Black Boys

IT STARTED in Detroit when the black community determined the need for an all-male academy. Then it happened here when the community acted on the same perceived need. I'm referring to the knee-jerk opposition by white feminists to make every effort to block the creation of all-male schools for black boys. They mention the needs of black girls only to use them as a tool to thwart efforts on behalf of black boys. They never address the many all-girl institutions, almost all of which are white.

Three all-male academies were to have opened in Detroit this week. They didn't. The schools, a desperate attempt to help the city's most troubled population group - black boys - have strong community support. But they were opposed by the American Civil Liberties Union and the NOW Legal Defense Fund, whose lawyers argued in U.S. District Court that for the school board to establish special academies for boys is a denial of equal educational opportunity for girls. Judge George Woods apparently bought the argument.

The numbers are dismaying, baffling and unsurprising. Black males in public schools in the Maryland suburbs of Washington are in trouble: academic and social. They are twice as likely to be enrolled in "special education" English classes as in English classes for the talented and gifted; less likely to be enrolled in college-prep courses (only 44 black males in all of Prince George's County, Md., are taking calculus); far more likely than others to be suspended or expelled. And, though they represent only one-third of the county's enrollment, they are nearly one-half of the students receiving special-education services.

Only about 15 students came out to a recent meeting of a student organization I advise at Temple, but the turnout of black males students was dismal - nary a one. I was disappointed but not surprised; in the last two years, I've had only two black male students in my broadcast journalism courses I teach. While hundreds of black males do attend Temple - obviously opting for majors in other departments - the declining numbers of African-American men in print and broadcast journalism is a trend I've been watching since I started teaching six years ago. What's scary is that few if any undergraduates seem to be in the pipeline of prerequisite "feeder" courses that lead to advanced classes.

Do black Americans make too much of race? The answer is yes, though very likely not for the reasons you thought. A good many white people, and a growing number of blacks, believe that African Americans are too eager to use racism as the universal explainer for all that has gone wrong in our ranks, too quick to embrace victimhood as a political weapon, too preoccupied with race to grasp - or even see - opportunities there for the taking. But I'm talking about something else: the power of negative racial stereotypes to lead people to act against their own self-interest.

By his own mother's account, 4-year-old Dennis has something of a tough-guy rep in his tough Grays Ferry neighborhood. "He fights all the time," his mom, Ellen Coen, said yesterday, as Dennis, who is white, played on the Stanley Street sidewalk with two black boys and a white girl. It does not take much to start trouble in the racially explosive Grays Ferry section of South Philadelphia, where just this weekend, whites and blacks joined for a "Unity in the Community" rally to promote harmony.

He's a kid who wears a mask. If you saw him coming on a late night in a dark place, you'd watch him warily and sigh in relief when he allowed you to pass unmolested. You wouldn't dream of saying a word to him. So you'd never know. That he's 16 and lives in my neighborhood with both his parents. That he has a job and is on the honor roll in school. That he's a good kid. You'd never know because he hides who he is behind that mask. Behind baggy pants, two or three oversized T-shirts, and a bandanna.

Nobody wants to adopt African-American boys. Not even African-Americans. Last month at the National Adoption Center, about 10 boys were being photographed for ads in a black magazine. The agency is trying to "sell" these children to their own people. But it's hard. These boys have been from foster home to foster home. They have no family. They have no sense of belonging. And it showed. Michael, 10, small and thin, could not muster a smile for the photographer.

"I call them my bumblebees," Robert L. Albright says of the 50 elementary school boys attending weekend and summer "Kiddie Kollege" at Johnson C. Smith University. Bumblebees? "You know, bumblebees are not supposed to fly," he explained. "Their bodies are too heavy, their wingspan too short, the aerodynamics all wrong. You take all these factors into account, and you have to conclude that for bumblebees sustained flight is an impossibility. Bumblebees don't know this, of course, so they fly anyway.

Probably more than most people, Eugene J. Richardson Jr. knows the one thing that can keep kids who come from impoverished, dysfunctional families from dropping out of school and getting into trouble: The crucial factor is mentoring by an adult - someone other than a parent or teacher who's willing to be available to youngsters for advice or guidance. "I have seen basically real good kids go astray and get into trouble simply because they did not have a responsible adult outside of school or home who could spend some time with them," said Richardson, 70, who taught math and was a principal in junior high and middle schools throughout his 35-year career as an educator.

