Being a Black Man: At the Corner of Progress and Peril

Front Cover
PublicAffairs, Aug 7, 2007 - Social Science - 384 pages
Over the last 100 years, perhaps no segment of the American population has been more analyzed than black males. The subject of myriad studies and dozens of government boards and commissions, black men have been variously depicted as the progenitors of pop culture and the menaces of society, their individuality often obscured by the narrow images that linger in the public mind. Ten years after the Million Man March, the largest gathering of black men in the nation's history, Washington Post staffers began meeting to discuss what had become of black men in the ensuing decade. How could their progress and failures be measured?

Their questions resulted in a Post series which generated enormous public interest and inspired a succession of dynamic public meetings. It included the findings of an ambitious nationwide poll and offered an eye-opening window into questions of race and black male identity -- questions gaining increasing attention with the emergence of Senator Barack Obama as a serious presidential contender. At the end of the day, the project revealed that black men are deeply divided over how they view each other and their country.

Now collected in one volume with several new essays as well as an introduction by Pulitzer Prizewinning novelist Edward P. Jones, these poignant and provocative articles let us see and hear black men like they've never been seen and heard before.

From inside the book

Contents

At the Corner of Progress and Peril
3
A Portrait Shaded With Promise and Doubt
17
The Young Apprentice
31
For the Love of Ballou
45
A Path All His Own
59
The Wrong Man
79
His Last Best Cause
95
Dad Redefined
111
The Meaning of Work
177
In or Out of the Game?
195
The Old Kinship
211
Brothercool
227
Why Are So Many Black Men in Prison?
239
Bob Johnson on Black Wealth
249
Where Are Black Men Spiritually?
267
Not Just Any WalkOn Part
281

Special Agent
125
Singled Out
143
A Chance to Get Into the Room
161
Polling Data
289
Acknowledgments
349
Copyright

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Page 66 - In all things that are purely social we can be as separate as the fingers, yet one as the hand in all things essential to mutual progress.
Page 129 - The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life. Attitude, to me, is more important than the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than failures, than successes, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, giftedness, or skill.
Page 129 - I am convinced that life is 10 percent what happens to me and 90 percent how I react to it. And so it is with you ... we are in charge of our attitudes.
Page 350 - This perception is apparently pervasive according to a national survey conducted by the Washington Post, the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, and Harvard University.
Page 291 - How satisfied are you with your life as a whole these days?
Page 11 - A policeman who concentrates a disproportionate amount of his limited time and resources on young black men is going to uncover far more crimes — and therefore be far more successful in his career than one who biases his attention to, say, middle-aged Asian women.
Page 291 - Would you say you are very satisfied, somewhat satisfied, not too satisfied, or not satisfied at all?
Page 350 - Government; he has received awards for outstanding teaching from both institutions. He also directs the Harvard Opinion Research Program and the Henry J. Kaiser National Program on the Public, Health, and Social Policy, which focuses on the better understanding of public knowledge, attitudes, and beliefs about...

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