Geoffrey Canada
At the end of the first full day of General Assembly 98, it was with some trepidation that Geoffrey Canada took the podium at 8:45PM to talk about his new Beacon Press book, Reaching Up for Manhood. As he commented, "When they told me the schedule for this lecture, I said `You've made a terrible mistake, no one will show up. Well, I was wrong, you did show up!´" And we did - in sizeable numbers. [Note: Visit the Beacon Press website to order Geoffrey Canada's book, Reaching Up for Manhood]
On having children
Canada mentioned that he has three older children, all out of the house, and one very young one. His newest child reenforced a terror that most parents feel - that terror of knowing that there is a life in your hands. Having kids when you're older, he finds, is different - you're more mature, more affluent, and you have better support systems. But it's *still* the most difficult thing he can imagine doing. How much more difficult is it for people without so much?
On Reaching Up for Manhood
and the risks of growing up male
Why a book about boys? It's not that girls don't need attention or care; the reason for Reaching Up for Manhood was because Canada found himself worrying differently about boys and girls. While girls have a lot of choices to make and things to do, for boys, the question is "Are they going to make the one mistake that is going to cost them the rest of their lives, to send them to prison or to get them killed?"
The Carol Gilligans of the world, and others, think a lot about the issues confronting girls. But, while we live in a culture where positions of power are dominated by men, for most boys those images of power and success are mirages. "Our boys are being slaughtered in record numbers". 1,300,000 boys were arrested in a recent year. One out of four men in this country have a criminal record. What's going on here?
A second realization: in one week Canada lost three high-school friends; all were all between 47 and 53. And he realized, either we lose these boys as teens, or in early middle age. At "Old Timer's Day" in the South Bronx everyone tells Canada that he looks really good. He said he finally figured out what that meant: "You don't look like you grew up here." What is the impact of 30 years of hard drinking, smoking, bad food? It shows on your face. And then he realized that it's the habits we begin as children that kill so many guys in early middle age.
Canada said that he thought this was just kids in Harlem, but as he looked in to it, he began to see that it is men all over. Some statistics I wrote down - heart disease: 3 times higher, 7 year lower life expectancy. 80% of deaths of men under 45 are preventable.
For black men, it's even more troubling. 2/3 of the boys in Harlem who are 15 will not see 45, the same as a white boy's chance of seeing 65. This is a problem.
What are the issues that boys confront? What do we ask them to believe in that ends up killing so many of them? Canada's talk focussed on four areas:
Part of what we tell boys is that pain does not hurt. (And Canada says he was a guilty of this as anyone.) We encourage "manly behavior" - don't cry, get rewarded. This is totally unnatural; it's not human not to cry. And then the frightening thing is that we attach that to manhood. And we start telling that to 4, 5, and 6 year olds? Teaching them to deny their pain, the connection to deny the pain of others is a natural. Boys naturally pass this on - how to deny pain.
What is it about our close friends that makes them sometimes our closest tormentors as well? It is that closeness that allows that pain to happen. Many adolescent boys' rituals are around "initiation": join the club - keep your mouth shut - deny the pain.
When you talk about this stuff, it's a sign of weakness attached to your manhood. Conversely, anything attached to femininity connotes weakness. You can't go do your mother and talk - that's weakness, and that's an emotional straightjacket. There's no way to communicate any of the pain that they've carried around for years.
Part of what we have to do is figure out how to heal our boys.
What do boys believe is important? Much of it has to do with clothing, cars, money. And Canada's feeling is that there was real stuff beneath that surface stuff. But as he dug, there was nothing there. And he worries about where their values are and where they're coming from. It used to be that if you could fulfill the "guy" roles (provider, protector, whatever) you were a success as a guy. None of that is true any more. So what steps into that void? Some brilliant marketing. Our boys are marketed to in ways never done before. Look at Joe Camel - who would buy those cigarettes based on such a stupid idea? Kids, that's who - it's not aimed at us. Look at Budweiser frogs - same thing.
We have created a huge market, and our boys are at the center of it. If a corporate interest spends 100's of millions of dollars convincing a boy that he's a better person if he puts on some clothes than if he doesn't, what is there to counterbalance that message?
Poor inner city black children set the fashion trends in this country. It's because they die. It's on the edge. If you're a nice safe kid and you're wearing what the kids who die wear, then you're living on the edge. They have to die to make the marketing scheme work - to make the attractiveness work.
What are we teaching our kids about their personal worth? We talk to our kids twice or three times a day. Someone else is talking to them 11 or 12 times a day. We have to redress that balance.
Faith got short treatment in Fist Stick Knife Gun. We have got to get boys reconnected. There's so much death and destruction around them - aids, drugs, guns. What does a kid think the point is of life? Talk to kids about when they think it's OK to kill somebody - when they're out to kill you? Your mother? Your brother? They have no sense of where that slippery slope begins or ends.
Nobody's having even the basic conversations about God and theology with kids. Canada's grandmother said it was faith - that at the moment you say "why are all those things happening to the good people I know" that is the moment that faith occurs. Up to 14 boys & girls suicide equally. Between 14-16, boys suicide twice as much, between 16-20 four times as often, and between 20 and 24, six times as much. What is so much worse for boys than for girls?
Then there's suicidal behavior - drinking and driving - etc.
Faith and forgiveness. Without one is there the other? Who forgives boys? If a kid is not connected to a body of faith, where does he find forgiveness? If you think you want to steal, and do, what keeps you from becoming a thief? Forgiveness. And forgiveness in our culture comes mostly from religion - Catholics get it from confession, Christians get it by being born again, and so on. That's what the Million Man March was about: a chance to say "I've done stuff wrong and I feel bad about it." That was the first chance that lot of people had to have that experience.
Our last area comes in three parts: Role models for boys, Optimism about how the world works, and strategies for succeeding in the world. All are important.
Are you a "real man" if you can sleep with a women or hold your liquor, or don't take no stuff? Take a kid who can hit a ball 75 yards - he's a star. Then take the 11 year old boy who likes to hold a baby - the whispering starts. What are we letting these kids be? What messages are we giving to these kids?
Optimism about how the world is - kids have to feel this optimism, and our attitude is key to giving them is world view. Canada told a wonderful story about his high-school indefatigable football coach.
Then there are the strategies to get there? His story was about a college statistics professor who maneuvered him in to willingly reading all the material twice by convincing him to compare the approaches to two texts. The point? To help kids in this way, you have to know who the kids are. Learn about kids strengths as well as their weaknesses.
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