Evening Exchange- The 21st Century Conference on the African American Male

This is the big. Very Good Thing. For America. And especially of. Your. Health. For someone. AS. Endangered species. Six hundred fifty four thousand. African-American males in three days of a killer 20. In prison in jail all for the probation. These are serious times. As a young black medicine drive a broken down post wagons assume that the car stolen or supplied by drug money. Make a long story short I had a gun pulled on me because the policeman assumed my car was stolen vehicle statistics. All the problems of the Afro-American male are just absolutely. Appalling that the problem has been with us for a very long time and it's getting worse over the last few years I think it has become very obvious to all of us. That the need for a college level education increasingly for. How many young black males have young black males. I will be graduating from high school. There's a 40 percent dropout rate in the District of Columbia. I think

I've done the same. Next morning I'll be attending final University at 15 years old if you don't help. There. Is the African American male an endangered species. If recent reports are any indication the outlook for the future is frightening. We will provide you with highlights of a conference that focused on the plight of the African-American male. Tonight on a special edition of evening exchange. What will the African American male be like in the 21st century. Well some continue to slip through the cracks in education health care poverty and racism still be unresolved issues. These were some of the questions being asked recently. Of the 21st century commission on African-American males. I'm called Welcome to a special edition of the evening exchange. For the remainder of this program we

will look at the proceedings of that conference including interviews with commission board members like North Carolina Senator Terry Sanford and Virginia Governor Douglas Wilder. We'll talk with actors Lou Gossett and Blair Underwood. And you'll hear excerpts from speeches by leading policymakers and educators like Dr. Franklin Jennifer of Howard University. But first this look at the plight of at risk African-American male. Things. Like this song played out on the streets of America on a daily basis and very often news reports focus on African-Americans as the victims and the villains. For some communities this culture of violence is at the crisis stage. The grim statistics are reflected in a recent report by the Department of Health and Human Services. Black male teenagers are three times more likely to die from gun related deaths than from all natural causes of death combined. Black Male Teens are 11 times more likely to be killed by a gun

than their white counterparts in 1988 alone the firearm homicide rate of like teenagers jumped by a startling 38 percent. Adding to that picture is the fact that one out of four African-American males is in prison on probation or on parole as incredible as it may seem. The numbers in jail cells exceed those attending universities and colleges. Black males are five times more likely to be arrested seven times more likely to be convicted nine to 11 times more likely to be executed. We have hearings on police brutality in Atlanta in St. Petersburg Florida in the past two weeks says the OCD and what we discovered is that hundreds and hundreds and thousands of black males who are arrested and charged with crime cannot afford attorneys are provided with public counsel who deny Him to plea bargain. And and take a light sentence rather

than face a trial and get a heavier sentence. They do that because they have no defense many of them are innocent or guilty only of mild infractions. There are no income but with a criminal record that make it difficult for him to get jobs in the marketplace. A lack of education or under education is at the root. Cause as they say the etiology of the problem. When you look at African-American male prisoners that are incarcerated and it was the 75 percent of them were functionally illiterate. Hey what is the problem. What might be the point. Everything. If you can't read you've got to go for the underground economy. You've got to get involved in the illicit world because there you don't really have to know how to read too. To rob and to sell drugs and what have you even though some of these young men are incredibly bright. You have to be to be the boss of a drug network. Recent reports claim the drug uses for whites is greater than for blacks. Young black males often ply their wares on the street corners of America and that is often where

conflicts arise. Drug deals go sour. There are battles over turf. All this flight from the law and through it all a dollar. The high end death reigns supreme. If you create a monster and then say look at the monster. You see again we're back at the question of what is happening to the black male. Why are there more black males in prison than in the college. Why are all these black males dying on the street from gunshot wounds. Drugs AIDS etc. Why is that happening. Why is the black male unemployment rate. What idiots. Do you see them saying and all of these are related to the attack we are living in the attack of racism the attack on why supremacy we know is no accident that the market place for drugs is in the black community. It's intentionally put bad because it can feed all the despair that makes us vulnerable. But the black community must refuse to cooperate with that assault

