To a Black Man Who Died Too Soon
This week may symbolize hope for black men, but the reality is that many are still more likely to be murdered than to go to college.By Erica Williams
January 19, 2009
The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. speaks April 15, 1967 at a peace rally in New York City. (AP Photo/stf)As the nation honors the legacy of one black man with a dream and anticipates the first black man in the White House, one in nine black men is in prison. Today, on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday and the eve of President Barack Obama’s inauguration, we find ourselves in this reality. I wish that you, the man who died too soon, were here to see this climactic and prosaic moment. But your life was cut senselessly short by the structural violence perpetrated by our education, health, and criminal justice systems. Today, even as we look at our stamps, and read our poems, and stay home from work, many men that look like you are more likely to be murdered than graduate college. And I can’t get over that.
You could of course be Fred Hampton, who was killed by racism, Tupac Shakur, who was killed by urban discontent, or Oscar Grant, who was killed just this month by police brutality. You could also be any of the one quarter of deaths among black men caused by heart disease every year, brought about by the inequities in our food systems that disproportionately place more fast food than fresh produce in low-income neighborhoods. You could also be one of 21 percent of uninsured black men who didn’t have the “magical” healthcare that Magic Johnson can afford to buy, and instead died of HIV/AIDS.
You could also be my father, a man who would, if he were alive, truly understand the meaning of this moment—the acknowledgement of our history, the hope for our future, and the multi-dimensional but overwhelmingly dire state of black men in America. Daddy, you were a man who, like President Obama, raised two beautiful daughters. You are a man who, like Dr. King, was a minister working to better his community. You are a man who, like so many others, was pulled over often for driving in white neighborhoods, just for being black. You are a man who the media has never quite been able to capture—not in CNN’s two-hour long special focused on you or the Washington Post’s series covering the lives of men like you. You are a man of service and integrity that accomplished great things and achieved success—spiritual, familial, professional—in a nation fundamentally set up for your failure.
If you were here today, what would you say? You would undoubtedly have a more nuanced analysis of our times than that given by media outlets struggling to balance the ascendancy and historical significance of this moment with the present day context and realities in which many black men still exist. Without you here I am lost. Should I intellectualize the discourse and highlight the substantive differences between Dr. King and President Obama so that African American history doesn’t compress two great, but very different leaders to be one and the same?
Or should I instead use this moment as an opportunity to draw the stark contrast between the two of them and the alarming rate of social devastation that millions of other black men are facing … even as children read “Ode to Dr. King” poems and parents prepare for inaugural balls?
Or should I highlight the fact that there are also millions of other African American men just as great as Dr. King and President Obama, in cities and neighborhoods all around the country taking care of their family responsibilities and working hard for their communities? If too many comparisons have been made between Dr. King and President Obama, too few have been made between you and them both. You were the touchable Obama, the everyday Dr. King, a person that believed, like Cornel West, “Justice is what love looks like in public.”
I struggle with the question of whether celebration leads to complacency and a false sense of utopia or if it instead inspires and uplifts. You would probably see it as inspiration without the guarantee of redemption. After all, redemption only comes through justice. Maybe you’ve made me too cynical. I do not make the assumption that the color of President Obama’s skin guarantees the advancement of a full civil rights agenda, just as I am not confident that Dr. King’s belief of love and equality would have extended to transgender rights or full workplace equity for women. The vision of equality King proposed was incomplete, just as the vision Obama proposes today is. You would tell me to get to work fighting for a repeal of mandatory minimum sentencing, abolishment of the death penalty, equal prosecution of crack and cocaine, an end to the war on drugs, an end to police brutality and racial profiling, an increase of resources given to public schools in lower income communities, an increase in the Pell grant, universal and preventative health care, and many other policies that will close the gap between black men and the rest of society.
As I struggle with these questions and the daunting challenges that face our generation, maybe I should do more than stay home from work today. Maybe I should do more than party like a rock star for Obama’s inauguration tomorrow. Maybe I should ask the question to all black man who die too soon. What should I do to fight for you?
Erica Williams is the Policy and Advocacy Manager at Campus Progress.
Correction: This article originally stated that black men as a whole “are more likely to be murdered than graduate college.” In fact, that comparison applies specifically to young men between the ages of 15 and 24.
