Negro Digest - Freedom Archives

Why Should Black Boys Have To
Grow Up As Model Men?
Recently, a Negro schoolmarm in Indianapolis received
a flourish of publicity in the white press by admonishing
81ack people io "quit feeling sorry for ourselves" and
"do the best we can wiih what we have" . In a national
magazine not nosed for sympathy wiih Negro aspirations,
the teacher was extravagantly featured . "Black people
are easily identified, so they just plain have to ba better
behaved than lots of whites-or we give the prejudiced
white man a weapon io use against us," was one of the
gems of enlightenment the teacher reportedly voiced .
And the teacher, apparently, is not all advice . 5upporied
by funds from a foundation, she has organized a
group which is actually trying io clean up the streets and
alleys and to instill in the economically-deprived and
socially-restricted children of poorly-educated, inadequately-housed
and frequently under-paid Black people
all the middle-class virtues of hard work, cleanliness,
discipline, responsibility, respect for property and general
good citizenship . Black children must grow up as model
men and women .
Perhaps the teacher deserves all the accolades (including
a Freedom Foundation award) which her efforts
have wan for her, bus deeper-thinking, less naive Black
people know chat, good intentions notwithstanding, the
teacher's banal philosophy and sincere projects will avail
little in the ghetto . Her words have all been said before,
and better, and the routineness of her deeds would surprise
even her . Attempting to cure the ills of the slums
with elementary self-help programs like cleaning aifeys
is tantamount to altacking the disease of pellagra by
painting the sores wiih iodine . Many white supporters
of self-help ideas know this very well,
What is wrong in the Black ghettos can be made right only through a determined
and committed campaign against racial bigotry and inequity by al! the established
institutions of American society . Since that eventuality is unlikely in the extreme,
the key to the resurgence of pride and industry among Black people lies in the
direction of a kind of "nationalism" which draws its energy from reaction to the
intransigent Establishment . "It will take many years to erase the feelings of some
wh'ste people, because these feelings were learned at their mothers' knee," the
teacher is quoted as saying . But the new generation of Blacks consider ii futile to
seek to "erase the feelings" of white people ; they are more concerned with rejecting
the entire aggregate of assumptions which undergird the teacher's facile philosophy .
In a society which ostracizes, .degrades and then accuses them, they are refusing
to accept as valid and binding the dishonored values the society would impose .
"I believe that the right-thinking Negro wants to get down off the while man's lap
and walk like a-man," the teacher is quoted . And right she is . However, the "man"
who is likely to emerge from the Black ghetto today will not necessarily find approval
in the eyes of the Indianapolis teaches and her fans .
Knowledge is the Key to A Better Tomorrow
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