Thanking the Zimmerman jury: Column
I may be the only African American man in America who wants to tell the six jurors in the Zimmerman trial one thing: thank you.
Their verdict is a gift: an opportunity to replace recycled, warmed-over truisms from talking heads with a serious, action-oriented debate on how to reclaim the lost human capital of America's young black males.
The lack of this debate has weighed on me for years. So last summer I took a three-month leave of absence to investigate why opportunity and wellness elude so many of our black sons. Why so many young men grow up fatherless, drop out of school, go to jail, or get killed.
As a pediatrician and private foundation executive, I was laboring to address an intellectual curiosity. But as an African-American father, son, and husband, it was personal, and I was outraged. Simply because our nation was not.
I interviewed 60 mostly black and brown leaders around our nation. I met with people from Marian Wright Edelman, president of Children's Defense Fund, to Cornel West, professor at Union Theological Seminary to Dr. Maulana Karenga, the activist founder of Kwanzaa. I listened to civil rights leaders, community organizers, elected officials, former felons and gang bangers. And many young black young men themselves.
I hear echoes of these interviews in the current debate on the Zimmerman verdict. I agree that racism, bigotry, and prejudice pulled the trigger that sucked Trayvon Martin's life away – metaphorically and literally. In one of my interviews last summer, an African American faith leader commented that we are now "coping with the 16th generation of America's racism," and identified that legacy as the culprit for the plight of young black men.
But there's an intellectual dishonesty that racism is wholly to blame for our struggles. Nearly 6,000 young black men will fall victim to homicide this year.Ninety-three percent will die at the hands of another African American.
This tension dominated the discussions I had during my study leave. Some blamed the legacy of racism and believe the problems are mainly the doing of white America. But others stated "We have done this to ourselves, and we own this; these are our kids we are raising and we are responsible."
The dichotomy of opinions is more paralyzing than useful. To deny the role of racism is to ignore history as we move forward. I'm reminded of the mythic West African Sankofa Bird, that relies on forward flight while peering backwards, applying the lessons of history to progress with purpose. We do not have the luxury of waiting for white America to own up to 400 years of slavery, and Jim Crow, as a precursor for meaningful action.
We now have a rare national spotlight on the burdens borne by young black men, and an opportunity to begin the reclamation of so much lost human capital. Let's use it to break through this logjam of over-analysis and blame and take action.
There are three things our nation must do, right now, to turn hopelessness into opportunity for our black and brown sons.
First, ensure boys read at grade level by 3rd grade. Eighty-four percent of black boys in urban areas do not. But this is the most important predictor of school success and graduation.
Second, stop schools' over-reliance on suspensions and expulsions to discipline students for minor offenses. African-American boys are being suspended from school at epidemic rates. Studies demonstrate that a young man of color who experiences even one school suspension reduces his chance of attending college by as much as 70 percent.
Finally, we need local and national strategies to reduce chronic absenteeism, a powerful early warning sign that students are off track. One in ten Kindergarten and first grade students miss a month or more of school each year.
Our African-American sons are telling us, at very early stages in life, that they have fallen off the road to opportunity. We must rally around a results-driven, national strategy that involves community leaders. We don't have to wait for the Great National Conversation on Race to save our sons.
Thankfully, the jury found Zimmerman not guilty. Otherwise, our nation might have gone back to sleep.
Robert K. Ross is the president of The California Endowment, a philanthropic foundations that works to improve health and wellness in California's young men of color.
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