[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 95 (Monday, June 15, 2015)]
[House]
[Pages H4364-H4370]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
CONGRESSIONAL BLACK CAUCUS: THE MISSING BLACK MALE
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of
January 6, 2015, the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Payne) is
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
General Leave
Mr. PAYNE. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members be
given 5 days to revise and extend their remarks.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentleman from New Jersey?
There was no objection.
Mr. PAYNE. Mr. Speaker, let me begin by thanking the members of the
Congressional Black Caucus who are joining me here tonight.
The topic of tonight's discussion is: the missing Black male.
Tonight, as a caucus, we will address the issues affecting Black males,
including incarceration, health, the increasing suicide rate among
Black youth, and the missing Black male in our society.
It was recently reported by The New York Times that 1.5 million
African American men are missing. What do we mean when we say 1.5
million Black men are missing? As we speak, hundreds of thousands of
Black men are sitting in prisons throughout this Nation. Others have
died from homicide--the leading cause of death for young Black men--and
from diseases that disproportionately impact African American males.
Then there are others, like Freddie Gray, Michael Brown, Tamir Rice,
and Eric Garner, who are no longer with us because of excessive force
by police which has cut their lives short.
It is clear that our law enforcement system and criminal justice
system aren't working for African Americans and other minorities. It is
also clear that we need a new approach into other areas, including
reducing health disparities among African American men and boys.
Tonight, we will diagnose the problems behind America's 1.5 million
missing African American men and help identify solutions to this
national problem.
While African Americans make up 14 percent of the U.S. population,
they comprise 38 percent of those in the U.S. prison population and 60
percent of those in solitary confinement. In 2010, African American men
were six times as likely as White men to be incarcerated in Federal,
State, and local jails.
Mr. Speaker, this is an issue that is plaguing the African American
community, as we see a disproportionate number of African American men
who are incarcerated in this Nation. We are trying to figure out why
they make up 14 percent of the population and 60 percent of those
incarcerated. It just doesn't add up.
Right now, Mr. Speaker, I would like to introduce the chairman of the
Congressional Black Caucus, who has allowed me to anchor this hour.
It is my honor to yield to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr.
Butterfield).
Mr. BUTTERFIELD. First, let me begin by thanking the gentleman from
New Jersey for his leadership and for his willingness to lead this
hour, not only tonight, but for agreeing to do it
[[Page H4365]]
throughout this year. I thank the gentleman so very much for his
leadership and for all that he does not only for the people of the
State of New Jersey, but for America.
Mr. Speaker, statistic: for every 100 African American women, there
are only 83 African American men. This gap equals 1.5 million Black men
who are essentially missing from everyday life in America. These
numbers are simply staggering. The fact that Black men have long been
more likely to be locked up and more likely to die is a problem.
Compounded with the deep disparities that continue to impact the
opportunities afforded to African American males, the gender gap
leaves, as reported, many households without enough men to be fathers
and husbands within the community.
The statistics show that most African Americans live in places with a
significant shortage of African American men while most Whites live in
places with rough parity between White men and White women. The two
leading causes of this gap are incarceration and early deaths, with
homicide being the leading cause of death for young African American
males; but Black males also die from heart disease, respiratory
disease, and accidents more often than other demographic groups,
including African American women.
This gender gap does not exist in childhood as there are roughly as
many African American boys as there are African American girls; yet, as
they grow up, an imbalance begins to appear during their teenage years,
and it persists through adulthood.
We now see an increasing number of suicides--yes, suicides--by young
African American males while the rate for White children has declined.
While any increase is problematic, we have to wonder: What is
happening? What is happening with our African American youth that has
led to this staggering increase?
The CBC is committed to reducing the school to prison pipeline so
that our kids aren't unfairly profiled and placed in the criminal
justice system. We are committed to ensuring funding for summer jobs
programs and job training programs so that our youth have opportunities
to develop their skills instead of having idle time during the summer
months.
The CBC is committed to increasing resources for families and
increasing family engagement. We must support programs and initiatives
that will help us provide opportunities for young African American men.
Again, I thank the gentleman from New Jersey for his leadership.
Mr. PAYNE. Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the chairman for
gracing us with his comments and for demonstrating true leadership in
the Congressional Black Caucus.
Next, we have a distinguished member of this caucus. She hails from
Houston, Texas, and has always been on the right side of these issues
and has brought light to them.
I yield to the gentlewoman from Houston, Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee).
