SOME OF US RISE, BUT TOO MANY YOUNG BLACKS HAVE LOST THEIR WAY, THEIR
SELF-RESPECT

"Put simply and put bluntly, we are losing a vital asset indispensable to
our survival as a culture and as a nation. We are losing men: black men. We
are losing young black males in just about every way it is possible to
forfeit human life and promise."

Coming through the Fire: Surviving Race and Place in America (Duke
University Press) by C. Eric Lincoln

I was sitting in Swett's Restaurant - what I call the most integrated
restaurant in Nashville at lunch time - Thursday when I noticed a young
black man coming through the line with his jeans hanging below his waist
and his underwear showing.

It caught my attention, but it also caused me to wonder whether this young
man had any respect for himself or for the other men, women and children
who happened to be in the restaurant at the time.

Here we are on the heels of the celebration of the Rev. Martin Luther King
Jr.'s birthday, I thought to myself, where even in Nashville thousands of
people took to the streets last Monday to honor a man who wanted people to
be judged by the content of their character.

What does it say about one's character when a person goes around in public
openly displaying his underclothing?

Not only had we just celebrated Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday, but here
we were on the eve of Black History Month, a month when the achievements of
African-Americans will be discussed in classrooms, churches and elsewhere.

What would Malcolm X say about those of us, especially our young black men,
who are walking around today in public with their underwear showing and
displaying disrespect in other ways? What would Carl T. Rowan say? What
about Sojourner Truth and Fannie Lou Hamer and Rosa Parks?

The disturbing picture for me didn't stop at Swett's. Walking out of the
restaurant, I looked across the street and noticed several young black men
hanging out in front of a convenience store.

Drive down Jo Johnston Avenue near the John Henry Hale Homes public housing
projects and you'll see similar scenes.

Maybe these young people aren't up to any nonsense. But at the very least,
don't they have more in life to do than just hang out in front of
somebody's business or any other place along the street?

What's happening to our young black men? Why are we losing them?

"I think what you have is a culture division between blacks," Floyd Vinson,
a cashier at the Kroger's in Green Hills, told me Friday morning. "Most
black men who are lucky enough to have parents and have parents push them
to get an education are the ones who might get something from the system.

"But in doing so, for them it changes their mentality. As for the black men
on the streets, there's another type of mentality going on and it's a
mentality of rebellion. They haven't had anyone to push them or very few
people to push them to see that there's another way of thinking."

Vinson, a Pearl High School graduate who went on to attend Cumberland
College, added: "When you have these two cultures meet - the privileged
blacks and the so-called rebellious blacks - what you have is a crossroads
between two worlds.

"One does not know how to communicate with the other, and in turn, what you
are going to have is a situation where the privileged black men are not
going to care what happens to the rebellious black men, and the rebellious
black men are going to try to take everything they can from the privileged.
One is saying, 'Why can't you be like me?' and the other is saying 'Why
can't you understand me?' "

Vinson, 45, who said he was pushed by his mother, grandmother and several
other people while growing up, added that "unless we start some type of
dialogue with one another, we are not going to get beyond that realm. What
we're doing is creating different classes among ourselves and that's not good."

We're losing too many of our young black men not only to the streets but to
prison and to untimely, unnecessary deaths.

Look at Tennessee's prison population. Black males make up only 7.7% of the
state's total population but almost 50% of its state inmates.

If that's not enough for concern, just look at what happened early Friday
morning in the James A. Cayce public housing projects in east Nashville.
Three young black men were shot to death in what police say was a
drug-related robbery. One of the victims, police spokesman Don Aaron said,
had cocaine in his pocket.

As we start Black History Month, those of us who are black, especially,
must think about not only our tremendous past but also what lies ahead. If
we are to succeed and move forward, all of us, not just a privileged few,
must be on board.

And not to reach out and lend a helping hand to those who feel alienated
will surely cause failure for all of us. Surely, that's not the type of
history we want to leave behind.