A Call For Changing Perpetual Education Crisis in Black America

                





Urban Aspirations Progeny Series 2013

Fifteen years ago, I attended the “Black Education Crisis Symposium" on the Howard University Campus. The NAACP sanctioned discourse from varying perspectives would be no different than its countless forum predecessors.  A certified panel of experts reiterated the typical alarming statistics often held to be "prophetic" in the "more likely" doom/gloom terms. Hence, there was the tacit expectation of academic, societal and moral failure for black males in in the United States.   In 2012, there is still the urban academic crisis--still the institutionalized data sets, tables and appendices. It is a perpetual "crisis" that has refused to find solace in Brown v. Board of Education [1954/55] or a hiding space from media coverage in urban districts across the United States.

             Brown was legal precedent that opened mainstream public schoolhouse doors to African-American males locked out from algebraic calculations or scientific formulas. However, Brown has never been equipped to remove the dead bolt from discriminating minds that have been shut airtight with decades of "prophetic" doom/gloom statistics.  Neither has Brown appeased dataset figures adding up to boiler plate social crisis but minus responsive deployment of national strategic initiatives into urban war zones.   Major published findings identifying "war zones"  have included, Black Male Crisis in the Classroom—A Qualitative Study [1995] along with The State of Black America—Portrait of the Black Male [2007]. This round table discussion material has been augmented with A Call For Change: The Social and Educational Factors Contributing to the Outcomes of Black Males in Urban Schools. [2011].

         Over the years there have been volumes of "Black Male Reports.” There have been thousands of graphs, bars, and charts forecasting fetal drug addiction, preschool ADHD or elementary school special education. Awaiting elementary level rites of passage are junior high school delinquency/violence, high school drop-out status, unemployment and prison.  In the bleak alternative is felony death before undergraduate program admission into campus buildings with only 4% capacity for African- American males.    Ironically, there is not a data set for the number of African-American males who have fallen psychological prey to these dismal statistical forecasts or the media images into which the “hard” scholarly data is reformatted for mass visual consumption.  


         There is no commissioned spreadsheet with numeric prevalence of the remark "I feel like flushing myself down the toilet"-- the sentiments of a Black male living in the District of Columbia. On the other hand, there is copious documentation on the traumatic incidents of Black males subjected to heightened disciplinary actions in the educational milieu.  Below is "Method" excerpt from American Psychological Society [APS].  APS “findings”  suggested that  Black males in daycare,  ranging from ages “35 to 74 months,” were “more likely” to require disciplinary actions due to the “high risk” of developing “disruptive behavior problems.”


   



  "HEAD START" TO PRISON FOR AFRICAN-AMERICAN MALES" STATISTICS IN EXPRESS.

           Naturally, 3 year old Black males in the United States are clueless about "method", equations, variables, and percentages that are far less important than animal crackers.   However,  media visual translations are likely to have trespassed into households, forcing psychological consumption on a regular basis.   For instance, on June 10, 2011, The Washington Post “Express” published a group photograph of adorable African-American children wearing “prison orange” uniform shirts in pre-K classroom.   On the cover of June 10 issue of Express, was equally adorable Caucasian boy wearing a different color shirt—or polo sport “street clothes.”  This cute, White boy was standing in front of a black board.    Career titles reflecting college level educational opportunity were written on the blackboard.  This photo coded visual message suggested that postsecondary educational opportunity was for White males only.    June 10 article outlined for hostile presses was about the benefits of preschool but its photo coded visual typeset was about Black males only having the capability for a "Head Start" to the prison system--after a violent stint in middle our high school without ASPIRATIONS.   
 

California State Prison System PHOTOGRAPH INSERTED 2012 



                                    

48% of "At-Risk" preschoolers "arrested in adulthood" Versus 54% of "At-Risk" population without preschool enrollment.  Express, June 10, 2011, P.11  

1903  Black Juvenile Delinquency Script  

Southern Poverty Law Center analyzed federal data on 9,220 public middle schools, finding that Black boys were three times more likely to be suspended from school than Caucasians.   Over 20-year period ending in 2006, the suspension and expulsion rates almost doubled for African-Americans to 7%. In 2012, the suspension and expulsion rates for Blacks have reached 15%. In high school harsh disciplinary action is reportedly "out of control..."creating drop-outs" or juvenile delinquents for 35 - 45 suspension days out of the school calendar year. African-American students have been particularly vulnerable to urban public school adoption of the justice system "three strikes out" policy for Tardy Hall infractions that are being treated like felony offenses. [Suspended Education: Urban Middle Schools in Crisis] Regardless if the data is TEXT or TV, there is the impact of social compliance with a "script" for Black Male existence within pre-set boundaries. This has resulted in malignant frustration throughout society, often manifested in self-destruction or delinquency that has been under world scrutiny for hundreds of years.

