10 Things All Young Black Men Should Know

By The Black Star Project

1)     Know that you are a young Black man in America and that means you are different than other Americans.  While you can still realize your dreams, you might have to take a different path.  You will have to be more careful, more thoughtful and more aware than others to survive in America.

2)      Value education, learning and reading.  The more and better you can read for understanding, the freer and more powerful you will become.

3)      Work hard.  Many times, it is not what you know that makes you successful, but instead consistency, persistence, effort and dedication.  Be sure to just “show up”.

4)      Respect women and girls.  They hold up half the sky in our communities.  Together we can accomplish great things in our families and communities.

5)      Believe in something higher than yourself.  Whether its religious, spiritual or philosophical, connect with and explore the larger universe and eternity.

6)      Emulate strong, positive, intelligent Black men.  Use them as your mentors and role models.

7)      Be a leader!  Exhibit courage, wisdom, vision and good decision-making skills to help your community improve.  You are a natural leader.  Others will follow your positive and righteous actions.

8)      Respect and work with other young Black men to accomplish great things for your community.  Teams of young Black men can accomplish what individuals cannot.

9)      Study your history and culture.  You are not alone, ever.

10)    Choose positive peers, associates and friends.  Those relationships will help determine your path in life.

As the Executive Director of The Black Star Project, Phillip Jackson has become a national leader advocating for community involvement in education and the importance of parental development to ensure that children are properly educated. The Black Star Project has served close to 100,000 students in over 175 schools since 1996 in its Student Motivation Program and between 3,000 to 4,000 parents in its parent outreach programs since 2004. This year, Phillip Jackson and The Black Star Project lead the nation back to school with the hugely successful Million Father March 2005. This second annual back-to-school march encouraged men to take children to school on the first day, marking a commitment to a year of positive male involvement in education. Marches took place at schools in 82 cities around the country and even in Auckland, New Zealand.

One Dropout Every 26 Seconds Is A Ticking Time Bomb for Blacks

A whopping 40 percent of African-American students don’t graduate from high school. These dismal statistics are creating an underclass of African-Americans who have become unemployable, while also affecting the very fibers of the black family structure.

By Lawrence C. Ross (04/06/2011)

Between the trials and tribulations of the controversial No Child Left Behind law, the growing issue of bullying in schools, and the feeling that parents, teachers and administrators are all searching for a magic solution to the problem that is the American educational system, here comes more bad news.

Recently, President Barack Obama’s education secretary Arne Duncan stated that every 26 seconds, a student drops out of high school. But things are even worse for black students; a whopping 40 percent of African-American students don’t graduate from high school. These dismal statistics are creating an underclass of African-Americans who have become unemployable, while also affecting the very fibers of the black family structure.

Marc Williams, a high school music theory teacher at Cesar Chavez Charter School in Washington DC, also works with the school’s retention program. He sees a number of different causes for black students not finishing high school.

“Our (African-American) students are dropping out of school for a number of reasons. Aside from the cookie-cutter answers that most folks give that speak to the lack of support from within the household, the fact that many of our students don’t have a ‘set’ of parents, and the obvious idea that many urban schools lack the fiscal resources that other schools have, there are some other things to consider here,” Williams said.

“We, as educators, are failing our students,” he added. “Independent and charter schools (in particular), in order to meet budgets, are spending less money for newer, inexperienced teachers that come fresh off the stage of graduation and into a situation that is a culture shock for them… It’s a set up for failure.”

When you dig deeper, you find that black boys in particular are in a crisis mode. According to the Massachusetts-based Schott Foundation on Public Education, more than half — 53 percent — of black male students drop out of high school without a diploma, compared to 22 percent of white males.

And the problem even extends to elementary school, in one of the best charter school programs in the country. A new study by researchers at Western Michigan reports that 40 percent of 6th to 8th grade black boys in the Knowledge Is Power Program charter schools (KIPP) drop out before completing the program.

It is already tough for high school graduates to compete economically with college graduates, with college graduates earning around $297,893 dollars more than a high school graduate during a lifetime. But without a high school diploma or a General Educational Development (GED), a student basically condemns themselves to underclass status. Individuals without a GED or high school diploma loses about $7,000 dollars per year in comparison to someone with a GED.

