Posted on 11/01/2001 8:48:20 AM PST by mafree
SAN DIEGO (NNPA) - There was a buzz of expectation in the air of the huge auditorium, typical of events designed to appeal to large numbers of young people.
A ballgame? A concert?
No, this gathering was truly special: hundreds of young local Black boys were assembling to receive recognition as academic achievers.
Also in the auditorium were parents, educators, community activists, and business, spiritual and political leaders who had come to enjoy something more serious than sports or entertainment. More than 1,300 members of San Diego's progressive community had chosen to attend an event to recognize and reward the intelligence, discipline, and determination and accomplishment of young Black male scholars, who must maintain at least a 3.0 grade point average on a 4.0 scale.
''We make it clear that achievement is normal,'' says program director Jimma McWilson, executive vice president of the National Urban League's local affiliate. ''We continually state to kids, parents and society that this is the 'normal' African-American. The 'abnormal' are the thugs that are portrayed as the norm.''
The ''normal'' honorees are members of the Golden Pyramid Scholars Program, a high-profile youth program for boys in grades six through 12. The program was founded in 1991 by the San Diego Urban League and the Congress of National Black Churches (CNBC). Young men engage in activities designed to foster academic excellence, personal growth and community involvement. Since its inception, the program has given more than 4,000 young males an truthful yet unpopular message-education is the key to opportunity and success. African-Americans represents only 8 percent of the local population.
''The strategic aim is to yield better grades and test scores; more social and enhanced survival skills; a heightened sense of history and self; and a larger group of students prepared for college or the job market in the 21st century,'' explains McWilson.
The San Diego program for Black males is part of the National Urban League's National Achievers Society (NAS), a community based vehicle for encouraging achievement by all African-American children of each gender.
The San Diego program, and others like it, holds enormous potential for the future of African-Americans. If successful, they will produce a more talented and educated pool of African-American males. That, in turn, will increase the prospect of developing healthy, intact Black families that help nurture healthy teens. And the program helps teenagers realize that achieving academically is not ''acting White.'' Rather, it is ''acting Black.''
Throughout the 1990s, report after report made dire predictions for Black males. And nothing has changed with the beginning of a new millennium. McWilson know why: ''racism, pure and simple.''
Racism, along with economics, employment opportunities and other factors make Black males more prone to quit school, become unemployed, go to jail and become homicide victims. While that may help explain poor academic achievement on the part of African-American males, there are a growing number of Black leaders eager to overcome those odds.
Bishop George D. McKinney, the founding pastor of St. Stephen's Church of God in Christ and a longtime San Diego activist, is one of those leaders. He has several young members of his congregation participating in the Golden Pyramid. McKinney believes such programs counter ''a philosophy that condones failure and mediocrity.''
On the opposite coast, Geoffrey Canada, president and CEO of the New York City-based Rheedlen Centers for Children and Families, is another leader who refuses to accept failure.
''The real values that have been the bedrock of the African-American community get drowned-out by a variety of forces,'' Canada says.
The nationally known child advocate says the problems usually begin in the fourth grade. ''You begin to see our boys become, academically, much less aggressive,'' he notes. ''The teachers are less patient or less liable to take time to help those kids, based on the perception that they have 'bad apples' on their hands.''
Canada says educators, parents and community activists must collectively ''set up a counter-culture that pushes the values we care about - hard work, academic achievement, sobriety, honesty.'' He explains, ''Ultimately, the world that our children are inheriting requires that they know how to achieve academically and if they've learned how to manage in a social environment complicated by issues of race, sex, class. ''
In San Diego, McWilson says excellence is not determined by a person's race or circumstances.
''We have kids who have made it who were in foster homes or homeless,'' he says. ''We don't want excuses, but rather for the children to tell us what they need to be successful. Our job is to figure ways to connect them with those resources.''
Golden Pyramid scholars are responsible for having their school validate their performance, as well as having their parents sign their applications. And the program has partnered with more than 82 public and private schools throughout San Diego County, which nominate their best students for membership.
