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What is the State of the Black Male in America?

May 28, 2011 By 6 Comments

In this video, Ryan Mack and I discuss the state of the black male in America.   Ryan has written an outstanding book, “Living in the Village,” and talks about what it’s going to take to make our community stronger.   Ryan is also my lead partner in the Never Going Back Initiative to fight against recidivism and mass incarceration (which you can join by visiting Nevergoingback.org).

I appreciate Mr. Mack’s work because he doesn’t just care about the black community, he is committed to the section of the black community that even many black people don’t care about:  the poor, the incarcerated and those who are marginalized even more than the rest of us.  So, while Ryan had the opportunity to be a wealthy Wall Street banker and leave his community behind, he decided instead that his talents were best served by bringing them right back home.  I appreciate his frame of mind because I had a similar line of reasoning when I became a scholar, and we both endured some degree of ostracism from our colleagues who thought we were just plain stupid.  While it might not make sense to head back into battle when you could be safe and warm, the truth is that a warrior instinct like Ryan’s is meant to flourish, not remain suppressed.  Educated black men must learn how to be free.

The interview is below.

 

 

 

 

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  • Yepme2

    Dr.Boyce, I took the time to view the conversation between you and Ryan Mack, interesting, in that your concerns, resonate with me.  I have posted a few times on Black World, my post generally reflect an effort to stimulate minds in a direction of organizing an economic agenda for fueling support systems for community development. 

    The subject of fueling the prison system is prominent in my thinking.  The universe is a system of evolving energy, stimulation and reaction.  Systems require energy to function.  The energy for the prison system is fueled by inmates, a large percentage of the inmates are bred in our community, whether guilty or not.  Cut off the energy supply the system will cease or feed off the residuals of the after affect of diminishing fuel generated in our community.

    I appreciate Ryan Mack’s mind relative to his respect for mathematical appreciation and its value.  I approach everything with mathematical assessment, “If it don’t add-up, it don’t count,”  (The Math of Life is the Path in Life). 

    I request a form of commication with Mr. Mack, I have viable plans and a strategy to discuss with him relating to P.R.E.S. (Perpetual-Revenue-Energy-System) and the M-M-C (Million-Mind-Connection) for establishing a distribution system consisting of (10,000) retail outlets and more, with National and International implications, for goods and services. 

    I have documented some thoughts on organizing the energy in the community that will affect dramatic change.  (A Call To Minds), bringing together minds of appreciation, recognizing, it is about rendering decisions and the community as whole in responding to existing situations and conditions are not rendering effective decisions.

    The strongest force in the universe is influence, all energy is influenced in responding.  People in your position and others, who have the attention of the community could organize and present the community a viable plan; enough people will respond.  The community does not need your personal money, there is enough money flowing through our community to build a nation. Organize and teach the community how to exercise their ability to render decisions relateing to their benefit, how to pool their resources effectively. 

    The community responds to influence, they are doing it now, although often, it is not beneficial, because they are stimulated and overwhelmed with BS from stuff-players (Not all), but those who are not caught up in the BS, have not been presented with strong alternatives.

  • Joseph L. Bass, Ed.D.

    There are several concepts that Yepme2 writes that I can support.  Yepme2’s says, “my post generally reflect an effort to stimulate minds in a direction of organizing an economic agenda for fueling support systems for community development.”  To overcome the considerable challenges relating to black Americans, there is a serious need to discard conventional thinking about this huge problem.  Clearly improved economics are needed along with community support systems.  And certainly the prison industry will dry up if there are fewer prisoners. 
     
    But, my years of experience as an organizational consultant strongly indicates, a serious weakness in Yepme2’s approach.  It is found in “The strongest force in the universe is influence, all energy is influenced in responding.  People in your position and others, who have the attention of the community could organize and present the community a viable plan; enough people will respond.”  If I were asked to consultant with a major corporation that was in serious trouble and I walked in the door and presented them with a “viable plan,” I would get nowhere with managers and employees.  And that is what will happen with Yepme2’s approach. 
     
    Come to my town and I will show you the result of this kind of approach and the resulting inaction.  My town government has spent (is still spending) millions of dollars building and operating a community center in the middle of what was one of our legally segregated areas.  During legal segregation it was a strong, black, community that included a normal cross-section of people, including black professionals and businesses (lawyers, bankers, teachers, pharmacists, medical doctors, etc.).  With our civil rights successes of the 50’s and 60’s the professionals moved out.  Forty years later the area is a typical, still-black area with poverty, drug dealing, and violent black on black crime.
     
    Go to http://www.suffolk.va.us/parks/rec_ctrs/esrc.html and see a description and pictures of the center.  The pictures show all these people utilizing the center, but the pictures do not reflect the reality.  Articles have been run in several local papers reporting that the center is seriously underutilized.  Go there any day of the week and you will see few community members using the available facilities and five or six city employees with little to do.  And, believe it or not, the Salvation Army is in the process of building a duplicate facility only a few miles away with the intent of helping the same people.
     
    And this is not a unique situation.  I lived in South Central Los Angeles and witnessed many attempts by various government agencies and “do gooder” organizations to implement this same approach.  The weakness in the approach and in Yepme2’s approach is that facilities, services, “viable plans,” etc. are developed and delivered by someone else.  Nothing is done to involve a broad scope of community members in determining what they think they need, in developing their own viable plan, or in the plan’s implementation.  Nothing is done to develop a psychological ownership among a broad scope of community members or a commitment to be involved in making the plan a success.  The plan and its implementation belong to someone else.  Community members “don’t have any skin in the game.”
     