and we must have a spiritual revival that will not let the meat that attempts us drive us to illegitimate greet some experts point to under-employment and unemployment as causes and the numbers do seem to support their argument. The unemployment rate for young African-American males is double the rate for young white males. So I think this is one of the most. The enduring fight song of American society the fact that young black males don't seem to have an equal chance to rest and that they have a very very unequal opportunity in life. Too many of them don't break out of it. As I looked at the broader urban needs of America from my position of responsibility I concluded this was something that needed to have some attention and I concluded this was something that we might do something about this is the beginning of a very good thing for America and especially a very good

thing to help what some refer to as an endangered species. We've got to be very careful however that we don't allow the people who are affected to be the victims. Many of the causes are systemic. Many of them are a part of the indifference of the ages. Many of the causes as a result of people mourning and not stop the perpetuation. Of second class citizenship or to see two separate Americas. That is the metaphor to see a future workforce come from. A majority of 2006 Aarti of. People in this country will be nonwhite. The birth rate for blacks. Today. We. Continue to find that. A very large. Number of young men into adulthood and the subject of surplus labor they don't have the skills to market in this type tech economy. The question becomes what do you do with

MacAnthony to build prisons and cook them and. They can't get me to stand on street corners. Daughters you know have to have someone to marry. Neighborhood have to have some good citizens. So it's not just a problem of the white. Community other legislators it's even more. Recognize me and even more acute black people but black and they are just like who will care on our traditions who will continue to. Be the leaders and followers the good citizens good neighbors and out in our own neighborhoods. If we don't save black man then no one else will. I'm viewing education from the Center for Education Statistics reports that almost 13 percent of African-American males dropped out of high school last year in some major metropolitan areas before half fails to graduate and 40 percent functionally illiterate. We need to take those young men and women who are suffering under the yoke of oppression poverty crime did the Lapid environment

and put them in a wholesome environment where they can have the same resources available to them as they go in for their education. As my kids are many of your kids and many white kids across this country have and that may not be the answer but it is a dramatic move in the right direction. Similarly a local school district must take a leadership role in assuring that more students take college bound courses such as algebra and four years of English science and history so that all high school students will have the opportunity to go to college even if they elect not to attend. That's a major problem around many of our communities that some insist some school districts are saying that these students and these young people cannot cannot handle this coursework and therefore they should not take it. It isn't so easy today as in France when I was growing up. But nevertheless we have to be willing to try to see fine if we could use to build the sense. The community in which

we help our young people find their way. We cannot be satisfied to hear it said that this is the first generation among us that will not surpass the last. And when it comes to health. The move doesn't get any better. Black males are three times as likely to die of cancer and of AIDS as young white men. For the African-American population in general health care often takes a backseat to both and the. Young women and young men are responding as if AIDS cannot affect them and there again this is almost what you would call a culturally. Responsible unresponsive attitude toward the epidemic so we certainly have to do more. Even among our educated young black population our studies show that there has been no improvement in black health status in our country since 1984. And this contrasts with an

increase in the life expectancy for the white population of a full four years. Since 1970 the disparity between white and black health begins at birth. Black babies are twice as likely to die before their first baby birthday. That's quite big news. One reason for this persistent disparity is lack of access to health care among many of our poor citizens. We need to have a national health care program and policy. One out of every five black children lives in a family that is not insured for health insurance so they do not have basic health insurance. I don't know how we convince America that it is important for the entire nation to become cerned about the premature death and destruction of 60000 of their countrymen and countrywomen. It is a disaster of a magnitude that is unbelievable. How do we convince

Americans in fact to care about being 20 second in the world in infant survival. How do we in fact convince them to be even more concerned that black babies die twice as often as white babies. Why is not the survival of babies the most compelling issue on the social agenda. And how do you in fact change that. That is something that I do not understand how to do except to suggest that what we. Are.