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Let me thank the manager of this hour, Mr. Payne,
and all of my colleagues and my chairman, who has just spoken and who
set the tone very eloquently and with deep conviction.
In his having served on the supreme court for the State of North
Carolina, Mr. Butterfield understands the issues of justice, and I
applaud him for taking this cause up as well. The gentlewoman from New
Jersey and the gentleman from Louisiana, let me thank them as well for
the words that they will say.
Let me also say that this is a team and that we will work as a team
on our respective committees to be able to bring this issue to a
productive solution.
{time} 1930
I have always said--as a member of the Committee on the Judiciary for
a number of years now, serving on the Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism,
Homeland Security, and Investigations--that we must breathe life into
change, and as legislators we must come to a point where we bring
legislation for final signature by the President of the United States
of America. So I thank Mr. Payne for giving us this opportunity.
Let me rush quickly through my remarks because one could be here for
a very long time. As I do so, let me take note that this is the 150th
year commemoration of the 13th Amendment; that is the freeing of
individuals from slavery. It is the 150th year also of the
commemoration of Juneteenth, and that is, of course, a regional holiday
that the Nation celebrates, which is the acknowledgment that the slaves
were freed pursuant to the Emancipation Proclamation issued in 1863.
Texans, who will celebrate this on June 19th, and many others travel
throughout the Nation Juneteenth. I say that because it is a question
of freedom. When we have the ability, Mr. Payne, to save lives, that is
a question of freedom.
I want to thank The New York Times for writing about this research. I
want to hold this up. ``Rise in Suicide By Black Children Surprises
Researchers.'' Researchers did not come predisposed to get this answer,
but they got this answer. The opening sentence says: ``The suicide rate
among Black children has nearly doubled since the early 1990s.'' They
did not expect this to come forward, but it contributes to the story in
The New York Times: about 1.5 million men are missing. In New York
almost 120,000 Black men between ages 25 and 54, missing from everyday
life; Chicago, 45,000; and more than 30,000 are missing in
Philadelphia. Across the South, from North Charleston, South Carolina,
Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and up into Ferguson, hundreds of
thousands more are missing.
African American men have long been more likely to be locked up, more
likely to die young. A city with at least 10,000 Black residents that
has the single largest population of missing men? Ferguson, Missouri,
where a fatal police shooting catapulted this question to the national
attention.
Incarceration and early deaths are overwhelming. Of the 1.5 million
missing men from 25 to 54, which demographers call the prime-age years,
higher imprisonment rates account for almost 600,000. Let me say that
again: higher imprisonment rates account for 600,000. Almost 1 in 12
Black men in this age group are behind bars, compared with 1 in 60 non-
Black men in the same age group.
Whenever we talk about the shootings in South Carolina, Ohio,
Ferguson, I hear people saying, what about Black-on-Black crime? As if
we, as African Americans, run away from facts. We do not. But we
recognize that the fight to preserve lives in the African American
community is societal and holistic. It deals with education and job
opportunities and health care and mental health care, and it calls upon
the Nation to respond. But it does not put aside what we have faced
over the years by killings of Black men, even from the time of slavery
and Reconstruction into the 1900s, all through the time of segregation.
We found that they were in the eye of the storm.
So let's not distract or detour from the crisis of incarceration and
the crisis of what happens in the African American community in the
justice system by suggesting that any of us are ignoring Black-on-Black
crime. I am glad that the Congressional Black Caucus wants to look at
the holistic issue of how do you solve this problem. It does not take
the attacking of the Black community, of ignoring the fact that crime
is perpetrated there. I think everyone knows that perpetrating crime
impacts your neighbors, impacts where you live, just as it does in
incidents dealing with White crime or White-on-White crime or Hispanic
or Asian. People usually engage with those who are familiar.
So I am looking to work with this very august body to talk about how
we can stop the tide of suicide and the incarceration of our young
people. Let me cite these examples as I come to a close. Let me just
give you the example of Kelvin Mikhail Smallwood-Jones, who was a
dean's list student with a 4.0 grade point average on a full academic
scholarship to one of the most respected historically Black colleges in
the country. Prior to enrolling in Atlanta's Morehouse College in the
fall of 2006, he was a football star and homecoming king at his
Washington, D.C.-area high school. An English sophomore, he dabbled in
photography, mentoring at-risk youth in his free time. Last winter he
was planning an elaborate birthday celebration, and he was preparing to
accept a prestigious summer internship. He never made it to either. On
February 23, 2008, less than 2
[[Page H4366]]
weeks before his 20th birthday, Kelvin shot himself in the head with
his mother's gun on the deck of a suburban Atlanta farmhouse that she
bought to live closer to him.
