Anybody who is so audacious to assert that "there isn't enough prejudice and discrimination anymore to put anyone at a disadvantage" must read Being a Black Man: At the Corner of Progress and Peril, a great series in The Washington Post that has been turned into a book. The series chronicles the "special burden" that black men carry in American society, the strength required to survive and succeed.
Buried deep in one of the articles is Robert Pierre's description of white and black boys playing together:
A little black boy and a little white one, playing together, oblivious to a world that expects them to part ways.
And of course that's what happens time and again when innocent kids "grow up," especially when one is black and one is white. Pierre's story focuses on the hopes and fears of "upwardly mobile black families rearing a generation of privileged children in the suburbs and beyond." He concludes his story with a quote from the father of a nine-year-old, who "wonder[s] about the moment when Marcus will realize that there's something different about the way a black man has to walk in the world."
Sixty-four percent of black men, for example, say their sons should be told that they have to work harder than whites to get the same credit.
Perhaps the most powerful piece in the series is "The Wrong Man: Mistaken for a Fugitive, An Innocent Hairdresser Landed in Jail." I don't see how anyone can read that story and say THAT kind of thing happens just as frequently to white men. Read the comments accompanying this story.
Patricia Williams, Professor of Law at Columbia University: "There are lessons to be learned from this series on the status of black men: We must attend to all the large and small missteps it took to create our greatest shame -- the abyss of our so-called underclass."
Orlando Patterson, Professor of Sociology, Harvard University: "If one acknowledges that individual attitudes, values and behaviors are the main sources of the problems young black men face -- the undeniable existence of racism notwithstanding -- then the right strategy is to explore the nature of these values and to understand the factors that reinforce and sustain them."
Start by reading the introductory piece, then some of the comments from readers about the series.
Then read "Exonerated, Freed and What Happened Then," a special report in The New York Times about 137 men who were released from prison after DNA evidence proved they didn't commit the crimes they were charged with.
Drill Deeper:
- Why are so many black men in prison? Washington Post video.
- One Man's Success, Washington Post video.
