Are Black Girls Unimportant?: PBS, Kellogg Foundation and Tavis Smiley's "Too Important to Fail"
Monday, October 3, 2011 at 7:00AM The Blogmother Well this was a hot button issue over on the WAOD Facebook Fan Page, so much so that someone ( a Black woman) got banned on a Saturday of all days ( when I'm most mellow). Then she followed up by sending me some multi-page hate mail ( my favoritist kind! because who wants a lazy half-hearted hate-mail?).
So in the spirit of attempting to increase the likelihood that anti-Black woman bigots go apoplectic, why not expand on my original point with a full-blown blog post! Cause that's how we roll 'round hey-a!
The title of the post is rhetorical. I'm sure PBS and the Kellogg Foundation care.
PBS is broadcasting a Tavis Smiley report called Too Important to Fail that was sponsored by the Kellogg Foundation and the report makes the same mistake that almost all of these campaigns to save Black boys make: They exclude Black girls.
Are there special programs highlighting the crises of young Black girls? Yes, but not with the frequency, visibility, and institutionalization of the laser-like focus on Black boys. The drop out rate for Black girls is only about 10% behind Black boys, how is 40% NOT a crisis?
I viewed the video over at PBS which follows Tavis Smiley interviewing students, teachers, and experts and what screamed out to me in almost every interview was SAVE THE GIRLS = SAVE THE BOYS.
Watch the full episode. See more Tavis Smiley.
That's important to remember because if you listen to the experts Smiley interviews almost everything they say has to do with boys being taught to read by the 2nd grade...and who is going to be teaching them to read in the 70 percent of the households headed by single Black women?
A Troubling Pattern
Last week, we highlighted the deluded rantings of Congresswoman Fredrica Wilson, who in response to a question about the most pressing policy issues facing Black women, basically responded: "Saving Black men."
Then a few months ago, NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg launched a $127 MILIION dollar program to target Black and Latino males.
This was after the New York Times published columnist Bob Herbert's opinion piece called "Too Long Ignored" imploring the Black community to direct all of their resources to helping young Black males who drop out of high school.
A tragic crisis of enormous magnitude is facing black boys and men in America.Parental neglect, racial discrimination and an orgy of self-destructive behavior have left an extraordinary portion of the black male population in an ever-deepening pit of social and economic degradation.
NO mention of Black girls at all. NONE. Herbert went on to say:
That the black community has not been mobilized en masse to turn this crisis around is a screaming shame. Black men, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, have nearly a one-third chance of being incarcerated at some point in their lives. By the time they hit their mid-30s, a solid majority of black men without a high school diploma have spent time in prison.
Homicide is the leading cause of death for young black men, with the murderous wounds in most cases inflicted by other young black men.
This is a cancer that has been allowed to metastasize for decades. Not only is it not being treated, most people don’t even want to talk about it. Bob Herbert
HOGWASH! I say HOGWASH!
Are you seriously going to say with a straight face that the infrastructure and institutions of the Black community have NOT been myopically focussed on "saving the young Black male?" Really?
Every facet of the infrastructure of the Black community is aimed as saving young Black males. Every Black organization, even some of the ones who are supposed to have missions targeting young Black women, have programs for young Black males.
HOW IS THAT WORKING FOR US?
I don't have a problem targeting specific populations for specific reasons, but when you repeatedly push and agenda that says one gender is more valuable or precious than the other, you're just wrong.
I've never said Black girls were MORE important than boys, but merely that they are AS important as boys. And that enrages some of you, likely because you value the lives of Black boys more that Black girls. --a pattern repeated around the world unfortunately.
People like to argue that this blog is anti-Black men. No it's not. Its the most pro-Black man site on the internet. Why? because you will NEVER "rescue" Black men until you stabilize the lives of the girls who will eventually become the women who raise them. Its like focussing on building a new roof when you've got a massive crack in the foundation of a house.