This very statement is hurting, is hurting the family, but it means
that we must collectively come together to address the question of the
pain, of the disparate treatment, the disparate treatment in education,
and to get to the source of Mr. Smallwood-Jones' pain so that we can,
in fact, find a solution.
On the criminal justice--and I realize that criminal justice is not
the answer to all, but it is a side parallel effort that we must
correct in order to give dignity to those who may have detoured but yet
do not need to be condemned for life. I intend to introduce a number of
legislative initiatives besides those which are ongoing, as we are
discussing the mandatory minimums, to focus on the criminal justice
side of dealing with juveniles: an effective speedy trial, bail reform,
and a solitary confinement safeguards for juveniles act. Most people
don't realize that when these young men are incarcerated, rather than
giving them an opportunity, rather than promoting the PROMISE Act of
our colleague, Mr. Scott, and giving alternatives to incarceration, but
more importantly to people's lives, we throw them in jail. Many of us
know the tragic story of the 16-year-old who was in solitary
confinement for 3 years, was ultimately released, and committed
suicide.
So we look forward to our colleagues joining in this legislation, an
effective, speedy trial, bail reform, and solitary confinement
safeguards for juveniles act of 2015, to alter the holding of juveniles
so that they come out whole and ready to be rehabilitated and to be
welcomed into society. The Nonviolent Offenders Act, which will
diminish the amount of time that African American men serve in a
Federal prison system that does not have parole. And then we want to
introduce the RAISE Act to establish a better path for young offenders
to ensure that there is a way for judges, even though juveniles are
treated differently, to give an alternative assessment in giving them
or sentencing them when they run afoul of the law.
Mind you, they are in juvenile court for status offenses, for truancy
and others. This young man was incarcerated for taking a knapsack, and
he insisted he did not take it. That is why he was still there. He did
not take it, but he couldn't get to trial. How horrible a life, 3 years
of solitary confinement.
So, Mr. Payne, let me thank you for leading forward on this august
day and time, this year of commemorating the 150th year of the 13th
Amendment, when we were declared free, meaning the ancestors' African
American slaves. It should be a telling moment that this is also the
50th year of the commemoration of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. This
should be the year that we restore the voting rights to individuals who
have detoured. We should restore section 5. We should preach freedom.
We should encourage those who want to advocate for fixing the criminal
justice system, which can incarcerate and enslave and as well deny
freedom.
This is a time that we can join together in the Congressional Black
Caucus and free people in the right way and put them on a pathway of
contributing to this great country. They are worthy, and they have the
talent, the stardom to contribute. I look forward to working with all
of you for that journey and for those results.
Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to join my colleagues of the Congressional
Black Caucus in this Special Order to speak to the issues that Members
of the 114th Congress must address.
I thank my colleagues Congressman Donald M. Payne, Jr. and
Congresswoman Robin L. Kelly for leading this evening's Congressional
Black Caucus Special Order on ``The Missing Black Male''.
We are in a time where the news of young black men being incarcerated
and losing their lives is all too common.
As highlighted in a recent NY Times article, 1.5 million black men
are missing from everyday life, as a result of incarceration or early
death.
In New York, almost 120,000 black men between the ages of 25 and 54
are missing from everyday life. In Chicago, 45,000 are, and more than
30,000 are missing in Philadelphia. Across the South--from North
Charleston, S.C., through Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi and up into
Ferguson, Mo.--hundreds of thousands more are missing.
African-American men have long been more likely to be locked up and
more likely to die young, but the scale of the combined toll is
jolting.
It is a measure of the deep disparities that continue to afflict
black men--disparities being debated after a recent spate of killings
by the police--and the gender gap is itself a further cause of social
ills, leaving many communities without enough men to be fathers and
husbands.
And what is the city with at least 10,000 black residents that has
the single largest proportion of missing black men? Ferguson, Mo.,
where a fatal police shooting last year led to nationwide protests and
a Justice Department investigation that found widespread discrimination
against black residents.
It is critical that we look to training that will lead to cohesive
policing in areas of minority concentrations.
We need to focus on improving relationships between law enforcement
and communities most impacted by cases of police brutality and
incarceration.
Incarceration and early deaths are the overwhelming drivers of the
gap.
Of the 1.5 million missing black men from 25 to 54--which
demographers call the prime-age years--higher imprisonment rates
account for almost 600,000.
