Role Models

If anyone has ever wondered why the Ravens are universally recognized as a first-class organization, let me share a recent game-day experience . Sure, it was a frenzied crowd and a dramatic finish, but I am referring to the unforgettable day that the Ravens and M&T Bank provided the scholars of Boys Hope Girls Hope of Baltimore. The team recognized BHGH Baltimore's service to the community with tickets to the Cowboys game, field passes prior to the game, T-shirts, thunder sticks and a stadium announcement (complete with appearance on the big screen)

The relationship between some members of the Baltimore Ravens and the community runs deeper than just on-field victories. And Friday, the USA cable channel features one of the those players, linebacker Jameel McClain, in a film about the way he reached out to a homeless boy in our city. "NFL Characters Unite," an hour-long documentary of professional football players sharing stories of obstacles they have overcome, features Justin Tuck (New York Giants), Troy Polamalu (Pittsburgh Steelers)

Back in the embattled 1970s, Americans were deluged by demands for ''relevant theater,'' ''relevant education,'' ''relevant music,'' even ''relevant welfare.'' We didn't wake up until confronted with ''relevant diets.''Now, ''relevant'' is mocked out of usage. Like most language jTC victories, however, the triumph was short-lived. Instead of ''relevant,'' we have ''suitable role model.''What America's young need, we are incessantly told, are ''suitable role models.'' We may have produced a generation lacking literacy, skill, even a sense of style.

President Barack Obama has several stated ambitions for his presidency. He wants it to be "transformative. " He wants to unite Americans of all parties. He wants to build an economy from the middle class out (whatever that means), and he wants to help what you might call the domestic refugees of America's economic transformation. Given the principled disagreements dividing left and right in America, it's hard to see how he can accomplish these goals when it comes to conventional economic policy.

Despite the hopes of some observers, ''Boyz N the Hood'' was bypassed at the Oscars. ''Silence of the Lambs'' swept up the gold. It had already swept a lot more at the box office, which brings up a question:Where were all those folks who beat up on Spike Lee, Warrington Hudlin and Mario Van Peebles over the violence and abusive relationships in their movies when young black Americans were lining up to see ''Silence''?Anthony Hopkins created a surpassingly evil Hannibal Lecter, and he justly won Best Actor.

Has it been noted anywhere that Judge Robert M. Bell now sits on the same court that once upheld his conviction? There hardly seems the chance that such irony was pointed out, in that Judge Bell's ascent to the Maryland Court of Appeals went by with scant media coverage. The politics of his appointment might have been well-documented, but his actual oath-taking was barely noted, and therein lies a story.Bell, a highly regarded black jurist, took the seat that had been occupied since the 1970s by Harry A. Cole, the first black appointed to the state's highest court.

Robert Eades wants young area blacks to look at his calendar each day and see that they can be successful without being basketball star Michael Jordan.It is a lesson Mr. Eades, a former drug dealer, had to learn himself."I looked in the mirror one day and said, 'I'm going to make changes in this world and in my community, but first I'm going to make a change within myself and believe in myself,' " said Mr. Eades, who has served time in jail.Now he is selling about 1,000 of his calendars to help raise money for two area youth groups.

The other day I got a call from a high school teacher. Would I come to her class? ''It would be so important for our brown and black students to see you. They need good role models. They need to know that they, too, can become journalists,'' she said.I do not like the idea of role models. Listen to the term -- how middle class it is, how flat in human understanding. Role. Model. The term reduces the influence adults might have on children to something occupational, a mere role, like an actor's mask.

"I sure hope Timothy doesn't come to school today." It was when that thought came to mind, says Frederica S. Wilson, surveying the faces at the conference table in the Miami-Dade County public schools headquarters, that she knew she had a problem. After all, she was a school principal, a black woman. And Timothy was a student, a black boy. But Timothy was also a terror, and as she drove to school, she found herself hoping he wouldn't be there. The thought shocked her. If she dreaded Timothy, she says, how must her Hispanic and white teachers have felt about him?

LOCALLY AND nationally, the past couple of weeks haven't been great for African-American men in the limelight.On the home front, former Dunbar football and basketball coach Pete Pompey, according to a report obtained from the State's Attorney's office, took some $51,000 raised by Dunbar's concession-stand sales at Orioles games and deposited the money into an unauthorized account. But the state's attorney decided there wasn't enough evidence to prosecute.Nationally, the NAACP ousted its executive director, the Rev. Benjamin Chavis, for not informing the board or counsel about an agreement to pay a temporary employee up to $332,400 in NAACP funds to settle sexual harassment and sex discrimination allegations.

