SUPPORTING YOUNG MEN AND BOYS OF COLOR

KNOWING YOUR WHY . . .

LET’S EMPOWER YOU ”WHY” EVEN MORE!

BEFORE YOU CAN UNDERSTAND HOW TO SUPPORT HIM, YOU MUST FIRST UNDERSTAND WHAT’S FACING HIM.

DEAR YOUNG MAN OF COLOR

PARTNER TALK

• Take 3 minutes to write your thoughts about this video and you will be whisked away to a chat room to talk with others about these two questions..

• What was most powerful for you from this video and why?

• How do you connect with this video as a parent/guardian/advocate?

WHO IS THIS DUDE TALKING TO US LIKE THAT?

• CEO• Sims-Fayola Foundation

• Author• The Dedrick Sims Reader

• Hardwired By Nature: What We As Educators Underestimate About Our Minority Students

• Hey Man, We Just Talkin’

• Various Professional Publications

• School Designer

• Equity Coach

• Educator• Over 20 years

• I LOVE BRUCE LEE MOVIES & TEQUILA!

OUR JOURNEY WITH OTHERS

PART 1

• Perceptions

• America’s Man

• An Issue of Equity & Access (Education & The Economy)

• Increasing Our Awareness of Their Story

• The Realities of Young Men and Boys of Color

PART 2

• Physical/Mental Health and Suicide

• Female Teachers and Black Male Culture

• Creating The Ultimate Classroom For Boys of Color & The Boy Brain

• The Importance of Rites of Passage

PERCEPTION

PERCEPTIONS/LABELING LANGUAGE

• The African American male has been labeled as dangerous, obsolete, endangered, and at-risk. (Where does this start?)

• The Latino male has been labeled as a cholo, illegal alien, job stealer, and labor worker to name a few. (Where does this start?)

• During childhood, the structures of racism and oppression begins to cripple these young men. When they reach adulthood, they are socially, physically, and politically impotent.

• Sekou Toure, president of Guinea, describes it as the “science of dehumanization.”

The Realities of African American and Latino Young Men

INCREASING OUR AWARENESS OF THEIR STORY

PARTNER TALK

• Take 3 minutes to write your thoughts about this video and you will be whisked away to a chat room to talk with others about these two questions..

• What was most powerful for you from this video and why?

• How do you, as a parent/guardian/advocate, think you should support your young man given what this video presented?

THE FALLOUT

• Often a target of oppressive systems, YMOC face disproportionate risk throughout their journey from adolescence to adulthood compared to young white men. (6 times as likely to be murdered)

• YMOC face the perception of being older (adulterization) than they are often leads to disproportionately harsh discipline practices in classrooms, life, and courtrooms.

• 86% of Black boys and 82% of Hispanic (Latino) boys read below proficiency by the 4th grade compared to 58% of White boys.

EXPERIENCES IN AND OUT OF SCHOOL

• Adultification (4-5 years)

• Harsher discipline• Overrepresentation in suspensions/expulsions/special education

• The cultural strengths of males of color are often institutionally censored in order to maintain academic hegemony/leadership/dominance.

• Convicted in the womb• Based on perception form stories passed along

• Zero-tolerance policies (School-to-Prison Pipeline)

• Often aligned with the characteristics of YMOC

RELATIONSHIP WITH LAW

ENFORCEMENT

Young men and boys of color are twenty-one times more likely to be killed by police than their White counterparts according to federal statistics.

BEFORE YOU CALL THE COPS