Almost 1 in 12 black men in this age group are behind bars, compared
with 1 in 60 nonblack men in the age group, 1 in 200 black women and 1
in 500 nonblack women.
Higher mortality is the other main cause.
Homicide, the leading cause of death for young African-American men,
plays a large role, and they also die from heart disease, respiratory
disease and accidents more often than other demographic groups,
including black women.
We also are seeing a shocking and troubling increase in suicide rates
amongst our young black youth.
Also noted by the NY Times, the suicide rate among black children has
nearly doubled since the early 1990s.
Between 1993 and 1997 suicide was the 14th cause of death among black
children.
Between 2008 and 2012, suicide was the 9th leading cause of death
among black children.
In 2005, when suicide was the 3rd leading cause of death among
African-American youth--1621 of the 1,992 suicides completed by
African-Americans were black boys (371 of 1,992 were female).
Thus, looking specifically to our young black men with this growing
trend of suicide rates, we must highlight the fact that black males are
six times more likely to commit suicide than their female counterparts.
Increase in Black male suicides is not surprising considering the
``unique social and environmental stressors, including racism,'' they
have to deal with.
Interestingly, just 4 percent of the nation's psychiatrists, 3
percent of the psychologists and 7 percent of social worker are black.
The mental health profession needs to become more culturally
sensitive to the needs of our black youth and get out the message that
it's OK to get help and be vulnerable.
Noticeably, girls get depressed and gravitate toward friends, family,
church or other social institutions while through social conditioning.
Yet, black males are taught to tough it out, stand strong, to get a
grip, and ultimately isolate when mental anguish becomes visible.
As we saw with the recent and tragic case of Kalief Browder in New
York--his plight was ignored and overlooked for far too long.
Continued statistics and reports documenting the death and
disappearance of our young black males is unacceptable and must be
addressed.
We know that the disappearance of these men has far-reaching
implications.
We know there is a correlation between the mass incarceration and the
destruction of the black home.
The absence of black men disrupts family formation and foundation
building for our young people.
This in turn results in vulnerable feelings of little or no self-
value or self-worth and lacking direction or foresight on ways to
overcome dangerous ways of thinking and living.
We need to give special attention to families and communities
affected by incarceration and mental health problems--as we know many
of our young black men are afflicted with abuse, trauma and unresolved
stigmas of mental and emotional health.
It is time to acknowledge the cracks in our foundation and treat our
young with the attention they deserve.
We can no longer ignore gapping deficits that exist for our young
black males--namely, in education, health care, mental health services,
and general opportunities for growth and success.
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This special order is an opportunity to highlight and raise awareness
to the stark and tragic reality of young black males in America.
Now is the time to change the course and save their lives.
Mr. PAYNE. I would like to thank the gentlewoman from Houston, who
always brings clarity to these issues and is a great contributor to the
conscience of this Congress.
Mr. Speaker, the gentlewoman brings up a lot of good points in
reference to incarceration and speaking about the young 16-year-old boy
who spent that much time in solitary confinement and comes out and ends
up committing suicide.
What we have found in this country, as they have broken down the
mental health institutions over the years, that what we are doing in
this country is warehousing people who have mental health issues in
prisons, and it is a way to warehouse and get the problem out of the
way so we don't see it, but a lot of people who are in prison these
days have mental health issues and should be dealt with from that
perspective as opposed to incarceration.
It is my honor and privilege to ask my colleague from New Jersey, the
Honorable Bonnie Watson Coleman, who is known in New Jersey for her
work around criminal justice in the State legislature and has joined us
this year in the 114th Congress, for her remarks with respect to
tonight's topic.
Mrs. WATSON COLEMAN. I thank the gentleman from New Jersey for
yielding and giving me the opportunity to lend my voice to what I think
is a crisis that we are experiencing.
As my colleagues before me have pointed out, particularly
Representative Sheila Jackson Lee, we are in the midst of an American
crisis, shaking the very foundation of the Black community. The word
crisis should motivate us to act now. Crisis describes a need for
immediate action. Crisis calls for an immediate infusion of resources.
Crisis requires a meeting of minds to find answers.
If thousands of people disappeared in the prime of their lives, their
friends, their families, their coworkers having no idea where they
went, we would be calling that a crisis. Yet, for years, our young,
Black men have disappeared from their homes, their communities, and
everything that would have been their lives.