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Comments
What a tribute to a great daddy from a fine daughter. And a plea to our new President to end the national
— Frank Lornitzo - Jan 22, 09:43 PM - #institution of an Underclass still remaining as that threat to those who don’t conform and maintaining the system of the working poor.
WOW! I’m in love with you, Erica! What an amazing piece. I’m going to email this article all over the place and would love to know where I can find more of your opinions.
— Jesus Nieto - Jan 22, 10:34 PM - #What an incredible letter. It is so difficult to soundly answer your closing question, but it is truly necessary to ask.
— Jonna Humphries - Jan 23, 08:44 AM - #Beautifully written, but just as a fact check, the statement that black men are “more likely to be murdered than to go to college” is grossly inaccurate. In 2005, there were about 6,500 black male homicide victims (http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/homicide/tables/varstab.htm). In comparison, there were about 750,000 black male college enrollees in 2005. Even if you just count black male freshmen, of which there were more than 280,000, your statement is off by orders of magnitude (http://www.census.gov/population/www/socdemo/school/cps2005.html).
I think that the heart of your piece is right on, and that it is beautifully written. I think that we should keep in mind that Dr. King didn’t speak nearly as much about a black president as he did about broad political engagement as a means to achieve equality in justice and opportunity. But I think we can make all the points that you made with accurate facts, without diminishing the achievements of college attending black males, and without distorting reality. I think that you and I would agree that James Baldwin said it well more than 50 years ago when he wrote that, “You know, and I know, that the country is celebrating one hundred years of freedom one hundred years too soon.”
— Dan - Jan 23, 10:17 AM - #Thanks so much Dan. Your fact check does necessitate a clarification in my claim. The statistic that I was referring to and did not accurately represent is that black men between the ages of 15-24 are more likely to be murdered than 18-24 year old black men are to attend college, according to 2008 Justice Department statistics. The devil is indeed in the details and I would never want to denigrate the achievement of the many black males to are able to access higher education. And yes – we do agree that James Baldwin, as always, said it best. :)
— Erica W - Jan 23, 11:05 AM - #Also, just another note that your statistics Dan are referring to black male enrollment, not graduation rates. That lens provides another stark difference in numbers.
— Erica W - Jan 23, 11:50 AM - #I did some brief searching and couldn’t find those Justice Department statistics, but I would be very interested to see them. Aside from the problem of comparing two different groups (15-24 and 18-24), my hunch is that by any measure, black males are far more likely to graduate college than to be murdered. The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education reported that the college graduation rate for black males in 2005 was 35% (http://www.jbhe.com/preview/winter07preview.html). So if you take the 280,000 black male college freshmen (http://www.census.gov/population/www/socdemo/school/cps2005.html) and apply the graduation rate for black males, you can extrapolate that you will get about 98,000 black male college graduates each year. This soars above the 2,205 18-24 year old black male homicide victims in 2005 (http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/homicide/tables/varstab.htm), and even over the 16,453 total homicide victims, regardless of age or race (http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/homicide/tables/vracetab.htm). It seems pretty clear that by any measure, black men are more likely to go to college, attend college, and graduate from college than they are to be murdered. I don’t mean to beleaguer the point, but catchy statistics are frequently passed around without fact checks, and myths and hearsay become “fact.” Too often it leads to bad policy, and the heart of your article is too important to be weighed down by inaccuracy.
— Dan - Mar 5, 05:31 PM - #By the way, you did a great job at the State of the Black Union!
Erika: pls. get a passport so you can visit Botswana, the only color blind country on the planet. Ophra will send you.
— arlin mauer - Mar 12, 05:01 PM - #Erika: pls. get a passport so you can visit Botswana, the only color blind country on the planet. Ophra will send you.
— arlin mauer - Mar 12, 05:01 PM - #Erika: pls. get a passport so you can visit Botswana, the only color blind country on the planet. Ophra will send you.
— arlin mauer - Mar 12, 05:01 PM - #Erika: pls. get a passport so you can visit Botswana, the only color blind country on the planet. Ophra will send you.
— arlin mauer - Mar 12, 05:01 PM - #