On an airplane one of the first things they tell you is that in the event of a sudden loss of cabin pressure, oxygen masks will descend from the ceiling... if traveling with children, place the oxygen mask ON YOURSELF FIRST.
You will never rescue young Black men if you don't also rescue the girls who will become the women who raise them. Period. It's time to declare this strategy of a myopic focus on young Black men to the exclusion of young Black women a FAILURE!
Having 50% of Black boys and 40% of Black girls drop out of high school is the very definition of CRISIS- therefore shouldn't we be open to abandoning the same tired paradigm? Folks act like a 40% dropout rate among Black girls is no biggie.
In conclusion, what about our daughters?
P.S. To be fair, if you type in W.K. Kellogg Foundation and +girls and +"Black Girls" into Google, they sponsor a number of organizations that do work targeting girls.
LINKS:
A Call to Improve High School Graduation Rates for Girls
22 Comments | Share Article PBS, Tavis Smiley, W.K. Kellogg Foundation
Reader Comments (22)
because you will NEVER "rescue" Black men until you stabilize the lives of the girls who will eventually become the women who raise them. Its like focussing on building a new roof when you've got a massive crack in the foundation of a house.
The thing is these people feel that if black men had jobs they would marry and have kids and then we will no longer have 70% of children being raised by single mothers. They completely ignore that the divorce rate is 50% in our country so even if you are married at your kids birth, there is a 50% there will be a divorce before their 18th birthday and the mother at some point will be raising the kids at least 5 days out of the week. They think a black woman is going to raise men feminine and angry black girls. They do not want female headed households period. (Although many of the men in these movements aren't even married themselves in the first place).
I don't know if I am being off topic, but do you notice how how profile black men completely surround themselves with other men all the time. Even when they are at social type gathering I see the pictures online and they are only surrounded by other men. So the focus on black boys don't completely surprise me, looks like they live very male-centric lives. They are missing out b/c black women are a brilliant bunch. Like how are black women allegedly doing so well that we don't need help but they can't find a black woman to put in their circles?
It's not surprising that black men are concerned about saving black boys. I don't see anything wrong with that , per se. In fact, it's good for black men to take the initiative to do something for themselves and get themselves together with out leaning on us [black women] or expecting us to do it for them. The key is, how are those black boys being guided and directed once they are "saved."? For examle, are they being taught to value and respect and PROTECT black girls and women? Are they being taught to be responslble? Are they being taught to be industrious? If the answer to these questions is "Yes" then it's all good. Too much of the current population of adult and young-adult black men are DBR. There's no need to waste time on those who don't want to be helped. But it's a good use of time to get in and shape the minds of young black boys before they become corrupted so that they grow up to be responsible men who love and respect themselves AND black women and girls.
The thing that frustrates me is that organizations aimed at black girls, like the ones below ,don't get enough publicity. They need to have big name backing so their voices can be heard as well. There needs to be an effort to get organizations like these in the forefront so that the mainstream is aware the black girls are valuable, viable, and wothy of protection and nurturing too. Meanwhile, I think we need to seek out more organziations like these and help them.
http://savingourdaughters.org/
http://www.sistersoftodayandtomorrow.org/
BTW I've attended SOT events and will volunteer with them.
I came up with this theory within the past couple of years:
If I remember correctly, the whole "the Black man is an endangered species" meme came out in the early 80s. Ever since then, it's become a monster..... oh sorry, a movement of its own to the detriment of Black girls & women. It should've stopped a long time ago, but the saga continues.
As someone who's currently overseas, I can attest to the fact that the same thing is going on here amongst non-white ethnic communities - everything is about Black boys & men to the detriment of Black girls & women. I'll even venture as far as saying that boys & men are (seen & treated as) most important worldwide, while girls & women are treated like s*** worldwide (more atrocious in some countries than others).
Male-identified men anger me, but male-identified women enrage me the most. (And whoever says that this site is anti-Black man clearly didn't learn that reading is fundamental.) They think that boys & men are the most important thing on this planet, but the reality is that both boys & girls need saving from all of the sick adults walking this planet.