Violence has taken them. Violence that we could have avoided with
stronger schools to give youth the outlet that they need. Better jobs
and job training to prepare these men to be supporters of strong
families. Prisons have taken these men, prisons that we support through
a legal system that dehumanizes men of color and enforces policies that
all but ensure these men will enter an endless cycle of recidivism
where more than 67 percent of them will come back into the communities
with no preparation, no assistance whatsoever in becoming whole and
healthy in their communities.
This is a nation that is quick to see these Black men as a problem,
and this is a nation that seems to continue to ignore and deceive the
slow, steady disappearance of 1.5 million Black men. This is
devastating to our families and to our whole communities. It is past
time that we see this for the crisis that it is and invest the
resources and intellectual power that will end it and save our men and
our families and our communities.
There is a very witty African American comic who refers to the crisis
of Black men and the need to get them on the endangered species list,
because when we recognize that a species is endangered, we place value
on that species. We place resources in every opportunity to ensure that
they continue, that they thrive, and that they live in the habitats
that are healthy for them.
Well, this is a situation of an endangered species. This is, indeed,
a crisis. So I thank my colleagues for drawing attention to this issue.
Mr. PAYNE. I would like to thank my colleague from the Garden State
of New Jersey. She has come to the Congress and hit the ground running.
As great a legislator as she was in New Jersey, she is doing a
magnificent job here in the Halls of Congress.
Mr. Speaker, we have touched on many different topics, many different
issues, and it is just really a difficult circumstance that these
individuals face, you know; tremendous barriers to reentering society
and pursuing education and gainful employment.
When these men are incarcerated, their children suffer, too. Nearly 2
million children grow up in homes where one parent is in jail. Of
course, lowering the incarceration rates means we need to reevaluate
the war on drugs. One out of every three African American men will be
incarcerated at some point in their lives. Most of these arrests are
drug related. According to the National Urban League, mandatory
minimums and disparities in crack cocaine sentencing incarcerates
countless African Americans for an inhumane length of time, and that
made the U.S. the world leader in prison population.
{time} 1945
Now, is that something that this country wants to be known for? This
has created a modern-day caste system in America. The incarceration
rate for African Americans convicted of drug offenses is 10 times
greater than that of White Americans, even though Americans engage in
drug offenses at higher rates.
We need to focus on rehabilitating drug users instead of
incarcerating them and making it nearly impossible to reenter society.
Mr. Speaker, with that, I would like to introduce the hero from last
week's game between the Republicans and the Democrats where he pitched
a magnificent game. Once again, we were victorious. I don't believe
that we have lost since he has arrived in Congress. It is the honorable
gentleman from New Orleans, the honorable Cedric Richmond, also known
as ``The Franchise.''
I yield to the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Richmond).
Mr. RICHMOND. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from New Jersey for
hosting our hour tonight, Congressman Donald Payne, who, like the old
adage, is ``a chip off the old block.'' His father was an outstanding
Congressman from the district who did a lot for Africa, did a lot for
urban cities. I see that Congressman Payne, although in his second
term, has taken up the banner and is following in his father's
footsteps quite adequately.
Tonight we are talking about the missing Black male. The good news
and the bad news is that I found him, and we know where they are. They
are incarcerated in prisons, they are in cemeteries, and they are in
unemployment lines.
We know where they are not. They are not in the homes, and they are
not providing leadership and mentoring to our young African American
male children.
The question tonight, I think, why we are here and why we are talking
about it is, if you can't talk about the problem and you can't identify
it, then you will never get to a solution.
I come from an area and I was raised by parents who always told me
that you can achieve anything you want to achieve. They gave me the
nurturing and the support and the push up when I needed it, and they
gave me the swift kick in the rump when I needed that, also. That is
where we are.
I had prepared remarks, and I will defer to the gentleman from New
Jersey (Mr. Payne) on how he wants to go. But I think there are things
that we can learn, and I think there are things that we should focus on
when we talk about the schools, the prison pipeline, when we talk about
youth summer employment.
You know, it is amazing that we never, ever talk about it, but some
of the kids in some of our neighborhoods should get the Congressional
Gold Medal just for showing up at school every day, because what they
go through when they get home from school and all night until it is
time to come to school again are conditions that we shouldn't have
children living in. The good news is that we can overcome all of that
by doing criminal justice reform and providing another chance for kids
and for parents who are incarcerated.
I had a juvenile court judge a long time ago write an essay and tell
me a story about the fact that there are so many parents that are in
jail, but the children are doing the time. And we have to make sure
that children are not paying for the sins of their parents. That is
where society will come in, and that is why I thank the gentleman. And
I have more stuff, and it is just you would like to go forward, Mr.
