Black Youth in Babylon.

By Alexandrio Morley
BlackFood News Reporter

IN 1973 Huey P. Newton, co-founder of the Black Panther Party, wrote that most adolescents in black communities expect no justice from school authorities or the police.

In Revolutionary Suicide, Newton lamented that almost all young Black Men are struggling to achieve a sense of identity in a society that denies them their basic rights. When describing the conditions of black teenagers he said: “The effects of injustice and discrimination can be seen in the lives of nearly everyone around them. A brutal system permeates every aspect of life; it is in the air they breathe.”

In 2009 the conditions of black youth remain the same.

Brother Remy Johnson, a member of the Black is Black Coalition and a Masters candidate in Pan-African studies at Syracuse University, recently spoke to BlackFood about this “brutal system” and the struggle of young black males.

“Black communities are falling apart because of the infestation of drugs and the high rates of unemployment, and even the gangs that use to give males some sense of security have fallen apart,” he said.

According to him, President Obama has only spoken directly to young black males when criticizing them for being absent fathers and for their high rates of unemployment.

In June, President Obama and his family celebrated Father’s Day at the Apostolic Church of God on Chicago’s South Side. The President told the congregation: “But if we are honest with ourselves, we’ll admit that too many fathers also are missing – missing from too many lives and too many homes. They have abandoned their responsibilities, acting like boys instead of men.”

Currently, young black males in the United States have the highest high school drop out rates, along with Latino males and this rate is commensurate with their high unemployment rate.

Today, over 2.3 million individuals are imprisoned in the United States and over half of them are African-Americans who make up only 12% of the general population. Many of these persons are young black men.

However, Johnson highlighted that the President has never spoken about the conditions these youths face.

“I congratulate Barack Obama on his Presidency, but his leadership will not bring about fundamental changes to this system, and particularly it won’t change life for African-American males because through the Prison Industrial Complex African-American males are going to jail at a far rapid pace than any other group in our society and they are they ones who are getting killed by the police in our communities,” explained Johnson.

On December 8th 2008, 17 year-old Billey Joe Johnson was killed by police during a traffic stop on the border of Mississippi and Alabama.

On January 1st 2009, an unarmed Robert Tolan Jr., 23, was shot by the police in the front of his home in Texas, and about that same time a 23 year-old father of one daughter – Oscar Grant – was shot in the back by police on a subway platform in Oakland, California.

Police killings of young black men have not stopped and President Obama has never spoken on this issue.

Johnson also questioned how the President could criticize one group regarding its unemployment levels when the reality is that the whole country is in a Depression.

For Johnson, the Black is Back Coalition is important because only a “real grassroots movement can bring about real change, particularly a movement that is based on the needs of the African working class.” During the BIB March and Rally on November 7th the Coalition demanded, amongst other things, and an end to the Prison Industrial Complex.

Johnson also believes that black organization and our peoples’ “African-ness/ cooperative spirit” are the necessary fundamentals for freedom.

Huey P. Newton said that young black males would inevitably resist this “brutal system” and that this rebellion would be either destructive or constructive.

Brother Johnson is interested in the latter.♦bf