Isn't it a shame how in order to get any attention for black girls at all it is necessary to argue that they are necessary to the rescuing of black boys? As though black girls in and of themselves aren't important enough.
Yes, it is a terrible shame. But conversations like this tend to reveal just how little value people have for girls.
If folks knee jerk reaction was to deny that there is a disparity, then chances are, I'm talking about you!
I've come to the conclusion that "what needs to be done to help black girls" and "what needs to be done to help black boys" are two separate issues and I don't blame anyone who picks one or the other to focus on. I think they are both worthwhile issues. However, there is no guarantee that improving the lives of black boys will improve the lives of black girls concurrently, other than that there won't be as many criminals running around victimizing black women. When black men become successful and/or make high incomes, they become less likely to marry black women (and thus turn their resources over to black women and children) if they even marry at all. When black men become successful, they don't tend to turn the overflow of their success back to the black community at large.
There is no reason to believe that helping black women will in turn help black men either. Black women could start graduating from high school, going to college, dating/marrying non-black men and/or choosing not to live in black neighborhoods and then where will that leave black men? It'll leave them right where they are--with high drop out rates.
Like I said, improving the lives of black women and improving the lives of black women should be seen at two separate issues with little relationship to each other.
MommieDearest: thanks for the website links. Just followed Saving Our Daughters on Twitter & Facebook. Definitely gonna donate too. Programs like this, GEMS, and the others out there that work on behalf of girls & women need more financial & media support.
First I too have no problem with targeted programs. Each group (black males and black females) has unique issues to deal with. Also at the ages we are disucssing (tweens and teens) sometimes it is best to remove the harmonal distractiont. However I think the programs for the boys are getting highlighted more because 1. America as a whole, and specifically in the black community, is male-centered; 2. the stereotypical out-of-control black male is seen as violent, a threat to EVERYONE, including white people and especially white females, who, unlike us, are valued. Meanwhile an out-of-control black girl is seen as a threat to no one but herself.
It may a shame and patriarical, but the only way to get big-name support for progams focusing on our girls may be to cast them as the future mothers of the males but it's a start.
The male-based programs need to acknowledge that one of the things they should be saving these boys from is a subculture that includes a built-in contempt of black women like mommiedearest noted:
"The key is, how are those black boys being guided and directed once they are "saved."? For examle, are they being taught to value and respect and PROTECT black girls and women?"
You can educate a person and get him a job, even a high-paying one, and he can still be a woman-hating jerk. So just retooling black men to finish school, get a job and stop killing one-another is not enough.
it is taking a lot for me not to be disgusted with black men. I never really thought about it but Spinster raised a good point. These campaigns have been going on since the 80s. However, talking to older bw and listening to some oldie but goodie music more closely-this dbr stuff been around for generations BEFORE the 80s.
I do agree that Black men should be the ones to stem the tide. I also believe that Black women should be the main champions of black girls...and they are. I see more programs for Black girls than Black boys. One-on-one mentoring programs are always turning away bw (or put them on a waiting list) and begging for bm to step up.
I think the fact that black women know no one will make excuses for them makes them not make excuses for themselves and thus do what they have to do. Black women are now making more than white women in the workplace. Black men are falling further and further behind.
I think there is a strong population of young black girls who are falling by the waist side in the black community. Black girls have never been deemed as important as black boys, even in our own communities. Bell Hook writes how black families cater to their sons and are very harsh toward their daughters. This saving black boys mantra has been going on since the 80's and frankly it's not working. Black women have made enormous gains in the society, but look at the cost. I know too many black women who are working themselves to death just to be a mother, father and provider and passing this attitude to their daughters. And not lets not forgot the attack on black girls when it comes to their looks and feminiity. Our girls are constantly being told their at the bottom of the gender/beauty pole. I'm not suprised by the 40% drop out for black girls. I see too many of our young women trying to be the type of black woman they think black men want. Hate to say it, a lot of our girls are becoming very superficial. I can't tell how many young black girls in Atlanta have a head full of somebody's else hair, but don't have two cents to rub together.
