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President Barack Obama heads to my hometown of Philly to deliver his second annual “Back To School” speech at one of its area highschools (I don’t know for certain, but five will get you ten he WON’T be at schools like: West Philly High, Dobbins, Gratz, William Penn High, Germantown High, MLK High, Southern, Overbrook, etc et al.; my guess is that he’ll more likely appear at Central, or Girls’ High, or Mastermann, something like that, or, one of the Charter Schools), where he is expected to tell Philly’s benighted pupils to keep their noses to the grindstone and “dream big”. This comes on the heels of his “HBCU speech” that he gave the other day, where he addressed the nation’s Historically Black Colleges & Universities, and where, on cue, he gave essentially the same “message”. While he talked, the tv-I was watching MSNBC at the time-flashed the now-publicly acknowledged highschool dropout rate for Black Males: nationwide, its 53%. That’s almost twice the rate for White Males. Nor is this anything new-it’s been a simmering problem for decades now, at least a generation long. Yet Obama, at least the parts of the speech I could stand to stomach, didn’t broach this topic. After about roughly 15 minutes, I had all that I could stand, and changed the channel.
If you’re a regular reader of The Obsidian Files, you might have guessed that I don’t think particularly all that highly of the 44th POTUS. I’ve given a few “sneak previews” here and there over the past year as to what I think of him and why, but I’ve been keeping my powder dry for the day after the all-important 2010 Midterm Elections; when that time comes, I’ll be in a much better position to fully unfurl how I really feel about Mr. Obama.
Until then though, and again, regulars here will have already read it before but it bears repeating, please don’t hold your breath looking for Obama to address in any meaningful way, why Black boys are not just failing in school, they’re not even bothering to show up at all. What we can expect from Mr. Obama is more boilerplate, warmed over peptalks about studying hard, turning off the tv and the like, and if he does indeed say anything about Black boys, it will sound like a modified version of what the President said a little over two years ago, to date the ONLY time he has specifically and directly addressed Black Men at all; by now you all know of it. It was his 2008 Father’s Day Address in his political hometown of Chicago, where Mr. Obama took special time out of his grueling campaign schedule for the express purpose of upbraiding and insulting his strongest constituency to date. As you might have guessed, I’ll have more-a whole lot more-to say about this, and a great many other things, in due course.
While Obama exhorts to young folk the necessity of studying hard and fulfilling dreams, there will be hordes of young Black Men on the mean streets of Philly, with nowhere to turn, nowhere to go, nowhere to run, nowhere to hide-a Cohort truly without a Country-because they will have concluded-rightly, I might add-that there is no place for them in American society. They may not know anything much about sociology or economics or politics or history, but they have two good working eyes and have enough commonsense to connect the dots between their lives and the countless other lives of Black Men around and before them, to be able to see that there’s not a whole heck of a lot to be gained in spending time in places that are at best, deeply ambivalent about you being there, and at worst, are openly hostile to you being there. Put that together with the glaring fact that there’s a heck of a lot of deadwood in the schools (read: teachers that suck), an irrelevant curricula that fails to meaningfully prepare the young to get on in the world on its terms (especialy if you’re Black & Male) and the inane expectation that boys in particular are supposed to be still and act nice while knowingly being shoveled copious amounts of horse dung for some 7 hours a day, 5 days a week, and it’s little wonder that Da’Shawn and Tyreese start to vote with their feet.
But of course, living in the world that we do, one that is overrun with a motley crue of Clever Sillies, Incompetent Knuckelheads and out and out Buffoons, we’ll never address the most obvious reasons why so many young Black Men chose to simply opt out. In the sports world, if your team’s record is below .500 consistently for several seasons, its time to call in the head coach and general manager in for a talk-their last one. In the business world, if more your business loses more than half its revenues, clients, and/or accounts in a year, for several years running, guess what?-you won’t be in business much longer unless you can find out what the problem is, and pronto. Usually, that means the management team’s got to vamoose.
But in the Bizarro world that is the Public Sector, such Cro-Magnon Man understandings of how the world works is passe’; all kinds of money is spent trying to come up with new ways to turn crap into gold, or at least give the appearance of it. Put that together with a Teacher’s Union that has the Dems in particular by the scrotum, and viola!-a whole new cohort of excons, coming right up.
In a sane world, the very mention of so many of a nation’s citizens falling so far behind would be enough to mount a call to arms; but as we all know and understand here at the O-Files, Black Men learn from an early age, that there are NOT regarded as Brothers in Arms, but rather Enemies of the State-or at the very least, potential ones. Hence the reason why I’ve said before, and it bears repeating now, that Obama not only won’t address this issue in the way it needs to, but CAN’T:
Because the very mention of a need to focus our resources on a sector of our polity that truly needs it, is politically, socially and economically radioactive. It will deeply upset a constituency Obama needs, perhaps for the balance of his term, and even moreso in his second, assuming he’s reelected: middle to working class White Males. They will interpret ANY move on his part to focus on the dire straits Black Men and boys face and are indeed in, as a direct threat and assault on their very survival, taking limited and precious resources, opportunity and know-how away from their sons, and putting it on those who are undeserving of the effort, and who are more prone to be problematic in any event. In an era where White folk are beginning to feel the burn, this is something Obama simply cannot ignore.
But as we always knew here at the Files, that’s only one part of the story.
At least another part of the story, as Obama’s Father’s Day Address clearly showed, is the simple fact that we too-Black America-see Black Men in general, and its younger cohorts in particular-as a pathogen to be cleansed, a blight on the national landscape that hollas out for removal to someplace remote. Black Men and boys know and understand very well that it ain’t just White America that regards them with distrust and suspicion, but many places within Black America, too, are they told in ways big and small, that they are really not wanted. After all, when Black folk want to get something done, history has told us they made it happen: the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts, the Crime Bill and Obama’s election itself, are all testaments to Black American focus, initiative and purpose.
So, with all that said, one can only conclude, that the reason why Black Males fall so far between the cracks and below, is because not only does White America like it that way, but that Black America doesn’t have that big a problem with it, either.
And that’s the Truth, Ruth.
Now adjourn your asses…
The Obsidian
