I began writing this article with a clear conscious that every man must one day

set realistic goals in his life and seek to accomplish these goals through hard work, faith, and perseverance. Truth is, there has been an ongoing war against black boys in the American media and in America’s inner city neighborhoods. Black boys that grow up in big cities where a skyrocketing crime rate and police harassment are everyday commonalties-it is a painful reality that many of these children will not survive the journey from the streets into the classroom.

Our education system has already proven itself an ineffective tool with respect to teaching young black boys the self -development skills necessary to cope with the confrontations that they must face day in and day out on their road from the "hood" to the classroom. Neighborhood streets infested with dope pushers, prostitutes, and drug addicts claim the attention of these inner city children before they can even conceive of living in a world free of such activity.

Equally responsible for creating a negative stigma against black boys in the minds of society as a whole, would be the media portrayal of black men on television. This reckless vehicle uses every means and opportunity to cast a shadow over young black men in a negative light geared toward creating an environment of fear within a community, and more importantly, of black boys. When black men wallpaper the local news headline it is usually for committing an illegal act of some kind. This negative portrayal of black men is again plastered over local and cable television networks more often than white men who commit identical acts on a local scale. This in itself suggests a trend aimed at keeping black boys from looking past the ghetto streets to find life flourishing without violence and poverty.

Aside from the mainstream media, is rap music suggesting that violent acts are cool or hip? Strategic marketing approaches specifically target young black boys to promote music with violent lyrics to boost music sales and create a hostile environment excited about violence. We must take the responsibility to identify these everyday tactics that confuse young black boys into believing that riding around with a gun and a 40-ounce bottle of beer through the neighborhood is acceptable behavior. As a black man, I want the next generation of black men to have a better chance of accomplishing the dreams and aspirations that I may have fallen short of realizing in my lifetime. Educate your children on the misrepresentations within the media that are attacking their minds. Teach your children that not everything that they hear on the news or read in the newspapers is true. Teach them to challenge any pictures that paint black men in a negative fashion without the benefit of an explanation-that there are two sides to every story. Many young black boys fall victim to this early on and wind up second-generation victims exhibiting fallout effects of a society engineered and perfected with the destruction of black boys at the forefront of its agenda.

The question is, Why don't American black men (the very ones that are falling victim everyday to a system, which brutalizes them physically and destroys their self-esteem through harassment) stand up and take back the minds and hearts of their baby brothers and sisters? There is an old saying that "A boy loves and respects his bigger brother more so than his mother, and would follow him off of a cliff into a lake of fire." Is it because our black men are unaware of the war in which they fight? No. This is because they see no real hope for the future. The metric system that every man and women is supposed to believe in to carry them to the Promised Land of equality has failed to measure up! Stand up in the same tradition as black men and women of our past and take back the dignity and respect that is due to every person regardless of the color of their skin.

Copyright © 1999 Brett T. Bonner

Brett Tyler Bonner is a 28-year-old administrative assistant and freelance writer. He has been writing on and off for about 6 years, but has recently renewed his vigor to write after serving a tour in the United States Army. He enjoys writing bar review articles for the Barfly Newspaper as well as poetry on the website, www.timbooktu.com. Poetry helps him to understand his life as well as the lives of those around me. This very necessary form of expression allows his soul to be heard through his words. According to Brett, “Poetry can ease burdens, mend broken hearts or slap you in the face with the truth. It can be playful or represent torment within ones soul. It can make you laugh or cry. It can mean everything to someone and nothing at all to someone else, all at the same time. The true "Power of Poetry" does not lie in the pen, it lives in the heart.”