Can CBS San Francisco, which consists of KCBS and KPIX, lay off the black male misery stories? If it’s not murder, or drugs, it’s this one that popped up in my Google Alert about Oakland, which is titled “Special Ceremony Held In Oakland To Honor African American Students.” Here’s a taste of an online post I refuse to link to:
OAKLAND (KCBS) – More than a hundred local college-bound students will be honored at a ceremony on Sunday at Oakland’s Kaiser Center for defying the statistics.
A study released last month found that by middle school, 55 percent of Oakland’s African American men show signs of dropping out.
Justin Davis, program coordinator with the Mitchell Kapor Foundation, said that young black men in the Bay Area have the lowest academic achievement rates.
Ok, where’s the stories about black entrepreneurs, or black bloggers in Oakland, or black programmers? This steady diet of negative media news and images about black men is the single number one reason for the persistence of racism. I can’t tell you the number of times some white male on YouTube tries to pull me into some conversation about blacks and crime and throws out these stupid and wrong headed statistics and studies.
Instead of this obsession with a Black Misery Index, how about being intensely interested in a Black Tech Index? It’s a simple matter of choice. Bringing more light to Blacks who are making positive contributions in many walks of life – Did you know Mark Dean, the head of the IBM team that created the personal computer, is black? – actually helps give those in need a window to see what’s possible.
Right now, all CBS San Francisco’s doing is giving them a window to a World that’s full of failure.
Please stop it.