Well Blogmother Gina you swung to the rafters one mo'gin. The fact is Black mothers do raise their daughters and love their sons. There is a definite vibe in many Black homes that whatever the son does will be forgiven and covered because we all know how tough it is to be Black man in America...etc etc yadda yadda. However, as a Black female do you get the same vibe. That you can do just about any negative self destructive thing and folks will ride or die with you. Maybe if you start having kids out of wedlock and no money folks will take in your children BUT even that's iffy at best for some families.
Also I do not believe that uplifting/saving the Black man will reap many if any benefits for Black women. Look around you at the number of Black men who do acquire wealth, status and stability in their lives and how often they DO NOT marry and/or maintain steady lives with Black women BUT instead women of other ethnic backgrounds. For so long the story was Black men fell off of marriage because jobs where hard to come by and therefore they could not be expected to curry to the concept of marriage. Now more than ever there are more Black men in America who have assets over $500,000.00+ in worth and yet more often than not they are either bouncing between multiple women & households [see: P.Diddy], maintaining households with Black women BUT somehow year after year never marry which means they are not by law entitled to any of the wealth being created [see: most pro athletes] or they are married to women of other ethnic backgrounds [see: Tiger Woods or Charles Barkley]. So building the foundation and planting the shade tree to protect and support the Black man is not a guarantee that the Black woman will reap the benefits.
However. I want to see everyone succeed. I do not embrace or rejoicing in the failure of anyone. By all means save the Black males who have the hearts and minds to take help and flourish instead of withering away in mediocrity and communal contempt for the world they find themselves failing in.
I don't understand, blogmother. I think there is a great disparity and it's wrong.
" I see more programs for Black girls than Black boys. One-on-one mentoring programs are always turning away bw (or put them on a waiting list) and begging for bm to step up. "
This is such a strange phenomenon to me that I cant reconcile with the 40% drop out rate for young girls. Big Brother Big Sister in NYfor example is not accepting anymore female volunteers but it has a severe shortage of black male volunteers. But if the girls are so well catered for they why are they still doing so poorly as well?
"You will never rescue young Black men if you don't also rescue the girls who will become the women who raise them. Period. It's time to declare this strategy of a myopic focus on young Black men to the exclusion of young Black women a FAILURE! "
I LOVE YOU I LOVE YOU I LOVE YOU...seriously...there is nothing more I can say...PLEASE holler it to the mountain tops - we, as a people FAIL because our "leadership" could care less about the girls. THANK YOU THANK YOU, GINA..Just know that there are some people out heer honestly working as hard to save the girls as much as many only focus on the boys.
@barbara clearly I was not referring to you. I was referring to all of the women who are running around saying that there is no disparity in treatment.
@AJ thanks.
@justpassing because the idea that Black girls are catered to in the Black community is likely a fiction. People using exceptions to define a rule
So do you believe that this article/study is off base?
http://www.newswise.com/articles/black-men-among-most-disadvantaged-least-helped-in-u-s
@Tori,
Why should it matter if someone believes it is off base? As far as I'm concerned. If black men AND their mothers continue to believe that black girls are optional, then it is no concern to me. Get Maria, Ying Ling, Becky and who ever else to invest time into their lives. I'll be damned if I give a part of me to any black boy, just to see it given away to another community. I won't do it.
@KJ
"the stereotypical out-of-control black male is seen as violent, a threat to EVERYONE, including white people and especially white females, who, unlike us, are valued."
KJ yes we are valued too! BW, AW, HW we are all valued. I can't go into a lot of detail right now, but I remember reading Evia's blog some time ago (maybe last year), when she said something like the more BW marry powerful WM then BM will see that they (BW) can't be messed with. I am paraphrasing here, but it was something along those lines.
