Solutions Need To Begin At The Bottom

Five years ago, some 42 percent of young black men in the District of Columbia were in some sort of trouble with the law - locked up, on parole or probation, awaiting trial or being sought on an arrest warrant.

Today, it’s just a hair under 50 percent. Don’t be surprised if the numbers (supplied by the National Center on Institutions and Alternatives in Alexandria) are still worse five years from now. Why shouldn’t they be worse? What is happening that would reverse that dismal trend? Where is the evidence that anyone is trying very hard to change it?

Oh, we’ll talk about it, just as we did five years go. Unfortunately, now, as then, even much of our talk is off-target. Give us a racial disparity that reflects negatively on black people, and our first talk will be of racism.

Young black men (the survey focus was on men aged 18 to 35) are more likely than their white counterparts to be stopped by white or black police officers, more likely to be arrested for the similar offenses, more likely to be tried and, upon conviction, more likely to do time.

All of it’s true, but little of it explains what’s happening here, and in other U.S. cities as well. To start with, the 50 percent figure includes probationers - young men who, for reasons of parental influence or official leniency, manage to avoid formal punishment.

I’m not so naive as to suggest that race is a nonfactor. No one who has followed the controversy over disparate sentencing for crack and powder cocaine, for example, could conclude that race is of no consequence.

I’m saying something else: that any explanation that begins with the criminal justice system - police, courts and prisons - is likely to miss the heart of the matter. A virtual conspiracy of circumstances impels young black men into trouble.

It starts, of course, with poor black men, who, increasingly likely to grow up without effective fathers, may find themselves drifting through school and through life, getting by on their wits and their willingness to take dangerous chances. The schools that could be a haven from the pressures of big city life become just another part of the problem, furnishing neither sanctuary nor much learning.

Many survive these difficult circumstances, of course. And a lot get skimmed off and saved along the way - the obviously bright, the outstanding athletes, the children of deeply religious households and (probably because they are beyond worrying about being branded “different” and therefore free to follow their own dreams) gay kids.

Too many succumb, however, and they wind up feeding statistics like those reported by the National Center - even while their sisters may head off to college or careers.

But if it begins with poor black men, the problem has been climbing right up the socioeconomic ladder. Think sneakers - those multihued, assiduously marketed shoes with inflated heels, soles and prices - and ask yourself who decides which brand and what style will become this month’s must-have model. The styles in sneakers almost always percolate up from the trouble-prone rough kids to the increasingly better-off. And so do the styles of dress, speech - and behavior.

Nor is it as silly as it may sound. Especially at the younger end of the 18-to-35 cohort, young black men may affect the styles and manners of the street toughs as a form of protective coloration. There are streets in some big cities where a blazer, nicely pressed trousers and a cheery “Hi, guys” could get you hurt.

The strange thing is, we know that trouble starts at the bottom and works its way up. And still we keep trying to start our solutions near the top.

So much of what we do is done with the middle class in mind. California’s Proposition 209 may be a disaster, but mainly a disaster for youngsters who already have completed high school with good grade averages. Set-asides and the other affirmative-action programs so widely under attack may still be needed, but they don’t do much for the young men who have abandoned all faith in making it in the straight world.

We middle-class blacks might be compared to a sparkling new roof on a house whose foundations are crumbling and whose lower walls are under increasing stress. No amount of attention to the roof will keep the house from collapsing. It’s past time to start devoting serious attention, effort and resources to those at the bottom - if not for altruistic reasons at least to save ourselves. xxxx

The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = William Raspberry Washington Post