Congressman.
[[Page H4368]]
Well, I think it is worthwhile to probably go into a little bit of my
story, which is a little bit different from your story. And I think it
is important for kids around the country and some of our colleagues to
know it.
My mother is from the poorest place in America. She had 15 brothers
and sisters. My grandmother was a housekeeper. So the family pulled
together to take care of the 15 children.
My mother finished high school, and she went to college at Southern
University. My father, on the other hand--my grandfather owned a
funeral home, owned a farm, and was very well-to-do. My mother went to
Southern University, sharing a jacket with her sister. My father went
to Southern University with a brand-new deuce-and-a-quarter car because
my grandfather didn't want him walking around his college campus with a
bad heart.
They meet. They get married. They have two boys, and I am the
youngest. My father dies when I was 7 years old of a heart attack while
I was home. And I don't say that to say I grew up without a father
figure and times were hard, because I missed my father and I missed out
on the love and the nurturing, but I had a mother who was there every
step of the way as a public schoolteacher. Then I had a grandfather and
two grandmothers who stepped in to also give me guidance.
But one of the biggest factors in me developing into what I am today
is the fact that I lived across the street from a public playground
that was well funded. So my mother, who was the teacher, and my
grandfather and grandmother who lived in Mississippi, and my other
grandmother who lived in Lake Providence, the message was the same: Go
home from school; do your homework; and then go across the street to
the playground so that you could participate in organized sports.
That became very, very important because those men that coached me
were role models. They didn't know it, and I didn't know it. But I can
remember them saying: Cedric, you are too talented. You need to be a
little more serious. You need to get focused.
They would do the same thing my parents would do, which was give me a
push when I needed it and give me a swift kick in the butt when I
needed it. And they led me to do and push myself to achieve things that
I never thought I could achieve.
But we don't have that anymore. We have decimated the funding for
after-school programs. We have decimated the funding for recreation in
our urban cities. We have decimated the funding for public schools and
the athletics and the extracurricular activities that go along with
them.
I am not sure about your life, Congressman Payne, but those
activities expose kids to things they never thought that they would
ever, ever realize. Exposure is very, very good when a mind is
developing. I don't know if you had those same experiences when you
were growing up.
Mr. PAYNE. Well, Mr. Richmond, let me just say, and we have discussed
it in private before, that I am the product of a very blessed
circumstance in my life. My mother died when I was 4, and my father
raised us, my sister and me.
All the things you talk about benefiting from, I have benefited from.
But I have never lost the sight and was taught: There but for the grace
of God go I.
So I have had circumstances in my life where I have been stopped by
the police and have been told by that officer using the N word that if
I did not find my license, they would throw me so far under the jail
they would never find me.
Well, I was able to find my license after that and showed it to the
police officer, and lo and behold, I become a human being again.
Because, you see, my father was a councilman in that town. But prior to
me showing my identification, there was the potential of someone never
seeing me again because a police officer decided that that should be my
fate. So now this police officer becomes nurturing and is parental and
he is asking me: Well, don't you know you could get hurt by doing that?
I had made a U-turn somewhere as a youngster I shouldn't have. But
does my life have to end because I made a U-turn that I am thrown so
far under the jail they will never find me until I become a human being
because my father is a councilman in that city and now there is a
concern for my well-being? No.
What about the 1.5 million Black males that don't have that
recognition that we have? That is why I do what I do every day, to make
sure that in this Nation, the greatest country in the world, every man
is playing by the rules, doing what he is supposed to do, has that
equal opportunity, and the men that need that kick in the rump or that
extra push get that.
So my story is a little different, although it sounds the same.
My father lost his mother at a very early age. He was 8. And the
family got together to buy a house, some aunts and uncles and the
grandparents, so they could bring my father and his siblings in so they
wouldn't get bounced around anymore like they were. And I truly believe
that is the reason my father never gave my sister and me up because of
what he went through as a child and his experiences.
So we have been very fortunate; and your articulation of your
experience and us understanding that we have an obligation, being as
fortunate as we have been and to have this bully pulpit, it is our
obligation to speak out against the injustices that these 1.5 million
missing Black men face every single day.
Mr. RICHMOND. Well, Congressman, I would tell you, except that, you
know, I won't go into any incident that I have had with law
enforcement. Let's just stipulate and agree that there have been many,
and each one has made me a better person, some of which were warranted
and some of which were unwarranted.