Bob Nobles III plans to be a Santa's helper this year. He will distribute toys and other gifts to young people who come to the Kennedy Krieger Institute's upcoming Festival of Trees. But it won't be the first time that the New Windsor teenager has put a smile on someone else's face. Nobles, a junior at Baltimore's Kennedy Krieger High School, was chosen as the 2012 ambassador for the holiday gala known as Festival of Trees. Nobles, who has Asperger's Syndrome, is used to public appearances.

If anyone has ever wondered why the Ravens are universally recognized as a first-class organization, let me share a recent game-day experience . Sure, it was a frenzied crowd and a dramatic finish, but I am referring to the unforgettable day that the Ravens and M&T Bank provided the scholars of Boys Hope Girls Hope of Baltimore. The team recognized BHGH Baltimore's service to the community with tickets to the Cowboys game, field passes prior to the game, T-shirts, thunder sticks and a stadium announcement (complete with appearance on the big screen)

The most productive running back in Ravens history is slated to be in purple and black for a long, long time. The Ravens will induct running back Jamal Lewis, the leading rusher in franchise history, into their Ring of Honor before their Week 4 game this season. The induction will take place before the Ravens host the rival Cleveland Browns on Thursday, Sept. 27 -- a primetime game on NFL Network -- at M&T Bank Stadium. “To go into the Ring of Honor, it just shows that I'll always be a Raven,” Lewis said Tuesday afternoon.

Fairly or not, elite U.S. swimmers seem to spring from largely white, suburban pools of the country, which makes Lia Neal stand out. Hailing from Brooklyn's Flatbush neighborhood, the 17-year-old Neal made the Olympic team Saturday night after coming in fourth in the 100-meter freestyle, winning a spot on the relay team that will compete in London. Neal, whose father is African-American and mother is Chinese, has been mentored by the likes of Michael Phelps and Allison Schmitt, who have traveled with rising young swimmers as they gain experience competing in Moscow, Berlin and Stockholm.

Mildred Attman, who was a co-founder with her husband of the Acme Paper & Supply Co. and later became a homemaker, died Thursday of heart failure at Sinai Hospital. The longtime Pikesville resident was 88. The daughter of a successful businessman and a homemaker, Mildred Cohen was born and raised in Essex, where her father owned a grocery store, bowling alley and the New Essex Theater. Her family lived above the theater. "Mom reminisced wistfully about falling to sleep as she could hear the music from the golden age of cinema below her," a son, Gary L. Attman of Pikesville, said in a eulogy for his mother.

Ahmaad Simmons and Jamar Peete may not have known it at the time, but they had a lot in common. Both grew up in Baltimore and had dreamed of playing football at the college level. Both were natural athletes who were handed lacrosse sticks early in high school because of their God-given ability. A few years into their lacrosse careers, both had the idea of popularizing the sport among inner city youth. But the cross-town high school rivals, Simmons of Baltimore City College and Peete of Walbrook, never got along.

CHICAGO -- If you pay much attention to the presidential campaign (and these days our numbers seem to me to be remarkably few), you will hear a lot of talk about who is setting the best example for young people.President Clinton's scandal with Monica Lewinsky was a particularly strong issue with Republicans. Some viewed with alarm a front-page Washington Post story last spring about an apparent upsurge in oral sex among students at a local middle school. It quoted one eighth-grade girl as excusing her act with, "President Clinton does it."

Sometimes the fights start on weekends. Students from different communities challenge one another with an attitude of "they think they're better than we are."But come Monday, the aftermath of the tension becomes Principal Laura Webb's problem at Annapolis High School."We're trying to bridge the gap between community and school," Mrs. Webb said. "For the first time, we're trying to get black men involved with the black male students at the school as role models. We're starting out with visibility, having black males come to the school as role models, and then we're going to try to make leaders out of the students."

Thank you to Susan Reimer for writing about the president's re-election campaign's fictional "Julia" ("Obama may wish he didn't know 'Julia,'" May 14). Ms. Reimer often writes about her own husband and while I don't know him, I get the impression that he gets up every morning working to pay the mortgage, go on vacation and have some money left over for family parties, maybe even some for himself. Ms. Reimer writes as a working mother who also spends a lot of energy on volunteer efforts.

There was a time, years ago, when Ravens running back Anthony Allen and his father, Amos, had a regular ritual. They'd close up the martial arts studio where Amos was an instructor, and they'd head to Winn Dixie. The Winn Dixies in Tampa, Fla., where Anthony Allen was raised, had a deal. The supermarket chain would sell customers their left over chicken for half price, but only if you showed up 30 minutes before closing. Anthony Allen would wait in the car, and his father - a single parent working two jobs - would buy as much food as they could afford.