Weighing in on The previous posted Articles on Black Men

Do I believe that the difficulties affecting black men are due to their desire to chase pussy, smoke pot and listen to explicit lyrics? HELL NO!

Do I believe that the massive difficulties affecting black men is due to bad parenting and lackluster mothering? No!

Have I found an explanation in the several articles that I've read to explain the plight of black men? No!

I however as a sociology minor in college did come across a theory in college as taught to me by a Professor Hodges formerly a professor at Georgia State University and University of Georgia and the last time I heard a professor at Morehouse College. The name of the theory was anomie - a sociological term for learned helplessness.

While I will attempt to write intelligently about this issue I will state that I am only taking the concept of anomie from Dr. Hodge and attempting to expand upon it in my own way which if you've read this blog for any period of time you know that at times no one would want to be associated with my thought or rants.

Furthermore along with the term of anomie I once did a psychology paper on two terms external locus of control - the belief that we are acted upon by external forces and have no control over our lives and internal locus of control the belief that we control our fate and destiny by our own efforts and belief. These terms serve to provide an inordinate amount of light upon the plight of Black men as well as Black America. I would like to assert that the practice or beliefs that reflect external locus of control lead to learned helplessness and the beliefs of internal locus of control lead to self actualization.

The first major influence on black males and their development is societal attitudes towards black men, black people, and their mothers. Beginning with the articles posted on black men today to the comments by Bill Cosby about poor people the very act of speaking statistics and defining and redefining the issue of black people is solely enough to inhibit the growth and development of black boys. This problem has been defined since the 1960's that there were problems in black households and with the development of our men. There is no need or reason to keep redefining the problem. The very act of making solely black men and boys a topic of discourse is enough to make "sensitive", "intelligent" males question their very existences as well as their significance in society.

The second major influence that affects black males is that some of these people holding these negative attitudes, "the belief that black men and people are lazy, that the women are bad mothers etc. Are the very same ones charged with 1. Creating educational and social policies for them 2. Educating them - actually teaching them etc. The bottom line is that people who honestly believe that children can not learn because they are poor, honestly believe that children do have bad parents, and may reluctantly believe that black males are innately inferior are not going to get a positive return and are only going to create self fulfilling prophecies . The very act of surrounding children with people going through the motions of teaching or making policy for them with no belief that they are innately intelligent and capable can only create children that do not believe that they can make it, do not see a way out, and lack a total faith in their own abilities that only an act of God can overcome. The above actions and attitudes eventually create men who suffer from anomie and have an external locus of control.

From early learning and early attitudes black boys may pick up that they are worthless this in turn leads to emerging men who band together and teach each other what they can excel in or what they do excel in and that is as one article I posted suggested chasing women and engaging in hanging out. Before even discussing this I would like to say that I think that when and if this behavior occurs this is after black boys have given up hope that there is nothing else that they can do. It is when external forces have hammered into them that they are useless and worthless.

I would also like to add that black boys and men maybe one of the most sexually exploited groups in the United States. Most people would not deny that they image of the black mandingo still is around in our society. Black men are not just desired by black women but by men and women of all races. I can never forget the many men that I've met who fit the stereotypical images of mandingos six feet and over very good looking but so exploited for their sexuality that they believed that their sexuality was their way out. Below I would like to expound on individuals that I've known personally:

R - intelligent better looking then Denzel, claimed to had dropped out of school in tenth grade, a drummer, I met him when I was 18, one of the comments that I will never forget is his telling me that he had met two men who wanted him to come to their suite at the Ritz and did I want to join him. My answer was no!

Ryan - A young man that I met at the Hospital that looked like a Tommy Hilfiger model who had just gotten out of prison and who I believed was a male prostitute but could not confirm it. He talked about the amount of men that he could be with in a day and make a certain amount of money "hypothetically" he also seemed fixated witht he fact that the last test scores that he had taken said he read at a fourth grade level, when talking to him he would sometimes place int the conversation you know I can only read at a fourth grade level.

anonymous - While this is not a person that was sexually exploited I sat next to him while riding the greyhound bus cross country, he told me that he had just gotten out of jail after several months for drug charges and had been making Bob Barker shoes for three dollars an hour - Black men are so exploited in our prisons that there is an active prison industry for their labor, this also begs the question are their people who want to solve the problem of black anomie?

There was one more and He had AIDS he was probably the mast attractive black man I had ever met, he claimed to have dropped out of UC BERKELEY in his senior year several credits away from a degree in Modern Languages but he had AIDS and was a Drug Addict and I could only assume had been exploited for every ounce of whatever he had in him. These are real cases ..........

While I want to say a lot more my brain does not want to think anymore, so I must leave you with this. The plight of black men and people will change when someone makes a policy decision to create a solution solely geared towards black men and boys, when people quit trying to define a problem and work towards a solution and benchmarking the solutions and their effectiveness.

These are facts:

If black men get to school even doing their early years someone ought to be able to effectively teach them.

If people would stop being touted for defining a problem, but touted for solving the problem, the problem would go away.

Black men are a sexually exploited population.

Incarceration, lack of education, and joblessness I place the blame on society and the system of education and poor policy making.

Finally I would like to say that the policy of no child left behind was and is a sound policy and I believe that is greatly influenced by First Lady Laura Bush who observed that there were certain people who would not teach children solely for their economic and ethnic demographics. No Child Left Behind has hit out high school Students hard though and because of this I believe the policy needs to be reevaluated.

Anyway I'm on a tangent so I'm leaving.