Black Males Face Relentless Racism

Surviving blackness
Black men quietly combat negative stereotypes

By ERIN TEXEIRA The Associated Press

NEW YORK — Keith Borders tries hard not to scare people.
He’s six foot seven, a garrulous lawyer who talks with his hands.
And because he’s black, he has to think a lot about how threatening he looks.

"I have a very keen sense of my size and how I communicate," says Borders. "I end up putting my hands in my pockets or behind me. I stand with my feet closer together. With my feet spread out, it looks like I’m taking a stance. And I use a softer voice."

Every day, African-American men consciously work to offset stereotypes about them — that they are dangerous, aggressive, angry. Some smile a lot, dress conservatively and speak in a deferential tone. They are mindful of their bodies, they don’t dart into closing elevators or stand too close in stores.

Decades after segregation, biased views of black men stubbornly hang on. Statistics show a yawning gap between the lives of white men and black men. Black men earn barely 75 per cent of what white men earn; nearly one in three black men will spend time behind bars during his life; on average, black men die six years earlier than whites.

If black men don’t carefully calculate how to handle everyday situations that most white men wouldn’t think about twice, they can end up out of a job, in jail or dead.

Melissa Harris Lacewell, a political scientist at the University of Chicago, says learning to adapt is at the heart of being a North American black male.

"Black mothers and fathers socialize their sons to not make waves, to not come up against the authorities, to speak even more politely when whites are present but particularly if there are whites who have power," she said.

It’s like a game of chess, says 43-year-old Chester Williams, of New Orleans. He has taught his three sons, ages 16, 14 and 11, to play.

"The rules of the game are universal: white moves first, then black moves," he said. "Black has to respond to the moves that the whites make. You take the advantage when it’s available."

Walter White, a black sales executive from Cincinnati, recalls sitting down with his family and watching Roots, the groundbreaking 1970s TV miniseries tracing a black family from Africa through slavery and into modern times.

The slaves were quietly obedient around whites. "As soon as the master was gone," he said, "they did what they wanted to do. That’s what we were taught."

Historians say both the stereotypes and coping strategies are rooted in America’s history of slavery and segregation.

School is still a challenge. Last year, Yale University research on public school pre-kindergarten programs found that blacks were expelled twice as often as whites — and nine out of 10 blacks expelled were boys. Some trace it to negative views about black boys.

Bill Fletcher still has nightmares about his third-grade teacher, a white woman who "treated me and other black students as if we were idiots," he said. "She destroyed my confidence."

But his parents were strong advocates, and taught him to cope by having little contact with teachers who didn’t take an interest in him, said Fletcher, former president of TransAfrica Forum, a group that builds ties between African-Americans and Africa.

As black boys become adolescents, the dangers escalate. Like most teens, they battle raging hormones and identity crises. Many rebel, trying to fit in by mimicking — sometimes becoming — criminals.

Others are just treated that way.

Having darker brown skin can erect another barrier. Mark Ferguson has worked on Wall Street for 20 years. He has an easy smile and firm handshake.

"I think I clean up pretty well . . . but all that goes out the window when I show up at a meeting full of white men," says Ferguson of New Jersey, who is 6-foot-4 and dark-skinned. "It’s because they’re afraid of me."

"Race always matters," said Ferguson, whose Day in the Life Foundation connects minority teenagers with professionals. "It’s always in play."

Fletcher says his light brown skin gives him an edge — or would if he smiled more. "If you’re a black man who doesn’t smile a lot, they (whites) get really nervous," he said.

All this daily manoeuvring has left black men enraged, exhausted and in chronic poor health. Black men are 20 per cent more likely to die of heart disease than whites, and they have the highest rates of hypertension in the world, according to the National Medical Association.

Ferguson says over the years, he has learned to steel himself for face-to-face meetings — for clients’ raised eyebrows and stuttered greetings when they see he is black.

"It just rolls off our backs — we grin and bear it. You can’t quit."

Top photo: Mark Ferguson a Wall Street financier, visits students at Central High School in Newark, NJ. Mark has built a business and earned promotions over the phone. Ferguson has learned to steel himself for face-to-face meetings -- for clients' raised eyebrows and stuttered greetings when they see he is black. (Bebeto Matthews/ AP)

Below photo: Rasheed Smith, 22, talks about his life during a visit to cafe in Bedford Stuyvesent section of New York's Brooklyn borough. He suvives the stereotyping by staying close to his family.

As Always, Well wishes,

F. Stanley Boyd