His tiny hands manipulated the blocks with skill. At two years old, his dexterity was exceeded only by his speech. As he placed the last block in place, he proudly announced that “he did it.” His exceptional enunciation was well beyond his years. He not only understood the toy, but the significance of completion and accomplishment. He was clearly accustomed to well-deserved praise.
Somewhere between the brilliance so many African-American children exhibit as toddlers and the failure they experience by third grade, something is going wrong. So many begin life exceeding all measurements of intelligence: crawling and walking months in advance, speaking in full sentences and displaying exceptional intellectual skills. Yet, somewhere along the line something goes askew.
Somewhere between the stress of growing up black in America, the trauma of abuse and neglect, the hyperactivity that results from sugar-infused diets and psychotropic drugs, too many African-American children fall behind.
Test scores, measured by indicators that often fail to reflect the African-American experience, begin to show disparities in educational attainment. No longer are they excelling in dexterity, speech and mental acuity. Suddenly they lag far behind their contemporaries.
For the last several decades the drop-out rate of African-American students has grown to staggering proportions. Those who struggle to stay in school often fail to achieve any degree of educational success. Inner-city schools robbed of both students and resources through laws that now measure student populations by the “free lunches” handed out, struggle to educate students challenged by trauma, poverty and ongoing oppression.
In the meantime, those who perpetrated these very social conditions grow wealthy through bus systems that transport the failing students, corporate farms that feed them and publishing companies that miseducate them.
Thousands of African-American children circumvent the pitfalls of being black and poor in America. Like the two-year-old boy who has begun life with exceptional ability, they manage to continue an upwardly mobile climb.
But too many others fall prey to mass incarceration. They are the ultimate victims of a system that feeds off the economic deprivation of minority communities and robs children of parental figures and the stability needed to succeed in life.
They become the victims of a system that has achieved little more in the last 30 years than to make other communities wealthy while leaving millions of African-American children failing in school and life.
Christi Griffin will discuss and sign her book “Incarcerations in Black and White: The Subjugation of Black America” at the Central Library, 1301 Olive St., 2-4 p.m. Saturday, June 28. The event is free and open to the public.