I totally agree with that statement, but, irregardless of who we marry we are still are valued locally and nationally. There are laws that exist to protect us too. We may not get as much media coverage as WW when one is missing (and neither do OTHER RACE WOMEN), but we are still valued.
Why do you say we aren't valued?
I totally agree that helping Black girls is the best thing that can be done to help Black boys simply because Black women are the ones who are mostly raising Black boys. To be honest, I think Black women have to take at least some of the blame for how Black boys have turned out. Culturally, the Black community has a problem with how we raise our boys; we are all doing something terribly wrong and we need to fix it.
The best way to ensure success for black teens is to have more gender separated high schools in predominantly black neighborhoods. This model seems to work well for black students for some unknown reason in ensuring future career and personal success. Blended institutions are great, but do not generate enough academic competitiveness as all-girls and all-boys schools seem to do.
I also agree that the needs of each gender are quite different, and a cookie cutter model will not work for both.
Mahogany I should have said we are often not "seen" as being valued. I KNOW we are valuable but others don't see it. Our images can be distorted with no reprocussion. (ie: Tyler Perry movies, ads and reality shows that prefer to show us as harpies). Yes there are times when a negative white woman is portrayed in the media but there are so many other images you see the balance and that the negative image (trailer trash, mean girl, etc. is meant to be just one, and usually the expection) For us the negative image is the main one.
If we speak up against it, especially if the offender is a black man, then we are suddenly the haters. White women are not portrayed as hating or trying to tear down all whte men when they speak out against a white male sexual harrasser. Heck they weren't even seen as trying to tear down black men when they went against OJ. But black women who think Chris Brown is out of control are just trying to bring him down.
We don't even get the same support as our men when attacked by those outside the race. You still have segments of the population who think Imus was done wrong for his nappy headed ho comment toward a bunch of women who did nothing be be stelar athletes and who he certainly didn't know anything about their morality or hair grooming habits. DL Hugly even agreed they were nappy headed and many said that since some (ignorant) black males refer to black women that way what'st he big deal. But let Kanya West slight Taylor Swift and he is toast (not that I like him but you get the point). Let one comedian say Miley Sirus was going to turn out on the pole or whatever he said and all hell broke lose (despite the fact that we now have picturs of her smoke drugs and running wild). Let someone way something about Bristol Palin and...WOW.
Even when people spoke up about the young black girls who were attacked at the recent college fest by black males it was somehow their fault for being at an event like that. "Should have known better". However just today we see the media bending over backward to make a white American girl previously convicted of a murder at a virtual orgy in Europe out to be Polly Purebread.
Take your own example of not getting attention when we are missing, that is not being valued by the society at large. I also does not make it any better that the media don't value other races of missing women either. It in fact proves my point. Remember I said white women were (seen) as valued, not other races. I am not hating on white women just stating a fact. Maybe the girl in Europe is innocent but not one mention now of the fact that she put her self at this bad place when this all went down. However, let her be black and those type of details are never left out of the coverage.
I am personally happy that PBS, Kellogg, and Tavis Smiley sponsored and produced the special regarding black boys and education. As the blogmother has pointed out, there is nothing wrong at targeted programs. I feel that black boys specifically need to be taught a different construct about what it means to be a black man. As others have pointed out, they should be taught that their power and worth is not determined how "hard" they are, how many women they screw, how many men and or women they beat up, or how light/white their woman is. Sadly, I believe that many men of all races think of themselves as macho when they engage in destructive activities. This issue takes on different nuances in the black community.
But yes, the fact remains that black girls and women need saving as well. I would like to see specials addressing black girls. Such programs would discuss the fact that a black woman's worth and beauty is not determined by how light her skin is, how straight her hair is, and the economic wealth of the man that she attracts. Specials for both men and women would stress academic achievement and moral development. I would hope that PBS and the Kellogg foundation would be more than willing to sponsor and air a program specifically addressing black girls. I will reserve any outrage at them until I actually learn that they have refused to support such a program.