As Leslie Ireland approaches the end of high school, he doesn't know what the future holds.

Contemplating his class reunion 10 years from now, the Annapolis High senior says, "I may not even be around in 10 years."

Ireland's gloomy assessment is not mere teen angst. While others their age may talk about succeeding in life, young men such as Ireland are more concerned about surviving.

Ireland is a young black male.

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The statistics are staggering.

Black males are twice as likely as are white males to die before age 45. A black male has an 18 percent probability of being incarcerated sometime in his life. Forty-eight percent of blacks aged 15-19 who died in 1988 were killed by gunfire, compared with 18 percent of whites.

And, blacks are 11 times more likely to be killed by guns. Of the 1,641 victims aged 15-19 killed by firearms in 1988, 955 were black males, more than twice the number of white males killed that year in the United States.

"In some areas of the country, it is now more likely for a black male between his 15th and 25th birthday to die from homicide than it was for a United States soldier to be killed on a tour of duty in Vietnam," said Dr. Robert Froehlke, an author of a report on the subject from the federal Centers for Disease Control, from which the above statistics are quoted.

SELF-FULFILLING LABELS

Darius Stanton, youth coordinator for the Anne Arundel County Office of Drug and Alcohol Programs, says the negative numbers feed on themselves.

"I just turned 21 and someone told me, 'Well, you beat the statistics,' " says Stanton, three years out of high school. "Well, I don't buy that. . . . We're so used to people thinking of us as inferior, we have accepted it and put it on ourselves.

"We've seen people disrespect us for so long we don't respect ourselves," he says. "Our women certainly don't respect us. We believe the hype."

Stanton and five other young black men in Annapolis -- part of a generation which the federal report dubs the "endangered species" or "imprisoned generation" -- spoke with a reporter recently about their hopes and fears as the school year ends.

The five high school seniors represent a diverse spectrum. Two of them live in Annapolis' public housing developments. Another was raised in a more middle-class environment as a minister's son. All but one come from a single-parent household, due either to death or divorce.

Gerard Hyman, 17, has heard the murder statistics time and again. Seemingly, the Annapolis senior would be in a relatively safe port. After all, his town, home to about 33,000 residents, is known for history, Georgian-style homes and marinas.

But, for all its gingerbread charm, Annapolis grapples with some serious problems. Last year, five people were murdered in Annapolis, the most the capital city has seen. Police determined that four of the murders were drug-related, and suspect the fifth was, too. All of the victims and suspects were black males. The same traits hold true for the city's lone murder this year: a black victim, a black suspect, drugs.

WITNESS TO A KILLING

Hyman, a quiet and thoughtful young man, saw last year's final victim just moments after he had been shot.

"It was around Christmastime," Hyman says. "I just heard the boom and when I turned around I saw the guy on the ground."

Darryl Downs was shot outside the Bywater Village public housing project Dec. 20. He was a year older than Hyman, who used to live in the same development. Hyman did not know him.

One of two men believed to be responsible for Downs' death turned himself into police. The other suspect remains at large. The shooting is believed to have been drug-related.

"People just accept it," says Mister Green, 17. "Sometimes I don't think anything can be done about the drugs. It's everywhere."

Green himself was a crime victim a year ago. His assailants were other black males a few years older than he. He was coming out of a go-go club at the Crownsville Fairgrounds when he "got stuck up."

"Sometimes I worry about the whole black race," says Titus Jeffries, who moved to Annapolis from Baltimore County with his mother and stepfather just before high school.

The most vocal and self-assured of the group, he says, "Whites have the money. The white man always brings it [drugs] into our communities. Whether or not the black man uses it is up to us."

Most of the students believe the drug problem and violent lifestyle that accompanies it in the black community is more the fault of the individual. They speak of "personal responsibility" with a wisdom beyond their years. But, they all agree, a lack of money and opportunity leads many young black males to the rapid and typically brief career of drug dealer.

EASY WAY OUT

"Eastport used to be owned by blacks," says Albert Harris, 17, of the increasingly gentrified community across Spa Creek from downtown Annapolis. "Now it's owned by whites. Blacks can't afford the fancy houses they're building there or the yachts. Blacks see that and they want that kind of life. But they don't have the money. The quickest way to get the money is to sell drugs."

The only way to stem the selling of drugs is to provide young black men with better opportunities for better jobs, they say.

Stanton, who reports he's been described by some peers as "being into that black power thing," says, "I don't feel that drugs are the problem. Drugs are a symptom. We as young men have no sense of who we are. We have no sense of the loving heritage which we come from.

"We're not into selling drugs for the drugs. We don't even use drugs as much as other groups. We are into it solely for the material things. I had someone tell me he sells drugs because he's addicted to the money.

"It's an opportunity to feel like somebody, to have some control over your life. Everyone wants to be successful. Everyone wants to feel good. That's what the drugs do. That's what the money does. And the material things -- the nice house, the nice clothes, the big car -- they really mean something to us because we have nothing to latch onto," says Stanton, an Annapolis High graduate who was raised in a single-parent, middle-class home.

"There are role models," Stanton continues. "I see plenty of men in my community out there working. There are some people out there who have the title or position but they don't reach out to help."

BLAMING THE SYSTEM

While acknowledging and regretting their shortcomings in school, the students also blame the system for not having better prepared them.

Harris maybe best illustrates the type of student who needed someone to tell him what to expect. He is well-spoken and apparently knowledgeable about various subjects. Yet, Harris says, his SAT scores were in the low 500s. Black students in Anne Arundel County averaged 758 in the last school year. The national average for all students that year was 900.

"When I saw my scores, I just got so upset," Harris says. "I didn't know half the things on there. I haven't had the classes to prepare myself for the test."

Stanton says black students are not succeeding in the classroom because they are first looked upon as underachievers. Then they accept the label, he says.

"I fell into it. I slept in class. We thought it was cool," he says. "But if a teacher lets you sleep in class, then they don't care about you and you feel it."

Also, Stanton says, black parents need to become more active in the education of their children. And, blacks need to learn more about their place in history.

"The schools don't teach us about our past," he says. "They tell us we were slaves and that's it. Our perceptions of ourselves are of being slaves. Everyone else has that perception, too."

What will stem the tide of violence among black males? These young men suggest better education, more job opportunities and efforts to increase self-esteem.

"There's a national campaign to save trees," Stanton says. "There's a national campaign to promote space travel and research. Why isn't there a national campaign to save human beings, not black, not white, but human beings?"