in entertainment, I have even heard of some wanting to start their own business (and that is where the conversation stops).  The disservice comes in the form of not telling these young men that they have to take certain steps beyond running fast, making a good rap from memory, and just saying you want a “business”, we have to help them go beyond the juvenile thinking and not help flourish such notions of fantasy without accurate and precise plans of action attached to the back of them. I recall a book a read several years ago called The Mis-Education of the Negro. It is a book originally published in 1933 by Dr. Carter G. Woodson which hit a lot of points we still see today. If you control a person’s thinking you will not have to worry about them being a threat at all, if you tell them this is all they can and will be, then sooner or later they will have the programming to do whatever direction you point them in.  To me this is sad, as parents and people that claim to want to see these young black men progress further that their current station we need to help them by not sugar-coating everything we tell them or become content when they fine a remedial job and waste their talents for years. We need to take education and the concept of role modeling back to the point where we expected nothing but excellence in their academics and career choices.

 

        I usually have my students make fun of me for wearing suits, I also have colleagues that ask me why do I wear suits in the school environment, and for me it is very simple, if I want change I must be that agent of change and make the first steps, no matter how small, towards making an impression on our youth. When it is all said and done we are professionals in education and should carry ourselves as such and be the role models for the one who need it the most.  I enjoy being an educated, proper speaking, well dressed, and driven black male, there is nothing wrong with that.  I do not promote ignorance of stupidity, I cannot and will not tolerate it, and I just cannot. Even though I have heard several times in my life from teenagers as well as adults that it seems I want to engross myself into “white” culture, this is not the case but sad and disrespectful to me and other black males in my position.  It is not about talking “black” or being a certain way that will make others believe I am a black male, I WAS BORN A BLACK MALE! The education, the use of dictation, and the characteristics that make up me are just supplemental and to hear such nonsense from other black individuals really bothers me to a point.  Some may say I am taking this a bit over the top or whatever the case, but I am not, we need to make better decisions beyond watching reality television that promotes the negative aspects of our culture for ratings.  I remember seeing The Cobsy Show and A Different World, shows that showed the positive side of the black experience, but today you hear people say, “That is not real life.” Well I beg to differ, that can be real life because it is based off of real life experiences just like shows that depict drug dealers, gangsters, athletes, and convicts, it is just not glamorous enough.

       The U.S. Department of Education states that the national college graduation rate for black men is 33.1 percent compared with 44.8 percent for black women, with the total graduation rate at 57.3 percent for all students across the country, which begs the question why is that?  The reasoning is quite simple we allow our young black males to become programmed that getting a basic job is all they will need to do and they will be fine.  You will see more parents reward a black male student clothes, shoes, video games, and money just to show they are a cool parent or on some level boost the ego of the young black male because they are not doing well in school and are becoming behavior problems in class. Instead of rewarding them for bad behavior we need to instead train them for positive behavior, they are a reflection of us so they should reflect good things, not things that involve looking like the hardest person to walk around. I never can understand why some parents will allow their teenager to get tattoos across their necks, arms, and etc, but when it comes down to talking about them doing better academically and behavior wise they will blame the school system for not doing their job. The job starts at home! If you want a young black male to have the best education or opportunities for advancement in life, regulate how they carry themselves in public, help them to understand the academics and help them to be the young, educated, driven black males they were destined to be, the time for correctly educating black males is right now it is needed.  Feel free to leave comments or remarks.