Once in the program, ''we get them to understand from day one that they can coordinate, collaborate and compete in a collective sense and raise the race, on that basis,'' McWilson explains. ''We start with axiology - the study of how you value things - because when you place a value on something, you determine how much emotion you're going to put into it.''
Golden Pyramid members also help plan many of the award activities such as the recently completed ''Achievement Month,'' which featured several events including the ''Do The Right Thing'' celebration spotlighting local youth who are achieving. The Youth Development Initiative is an outgrowth of that celebration, which reinforces an ''achievement matters'' message by allowing Golden Pyramid members to participate in academic leadership teams as well as act as tutors and mentors for other youth at schools within their communities. And along with NAS female members, Golden Pyramid scholars participate in a higher education collaborative, which counsels students on college requirements and puts them in direct contact with nearly every local college and university. As a result, Golden Pyramid scholars have enrolled at local institutions such as San Diego State University and the University of California San Diego. Others have enrolled in Harvard University and several Historically Black Colleges and Universities.
And while distinctly for African-American males, the Golden Pyramid program emphasizes to its scholars that they also are NAS members. This means sharing and communicating the knowledge and experience they gain as brothers, with their female counterparts - their sisters.
McWilson explains, ''There is a strong consideration of what Black males endure, hence the creation of the Golden Pyramid,'' but he adds, ''There has to be balance through their interaction with young women.''
Ed Lopez, a two-term board member of San Diego City Schools has first-hand knowledge of the Golden Pyramid. He frequently attends ceremonies supporting the Golden Pyramid program.
He says, ''Too often we only see the negative portrayals. Anybody that looks sincerely and deeply would come to the conclusion that African-American male students can achieve - just like anyone else.''
Who said the standards weren't equal, or are you also assuming that this kind of achievement is impossible without a lowering of standards?
The main reason for relaying my own experience should be obvious- the poster I was responding to seems to believe that black students can't meet the same standards as everyone else and I stand as proof that such a thing is not true. Obviously, the pupils in the article are overcoming racism and the poison of low expectations- can you give them a chance to do that?
Next time, ask okie_tech if he would have made such a statement if the article had been about white students OK?
Nolo illegitimi carborundum, ma. ;^)
Because it's being done in schools all over the country, white and black. "Honor" students manage these impressive GPAs only to bomb on the SAT (now you know why folks want to abolish that test) and find themselves in bonehead math and English classes in college. Grade inflation is a scam that's being used by public schools (and colleges too, for that matter) to put forth a false face of success; they just "lower the hoop" so more students can make baskets, so to speak. And I don't buy the tired old racism screed that's trotted out to blame for every black failure. Jews have done quite well for themselves in spite of their burden.
Compared to what most of these kids probably would attain otherwise it's a step in the right direction. Let's not denigrate what they have accomplished all right? They can and will do better.
I truly concur, which is why I'm working towards that end where I live.
"Utter BS nonsense. They are more apt to quit school precisely because of the sentiment expressed in this paragraph."
Hello?? That's what the paragraph said! That because of those factors, young black males were more likely to quit school. I don't think you even read it. You were more interested in being rude, and getting off a few "whitey" comments.
I would rather not have black students believing that white racism is their biggest problem, for it is not. It will be a problem but it's always their choice how they will deal with it. Academic excellence is just about the best revenge on racists who think blacks can't or shouldn't succeed.
The poor black male is made to drop out by so many factors? He's not responsible for his own personal achievement at all.
I'm just in tears over these poor disadvantaged persecuted black males. Sarcasm!!!
If you think that music videos present a true picture of life for all blacks or that all blacks partake of them then I'd have to conclude that the standards would need to be lowered for YOU too.
Unfortunately, this was a meeting to bestow honors upon those BLACK STUDENTS which exhibited 'academic EXCELLENCE.' This, to me, is inaccurate and racist.
