MICHAEL BROWN AND THE ERODING VALUE OF THE AFRICAN AMERICAN MALE.

Source: thewillnigeria.com

The recent death of Michael Brown in an encounter with the police in Ferguson Missouri has sparked another round of protests mainly by African Americans. The reaction to Michael Brown's death is the same as the reaction to similar incidents involving young African American Males in the last two decades or so. The same knee jerk reaction calling for investigations into the killing, marches for justice, hollow speeches by so called civil rights leaders like Al Sharpton, Rev. Jesse Jackson et al, and round the clock coverage by CNN.

Despite these acerbic reactions, rallies, protests and calls for justice these incidents continue to happen over and over again. The question then is why the recurrence and why the protests, rallies and calls for justice are not enough halt this phenomenon. In other words, why is the young African American Male fair game at the hands of law enforcement agencies and other persons when they are involved in altercations? There is a reason for the pejorative query posed above. And that is; why is the young African American Male the primary object of these brutalities; why is the African American female not targeted, why is the young African Male not targeted, why is the young Hispanic Male or the young Asian or Caucasian Male not similarly targeted.

The short answer is that the African American race has failed and or refused to identify or acknowledge the real reason why their young males are targeted and have refused and failed to begin to address the real reason and look for the solution out of the problem. Instead, it is often a blame game and feeding off of the fodder dished out by the main media, who have a field day and benefit from the overwhelming coverage they give to these events.

The young African American Male is fair game and continues to be fair game because of the eroding value of the African American Male. I am not here referring to 'values' as in family values or morals, a subject for another day, but the intrinsic value that the young African American Male brings to the society. The truth is that the young African American Male as a group currently have or bring little value to the advancement of the community as a whole and as a result they are now seen as dispensable without serious detriment to the ability of the community to survive and continue to thrive.

It was Charles Darwin who theorized that life is about the survival of the fittest. But in its anachronistic definition, this process of natural selection referred to individual survival and connoted physical fitness. The physically strong individual will dominate and survive over the weaker species. In its modern application, survival of the fittest is in the sense of survival of the society and fitness, not just in terms of the physical, but in terms of economic, social and political superiority. It is the ability of a group to compete amongst its other species that will determine its survivability. The more a group gains of these intangibles, the greater its chances of survival. The less a group has the less its probability of survival. In essence it operates the same way, 'the species with useful adaptations to the environment are more likely to survive and produce progeny than are those with less useful adaptations, thereby increasing the frequency with which useful adaptations occur over the generations'

Every society will strive to keep and maintain its fittest members of society, in terms of educational, economic and political superiority. The more value a group brings to the society, the more protection it gets, because of the realization that if the valuable group in the society is eliminated the society itself will collapse. On the other hand, the group that brings least value to the society becomes more easily dispensable because the elimination or extinction of that group will have little impact on the society moving forward and thriving.

The civil rights leaders in the 60s realized that gains in educational, economic and political status was the way out of the oppression that was then meted out to their race. Forceful protests without gaining the other tools necessary for societal survival is not enough to gain respect and value for ones life in the society. In the 50s and 60s, there was concentration in going to school, going to college, getting a regular paying job and impacting these values to the up and coming generation. This gained the African American Male recognition and increased their value to the society.

Somewhere along the line, this value was lost. Less emphasis was placed on gaining an education, from staying out of jail, from being gainfully employed and contributing in positive ways to the society. Percentage wise, the number of African American Male completing high school and or getting a college education continue to erode. On the other hand, more and more African American Females are finishing high school, going to college, obtaining regular employment and overall improving themselves and bringing value to society. As they continue to do this, they have increased their visibility in the society, attained and continue to attain management positions where they can be instrumental to change and policy making, which changes and policy making will help preserve their own survivability in society.

Males of other races such as the Hispanics, the Asians and other immigrant groups know these same truth. The majority of the blacks that are bringing positive focus and visibility to blacks in the United States are first and second generation immigrants. The African American members of society have failed to or refused to admit this truth; or know this truth but have refused to tackle it. They have allowed themselves to be hoodwinked into the blame game that it is the white man's fault that all this is happening. Is there fault of the white man in some of these cases? Of course, but focusing solely on that as the cause of the phenomenon is throwing obscuring curtains on the real issues facing the young African American Male; which is, how do I make myself so valuable to the society, that I become indispensable.

Fiery speeches and protests marches will not get it done. The African American Male must stop its eroding value to the society, must grab itself by the bootstraps and pull itself out of this quagmire, realize that Martin Luther King Jr is gone and not coming back but that they can build on the advances made by those civil rights leaders, that they must become more educationally viable, more economically viable and more politically viable. In all these spheres, the African American Male has been and continues to lose ground, while other minorities groups continue to gain.

Unless this is done the senseless killing of young African American Males will unfortunately continue and all the marches and speeches will remain what they are; cacophonous murky encrustation on a serious social issue.

This is not an endorsement of the actions of the police in Ferguson or any prior similar incidents, but it is just the dynamics of the society and human race.

Ogochukwu Victor Onwaeze, Attorney based in Los Angeles focusing on Personal Injury, Real Estate and Family Law matters.

Disclaimer: "The views expressed on this site are those of the contributors or columnists, and do not necessarily reflect TheNigerianVoice’s position. TheNigerianVoice will not be responsible or liable for any inaccurate or incorrect statements in the contributions or columns here."