Hidden in the Shadow of Truth was written by Reginald E. Hicks neither to absolve nor to indict black males for their current social condition. It was written rather to provide a comprehensive and accurate explanation as to why so many black males seem to be led by the nose toward the prison doors. Why is it that black juveniles consistently outpace their white, Hispanic, and Asian counterparts by a margin of more than 2 to 1 in the commission of murders, aggravated assaults, weapons law violations, forcible rapes, robberies, and motor vehicle thefts? Why is it that blacks account for only 13 percent of the total U.S. population but a full 41 percent of the incarcerated? Hicks explains that the mentality of many black youth is a product of a very unique socialization process wherein the family, the school system, the peer group, and the mass media have collectively failed in their responsibilities, making black boys more prone to choosing the path of incarceration or enslavement through criminality. In this exceptional work, Reginald E. Hicks presents "the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth," letting the chips fall where they may.

Hidden in the Shadow of Truth

Why Our Black Boys Choose Criminality, Prison, and EnslavementBy Reginald E. Hicks

iUniverse, Inc.

Copyright © 2010 Reginald E. Hicks
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4502-1667-8

Contents

Preface...............................................................ixIntroduction: The Plantation of Choice................................11 The Influence of the Family.........................................252 The Influence of the School System..................................483 The Influence of the Peer Group.....................................724 The Influence of the Mass Media.....................................95Conclusion: Why Our Black Boys Choose Enslavement.....................120Notes.................................................................141Index.................................................................176

Chapter One

The Influence of the Family

It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men. -Frederick Douglass

In terms of children learning to participate successfully in group life, the family of orientation (the family we are born into) is the first and most important agency of socialization. "The child's first exposure to the world occurs within the family." It is within this parent-based agency of socialization that the child is provided with a name, an identity, and a heritage. Parents introduce the child to his first set of norms, values, and beliefs; they help him form some of his basic attitudes and modes of behavior; and they directly contribute to the development of his self-concept and ultimate personality. If parents offer love and approval, the child learns to love himself. If parents offer rejection, the child learns to dislike who he is. If parents offer encouragement, the child learns to be confident. If parents offer criticism, the child learns to be unsure. If parents offer hostility, the child learns to be violent. And if parents offer serenity, the child develops peace of mind. It is no wonder that of all the agencies of socialization, the family has the single greatest influence on the outcomes of children. So, when 60 percent of our black boys are reared in fatherless households (51 percent living in mother-only families and 9 percent living with neither parent) and have limited or no access to positive black male role models, or when they are taught antiquated notions of a white enemy who is bent on rejecting them at every turn, it would stand to reason that their outcomes may be different than their white and Asian counterparts. Let us consider first the central, daunting issue of fatherlessness.

Uninvolved, Absentee Fathers

What happened to the black family? In 1890, not more than twenty-five years after the last shot was fired to finally put an end to the so-called peculiar institution, 80 percent of our children lived in two-parent homes. Even during the upheavals of two world wars and the Great Depression, this enviable rate remained relatively unchanged-a fact that discounts the trite argument that modern (twenty-first-century) black family structure is a direct outgrowth of the separation of families during slavery. The demise of the two-parent black family did not begin in earnest until 1970, when their numbers sank to 64 percent, followed by 48 percent in 1980, 39 percent in 1990, and 35 percent today. This drastic downturn is very peculiar in light of the fact that for almost one hundred years after the Civil War, only about 20 percent of black children were raised in female-headed households.

So, what happened to the black family? Is there a reasonable explanation for this swift, unprecedented change in black family structure? Several hypotheses have been presented and examined attempting to answer these very complex questions. Three of the most prominent hypotheses are based on economic status. The first hypothesis supports the general principle that as socioeconomic status increases, the percentage of female-headed households decreases. In other words, "differences in female-headedness between blacks and whites diminish sharply under conditions of economic parity." So, the percentage of black mother-only families (51 percent) compared to that of whites (18 percent) is skewed by the fact that the number of poor blacks and blacks in poverty has increased in recent years. The second and third hypotheses point specifically to the economic weakness of the black male. He earns less than 65 percent of what white men earn at every educational level, and his unemployment rate is more than double that of white men. This legitimizes the claim made by many black women that there are very few "marriageable" black men available (hypothesis two) and that they would rather maintain a family on their own to remain eligible for welfare transfer payments (hypothesis three), which they could not receive if they were found to be cohabiting. A fourth hypothesis suggests that "shifts in values and attitudes about marriage and childbearing in the black community have led to increased acceptance of out-of-wedlock childbearing and growth in black female-headed families."

