Mark Naison: When Inner City Neighborhoods Produced Strong Black Men
As someone who heads a research project- the Bronx African American History Project- that has benefited from the guidance and leadership of strong black men, I read the article in today's NY Times "Black Men Falling Further Behind" with a heavy heart.
The communities described in this article, filled with fatherless families, male unemployment rates of over 65 %, and young men who see prison as an inevitability and a rite of passage, would have been unimaginable to people who grew up in the South Bronx 50 years ago. In those neighborhoods, poor as they may have been, a strong adult male presence was still visible, in families, in the church, in schools and recreation programs, and this influence helped shape a whole generation of successful black male professionals. Without this cohort of leaders and visionaries, the research project I direct would simply not exist in its current form! < SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> When we began our Oral History Project in the spring of 2003, it was a group of African American men who grew up in the Patterson Houses in the South Bronx, led by a teacher and social worker named Nathan Dukes, who drove our research forward and insisted that the story of African American in the Bronx had to be told. Among that initial group were Adrian Best, an ABC cameraman, Arnold Melrose, a T-Mobile executive, Michael Singletary, a CBS news producer and world famous artist, Joel Turner a retired IBM executive, Allen Jones a banker and radio personality in Luxembourg, and Jack Smith a lawyer and executive for PBS. All of these remarkable men grew up in public housing, and wanted to tell the world that a community largely composed of Black and Puerto Rican working class families could be safe, cohesive, nurturing and supportive of econom ic and educational achievement among its children.
What has happened between then and now? Why are so many inner city African American communities so fragmented and impoverished, and why are so many young African American men resigned to a life dominated by the underground economy and the prison industrial complex?
There is no easy answer to this question. Suburbanization and desegregation, changes in the job market and gender roles, wars, drug epidemics, and immigration, have all contributed to making inner city neighborhoods of today very different from the inner city neighborhoods of 50 years ago.
But while globalization and market forces have contributed to the tragic atmosphere in low income black communities, and hip hop culture has documented, commodified and romanticized it, social policy has also played a major role in this poisonous mix. Because of regressive taxation and privatization of public services, young people growing up in the South Bronx have far less in the way of cultural and recreational opportunities than they did fifty years ago.
When people in the Patterson Houses talk about the influences that shaped them in their childhood years, they not only talk about the parents and neighbors who watched out for them, but about the round the clock recreation programs they had access to and the mentors who guided them there. These included after school and night centers in the public schools- whose doors were open 3-5 PM and 7-9 PM every day of the week ;
organized recreation programs in schoolyards and parks, who had recreation leaders on staff as well as cleaners; and free summer day camps run out of community centers, YMCA's and boys and girls clubs. Every person from Patterson we interviewed has mentioned some recreation supervisor or teacher- many of them African American men- who played major roles in their lives during their formative years.
Tragically, most of these programs, along with the great music programs in the local public schools, were eliminated during the fiscal crisis of the 70's and so today, young people in the South Bronx have far less access to adult supervised recreation and with it, adult male mentoring, than their counterparts did 50 years ago. Instead of compensating for cultural and economic changes which have undermined the adult male presence in black working class families, we have, in the name of privatization, actually taken away opportunities for mentoring that once existed in free sports and music programs in recreation centers and the public schools.
It's time to reverse the cycle. Bring back the music! Bring back the after school and night centers! Bring back the "parkies" who ran sports leagues and made sure that kids were safe! Make every community center and summer camp in the inner city, along with museums and zoos and beaches, free for everyone who can't afford to pay.
Such reforms may not produce a revolution in family structure and academic achievement, but they will help give guidance, hope and inspiration to young people- especially young men- who now see the underground economy as their only option and prison as their destiny.
The communities described in this article, filled with fatherless families, male unemployment rates of over 65 %, and young men who see prison as an inevitability and a rite of passage, would have been unimaginable to people who grew up in the South Bronx 50 years ago. In those neighborhoods, poor as they may have been, a strong adult male presence was still visible, in families, in the church, in schools and recreation programs, and this influence helped shape a whole generation of successful black male professionals. Without this cohort of leaders and visionaries, the research project I direct would simply not exist in its current form! < SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> When we began our Oral History Project in the spring of 2003, it was a group of African American men who grew up in the Patterson Houses in the South Bronx, led by a teacher and social worker named Nathan Dukes, who drove our research forward and insisted that the story of African American in the Bronx had to be told. Among that initial group were Adrian Best, an ABC cameraman, Arnold Melrose, a T-Mobile executive, Michael Singletary, a CBS news producer and world famous artist, Joel Turner a retired IBM executive, Allen Jones a banker and radio personality in Luxembourg, and Jack Smith a lawyer and executive for PBS. All of these remarkable men grew up in public housing, and wanted to tell the world that a community largely composed of Black and Puerto Rican working class families could be safe, cohesive, nurturing and supportive of econom ic and educational achievement among its children.
What has happened between then and now? Why are so many inner city African American communities so fragmented and impoverished, and why are so many young African American men resigned to a life dominated by the underground economy and the prison industrial complex?
There is no easy answer to this question. Suburbanization and desegregation, changes in the job market and gender roles, wars, drug epidemics, and immigration, have all contributed to making inner city neighborhoods of today very different from the inner city neighborhoods of 50 years ago.
But while globalization and market forces have contributed to the tragic atmosphere in low income black communities, and hip hop culture has documented, commodified and romanticized it, social policy has also played a major role in this poisonous mix. Because of regressive taxation and privatization of public services, young people growing up in the South Bronx have far less in the way of cultural and recreational opportunities than they did fifty years ago.
When people in the Patterson Houses talk about the influences that shaped them in their childhood years, they not only talk about the parents and neighbors who watched out for them, but about the round the clock recreation programs they had access to and the mentors who guided them there. These included after school and night centers in the public schools- whose doors were open 3-5 PM and 7-9 PM every day of the week ;
organized recreation programs in schoolyards and parks, who had recreation leaders on staff as well as cleaners; and free summer day camps run out of community centers, YMCA's and boys and girls clubs. Every person from Patterson we interviewed has mentioned some recreation supervisor or teacher- many of them African American men- who played major roles in their lives during their formative years.
Tragically, most of these programs, along with the great music programs in the local public schools, were eliminated during the fiscal crisis of the 70's and so today, young people in the South Bronx have far less access to adult supervised recreation and with it, adult male mentoring, than their counterparts did 50 years ago. Instead of compensating for cultural and economic changes which have undermined the adult male presence in black working class families, we have, in the name of privatization, actually taken away opportunities for mentoring that once existed in free sports and music programs in recreation centers and the public schools.
It's time to reverse the cycle. Bring back the music! Bring back the after school and night centers! Bring back the "parkies" who ran sports leagues and made sure that kids were safe! Make every community center and summer camp in the inner city, along with museums and zoos and beaches, free for everyone who can't afford to pay.
Such reforms may not produce a revolution in family structure and academic achievement, but they will help give guidance, hope and inspiration to young people- especially young men- who now see the underground economy as their only option and prison as their destiny.