Monday night I attended a “Men of Color” community meeting at Sim Scott Community Center not because white is a color, too, but because I was invited by the organizer of the event, Lowndes County supervisor Leroy Brooks, who felt it proper that the media be included.
My presence was permitted, but my input was not, for reasons I both understand and appreciate.
This meeting was for the black men of Columbus to address a problem black men face and — if I can be permitted to read between the lines — black men have largely created.
In his opening remarks, Councilman Kabir Karriem painted a bleak portrait of the realities facing the black community of Columbus and, by extension, the larger community, too – high crime and unemployment rates, too many unwed teen mothers, rampant unemployment and high drop-out rates. Karriem said all have combined to create a sense of hopelessness in the community.
Brooks obviously concurs. He went on to say black men are not stepping up and doing their part. He quoted a United Way official who had expressed frustration to him that not one black church volunteered to help clean up after tornadoes hit Columbus and east Lowndes County earlier this year, that despite widespread damage in black neighborhoods.
This is our problem, Brooks said.
“Whites are not doing these drive-by shootings; these teenage girls aren’t having white babies,” he said.
Brooks outlined six initiatives that addressed everything from youth mentoring to workforce training to crime prevention. He hopes Monday’s meeting will be an organizational springboard to fully engage the black men of the city to combat these problems,
As a white man, it would be presumptuous, even condescending, to suggest which of the initiatives are most critical. It is not for me to say. But as I listened to these men, it seemed to me that of all the measures considered, the initiative to form a youth mentoring program at Columbus Middle School is especially important.
I arrived at this conclusion by listening to some of the men talk about what they have seen of the city’s black teen community. It wasn’t pretty. By the time these kids get to high school, many of the boys are insolent, defiant, out of control, even violent; the girls are well on their way to becoming single moms, in many cases; the parents indifferent or intimidated.
Karriem said he senses that by the time these kids are teens, they have simply given up. They lack ambition, hope. All of the workforce training in the world can’t help a kid who doesn’t care.
The teens he sees today are well on their way to being a large part of the problem rather than a part of the solution.
“I work with 10-, 11-, 12-year-olds,” one man said. “If you wait until these kids are 15, it’s just too late. I know. I’ve seen it over and over.”
One other observation that cannot be avoided: If the black men of the community are the solution, it’s pretty clear the black men of the community must be held accountable for the problem, too. After all, where were the black men of the community when these problems first began to emerge? Where were they when teens first began to act defiantly in the classroom? Where were they when dropping out of school became an accepted practice? Where were they when a 15-year-old boy is considered “beyond reach?” Where were the black men of the community then? Were there no dedicated black fathers, no black men in position of influence in the churches, government and community organizations then? No, the black men who gathered Monday at Sim Scott, most of them middle-aged or older, have been here all along.
“It’s our fault,” Karriem bluntly acknowledged.
That’s a start, it seemed to me.
The men who gathered Monday seemed to have at last taken a collective responsibility for the problems their community faces.
The next step will be taking personal responsibility. That is probably the most important step of all.
It’s easy enough to talk about these problems. Let’s see some dirt under the fingernails, men. Then we will know.
Slim Smith is a columnist and feature writer for The Dispatch. His email address is [email protected].
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