As logical and reasonable as these theories may be, neither of them can fully justify a rate of father-absenteeism that surpasses other racial and ethnic groups by 30 to 47 percent, nor can they justify the cumulative effect that such a rate has on our black boys. With only about one-third of black federal and state prisoners reporting to have been raised in two-parent homes, the efficacy of fatherlessness is irrefutable (by a margin of 10 to 1, black single-parent homes are almost always female-headed). Even the vilified Moynihan Report of 1965 was prophetic in its assessment of the damaging effects of black family structure. In his capacity as assistant secretary of labor under the Johnson administration, Daniel Patrick Moynihan (an American politician and sociologist) wrote this report during a time when more than 75 percent of black children still lived in two-parent homes. His focus was on the nearly 25 percent (60 percent today) who were not so lucky. The thrust of Moynihan's argument is that the Negro family cannot fight a two-front war against poverty and racial discrimination from a position of extreme weakness-the slow deterioration of the black community through the dissolution of the two-parent black family. He makes it clear that most of the aberrant, inadequate, and antisocial behaviors exhibited especially by black boys are a direct byproduct of father-absenteeism. The mother-only black family, according to Moynihan, perpetuates crippling negatives: (1) a resentment of the son for the misdeeds of the father, (2) a blind focus by children on the immediate gratification of their desires, (3) an inability of the black child to stave off the deep psychological wounds of racism, (4) educational priorities favoring daughters over sons, (5) a suppression of basic intelligence and future school performance, and (6) a weak work ethic among black boys. To buttress his arguments, Moynihan quotes a host of social scientists throughout his report, including famed black sociologist E. Franklin Frazier, whose poignant 1950 statement in The Journal of Negro Education still rings true today:

As a result of family disorganization, a large proportion of Negro children and youth have not undergone the socialization which only the family can provide. Their disorganized families have failed to provide for their emotional needs and have not provided the discipline and habits which are necessary for personality development. Because the disorganized family has failed in its function as a socializing agency, it has handicapped the children in their relations to the institutions in the community. Moreover, family disorganization has been partially responsible for a large amount of juvenile delinquency and adult crime among Negroes. Since the widespread family disorganization among Negroes has resulted from the failure of the father to play the role in family life required by American society, the mitigation of this problem must await those changes in the Negro and American society which will enable the Negro father to play the role required of him.

As fatherlessness in the black community has become nothing less than a national epidemic in recent years, many social scientists and researchers have joined the voices of Moynihan and Frazier, hoping to stem the tide of an obviously losing battle. A host of scholars has produced well-supported, reliable studies that have shown strong relationships between family structure and various measures of child development. One key measure of development mentioned by Moynihan that is affected specifically by the presence or absence of the biological father is basic intelligence, which speaks directly to the issue of overall school performance. In regard to this capacity of a child to acquire and apply knowledge (basic intelligence), the sticking point for many social scientists is not necessarily whether family structure has an effect on cognitive ability, but more often whether intelligence can be accurately and fairly measured across racial and ethic groups.

Putting aside this perpetual controversy, however, common sense informs us that despite the measurement used to assess racial/ethnic differences in intellectual development, the verbal IQ of any child is intimately linked to the amount of verbal stimulation received from parents, keeping in mind that it is very difficult for a single parent to provide the same amount of stimulation that can be provided by two parents. Moreover, in a study of over 17,000 children, Deborah A. Dawson (1991) found that the average education of the mother was highest in families with both biological parents and lowest among mothers who never married, making the quality of single-parent verbal stimulation suspect at the very least. Dawson goes further to say that "children living with single mothers or with mothers and stepfathers were more likely than those living with both biological parents to have repeated a grade of school," which is certainly partially reflective of a lack of cognitive ability among these children. In a similar study, using a National Longitudinal Survey (NLS) of 2,500 black and white respondents, Sheila Fitzgerald Krein and Andrea H. Beller (1988) discovered a strong causal relationship between a child's family type and his or her subsequent level of academic achievement-children of two-parent families, of course, experiencing the more positive result. They even found that the effect was greater for boys than for girls. Such findings are neither isolated nor surprising given the many measures of development affected by fatherlessness.

