Are You Scared of Black Boys?

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I recently paid a visit to Nerd Girl. It is one of the many blogs that I follow quietly as a lurker. A few days ago the author of this site wrote quite honestly of her fear of packs of African American (male) teens as an African American woman living in her city in a post entitled Some of My Best Friends Are Black. The comments were heavy and full of thought-provoking points of view. I'm not much of a commenter although I am a blogger, believe it or not. But with the recent and senseless death of Bobby Tillman at the hands of teens and the daily reports of wanton violence perpetrated by those who are not yet men, I did add my two cents:

"...any microcosm speaks to the state of the macrocosm and I feel that there are no differentiating lines between kids(teens) and adults. There is nothing to aspire to, nothing to mature into when you think you’re grown at 16 and then have no one cutting you down to size [or guide you] as my father did…fathers…when it comes to boys…all boys - the presence of a father (worth his salt) is a stabilizing and sometimes terrifying notion in a boy’s life. But fatherless homes are at epic highs right now particularly in African American communities so these kids, the thugs, the clowns, the jokers are running around unchecked, unsupervised, untrained and sadly unloved so they do what they do. Many times these boys think they are the man of the house because when they were little they were mom’s “lil” man and that never really changed. It’s only after they are apprehended, shot dead, or whatever that the consequences sink in, but why would they in the mind of a child? We hold our black boys in society to the same standard as a rationale thinking adult and we should when the crime fits, but at the crux of it they are kids, completely running off the rails with little to no guidance. Fixing this problem is the real problem. I do my best with my teen who at fifteen is 6’2″ and 3 inches taller than me. Some days he doesn’t like me and many days I wonder if I like him at all, but when he’s grown and has a fully working brain in his head and a sense of his place in this world, we can come together as friends, just like I am with my father…now."