Check Out the Forum via UStream
FAMU Forum for Black Men on UStream tomorrow at 7 p.m. http://ustre.am/cRjm Tweet in your questions and we will try to have as many answered as possible.
*FYI: We are working with FAMU Wireless so let's hope that everything is a go for tomorrow.*
Our Panelists
Dr. Steve Perry (Educator, CNN Contributor)
Enitan Bereola (FAMU alum, author)
Panama Jackson (Morehouse alum, co-founder of VerySmartBrothas.com)
Wale (hip-hop artist)
The Definition of A Black Man by Panama Jackson
This is a remarkable piece by Panama Jackson, co-creator of VerySmartBrothas.com and one of the featured panelists for the Forum for Black Men.
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Destructive Pressures Undermine Educational Aspirations of Minority Males
Minority male students continue to face overwhelming barriers in educational attainment, notes a report released today by the College Board at a Capitol Hill briefing held in collaboration with the Asian Pacific American, Black and Hispanic Congressional Caucuses. The report highlights some of the undeniable challenges among minority students, including a lack of role models, search for respect outside of education, loss of cultural memory, poverty challenges, language barriers, community pressures and a sense of a failing education system.
Where are Our Brothers?
We grew up together. Our mothers were line sisters in college so I guess that made him my “play brother.”
He grew up in a two-parent household for most of his formative years. He was the fastest (only black) kid on his soccer team, a member of the Beta Club through middle school and one-fourth comedian.
But by the time we reached high school, he became a below average student fond of the highs that the contents of a Black and Mild could give him and put down the soccer ball for a basketball…even though he only played in his cul-de-sac.
I saw him over the holidays and he had a few bible verses tattooed on visible parts of his body. He had dropped out of a state two-year college and was excited about starting a career in the lucrative entertainment industry as a rapper/producer/party promoter.
“Who is this guy,” I wondered. “What happened to my brother?”
For the first column of the year, I planned on writing about FAMU’s eleventh place ranking among historically black colleges and universities (we’re tied with Elizabeth City State University) according to U.S. News and World Reports.
But seeing him, made me think about a larger issue: What is happening to our black boys, our black men? How do these men that start with so much potential, end up living their semi-adult lives trying to swag surf without producing substantial waves?
Where are our brothers?
This would be the part where I lay out the facts about black men representing forty percent of the nation’s prison population according to the 2005 Bureau of Justice Statistics Bulletin or that eight percent of young black men graduate from college compared to 35 percent of Asians according to the Schott Foundation’s Black Boys Report.
Or where I go on to say the absence of the black fathers has caused black boys to rely on the presence of rap music and For the Love of Ray J to serve as their guides.
But we all know these statistics and theories because we experience them, directly or indirectly, every day.
The crisis of the black man knows no bounds as it is affecting those that live on streets like Holton and neighborhoods like Killearn and Southwood. Nor does the issue escape those with a high school education or with a J.D.
We can attest to knowing the “Little (insert male name here)” of our families and neighborhoods who grew up with dreams of going to the moon, but some how ended up on house arrest.
Even those that make it to college, get a few letters and a degree often get so caught up in attempts to bust down women that they forget to build up their communities.
I am not including black men that are doing the right think or excluding black women, as we are one Nicki Minaj away from self-destruction.
But as I thought about him and my 16-year-old cousin, another soccer star who is getting out of high school on a wishbone, I am afraid and trying to figure out how we got here.
Kianta Key is a first-year public health graduate student at Florida A&M University from Atlanta. She can be reached at www.twitter.com/kiantakey.