And in a modern military, where the ability to understand high tech systems is a premium, dropping out of high school and getting into the military is proving to be an obstacle. Even those with high school degrees are finding it difficult. Thirty nine percent of black applicants with a high school degree are rejected by the military. And those who do make it in are coming into the military with lower scores than white applicants, therefore putting them at a disadvantage when it comes to future advancement.

The real societal cost of a high drop out rate at the high school level is that it attacks the structure of the black family. Black high school drop outs feed a growing black underclass of economically disadvantaged families, making it more difficult to break the cycle of poverty. The state of New York is finding that having a GED helps prevent homelessness, and has created Back to School program in order to get individuals to complete their GED.

But the effects are also found in the college ranks. With black boys struggling to finish high school and go to college, some college systems are finding that when they exclude for college athletes, black male students are a scare commodity. In South Carolina, for example, only 3 percent of the student body at the University of South Carolina, Clemson and the College of Charleston, are black male students. This means that there’s a infinitesimal pool of eligible college educated black women looking for a relationships with men with similar educational backgrounds.

The high school drop out epidemic among African-Americans is not a ticking time bomb, it’s a tsunami that’s swamping the future of black America. State Farm Insurance is working with America’s Promise, the educational organization founded by former Secretary of State General Colin Powell, to fight high school drop outs through a new program called 26 seconds. But unless there are major changes to the current educational trends, look for the nation’s prisons to continue to be repositories for the black students left behind, as they grow more desperate to survive without educational skills.

Phillip Jackson is the Founder and Executive Director of The Black Star Project, based in Chicago.  Its mission is to improve the quality of life in black and Latino communities of Chicago and nationwide by eliminating the racial academic achievement gap.  You can e-mail Mr. Jackson at blackstar1000@ameritech.net.

Black America Loses Gamble In Electing First Black President

By Phillip Jackson

In 2008, black America placed most of its political capital, spiritual energy and financial resources into electing the first black president of the United States. Black community leaders – political, spiritual and media – led us to believe that electing a first black president was a natural extension of the civil rights movement.

They were wrong. In fact, electing the first black president might well have ended the civil rights movement. Black America mistakenly traded the future of its young black men for a black president.

Young black men in America are beyond living in a “state of emergency.” Many of them range from “barely surviving” to “no longer existing.” This tragedy can be seen in prisons and jails across America, where black men make up 50% to 80% of prison and jail populations although we are less than 7% of the total U.S. population.

Despair also can be seen in our families, where more than 70% of our children are born into single, female-headed households, and in colleges and universities, where black male populations on many major college campuses total a mere 1% to 3%.

Granted, these were all problems before the first black president took office; however, the bottom line is that this president has not committed himself in any way to directly address these issues.

In so many ways, the energy used to support a first black president was energy that should have been used to educate black children, rebuild black families and economically revitalize black communities. As a way of saving our struggling communities, black America took a gamble on supporting a first black president. But we lost.

Over and over, the black community has reached out for help from this first black president, and over and over, he has said, “No!” This first black president has been clear that his job is not to help black Americans but to help all Americans.

All Americans do not need the same help that young black men need. We need only walk down any city street in almost any predominantly African-American community to see residue of the human wreckage of millions of young black men nationwide.

Few leaders – those same political, spiritual and media leaders who advised us to campaign for this black president – engaged in proactive measures to prevent this “silent genocide.” The mass destruction of young black American men has been effectively ignored by almost everybody – the government, the media and much of the philanthropic community. And even most black faith leaders stand by and watch this preventable, ongoing, horrific loss of our young black men.

Too few of us are asking: Who are young black women going to marry? Who will be good fathers to tens of millions of black fatherless children? Who will anchor strong families in the black community? Who will build and maintain the economies of black communities? Who will young black boys emulate as they grow into men? Will black America be a viable and valuable community in 20 years?

This demise of black America is happening in front of our eyes because so few of us – black, white or other – really care about these young black men.

Electing America’s first black president seems to have cleansed the conscience of most Americans for destroying many past generations of black people. What a cruel hoax to believe that if a black man can become president, then young black men do not have any problems that America is obligated to address.

