Young, Black, and Male in America: An Endangered Species

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Description

The problems of young black males are challenging, complex, and chronic, perplexing educators, social scientists, and policymakers. While other groups, including women and recent immigrants, have made economic and social gains in the last two decades, black youth are now more likely than they were in 1960 to be unemployed, to be involved in the criminal justice system, to be unwed fathers, and to commit suicide. Young black males are a population at risk in an escalating cycle of deviance, dysfunction, and despair. This comprehensive volume provides in-depth analyses of the deteriorating status of black youth, particularly black males. Experts from a variety of professions examine the implications and interrelationships of the multiple problems facing black youth and propose a comprehensive set of policies and programs that address those problems. They consider such important economic, sociocultural, and political issues as unemployment, teenage pregnancy, crime and delinquency substance abuse, and the conservative backlash against civil rights and social welfare programs.

Reviews

Each of the seven chapters in this work analyzes a different issue relevant to young, black American men: education; employment and unemployment; delinquency; teenage fatherhood; health and mental health; substance abuse; and homicide, suicide, and life-threatening behaviors. Although each chapter has an encyclopedic character, making the book an outstanding resource, the authors have all attempted to suggest policy and program recommendations. Gibbs provides an excellent overview in her opening chapter. One can see from the evidence she marshaled that the book's subtitle, An Endangered Species, ' is not empty rhetoric. The final two chapters deal with policy. First, Barbara Solomon reviews public policies, historically and currently, which differentially affect black males. Next, Gibbs presents 44 pages of recommendations on all of the areas covered. Her proposals are comprehensive and politically mainstream. The collection ends strongly with the editor pointing to the common fate of the cities and the black underclass. College, university, and public libraries.-Choice
"Each of the seven chapters in this work analyzes a different issue relevant to young, black American men: education; employment and unemployment; delinquency; teenage fatherhood; health and mental health; substance abuse; and homicide, suicide, and life-threatening behaviors. Although each chapter has an encyclopedic character, making the book an outstanding resource, the authors have all attempted to suggest policy and program recommendations. Gibbs provides an excellent overview in her opening chapter. One can see from the evidence she marshaled that the book's subtitle, An Endangered Species, ' is not empty rhetoric. The final two chapters deal with policy. First, Barbara Solomon reviews public policies, historically and currently, which differentially affect black males. Next, Gibbs presents 44 pages of recommendations on all of the areas covered. Her proposals are comprehensive and politically mainstream. The collection ends strongly with the editor pointing to the common fate of the cities and the black underclass. College, university, and public libraries."-Choice

Author Bio

JEWELLE TAYLOR GIBBS is an Associate Professor at the School of Social Welfare, University of California, Berkeley, and a clinical psychologist specializing in adolescents and families.