Training Day

We are all educated in one way or another, to paraphrase the great Dennis Kimbro, “each of us is a gallery of art” and despite our best wishes we cannot erase our efforts. Similarly, the formal and informal training we are given during our most formative years, shape us in ways that we spend our whole lives discovering.

Growing up, I noticed there was no movement encouraging black men to be well rounded like the skilled, intelligent and honorable men that our grandfathers and their fathers were before them. Despite sitcom favorites like Theo Huxtable and Dwayne Wayne who made being nerdy cool, having a well versed vocabulary or being interested in music that wasn’t rap or r&b were not part of the young black regimen.

“Whether we dribble out this m — r, Rap metaphors and riddle out this m — r”

~ Jay-Z “Somehow Someway”

As a child, I was heavily encouraged by people outside my home to play sports because I was tall or because I was left handed. From well intentioned family members complimenting me with “Boy you got some height on you, uh huh, you need to get on that court” to white parents in college asking me “Are you on the basketball team?”

I was not.

But when you’re a black boy that’s tall going on taller what other options are thrust upon you? I know some of these comments were well intentioned. However, they were also short sighted. Black boys often aren’t encouraged to be dynamic in their thinking or their hobbies let alone manage their pride, their interests and their intellect amongst an oppressive institution that profits off of our mental enslavement. From a single parent rate in the mid sixty percent to decades of strategic poverty, over policing, mass incarceration, and the infamous crack epidemic, black millennial men have been through the ringer. What’s more we have seriously been lacking in the male role model department for a long time. This is quite possibly why our community is so sensitive about the black men who do show promise: the men with resources, the men with wisdom and the ability to train younger men. Unfortunately, we unconsciously mimic what we see and are motivated to copy the images of adult boyhood on screens. Consequently, we download different messages:

Get Money. Be Real. Use Black women.

These have been the key ingredients of a balanced breakfast for black boys. And what many of us as millennials know now is that the habits we developed as children are the same ones we carry into adulthood. We devour this programmed diet and we savor its message day in and day out until it becomes an acquired taste. I remember much of the music and movies highlighting black culture showcased black men as gang members, emotionally unavailable, illiterate athletes, or criminals. Yet, these images only covered over the truth that was once common in our communities.

This is in no way to say we haven’t made progress. More black men are graduating college, more black men are starting businesses and less black men are being trapped by the prison industrial complex; all of which are examples the process of retraining young black boys is happening. In fact, many of my closest friends are black men and educators,Within the past ten years we have seen a resurgence of black men making every effort to showcase black excellence. Thankfully there has been a growing remnant of black men teaching, guiding and developing the next generation. A new training day is upon us.