Correcting the problems of young black men in America will require a comprehensively structured, sufficiently financed, professionally managed, ethically led and committed multi-pronged effort to systemically address and shift the cascading negative outcomes for black men and boys. Simply telling black men to “man up” will not work.

The real shame of this catastrophe is not that America can’t save young black men; the shame is that America won’t make the effort to save young black men! Compared with massive government bailouts and frivolous expenditures, the resources required to save America’s young black men are minuscule. Saving young black men is an investment in America! A successful effort to save young black men must also address habits, attitudes and behaviors of these youth that have pushed them to the precipice of irrelevance, obsolescence and nonexistence.

To date, precious little has been put in place to stop the ongoing destruction and annihilation of young black men. When our first black president has been asked about helping black men in America, his retort, “I will do what is best for all Americans,” is woefully insufficient to address the endangered status of millions of black males in America.

The president must do the best for both, not just for America. In fact, doing what is best for young black men is what is best for America!

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Founded in 1996 by Phillip Jackson, The Black Star Project is committed to improving the quality of life in Black and Latino communities of Chicago and nationwide by eliminating the racial academic achievement gap.  Their mission is to provide educational services that help pre-school through college students succeed academically and become knowledgeable and productive citizens with the support of their parents, families, schools and communities.

Phillip Jackson

Executive Director

The Black Star Project

773.285.9600

Phillip Jackson is the Founder and Executive Director of The Black Star Project, based in Chicago.  Its mission is to improve the quality of life in black and Latino communities of Chicago and nationwide by eliminating the racial academic achievement gap.  You can e-mail Mr. Jackson at blackstar1000@ameritech.net.

The above text was excerpted from The Black Star Project Newsletters.  Click here to visit the official web site of The Black Star Project.

Is It Time for A Black Men’s Movement?

By Phillip Jackson

When we talk about the violence in our communities, we have to ask, “Where are the Black men?” When it is time to take responsibility for the education of Black children, we have to ask, “Where are the Black men?” When it is time to raise little boys into strong, positive men, we must ask, “Where are the Black men?” And when it is time to prepare our communities for the globalization that threatens to eliminate our communities from cities across the country, our children scream out to us, “Where are the Black Men?”

There are some great Black fathers, husbands, community leaders, mentors, businessmen, men of God and generally good guys in the Black community. But my question is this: When the blood of Black children is literally running in the streets, where are those Black men? Where is the Black men’s movement that can revitalize the Black community? The answer: It is nowhere!

Black men must re-define what it means to be a Black man.

• Real men nurture their children
• Real men educate their children
• Real men mentor children not their own
• Real men provide security for their families
• Real men build their community
• Real men create jobs and control the economic destiny of their community
• Real men ensure the safety of their community
• Real men organize to solve problems in their community
• Real men take care of the elders in their community

The Three Essential and Dynamic Principles for Black Men:

1) Black men must become the catalytic force in rebuilding the Black family. By rebuilding the Black family, you rebuild the Black community. Everything that is important to life flows through the Black family – education, economics, spiritual values, resistance to violence, character, reverence for our elders and more. In fact, it flows through all families, through any family. That is how nature and society is made.

2) Black men must take control of the education of Black children – formal and informal. They must set high standards and become the teachers of the knowledge and principles that will cause the Black community to survive and thrive into the 21st century. There is absolutely a place for government, Black women and people of other races in this effort, but Black men must take the lead for it to impress Black boys.

3) Black men must create and control a new sub-economy in the Black community. In 2008, the whole world is hustling except the Black community. Sure, there are a few Black billionaires, but they do not teach young Black boys how to get off of corners selling drugs or how to hustle goods and services legitimately in our communities. They don’t teach them to open up stores, to start business or to hire their relatives. The Black community is a community that has forgotten how to hustle legit! The Black community is being hustled. Black people beg for others to give Black children jobs but for the most part, we do not work to create jobs for our children.

In the Black community, the harvest of young Black boys is plentiful but the laborers of Black men committed to working with them are few.

We need black men! Women! Please pass this on to a strong, positive Black man.

Phillip Jackson

Executive Director

The Black Star Project

773.285.9600