Just got done reading the most recent cover story in Atlantic Monthly. Cements The Atlantic's position as the most important magazine on my reading list.
Don Peck's article uses some pretty sound sociological data to predict ten years into the future--and the future he sees in the wake of this recession is bleak, especially for the young and for men in particular. Peck's thesis picks up where I left off a few days ago: American men are in jeopardy. With economic prospects for men faltering, it threatens to have ripple effects on families and entire communities, especially low-income urban and rural communities that are already struggling.
There is a lot of information packed into this article and I'll need to read it again before I could say whether all of Peck's reasoning is sound. But my initial response was that he nails it on the head. I have seen both of his prognoses borne out: 1) young people are ill-prepared to deal with sustained periods of low wages and unfulfilling careers and 2) young men that I know and worked with extensively at Urban Solutions in the late 90s were very poorly equipped for the demands of a modern economy, tending to father children out of wedlock and float through life.
American men are in real danger. Unless our culture is prepared to support their success, an entire generation faces significant levels of hardship.
What can I do? How can men be empowered without being condescended to?
How do you target economic benefits for specific groups? This usually backfires, and at the very least, has unintended consequences unrelated to the original goal. Besides, most of the intelligentsia is still fighting for aid for women and minorities, though much ground has been made. I think you'll have a hard time convincing the culture that young men are objects of pity; besides, we still kill infants at an alarming rate (what rate would not be alarming, I wonder?) and seem to moving towards euthanasia of the old and "useless." Irresponsible young men are the least of our problems.
ReplyDeleteYoung black men are indeed particularly at risk in the Great Recession--and they won't be receiving any kind of sympathy.
ReplyDeletePeck's argument is twofold: the government needs to be focusing on creating jobs in emerging markets (green collar jobs) AND young men need to suck it up and develop a higher level of personal responsibility. It's a strikingly similar argument to the one Geoff Canada has made in his work in the Harlem Children's Zone: to lift people out of poverty, they need targeted programmatic supports AND need to be able to break ingrained cultural habits and expectations.
There's a growing number of liberals (Juan Williams of NPR and Fox) who are jumping on the wagon that Bill Cosby got thrown off a few years ago: personal responsibility in an individual and cultural value that cannot come through any economic initiative.
As a young black man let me put my two cents in. Is there institutional racism- yes. Can you thrive in spite of it-yes. Is it F'ING hard- yes. It takes VERY hard work for a black male to get a good job. However it can be done, as I have done it time, and time again. No excuses. I am with Dr. Bill Cosby on this one. It is hard, but possible. Harder than us for others, and that's not fair, but it's the way it is. In the end hard work does pay off.
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