If the black students want to erradicate racism between blacks and non-blacks, the first step they should take would be to cease holding themselves apart from the whole.
Uh, pardon me, but if you're giving almost everyone an "academic achievement" award, what is it exactly that you've achieved? Normalcy, average, middle of the road? Kinda silly, isn't it?
On a positive note, it is good to see the Black community take an increased interest in their children's education.
There is little question that before, say, 1965, blacks had to excel and even exceed average white standards in order to be admitted to, and remain in, white colleges. There is no question in my mind that blacks with good university degrees pre-1968 or so have fully and completely earned their degree and deserve it.
The affirmative action that became popular in the late sixties and seventies (and has only in very recent years come under sustained and successful attack) really did lower standards significantly. I know, because I was involved in the early debates over affirmative action in the University of California academic senate in the early '70s. There were two conflicting approaches: the one which won, which lowered standards for minority students, and the other which I supported, which argued that the way to provide opportunity was to identify the talented students in high school or junior college, concentrate on remediation at the junior college level and then bring the students into the university only when they were fully up to standards.
The result of the early programs at UC that admitted unqualified students was academic failure, anger and drop-outs. This led also to the creation of protected 'hothouse' environments of 'minority studies' departments where no minority person every failed to do well. When those students had to venture into regular classes, they continuted to do poorly. This led to the general perception that minority students weren't as qualified as the rest of the students, and that their degrees were worth less. Unfortunate, but in the main an accurate perception of the quality of the work done. As a teaching assistant, I graded papers and exams 'blind' (identifying students by registration numbers, not names) and with few exceptions (which were heartening) the minority students I had in history courses were simply not functioning on the same academic level. A black historian (with a pre-1965 PhD) I knew wouldn't even let himself know the identity of the students he graded until the grades were final and could not be changed, and he was often attacked as an Uncle Tom.
I have often regretted our failure to implement an affirmative action program that both give minority students a chance and preserved the standards of the university. The cycle of lower standards of admission, pressure not to fail students, disregarding of achievement, and so on, is very hard to break. The very sad thing is that it didn't have to be.
Tell me, though: What would the reaction be in the media if someone were to address a gathering of White boys and exhort them to further achievements to "raise the race"?
Hmmm?
Trust me ken, I'm a long-time, big time cynic about the efficacy of modern public education for blacks too, but I recognize a few realities:
1. Most black students are still in the public schools. Therefore, they must be encouraged to do their best where they are. I'm for private schools, vouchers, homeschooling, etc., but not all blacks can or will take advantage of them.
2. Some people have a problem with black achievement and so will try to use something else to downgrade its value.
I don't think it's racist to criticize the public schools or the fact that standards there have been lowered in general. I just don't think we should use that to knock down kids who do achieve within that system. Some, if not most, of your future black conservatives/libertarians will come from the public schools. I did.
Oh come one, Ms. McWilson! I was agreeing with you up until that inane statement. The problem is with society, but not the WHITE one. That should be obvious by the fact that over 10 years there have only been 4000 boys eligible for this program. That is only 400 per year, and in the area served by this Urban League group, there should be 4000 PER YEAR. The fact that there is not cannot be laid at the feet of white people (other than Teachers' Unions). Most of what black kids see today in popular culture works AGAINST the attitude that education is the key to a better life. All they see are 'gangsta' rappers and athlete living the good life. They don't see many brainy black people portrayed positively in the media. I can't say anything about todays sitcoms, but I remember "The Fresh Prince of Belair". Will Smith was the cousin from the 'hood' and his cousin the smart guy was always being ridiculed in some way! And don't get me started on Urkel, or whatever his name was! Talk about black kids not wanting to get an education! Who would want their kids to turn out like that geek! Most couldn't get past his looks to see that his brains were the best thing about him!
So don't try to dump this in the laps of white people. You'll have to look in your own back yard for the answer to this one, Ms. McWilson!
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