Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake's State of the City address sounded the alarm again for a "call to action" initiative that would "recruit black men committed to making a difference in the lives of our children to serve as mentors, volunteers, tutors, job training coaches, speakers and more" and concluding that "we need to end the violence in our communities" ("City leaders call on black men to mentor youths and stop the violence," March 25).
Ms. Rawlings-Blake stated that of the 211 homicides in the city last year, 189 of the victims were black men. Her very sincere pronouncement and sobering alarm has become a very predictable and reoccurring admonition and has been made time and time again by mayors in most urban major cities across America for the past two decades or more.
Just seven years ago, another "call to action" was made by then-Mayor Shelia Dixon who shared similar tragic and abominable statistics and the goal at that time was to call on black men to mobilize, to eliminate murder, minimize crime and create peace in our communities. It was clear then, as it is now, that the violence in our schools and on our streets, the high dropout and incarceration rates, the increasing unemployment rates and the rising number of absentee fathers had reached epidemic proportions in the city. Mayor Dixon believed then that there was very little time left for finger-pointing, excuse-making and sideline protestations.
So I am not writing to blame Mayor Rawlings-Blake and her staff for my skepticism and less than enthusiastic desire to volunteer my time or services to what will end up as another tepid attempt toward very little action and very low expectations. However, I attended Ms. Rawlings-Blake's call to action forum last month and listened intently to the information shared by the panel of speakers and those concerned members of the audience who were representing themselves or a community organization. Unfortunately, I left the forum with a "here we go again" feeling and concluded that the call to action would once again be more important than the subsequent "plan of action." There was the pre-forum press conference with the predictable "this will be different than previous calls to action statements" followed by a two-hour forum that featured the all-too-familiar superficial suggestions and solutions which was followed by a list of specious and redundant recommendations.
While other cities have announced major initiatives and impressive funding amounts to seriously address the life-saving and life-affirming challenges facing young black men (including New York City, Oakland, California, Washington, D.C. and Newark), there was no mention by the mayor or announcements from the foundation or corporate community about any bold new public/private initiatives with serious funding commitments to fund and sustain critical infrastructure needs and levels of prevention and secondary strategies to seriously address all levels of violence perpetrated by and against young black men in Baltimore. It is true that money alone cannot solve all the problems associated with this issue, but what we do know to be an absolute truth, according to all of the research, is that without a comprehensive, coordinated and long-term "plan of action" with sufficient and sustained levels of funding, any "call to action" initiative will not make it out of the starting blocks and will become, once again, another failed strategy.
So it is my contention that the violence cannot be stopped and the tangle of pathology facing young black men in Baltimore cannot be arrested unless there is a viable and effective "plan of action" that includes the establishment of an infrastructure needed to:
•Fund and sustain a collaborative network of 10-to-15 African-American male-centered organizations. This "collaborative" will focus on expanding local expertise and strengthening the organizational capacity of member organizations. Although many grass roots organizations in Baltimore are providing valuable services to young African American men, issues related to organizational infrastructure development, moving programs to scale (serving larger numbers of African American males), sustainability and producing quality academic and psycho-social outcomes are just a few of the challenges that confront many providers.
•Encourage the highest quality of program outcomes, public accountability, public policies and the most effective and efficient use of public and private funds.
•Gain an understanding of the best practices and models that have proven to be successful in preventing violence and preparing African-American males academically and socially.
•Understand the importance of research and evaluation in determining program effectiveness.
Unless critical, long-term corrective measures are developed and implemented to provide the growing number of African-American males that are disconnected from families, schools, churches and communities with life-affirming structures, rituals and opportunities, then not only are their lives and future in jeopardy, but the quality of life for every citizen living in metropolitan Baltimore will be adversely affected and the "call to action dance" will continue.
Richard A. Rowe, Pikesville