Young black men are being unfairly blamed for an education system that expects too little of them and perpetuates harmful stereotypes about their character and abilities, according to several students and educators who spoke at the 2014 Black Male Summit at Morehouse College over the weekend.
During a student panel on Friday, speakers described what they said were common misconceptions about young black men—that they’re prone to violence, lack substance in the classroom, and are happy to settle for C’s.
“It seems like expectations are for African-American students to fail or just barely get by, while for other races it’s to get all A’s,” said Joshua Young, a student at Atlanta Technical College. “If you’re expected to fail, you’re not going to want to try as hard.”
By providing positive reinforcement, mentoring, and targeted academic support for black men, some colleges are starting to make a dent in stubbornly low enrollment and graduation rates, speakers said during the two-day summit, one of several such events being held at colleges nationwide. The summit was co-sponsored by the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for African Americans, which President Obama created in 2012.
The event was streamed live from an auditorium at Morehouse, a private, all-male historically black college. Students in school uniforms and suits and ties listened alongside high-school teachers, college professors, and policy makers. Listeners around the country chimed in to the discussion on Twitter.
Among other strategies the panelists suggested that colleges:
- Challenge common myths about black men that focus on their alleged deficits and provide motivation instead by spotlighting their successes.
- Not accept dismal graduation rates for black male students; “be outraged” and turn that outrage to activism.
- Create programs that have systemwide support that can survive if the administrator or faculty member in charge leaves or a grant dries up.
Calls for ‘Collective Outrage’
Morehouse’s president, John S. Wilson Jr., said that in his former position, as director of the White House Initiative on Historically Black Colleges and Universities, he was shocked to learn that only 4 percent of African-American high-school seniors in the United States in a given year are considered ready for college in a wide range of courses. About 35 percent of black men graduate from college within six years, compared with 44 percent of black women and 59 percent of all students, according to national education statistics.
“Based on the statistics, far too many of us are broken,” Mr. Wilson said. “So many of us are broken that people tend to think that we’re all broken.”
He joined other speakers in calling for “collective outrage” over the fact that so many young black men never reach their potential. “There is a cradle-to-prison pipeline, and I’m afraid it has been normalized,” he said.
Shaun R. Harper, executive director of the Center for the Study of Race and Equity in Education at the University of Pennsylvania, discussed his research on how stereotypes can hold students back.
“No student rises to low expectations,” he said.
Thabiti Stephens, a Morehouse senior who created an athletic-shoe company that donates 20 percent of its proceeds to feed homeless people, said he had found inspiration at a college where he was surrounded by other smart, motivated black men. Guys like him have a responsibility, he said, to reach out to boys who lack role models.
“If everybody helped one person get to the next level, who knows where we all could be,” he said.
David J. Johns, executive director of the White House initiative on educational excellence, said he gets frustrated when he hears that some people aren’t cut out for college. “There are hundreds of higher-education institutions in the United States, and there’s one that’s uniquely suited for you,” he told students in the audience.
What Colleges Can Do
Colleges can play a critical role in advancing the goals of another recently announced White House initiative, called My Brother’s Keeper, that is aimed at helping low-income and minority students, speakers said.
One model that was touted was the University System of Georgia’s African-American Male Initiative, which began in 2002 at Kennesaw State University and has since spread to nearly all of the university system’s 31 campuses.
The effort, which is individualized for each campus, includes summer bridge programs, mentoring, and academic support for first-year students and a push to engage students in extracurricular activities.
The program’s director, Arlethia Perry-Johnson, who is also vice president for external affairs at Kennesaw State, said that, since it began, enrollment of black male students systemwide had surged by 80 percent. The program also reported recently that the percentage of degrees conferred on black men had grown by nearly 60 percent.
Students, said speakers at the weekend conference, have a responsibility to make smart decisions, to study hard, and to resist temptations to play video games, party with friends, and pull all-nighters when they should be hitting the books every day.
College advisers can do their part too. Campuses with the highest success rates create strong oversight, including early-alert systems that ping an adviser, sometimes even a parent, when a student fails a test, said Bryant T. Marks, executive director of the Morehouse Research Institute.
He said students shouldn’t be held accountable for the failures of the public-school system that leaves so many unprepared for college-level work. “How can we blame kids for reacting to an environment that we created?” he asked.
Ivory Toldson, deputy director of the White House Initiative on Historically Black Colleges and Universities, said many black students are set back by zero-tolerance discipline policies and a lack of Advanced Placement courses in poorly funded schools.
“When we stop comparing black males to white males, we start to see real solutions,” he said.
