Today marks my first Father's Day as a dad - and boy, does it feel good. I've had my share of Daddy adventures, from changing diapers at 3 in the morning to snatching up my son and running into the street when criminals torched the house next door. So I figure I've earned breakfast in bed and maybe a tie or something.But what I'd really like as a gift - one I can hand down to my son - is an end to all the crisis talk that constantly gets wrapped around black men in America. It's starting to feel like a straitjacket.
Already this year, I've been invited to no fewer than half a dozen conferences about the state of black males (the next one is this week, at the Manhattan Institute). Scholars and experts keep meeting to talk about why so many black men end up in jail, or unemployed, or addicted, or sick from various diseases. We seem to be the object of endless, anguished study, like some species of crippled guinea pigs.
I must admit to contributing to the phenomenon. In June of 1984, I wrote the cover story of the first issue of the now-defunct City Sun newspaper, a black weekly published out of Brooklyn. The article, "Death of a Generation," detailed all the ills afflicting young black men, backed up by statistics and anecdotes.
Today, I'm still reading articles just like my 1984 piece.
There's nothing wrong with bringing social problems to public attention. But when the news is always bad and the tone is one of never-ending crisis, analysis can create paralysis.
The scholar W.E.B. DuBois recognized this back in 1903, when he published the classic work, "The Souls of Black Folk." DuBois sensed that an unasked question - How does it feel to be a problem? - lay behind nearly every interaction he had with whites.
The question, DuBois noted, could not be answered. "I smile, or am interested, or reduce the boiling to a simmer," he wrote, but "to the real question, How does it feel to be a problem? I answer seldom a word."
The question can't be answered because nobody can be a truly free man and a social problem - an object of pity - at the same time.
Lord knows that incompetence, corruption and criminality can be found in our courts, prisons, classrooms, hospitals, and at every level of government. There are also problems - including self-inflicted problems - in the worlds of commerce and culture, where greed and irresponsibility often rule the day.
Many of these maladies can, and do, end up harming black men disproportionately, in unfair and pernicious ways. I plan to keep bringing as many of these issues - hopefully with solutions attached - to Daily News readers. But let's get out of the habit of constantly reducing black men to a bundle of challenges yet to be conquered. We're not problems, and we're not statistics. We're just guys struggling to live, learn, pay the bills and handle our business as neighbors, citizens, husbands and fathers. Just like your dad.
http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/427695p-360535c.html