I will say we have raised an interesting question. And your last
comment, I think, when you described your story with your parents, I
think, shows how separate all of these issues are, but then how whole
they are at the same time.
Because one of the things that many people don't talk about--and I
wish our colleagues on the other side of the aisle, we could stop
talking at one another and talk to one another--is that the issue of
parental lead is so important because, as a bus driver once told our
leader, every day she sees a parent coming to put their kid on the bus
with tears in their eyes because they know that that child is sick and
they should be home with that child, but they absolutely cannot lose a
day's pay because they won't be able to feed that kid or pay the rent
or pay to keep the lights on at the end of the month. Those are very
real circumstances.
You have to believe that as America, as the United States of America,
as the greatest country on Earth, the exceptional country that we are,
we are better than that. We are better than making a parent put that
kid on the schoolbus going to school sick because they can't afford to
lose a day's work.
Let me just give you these statistics in Louisiana, because I don't
want people to get the impression that it is just urban or it is just
single-parent families. The Jesuit community at Loyola University in
Louisiana did a study. One out of three two-parent households in
Louisiana is economically insecure. Four out of five single-parent
households, that is 80 percent of the single-parent households in
Louisiana, are economically insecure. We have to do better than that.
Raising the minimum wage raises 14 million people out of poverty the
day the President would sign the law. Those things are important.
What do those things have to do with the African American male? Well,
the young African American male has parents. Too often, it is just a
single mother raising that family. And we have to make sure that they
have the means and ability to make sure that that kid can eat every
day, because you absolutely cannot learn in school if you are hungry or
if you have had a night where you are sleeping in a car or you don't
have heat and all of those things. I think, as a Congress, we ought to
come together and look at those very specific issues.
Mr. PAYNE. You know, the gentleman is absolutely correct. It reminds
me of another story of some of those households where the circumstances
are unfathomable.
My sister is a kindergarten teacher of 25 years. I don't know if she
would like me telling the length of time, but she had a child in one of
her classes several years ago, and the child would sleep all through
class. You know, once
[[Page H4369]]
or twice, she let it go, but it became a persistent pattern.
{time} 2000
She calls the parents and finds out that the reason that the child
slept in school was it was the only safe place to sleep because, in the
evening, the rodents that came out of the walls would bite them at
night, and they would stay up most of the night trying to keep this
circumstance off of them. When the child got to school, it was the only
place that they could rest.
In this country, that is unacceptable, absolutely unacceptable. It is
circumstances like that--now, how does that child get ahead? They are
falling behind already, and this is kindergarten. The deck is stacked
against a lot of these children when they show up to school.
Head Start and these programs have shown and demonstrated the upward
mobility that they have given generations of children that need this
type of service; yet our colleagues continue to thwart efforts to
increase efforts we know that work--really, just kind of just dismiss
that any of these social programs that have been instituted have any
benefit.
That is not true. It is just not true. We need to continue to bring
these stories up and explain to people why we fight every single day
for these issues.
The whole issue, once again, around mental health issues, people
walking the streets that need help and end up doing something that they
are really unable to control and end up incarcerated--how does that
help them? How does that help the circumstance in this country? Is it
that we are just hiding the issue? We don't want to deal with it, so we
just lock it up?
It is absolutely unconscionable, in this country, that we still act
as if we are in the 1800s in this day and age.
Mr. RICHMOND. I am glad you brought up the monetary aspect of it
because, look, Morehouse College, accounting major, I get numbers, and
I get the concern that we have about the budget, the deficit and the
national debt. The other thing that I know from my basic accounting
classes is that we shouldn't talk about spending as the only criteria
for how we judge things.
The conversation in D.C. should be about return on investment.
Anything that gives us greater than a 1 to 1 return, then we can use
whatever is greater than 1 to pay down the debt and the deficit and get
us to a more balanced country.
Let me give you an exact example. You used Head Start, early
childhood education. You get a 9 to 1 return on every dollar that you
spend. Now, I am not chairman of Ways and Means; I am not over the
Budget Committee; I am not on Appropriations, but in my simple
household, when I was young, I knew that $9 was greater than $1, and
that if you spend $1 and you could get $9 back, you could do great
things with that extra $9, like spend $4 of it on reducing the debt,
spend another $5 on other programs that would give kids the opportunity
to reach their full development, to also reduce crime, which means not
only do you have less people incarcerated, but you have less victims of
crime.
When we start evaluating the programs that we are talking about, that
is what we need to focus on.