In 1965, Ken Salaam was a 16-year-old civil-rights activist, protesting day and night against a whites-only admissions policy at North Philadelphia's Girard College. Yesterday, inside Founders Hall, Salaam was hailed for his work for social justice as officials announced that the school would be the key assembly point of the 15th annual Greater Philadelphia Martin Luther King Day of Service on Jan. 18. Each year, tens of thousands of volunteers across the region make the King holiday a day of community service.

OWEN GOWANS was only 4-years-old when Cecil B. Moore, the fiery-tongued, flamboyant lawyer and civil-rights leader, led picketing for seven months and 17 days in 1965 outside the 10-foot stone wall that surrounded fortresslike Girard College. Day after day, from May 1 to Dec. 17, marchers demanded that the North Philadelphia school - founded in 1848 for "poor, white, orphan boys" - open its gates to black boys. Stephen Girard, a wealthy merchant and banker, died in 1831. He left millions to the city to establish the school.

IT STARTED in Detroit when the black community determined the need for an all-male academy. Then it happened here when the community acted on the same perceived need. I'm referring to the knee-jerk opposition by white feminists to make every effort to block the creation of all-male schools for black boys. They mention the needs of black girls only to use them as a tool to thwart efforts on behalf of black boys. They never address the many all-girl institutions, almost all of which are white.

Sylvia Ann Hewlett's book on childlessness among successful women is the rage of the talk shows these days - particularly her poignant discovery that these women, married and single, did not plan to remain childless. It's something that just sneaked up on them while they were distracted by their careers. I've been talking to Hewlett, and I'm convinced that other things are sneaking up on us, with implications far beyond the what-might-have-been anguish of professional women who waited too late to get their priorities sorted out. One thing that's sneaking up is racially specific.

He's a kid who wears a mask. If you saw him coming on a late night in a dark place, you'd watch him warily and sigh in relief when he allowed you to pass unmolested. You wouldn't dream of saying a word to him. So you'd never know. That he's 16 and lives in my neighborhood with both his parents. That he has a job and is on the honor roll in school. That he's a good kid. You'd never know because he hides who he is behind that mask. Behind baggy pants, two or three oversized T-shirts, and a bandanna.

Do black Americans make too much of race? The answer is yes, though very likely not for the reasons you thought. A good many white people, and a growing number of blacks, believe that African Americans are too eager to use racism as the universal explainer for all that has gone wrong in our ranks, too quick to embrace victimhood as a political weapon, too preoccupied with race to grasp - or even see - opportunities there for the taking. But I'm talking about something else: the power of negative racial stereotypes to lead people to act against their own self-interest.

Rendell, Farrakhan took the low road in Grays Ferry Now that the dust has settled on the weasel Farrakhan intrusion, maybe we ought to assess the significance of what he did. With the Presidents Summit near at hand, the Grays Ferry people were threatening a city-besmirching rebellion and Mayor Rendell had to think of something to keep the rabble down. As quick in his mind as he is on his feet, America's Mayor came up with his clever, yet condescending, take-me-to-your-leader maneuver.

By his own mother's account, 4-year-old Dennis has something of a tough-guy rep in his tough Grays Ferry neighborhood. "He fights all the time," his mom, Ellen Coen, said yesterday, as Dennis, who is white, played on the Stanley Street sidewalk with two black boys and a white girl. It does not take much to start trouble in the racially explosive Grays Ferry section of South Philadelphia, where just this weekend, whites and blacks joined for a "Unity in the Community" rally to promote harmony.

Probably more than most people, Eugene J. Richardson Jr. knows the one thing that can keep kids who come from impoverished, dysfunctional families from dropping out of school and getting into trouble: The crucial factor is mentoring by an adult - someone other than a parent or teacher who's willing to be available to youngsters for advice or guidance. "I have seen basically real good kids go astray and get into trouble simply because they did not have a responsible adult outside of school or home who could spend some time with them," said Richardson, 70, who taught math and was a principal in junior high and middle schools throughout his 35-year career as an educator.

I was sitting perfectly still, waiting for the TV interview to start, when the cameraman said, "I'm hearing something. " "Starched shirt, silk tie," responded the soundman. "You can hear the rustle. " Some stories are like that, too. You can hear the rustle. Like a lot of young reporters, Yvonne Latty gets a real assortment of stories. There are the solo murders. And the double murders and the triple murders. And don't forget the fatal fires. Several weeks ago, she drew a different kind of assignment, and it got to her more than all the dead bodies she's covered.