In this battle, more than a few good men are needed
It was a morning to celebrate fathers and father figures. Men of all ages were seated next to young children at banquet tables at the Haynes Early Education Center on Blue Hill Avenue last weekend.
"These are the people I know we can call on for our kids," said the Roxbury public school's principal, Valerie Gumes, welcoming the 50 or so fathers, grandfathers, uncles, and godfathers who sat with young students, enjoying plates of French toast and home fries. "Relationships and achievement go hand in hand," said Gumes, before she introduced a panel of male leaders, including Mayor Thomas Menino, who chimed in with their own calls to the men to stay closely connected to the young person they came with.
There was a good feeling in the air. But the truth is, the reason for the school's second annual "Special Man in My Life Breakfast" is the lack of special men in the lives of far too many black and Latino children.
It is the elephant in the room when it comes to the litany of problems facing poor urban neighborhoods, helping to drive everything from the school drop-out epidemic to high rates of incarceration. It is one of the overarching problems highlighted by Bill Cosby and Alvin Poussaint in "Come on People," the manifesto published last year that bundles together the tough message Cosby has been delivering to black audiences across the country over the past several years.
In 1950, write Cosby and Poussaint, five out of six black children were born into a two-parent home. Today that figure stands at fewer than two in six.
"In poor communities, that number is lower still," they write, lamenting the prevalence of "whole blocks without responsible males to watch out for wayward boys."
Several of the panelists referred to the 1995 Million Man March in Washington as a hopeful moment when the black community seemed poised to address head-on the issues of fractured families and absent fathers. "It had men talking about it and stepping up," said Judge Leslie Harris, a Boston juvenile court judge, before the breakfast program got started. "We've let that discussion fade."
The Rev. Michael Haynes, dean of Boston's black clergy and the man for whom the early learning center is named, said the controversy around march leader Louis Farrakhan detracted from the urgency of that call.
Byron Beaman works in special education for the Boston public schools, but his community efforts extend much further. They include hosting a weekly radio show that discusses issues affecting the black community and helping to organize two School Department-sponsored conferences this year aimed at increasing the engagement of men in children's education.
He told the gathering that men in the black community have to "take care of ourselves better so we can take care of our children better."
Urging the men at the breakfast to be role models by playing on the floor with their kids and telling them they love them, Beaman said those are ways to show what you're made of, not by being drawn into senseless violence and confrontation.
"What do you get for dying for the 'hood? You get a little cheap liquor poured out for you and some $2 candles," said Beaman, describing the bleak ritual that plays out at street corner shrines to another life lost.
"We all want to be respected for something, but there's a better way to do it."
How to turn the tide on the dire family demographics that have taken hold in poor neighborhoods is a tall order.
What the picture needs to look like, said Haynes, was in plain view.
"Seeing all these men with children, rather than mothers, that's significant," said the 80-year-old pastor emeritus of the Twelfth Baptist Church. "The answer for the future - right there."
Michael Jonas can be reached at jonas@globe.com.
