Guest Jamala Rogers
Elephants are fascinating animals. They are very intelligent with a highly socialized environment. The elephant herd reminds me of the current African-American family structure. Appeals for black male involvement in family and community affairs, such as last week’s Call to Oneness, have the potential to have a similar effect on young males as the male elephants have on wayward, adolescent calves.
Elephant have a matriarchal society. The clan is made up of females and their offspring along with the grown daughters and their calves. If there is danger, the herd gathers in a protective circle around Big Mama, putting all the calves in the middle. Elephants are very loving creatures, often touching one another and communicating in low-frequency ways. The mothers teach the young calves all they need to know about eating, bathing and surviving. The bulls or male elephants hang together but separate from the cows.
There comes a time in every male elephant’s life when he gets to the point that Grandma called “getting’ too big for your britches.” In elephant terms, this is “musth.” They get rowdy and uncontrollable; that’s when they get pushed from the cow herd over to the bull herd to learn what it means to be a male elephant. The adult males help them get their act together in a firm but loving way.
I saw an example of this on TV when some young, male elephants got buck wild in South Africa’s Pilanesburg National Park. The young males had been orphaned and were hanging out together with no parental guidance. They were beyond unruly, they were downright violent. They ran in a pack fighting one another and terrorizing the other park animals. They were acting like little EGs (elephant gangstas) and were even responsible for the senseless killings of rhinos on the reserve.
The park brought older bull elephants into the area and the social dynamic totally changed. Sometimes, the bigger adult males had to double-team rambunctious adolescents to show them who were the adults. There was a lot of pushing, raring up and other physical acts by the Big Daddies before the young EGs realized they better settle down. After a while, they did settle down and began acting like polite, obedient young males. The rhino killings ceased, and peace was restored to the park.
There are a lot of young black males who have been running loose, raising themselves with no real model of manhood. The impressive turnout of black men who responded to the Call for Oneness gave me a bounce of hope. It’s past time to hit the streets and show these misguided males some tough love.
The Call for Oneness follows several efforts in various cities such as Philly’s Call to Action: It’s a New Day campaign; St. Pete, FL’s Calling the Men Home Project; San Diego’s Black Men United; and Baltimore’s Call to Action, to name a few.
I don’t know what the progress is for these campaigns and it maybe too early to tell. What I do know is that addressing the needs of angry and neglected teens requires commitment, consistency and compassion. It’s got to be less telling these young men what to do and a whole lot of showing them. Most important, it cannot be a passing fad.
The women folk are tired of visiting the prisons, tired of going to the emergency rooms, tired of burying our young – just tired. We could use of herd of brothers in the neighborhood. Peace in the ‘hood is starting to look more real.