Above is clipping from January 30, 1909 article in  British newspaper, The Daily Graphic.    Deprived of  nursery rhymes or alphabet puzzles, these Black males were allegedly smoking "stolen tea" which mockingly had adverse or fatal side effects on these small inhalers.    There were no editorial buffers for underlying racist theory that "nigger boys"-- were natural  criminals  destined for  life without Disney's Little Einstein DVD's.    Below is a photograph of rapper PAROLE models used in the marketing of a pattern of felony count "disruptive behavior" that continues to supply over populated cell blocks without concern for under populated college dormitories.        



2011 Hip Hop "Cash Kings" Earned $271 Million Cut



          A data fueled media under the influence of commercial profit has trademarked its composite ‘drawing’ of the Black male.   Its drawing has run concurrent with the perpetual educational crisis.   The  Heinz Foundation commissioned  analysis project involving media coverage of 15 predominately African-American residential locations in 2011.   The audit findings resulted in the report, Portrayal and Perception – Two Audits of News Media Reporting on African-American Men and Boys.  It was not necessary for the scientific investigators to reach back into 1931 for media coverage of the Scottsboro Nine. There was no need to focus on the 1931 gang rape trial to find discriminatory selection of facts in this case involving illiterate African-American males with less than 6 grade levels of segregated public education. The Scottsborro Nine would be neither the first nor the last African-African males without access to Scholastic Assessment (SAT) Supreme Court Judicial Review or mass media political endorsement.

 



Quadruple Platinum Sales [1995] 

               In 2011 Heinz audit of the media, 86% of African-American male coverage was crime related.  Meanwhile, of 2 225 “front-page” articles, only a marginal 198 were related to Black males (8.9%).   According to the media Black males are just too busy committing crimes to go to college; too marginal in that educational crisis to find undergraduate admissions offices.  Ivy League journalism has been substantiated with reams of “Black Male” crisis data to defend against NAACP temper tantrums over facts reported. Less conscientious media outlets have just relied on CD backup from murdered rapper Notorious B.I.G. “Ready to Die"--without high school diploma (much less a college degree) left its Platinum finger prints on millions of young African-American males.  Life imitating life imagined in facts reshaped into a different media spun reality.  This distorted reality has often contributed to the undermining  of efforts toward harmonious equality in society.  It has often negated the progressive ideal of global division only taking place in the math books of a broad racial spectrum of children, including African-Americans.

             But even with the manipulation of distorted reality, there are legitimate educational deficits imperiling Black males in America.   The solution to that educational crisis obviously has not been decades of academic symposiums flaunting experts also equipped with those reams of urban statistics. Neither has the solution been derived from boycotting “insensitive” media cameras. Moreover it will take efforts far beyond complementary pen or autographed golf ball from President Barack Obama to effect “Change.” Black Male Crisis Reports have pointed to a rigorous national agenda responsive to a problem far more complex than reading, writing, and arithmetic.

 



Studying To Make High Score





"Any White House launched national initiative should itself get the "Head Start" on the inclusion of social public relations to balance negative media drawn caricatures with positive visual campaigns."

 



 Down With A  Real "STOOPid Attitude

          Any White House launched national initiative should itself get the "Head Start" on inclusion of social public relations to balance negative media drawn caricatures with positive visual campaigns. There should be broad distribution of affirming visual materials that will support the worth of African-American males while reinforcing the value of academic goals.  A mobile task force should be dispatched into urban “hoods” for the onsite focus that crisis intervention merits. A national agenda should have a zero tolerance level for contentment with the never dying legacy of Brown v. Board of Education (1954). Finally, this unsettling contentment is threatening to similarly immortalize the academic disparity in Black America, leaving 47% of African-American males without high school diplomas; 96% without undergraduate degrees—and unknown percentage just determined to die without crucial job qualifications having served a "life sentence" of socially programmed existence with never ending scholastic deficits.

 

                                                                        

Table 1, 2010 Schott Foundation 50 State Report



98% Graduation Rates for African-American Males in Maine. 93% Graduation Rate for African-American Males in North Dakota.

          RECOMMENDED FOR FURTHER READING, INVESTIGATION OR CONTACT

                                                          



Portrayal/Perception (2011)
Meyer Communications, LLC

                                        

A Call For Change (2011)
Council of the Great City Schools



Graduating Black Males(2010)
Dr. Edward Earl Bell