CNN: In helping young black men, Obama helps all

When A&E was one of five channels I got on TV, I watched a lot of the cop show The First 48 Hours. The show follows police departments in different cities during the first 48 hours of a homicide investigation. I especially enjoyed watching when the homicide unit from my city was featured because most of the crimes on the show were committed in a neighborhood not 15 minutes from where I live. Like any sucker watching reality TV, I was intially mesmerized by the sensational audios and visuals, horrified by the senseless crimes and the murderers who committed them. I vowed never to set foot in that neighborhood. But the more I watched, the more I became disturbed for a different reason: I began to notice how youthful these criminals were; how innocent some of them seemed to be; how young, poor, black, and male they were. I felt wrong sympathizing with the "monster" as the cops stalked his facebook page or when they finally dragged in the sniffling 17 year old crying for his mom. It seemed to me that many of these evil murderers were boys playing with guns and getting mixed up in gangs and drugs. After awhile it was just really heartbreaking to see all this youthful energy and strength go to waste, expended on destruction instead of a future, and ultimately becoming a social liability. And's what's worse is that these kids themselves never expected to amount to anything more than this.

1 in 9 African American males will be incarcerated at some point in life. I feel this is a societal issue that demands attention. But like all things dealing with RACE, it is difficult to approach. That's why I applaud Obama's Brother's Keeper initiative to help young, black men defy the statistics. The details of the initiative are not hammered out, but education seems to be a main focus. The program is privately funded and calls on people to invest in poor, minority youth. More than money, it is asking for faith in these individuals to rise above the oppression and discrimination inherent in the circumstances they were born into. Guns are too easy to come by, while goals and a sense of self-efficacy are scarce. I believe more positive role models are needed, along with structured after-school programs, and community centers to acts as safe havens. The community itself must become empowered to fight against a self-fulfilling prophecy, which is not an easy task to ask of the most oppressed strata of American society. But once they believe they are better than poverty, the rest of society will have no choice but to believe as well.

In helping young black men, Obama helps all

My Brother's Keeper In The Community: Hopes And Aims At Ground Level

The First 48