Young Black Males

WASHINGTON -- At a three-day conference here, a cross section of black America's leadership worked through its second day yesterday of dealing with what it regards as a national crisis: the deteriorating state of young black American men -- an "endangered species," as they have been called.At the same time, the leaders have been issuing alerts and warnings against the use of their discussions of the problems of young black males as justification for racially biased, "knee-jerk" stereotypes of all black American men.Before the group, the 21st Century Commission on African-American Males, began its discussions Tuesday, the commission's designated "resident scholar," Douglas Glasgow, a former vice president of the National Urban League, warned that "a literal battery of myth stereotypes have replaced reality about the African American male."

Walker Gladden III, a youth coordinator in East Baltimore, is on a mission to have the city's astronomic murder rate declared a public health epidemic, particularly as it affects young African-American men between the ages of 14 and 24, the primary homicide victims. Mr. Gladden thinks the epidemic label would help bring more resources, and renewed attention, to Baltimore. He's surely right that more financial resources, spent wisely, could help stem the tide of violence that has overwhelmed too many Baltimore neighborhoods.

Walker Gladden III, a youth coordinator in East Baltimore, is on a mission to have the city's astronomic murder rate declared a public health epidemic, particularly as it affects young African-American men between the ages of 14 and 24, the primary homicide victims. Mr. Gladden thinks the epidemic label would help bring more resources, and renewed attention, to Baltimore. He's surely right that more financial resources, spent wisely, could help stem the tide of violence that has overwhelmed too many Baltimore neighborhoods.

Black doctors have a special responsibility to speak out against the "culture of violence" and anti-intellectualism in America that encourages failure in young black men, a prominent physician told a conference of medical students yesterday. "You all are on the pathway to becoming dominant people, and you can change the culture," Dr. Edward E. Cornwell III, chief of adult trauma at Johns Hopkins Hospital, told an audience of about 150 minority medical students at the school of medicine.

"Beating the Odds: Raising Academically Successful African American Males," by Freeman A. Hrabowski III, Kenneth I. Maton and Geoffrey L. Greif. Oxford University Press. 236 pages. $24."The significance of this book," the authors write in the first chapter, "is its assertion, to the surprise of many, that thousands of young black males are succeeding." Indeed they are, in spite of those dreadful statistics about young black men that so often inundate us.One out of every three young black males is either in jail, on parole or on probation.

In a candid and revealing moment, Stanley "Tookie" Williams told a visitor at San Quentin State Prison in California that he helped found the notorious Crips street gang because he wanted to smash everyone, make a rep and get respect and dignity, and that he wanted his name to be known everywhere. He got his wish in more ways than he ever dreamed of. The demons that drove Mr. Williams in his reckless push for identity and prominence also drove him to become the nation's best-known condemned prisoner.

TCMickey, Go HomeIncredible! First comes the welcome news that the Disney Corporation had dropped its plans for a theme park near historic Manassas.Hardly had this story jumped off the press when Gov. William Donald Schaefer and his economic guru Mark Wasserman rushed forward to allow as how Maryland would be an adequate replacement for the failed Virginia attempt.Their views have to be both short-sighted and ill-conceived. Space needed for the park itself would, as noted, come to about five square miles.

Reopen shuttered rec centers. Put a stop to drug trafficking. Increase job opportunities. Break the cycle of welfare dependency.The ideas on how Baltimore can better serve its inner-city residents may not have been startlingly new, but they represented the street-level wisdom of young black males -- a group that's seldom heard or heeded.More than 300 black teen-agers and young men turned out yesterday for the "Minority Male Charette," a two-day, minority male forum that resumes today at the Urban League headquarters at 512 Orchard St. in West Baltimore.

WASHINGTON -- In an emotional homecoming to his old high school in the South Bronx last month, Gen. Colin L. Powell urged the students there to stay away from drugs and stay in school."

The homicide rate among black men from the ages of 15 to 24 rose by two-thirds in the five years through 1988 and now approaches the casualty rate of a war, the federal Centers for Disease Control reports.In the latest evidence of a continuing increase in violence among young blacks, Dr. Robert Froehlke, the principal author of the report, said yesterday more than 95 percent of the increase grew out of a rise in the rate at which these young men were being killed by guns."In some areas of the country, it is now more likely for a black male between his 15th and 25th birthday to die from homicide than it was for a United States soldier to be killed on a tour of duty in Vietnam," he said.

