Building Highly Socialized and Empowered Black Boys So We Don’t Have to Work So Hard Repair Broken Black Men!

by Rick Wallace, Ph.D., Psy.D. | Published October 29, 2018

When examining the demographic constructs that house the realities of the Black community in general, we uncover some startling revelations that must be anatomized and interpreted to gain a lucid perspicacity of our current position in the world. On many occasions, I have spoken and written about the multitudinous ways in which the Black woman has been marginalized and mishandled by those outside the Black collective — as well as those within it. What needs more attention is the existence of nefarious machinations aimed at neutralizing the Black male.

In my books, The Mis-education of Black Youth in America and Born in Captivity: Psychopathology as a Legacy of Slavery, I go to great lengths to point out how the public education system is used to isolate and alienate the Black male as early as 5-years-old.

When reviewing the statistics associated with the Black male demographic in the United States we are able to see some anomalies that require explanation and understanding. Black men are 15 percent less likely to get married than men in all other racial groups (Staff, 2018). Black men are incarcerated at a disproportionate rate in states within the continental U.S (Puglise, 2016). Black men make up the largest prison demographic in America despite only representing six percent of the total population. Young Black males are disproportionately referred for special educations designations, such as oppositional defiant disorder, ADHD, reactive attachment disorder, and more.

We are constantly reminded of the fact that there are 1.5 million missing from the Black community. The truth is that these men are not missing, but there are not properly accounted for and acknowledged in the building out of our understanding of how to improve our current plight. Six percent of working-age Black men are incarcerated (Staff, 2018), more than three times the rate of non-Blacks. Another issue directly associated with the absence of a Black male presence is the significant number of Black men who are incapacitated due to explicit drug use and other forms of addiction.

A major contributor to the high rate of incarceration as it relates to the Black male is the systematic assault being carried out in the public education system (Wallace, 2016; Wallace, 2015).

Black men are also underrepresented in the workforce and historically underpaid.

Another alarming statistic points to the rate at which unarmed Black males are shot dead by law enforcement officers (Beer, 2018). While 72 percent of officer deaths are at the hands of White men, it is obvious that police officers are more fearful of unarmed Black men than they are of armed and hostile White men (Beer, 2018).

While it is important to recognize the exogenous forces at play in the systematic destruction of Black male masculinity that is productive and efficacious in its designed intent, we must also acknowledge the endogenous forces at play. Black males, especially those between 12 and 30 years of age, are extremely vulnerable to violent urges (Ngwe, Liu, Flay, & Segawa, 2004). Thanks to the work of Dr. Howard Stevenson, Dr. Joy DeGruy, and myself, we have a better understanding of the force behind African American adolescent and young adult male violence — which happens to be the recommended response to many of the other issues mentioned in this article — proper racial socialization.

Generally speaking, we have failed to properly and effectively racially socialize our male youth. Socialization is an essential element in the education, preparation, and empowerment of young men to enter society prepared to contribute. The absence of male role models is showing up in these alarming statistics. Young Black males are more violent, not because violence is an inherent part of the genetic or spiritual makeup, but because they have not been taught how to manage the rise in testosterone during puberty — leading to hyper-masculinity and the behaviors directly associated with it.

Young Black males are not being taught the importance of honoring, respecting, and protecting Black females, and it is definitely not a behavior that is being consistently modeled in inner-city communities.

I created the Black Men Lead rite of passage initiative as a mechanism that can fill in the gap of the 1.5 missing Black men and provide a universal standard of behavior for Black men — especially when it comes to how we treat our women, the elderly, and our progeny. We also focus on teaching your Black males the importance of building Black generational wealth and the need to focus on business ownership.

“It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.” ~ Frederick Douglass

I know that it is easier to point fingers than to invest in the necessary changes; however, true and significant changes will only take place when we meet our issues head-on. The enigmatic conundrum that presents itself as a lack of Black male productivity and progression, must be confronted with proactivity and systematic process that are designed to groom our young men into the type of men who are prepared to lead us further than we have ever been in this country. The goal is to expand the program nationally.

In order for us to thrive as a people, we need our men to create an environment that provides security and opportunity for our women and children. We can continue to point the accusatory finger or we can take action. I am challenging everyone who reads this to choose the latter.

To support the Black Men Lead rite of passage initiative for young Black males, click here or you can contribute directly through the Cash app at $TheOdysseyProject21 

References

Beer, T. (2018). Police Killin of Blacks: Data for 2015, 2016, 2017, and the first half of 2018. The Society Pages.

DeGruy, J. (2009). The African American Adolescence Respect Scale: The Measure of Prosocial Attitude. The University of Portland, 1-3.

DeGruy, J., Brennan, E. M., & Briggs, H. E. (2009). The African American Adolescence Respect Scale: The Measure of Prosocial Attitude. The University of Portland, 1-3.

Gramlich, J. (2018). The Gap Between the Number of Blacks and Whites in Prison is Shrinking. Pew Research Center.

Kolk, B. V. (2014). The Body Keeps the Score. New York: Penguin Publishers.

Ngwe, J. E., Liu, L. C., Flay, B. R., & Segawa, E. (2004). Violence Prevention Among African American Adolescent Males. National Institutes of Health.

Puglise, N. (2016). Black Americans Incarcerated Five Times More than White People — Report. The Guardian.

Staff, E. (2018). Black Male Statistics. Black Demographics.

Stenvenson, H., Herrero-Taylor, T., Cameron, R., & Davis, G. (2002). Mitigating Instigation: Cultural Phenomenological Influences of Anger and Fighting Among “Big-Boned” and “Baby-faced” African American Youth. Journal of Youth and Adolescence.

Wallace, D. M. (2007). Black Male Gender Role Socialization and the Performance of Masculinity in Love Relationships. Department of African American Studies at Temple University.

Wallace, R. (2015). America’s Racial Caste System and the School-to-Prison Pipeline. The Odyssey Project.

Wallace, R. (2015). Collective Cognitive-bias Reality Syndrome. The Odyssey Project Journal of Research and Cognitive Enrichment!

Wallace, R. (2015). Collective Dominative Cognitive Bias Syndrome. The Odyssey Project Journal of Scientific Research.

Wallace, R. (2015). The Miseducation of Black Youth in America: The Final Move on the Grand Chessboard. Etteloc Publishing.

Wallace, R. (2016). African American Trauma: More than Meets the Eye! The Odyssey Project Journal of Scientific Research.

Wallace, R. (2016). Racial Trauma & African Americans. The Odyssey Project.

Wallace, R. (2016). Special Education Disproportionality Position Paper. The Odyssey Project.

Wallace, R. (2017). Born in Captivity: Psychopathology as a Legacy of Slavery. Houston: Odyssey Media Group & Publishing House.