MANSFIELD: Who’ll Make the Call?

obama
It’s doubtful there is any connection between the recent uprising in Baltimore and President Obama’s announcement a few days later of the formation of a corporate-backed nonprofit organization to help boys and young men of color. “My Brother’s Keeper” is an initiative the White House launched in February of 2014, which last week morphed into an alliance with the mission of, in the president’s words, “Helping more of our young people stay on track. Providing the support they need to think more broadly about their future. Building on what works – when it works, in those critical life-changing moments.”

Describing the effort as something that will outlast his presidency and advance his administration’s goal of achieving greater racial and social justice, the organization’s focus will be on improving early childhood education, keeping black and Latino boys out of the criminal justice system, and on preparing young men to be more successful when entering the workforce, Obama said.

I have to admit that I didn’t pay much attention to the initiative when it was initially launched mainly due to imagery: The photo the White House released back in 2014 showed the president sitting at his desk, pen in hand, surrounded by a group of 16 well-scrubbed young men of color … all of whom looked to the world as if they would have little trouble getting into Morehouse, or even Harvard.

Where, I thought, were the do-rag, hoodie-wearing, pants-sagging young urban dudes that won’t graduate high school absent serious intervention in their lives? Shouldn’t they have been included in the photo-op if indeed the effort is going to be focused on assisting them … trying to make their futures and outcomes better? It’s a mistake that’s all too easy and human to make: Helping those youth who are already on track, already demonstrating the most promise.

But speaking in the Bronx a week after the Baltimore uprising, Obama said decades of disadvantage had sowed discontent in minority communities. Correcting those conditions, he said, will take a “sustained” effort far exceeding the 20 months he has left in office. He also spoke about how protests in Ferguson and Baltimore stemmed beyond the tragic deaths of two young men, but were driven by the sense of “unfairness” and “powerlessness” felt by the members of those communities. “These kids are all our kids. We will profit by or pay for whatever they become. This will remain a mission for me and for Michelle, not just for the rest of my presidency, but for the rest of my life.”

We all should want to help.

The White House announced a stellar list of corporate donors, including the chief executives of Sam’s Club, Deloitte Consulting, PepsiCo and Sprint, all of whom are founding members of the board of the initiative and have committed $80 million in “in-kind and financial donations” to get the alliance off the ground.

What does (or can) the My Brother’s Keeper Alliance mean right here in Cleveland? Is there any way our corporate leaders can tap into and support the initiative … indeed, are any of them at all interested?
These questions — and any potential answers to them — are way above my pay grade. I can’t pick up the phone to call any of these CEOs and ask them how to bring the program here to Cleveland, but I assure you there are a number of powerbrokers in NEO that could make such a call. But, again, will they?

[Photo: Mario Piperni]

From Cool Cleveland correspondent Mansfield B. Frazier mansfieldfATgmail.com. Frazier’s From Behind The Wall: Commentary on Crime, Punishment, Race and the Underclass by a Prison Inmate is available again in hardback. Snag your copy and have it signed by the author by visiting http://NeighborhoodSolutionsInc.com.

 

 

 

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