As noted in Psychology Today (1996), "Fatherhood turns out to be a complex and unique phenomenon with huge consequences for the emotional and intellectual growth of children." The same can also be said of motherhood. Both biological parents play distinct, indispensable roles in family life. Fathers and mothers parent differently, play differently, communicate differently, and certainly discipline differently. In fact, when it comes to discipline, fathers enforce the rules systematically and sternly, emphasizing consequences for right and wrong, while mothers tend toward grace and sympathy in the midst of disobedience. As different as fathers and mothers are in their approaches to parenting and discipline, both are equally essential in the process of producing mentally strong, emotionally stable, mild-mannered children who are not compelled to sexual deviance or physical aggression. But because more than 90 percent of black single-parent homes are mother-headed (as opposed to father-headed), and because 60 percent of black children are reared in fatherless households, it is predominantly the absence of the father that negatively impacts the socioemotional maintenance (promoting and maintaining feelings of unconditional love and acceptance) of black children in general and black boys in particular.

In a comparative study of incarcerated adolescent males and their nonincarcerated cohorts, M. Eileen Matlack et al. (1994) examined the correlation between family structure and the tendency toward antisocial behavior. Their findings strongly confirmed several hypotheses: (1) that incarcerated adolescents were more likely to come from mother-only families than were nonincarcerated adolescents; (2) that incarcerated adolescents exhibited greater deficiencies in social communication skills, appropriate self-expression, and effective interpersonal problem solving than nonincarcerated adolescents; and (3) that these "social skill deficits" were a direct outgrowth of father-absenteeism. Likewise, using a large longitudinal sample of urban elementary school children, Nancy Vaden-Kiernan et al. (1995) observed a similar connection between family type and social behavior. The study concluded that "boys in both mother-father and mother-male partner families were significantly less likely than boys in mother-alone families to be rated as aggressive by teachers. [No such effect was found for girls]."

Another measure of development highlighted by Daniel Patrick Moynihan in 1965 is a child's ability to delay gratification. This measure is not only strongly tied to family structure, but it has a significant intervening effect on emotional stability, social skill attainment, cognitive ability, academic achievement, and ultimate career success in adulthood. According to Joan E. LeFebvre (2003), self-regulation or delay of gratification is a learned skill that begins to emerge between the ages of three and four. It involves the capability of a child to suppress short-term impulsivity while actively maintaining the behavior needed to achieve a long-term goal, without external motivation or instruction. This acquired skill is essential in the lives of children, adolescents, and adults. It is one of the few natural prerequisites to long-term success. In their analysis of differential parenting styles in two-parent families, Wendy S. Grolnick and Richard M. Ryan (1989) made it clear that a child's ability to delay gratification is bolstered mainly by the mother. She spends more time actively interacting with the children and is, therefore, more involved in child rearing than the father. But in the single-parent family where the father is absent, the mother's central role is irrevocably weakened due to inadequate financial and social capital. In such cases, the single mother may not only be forced to work full-time outside the home, but she is also fully responsible for maintaining the household and supervising the children. So, when paternal resources (e.g., child monitoring and support) are completely absent, and the mother's time and energy are severely siphoned by her insurmountable responsibilities, it is the proper socialization of the children that inevitably suffers. The female-headed household (absent the influence of a nonresidential biological or surrogate father) is simply not conducive to a successful reinforcement of skills like self-regulation or delaying gratification. All in all, through his absenteeism, the biological father sabotages the role of the custodial parent and the development and outcomes of his children. He also denies his sons access to their first and most important role model-their own father.

Inaccessible Positive Role Models

The Encyclopedia of Sociology and the Dictionary of Sociology define role models as people whose opinions matter to us and whose judgments are most important to the development of our self-image. From the point of view of the child, role models possess life skills and display coping techniques that the child learns by observation and comparison with his own performance. He evaluates himself based on the patterns of behavior presented by those whom he feels connected to and identifies with. In other words, role models impart to children certain norms (specific behavioral expectations), values (general cultural guidelines), attitudes, and beliefs, whether they be considered positive or negative. Role models may or may not be known personally by the child. They may include professional athletes, famous actors, government leaders, as well as teachers, classmates, or even fictitious movie characters. Nevertheless, the most influential group of role models has always been, and continues to be, the family. No other reference group (i.e., a group of role models) can boast of a connectedness that goes beyond mere admiration or superficial affection. Because of kinship ties, family members have a vested interest in the overall well-being of the child. They tend to make a conscious effort to demonstrate to the child how to participate successfully in group life. But how effective is this effort for black boys who have less access to their primary role model (the biological father) than their sisters (whose primary role model is the mother), or their white, Hispanic, and Asian counterparts? Are black males the most effective role models for black boys strictly by virtue of their common race and gender, notwithstanding family ties?

(Continues...)

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