    And let me add one more observation about this situation.  I have approached several government agencies and “do-gooder” organizations, offering my professional services for free through our non-profit ABetterSociety.Info, Inc.  I offered to apply to community improvement, the same participative approaches I have successfully used for decades in corporations, government agencies, and non-profits.  In every case there has been a “circling of the wagons” response by the “professionals” who run these community “improvement” efforts.  They do not want to have anything to do with activities that will result in their “clients” improving themselves and becoming self-reliant.  One told me repeatedly that the black adults who raise children experiencing gangs, violence, drugs, poor grades, school dropout, poverty, etc. are beyond hope and any efforts to change this will be fruitless.
     
    All of this tells me two things.  First the “professionals” who apply this “we will deliver to the helpless people” approach have no confidence in the capabilities of the people they supposedly are trying to help.  Second, these “professionals” have a vested financial interest in keeping the “helpless” people “in their place,” that is to say, still helpless.  If the “helpless people” became self-reliant, employed, and self-supporting families, the “professional helpers” would have to get a real job out in the harsh world of business and industry.  And, God forbid, our taxes might go down and government debt reduced.  As Yepme2 says we do need to simulate minds and think of different ways to improve the lot of many black Americans, instead of continuing with the same knee-jerk approaches that have failed for decades.  Joseph L. Bass, Ed.D. 

  • Yepme2

    Sir, I appreciate your response, I learn from anyone’s response.  The idea that you can support several concepts presented is encouraging.  Where you disagree is relevant to your experience, which makes sense. 
     
    I understand from my experience, it is not easy to stimulate minds in our community to organize for a purpose beneficial to them.  I also understand some of the resaons why they do not respond favorably.  I think, if you and I communicated privately, we could agree on realistic approaches to accomplish beneficial results. 
     
    I have more than (40) years of active participation in the endeavor to assist our community in a positive direction, each step was a learning process, I will not state what will not happen other than those on top, “Will not flip to the bottom voluntarily.”  In relating to minds in our community, I consider, they have been swamped with BS, some are able to deal with it and some are confused from the assault of stuff-players.  I recognize, those who build their throne on a mountain of misery, do not want that mountain moved. 
     
    Rather than reiterate what is wrong, I rather engage in a strategy of positive applications of universal principles relative to results.  I have a strategy of diversified approaches, in which the nucleus of intent is generating revenue. 
     
    I have a strategy of potential, designed to generate billions of dollars annually, develop more than (100,000) employment and entrepreneur positions.  The challenge is not with me, the challenge is with minds of the community that are real to challenge what I have to present.  I have (2) stipulations:
     
    1.  Everything I present is legal and void of BS and must remain constant
    2.  All operational function and monetary expenditures must be transparent to every mind connected to the system.
     
    Those minds that are influenced by the word morality over reality, need not apply.  The word morality is a tool of BS imposed on weak minds.  The universe is a system of evolving energy with no aspects of the word morality applicable.  The word is a product of the human mind; the only place BS is developed is in the mind and is expressed through the written and spoken word. 
     
    Like you, I tried and seen many applications applied that were not effective or were defective in results.  I selected  the choice of studying why and learned from the experience to try another approach and will keep on trying until it works.  I am (79) years in the life experience and I can not stop, because my concerns are real and I believe in universal principles, which assures results.  So if it has not happened, I recognize, it is not others fault, I accept my ignorance of the resolve and keep on, keeping on with the effort.  As I stated previously, “All energy respond to stimulus.” 
     
    If you care to share mind energy towards resolve of some of the situations and conditions; exercise the effort to contact me:  udiditb4@comcast.net

  • Joseph L. Bass, Ed.D.

    Yepme2 you can contact me through our non-profit website http://www.abettersociety.info.  Joseph L. Bass, Ed.D.

  • Anonymous

    We must take this anger and pain to the streets instead of shooting each other, letting the clowns rule our neighborhoods.  We seem disorganized and without FIGHT!  We need to organize a real protest march on Washington DC to let this frustration out all across this country.  The ship will sink if the black man is excluded from the recovery of this country. This is a great opportunity for old and young to get together and do something productive and posior OURSELVES!

    • Joseph L. Bass, Ed.D.

      6/12/11
      1Whitewater1
      I can agree with most of your first two sentences.  “We must take this anger and pain to the streets instead of shooting each other, letting the clowns rule our neighborhoods.  We seem disorganized and without FIGHT!”
       
      But I have serious doubts about having “a real protest march.”  Once humans have found success with something, the basis psychological tendency is to try the same thing over and over again even when it should be obvious that this “same thing” isn’t working any more.  That is how I see protest marches today.  In a previous article Dr. Watkins wrote the following in “Why Black Men Continue to Suffer, and Why It Must End Now” that was published in Your Black World on June 1, 2011. “… the state of black male existence and employment is at a 40-year low. But this 40-year low is preceded by a 400-year old problem. If we continue to address the problem in the same ways we have in the past, we will continue to reach the same conclusions and find the same faulty solutions. It’s time for a new day in black male America and that day must come right now.”
       
      I strongly agree with him on the need to develop new approaches instead of addressing “the problem in the same ways we have in the past, we will continue to reach the same conclusions and find the same faulty solutions.”
       
      Dr. Watkins has asked me to record my ideas on the Your Black News blog at http://www.yourblacknews.blogspot.com/.  To propose new ways of thinking and different approaches, as of today, I have submitted five articles and will continue to do so for some time.  But you need to read them from bottom to top in the following order.  Be sure to write comments; what others think is more important than what I think.  Joseph L. Bass, Ed.D.
       
      1. Assumptions about Improvement Programs
      2. Creating Jobs vs Creating Wealth
      3. Wall Streeter Games 
      4. Other Artificial Economic Stimulators
      5. Organizational and Motivational Factors