In Focus: Youth of Color
Apr 03, 2013 | Permalink »
Investing in Boys and Young Men of Color: The Promise and Opportunity
The path to adulthood can be especially difficult for many middle- and high-school-aged young men of color. They are more likely to grow up in poverty, live in unsafe neighborhoods, and go to under-resourced schools—all of which affect their lifelong health and well-being. What is at stake for America is the possibility of losing an entire generation of productive men who will fall short of their potential, live less healthy lives, and fail to build and strengthen their communities.
In 2011, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) created the Forward Promise initiative within its Vulnerable Populations Portfolio to place a strategic emphasis on the needs of middle school- and high school-aged young men of color. RWJF’s goal is to strengthen educational opportunities, pathways to employment, and health outcomes for these young men.
CLASP worked with RWJF to conduct a scan of issues facing boys and young men of color in the areas of education, health, and pathways to employment. The goal of the scan was to understand both the barriers and opportunities in this work in order to make an informed decision about where to place resources to best influence outcomes for boys and young men of color. The results of the scan are available in our brief, “Investing in Boys and Young Men of Color: The Promise and Opportunity.”
From the scan came eight key ideas for investing in boys and young men of color:
Recommendation #1: Promote school discipline approaches that address behavioral problems without pushing students out of school
Recommendation #2: Increase the use of data to target interventions to boys of color at risk for dropping out of school
Recommendation #3: Expand opportunities for young men of color to work, learn, and develop career-enhancing skills
Recommendation #4: Elevate the importance of a “caring adult” in policy and programmatic efforts to re-engage out-of-school males
Recommendation #5: Provide options for out-of-school males to attain a secondary credential with pathways to postsecondary education
Recommendation #6: Increase the cultural competency of health professionals and educators who work with boys and young men of color
Recommendation #7: Change the philosophy and culture of how youth systems provide services to youth experiencing violence and trauma
Recommendation #8: Increase access to health care services for boys and young men of color
Jan 18, 2013 | Permalink »
Race Still Plays a Role in Defining Poverty
Recently, I was on Huff Post Live (a live-streaming program on Huffington Post) with an interesting panel of people discussing whether class defines segregation and poverty in our nation and whether race has lost its relevance. This discussion was based on a blog by Janita Poe on AI.com which asserts that class, not race, is what separates society today.
If race were no longer a factor, then the experiences of the poor would not vary along racial lines. In fact, black and white families experience poverty very differently.
Black families in poverty are far more likely to live in segregated communities of concentrated poverty while white families in poverty are more likely to live in suburban areas of mixed income. This is not simply by choice. Discrimination in housing is still alive and well, albeit less overt than the historical days of redlining. This difference in geography has long term effects for black families on outcomes including health, education, employment, and family formation outcomes. Families have less access to quality health services, jobs that provide a livable wage, education that prepares youth for college and careers, community programming, and healthy food options. The difference of location makes a difference in future life outcomes.
Black children are more likely to live in persistent poverty, whereas white children are more likely to cycle in and out of poverty as parents' income fluctuates. This is largely a function of access to employment. Black unemployment rates are consistently about double that of whites, with the widest gaps being for low income people. Living in poverty for more than one-half of childhood has a significant impact on how young people view the world and their prospective future within it. The ability to envision a better life is a critical step to actually achieving it.
When we shift the conversation to middle-class black families, we see that the racial inequities remain. Gaps in education access and attainment, employment, health, and family formation persist across all socioeconomic levels. In some of our nation's most diverse suburban school districts, high schools with high minority populations fail to offer the full menu of courses that prepare students for college admission. While the racial gaps in unemployment decrease as level of education increases, the gaps do not go away. Race is still a factor in employment, regardless to whether you are a high school dropout or hold a PhD.
There is no mistaking that race remains a major divider in our nation. For me, the most compelling sentiment of this 30-minute dialogue was the one expressed by Carey Fuller, the only person in poverty on our segment: she said that as a nation, we could fix this if we wanted to.
Oct 10, 2012 | Permalink »
The Supreme Court To Hear the High Profile Fisher Case that will Test Affirmative Action in Higher Education
By Kisha Bird
Today, the Supreme Court is set to hear the high profile Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin (UT) case that will have major implications not just on racial preferences in admissions to public colleges and universities but also on the legacy of affirmative action. The challenge was brought by a white student, Fisher, who claims she was denied admission to UT due to an admissions policy that considers race.
The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights notes that this marks the first federal appellate challenge to the Supreme Court's 2003 decision in Grutter v. Bollinger, which affirmed the University of Michigan's law school's affirmative action program and held diversity is a compelling interest for public universities and that race can be used as a factor in admissions. In August, more than 50 briefs were filed in support of diversity and the University of Texas at Austin's (UT) admissions policy. This summer, CLASP joined the 2025 Network for Black Men and Boys and other black male achievement initiatives in urging the Supreme Court to uphold the admissions procedures of the University of Texas. Led by the Kirwan Institute, a national coalition of black male achievement initiatives (BMI) filed an amicus brief advocating that the admissions procedures of the University of Texas at Austin be upheld. UT's admission procedures allow officials to consider race along with other factors in ensuring the selection of a diverse class.
In particular, the BMI brief notes that studies of college diversity seldom consider information about race and gender discretely and, therefore, urges the Supreme Court to examine the low numbers of African American males currently enrolled at selective colleges and universities. The BMI coalition argues that black males are "especially vulnerable to exclusion from postsecondary educational opportunities without every available constitutional tool to include them". The coalition states further that only "1.79% of the full-time students enrolled in UT's 2009 fall entering class were black males (129 out of 7,199)." Read more>>>