In a candid and revealing moment, Stanley "Tookie" Williams told a visitor at San Quentin State Prison in California that he helped found the notorious Crips street gang because he wanted to smash everyone, make a rep and get respect and dignity, and that he wanted his name to be known everywhere. He got his wish in more ways than he ever dreamed of. The demons that drove Mr. Williams in his reckless push for identity and prominence also drove him to become the nation's best-known condemned prisoner.

ANOTHER Washington think tank is raising alarm about the low number of young black males who hold jobs. Barely more than half of young black men with no more than a high school diploma held a job in 1999, compared with about two-thirds 20 years earlier, according to a report put out this month by the liberal, Washington-based Center for Law and Social Policy. "Boom Times A Bust: Declining Employment Among Less Educated Young Men" shows that the employment rate for young black men was far worse than that for whites and Hispanics with similar minimal education.

THE ESTIMABLE ACTOR, director and ex-con Charles S. "Roc" Dutton offers a grim -- yet not inevitable -- view of the future. In a recent interview with The Sun, Mr. Dutton, who directed the powerful HBO mini-series "The Corner," said: "The prison is being planned for the 17-year-old black kid who's not even born yet. There's a cell being planned for him. That's an industry now." Probably true. Maryland, for example, is completing a maximum security wing in Cumberland. It's a 512-bed fortress to house many of the state's most violent offenders -- a frightening number of whom are currently in inadequate dormitories at the state's 7,000-bed Jessup complex.

"Beating the Odds: Raising Academically Successful African American Males," by Freeman A. Hrabowski III, Kenneth I. Maton and Geoffrey L. Greif. Oxford University Press. 236 pages. $24."The significance of this book," the authors write in the first chapter, "is its assertion, to the surprise of many, that thousands of young black males are succeeding." Indeed they are, in spite of those dreadful statistics about young black men that so often inundate us.One out of every three young black males is either in jail, on parole or on probation.

Marilyn Clark is 67, white and lives in what she considers a safe part of the city. She is also, by her own admission, a rational discriminator."Do I [grab my purse when confronted by a group of young black men]?" she asked in a letter. "You bet!" But Clark may be what I might call a rational rational discriminator. She continued."Do I do this when confronted with a group of young white men? You bet! Mr. Kane, the operative word here is YOUNG! Not white -- not black -- YOUNG! Do I discriminate?

WASHINGTON -- At times, it felt like some village filling agreat African plain with the ritual sounds of ancient celebration. The drums talking in deep, resonant tones, a flute floating high above like a great bird, men chanting in time to the pulse beat of the drum.At times, it felt like a revival meeting under a tent on a street corner in a bad neighborhood. Voices rising like tides, cadences flowing like rivers, the preachers calling and the people responding, shouting themselves hoarse, shouting salvation, their fists punching into a hard autumn sky.At times, it felt like a shaky bipartisan deal, a political truce as fragile as a Bosnian cease-fire.

Dr. Walter Amprey apologizes for running a little late, but things are getting crazy in his schools once again.This time, it's the clubbing of a student at William H. Lemmel Middle School.Later in the day, it'll be an attack on a teacher at Booker T. Washington Middle School.A week ago, it was a fight that hospitalized a kid at Lombard Middle School.And 13 students hurt in a stampede at Herring Run Middle School.And a day of disruption that cost a principal her job at Hampstead Hill Middle School.

Carter case stigmatizes all black malesFor the last month you have focused on Dontay Carter and the inconvenience this young black male has caused the public, the courts, the state guards, the governor and white America.I am not making excuses for the Dontay Carters of the world, nor am I advocating on his behalf. I am speaking of all the other young black males who want desperately to have a chance at the American dream without the label of being a "Dontay Carter."I am a young black female who is concerned about the constant emphasis on crime that causes people to subconciously fear all young black males.

WASHINGTON -- Some critics argue that Nation of Islam Minister Louis Farrakhan's planned ''Million Man March'' is a sign that black Americans are too race-conscious, even ''reverse racist.'' I would argue that it is a sign of quite the opposite, that black Americans have not been race-conscious enough to help our least fortunate brethren become more productive.The idea behind the march is a good one. It's just too bad the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People didn't come up with the idea first.

TCMickey, Go HomeIncredible! First comes the welcome news that the Disney Corporation had dropped its plans for a theme park near historic Manassas.Hardly had this story jumped off the press when Gov. William Donald Schaefer and his economic guru Mark Wasserman rushed forward to allow as how Maryland would be an adequate replacement for the failed Virginia attempt.Their views have to be both short-sighted and ill-conceived. Space needed for the park itself would, as noted, come to about five square miles.