In Louisiana, when I was in the legislature, we paid around $9,000 a
year to our public schools to educate each kid, and we were spending
about $45,000 a year to incarcerate a juvenile. Now, in my public
school education, that $45,000 is far greater than that $9,000, and it
just doesn't make sense.
As we talk about the $6 billion that we spend on incarcerating
juveniles in this country--any given day, we have 70,000 juveniles that
are in jail--$6 billion. We could spend that money in better places to
do better things to make the country safer and to help them reach their
potential.
That is why I am glad that we are having this conversation tonight
because it is about not just complaining about the problem, but
identifying it and figuring out a way to solve it. I think that both
sides could come together to try to solve this problem because, hey,
victims of crime are victims of crime, and we should do everything we
can to reduce that number.
Also, we need to get back to what I thought and still do think makes
this country the greatest country on Earth, is the fact that we care
and we love our neighbors and we want to see them do well. If we really
want to see them do well, then let's invest in those things. Let's put
our money where our mouth is, and let's do the things that we know we
can do.
If anybody is interested in really having that conversation, I know
that both of us and the entire Black Caucus, we are willing to engage
in that conversation. It is not all about spending money, but it is
about spending it where you get a return and helping families be a
family unit to nurture and push kids to achieve everything they can and
give them that swift kick in the butt when they need it to achieve that
also.
I just want to thank you, Congressman, for allowing me to participate
in this Special Order Hour tonight to talk about an amazing--well, not
an amazing problem, but an incredible problem that this country faces
and the fact that we have the leadership to help solve that problem.
Mr. Speaker, I believe in the adage, ``Education is the only sure way
for many children to escape poverty.''
Creating Opportunity for Our Young Men and Boys
Invest in our economy and infrastructure, 21st century manufacturing,
job training, and raise the minimum wage.
More investments in summer jobs, summer recreation, and summer
community service.
Criminal Justice Reforms to help give our young men a second chance
after mistakes made
Better training for our police forces on cultural sensitivity and
proper respect for our communities.
End the school to prison pipeline--pass my bill (see separate
section).
youth opportunity legislation
To help ensure a strong, coordinated effort to give schools the tools
they need to be schools instead of ``pipelines to prison,'' and do more
to build habits that will lead to success in the future, I have
introduced the Student Disciplinary Fairness Act of 2015 and the Youth
Summer Jobs and Public Service Act of 2015.
Juveniles that have been incarcerated are much more likely to become
criminals later in life and much less likely to achieve economic
success but providing employment opportunity increases the likelihood
of favorable outcomes.
All of us who care about building strong, prosperous communities must
do everything we can to ensure that involving our youth in the criminal
justice system is used as a last resort, not as a routine first
response.
We must make smart investments in our youth so that they can be
present and visible in society and the 21st century economy.
Mr. PAYNE. I want to thank the gentleman from Louisiana for his
remarks, and I appreciate him being involved in tonight's Special
Order.
I am not surprised that he would be here on such an important topic.
He has demonstrated numerous times his commitment to young people and
their aspirations and motivating them to do the right thing and be
successful, as he has been.
One thing that comes to my mind, Mr. Speaker, is as we talk about
this issue, what is it that we find these 1.5 million men missing? They
are human beings. They are Americans. What is the difference about
these 1.5 million men, that they are African American? Does it go back
in our history of 300 years? Does it have something to do with us, as a
race?
I just wonder, sometimes, what is the difference; but I won't go
there.
Mr. Speaker, in closing, I would like to thank the members of the
Congressional Black Caucus here tonight for sharing their profound
insights and observations. Your participation was greatly appreciated.
Every Monday night in this House, we have a remarkable opportunity to
speak about the important work of the CBC to advance full equality and
justice for African Americans in all communities in this Nation.
One of the most significant challenges our communities face is that
of ``the missing black male.'' Once again, to quote The New York Times:
``More than one out of every six black men who today should be between
25 and 54 years old have disappeared from daily life.''
Many of these men are incarcerated. Others have died from homicide
and from disease that disproportionately affects African American
males. The consequences of these missing men are
[[Page H4370]]
severe, not just for the men themselves, but for their families and for
the entire society.
Strong communities lay the foundation to strong societies, but when
our criminal justice system emphasizes incarceration over
rehabilitation, we make it increasingly difficult for those individuals
to become productive members of society. We need a system that holds
criminals accountable, while focusing on rehabilitation of nonviolent
criminals.
If we are truly to make our communities more secure, we also need to
address health disparities among African American men. Health
disparities are a burden to African American communities. African
American men suffer from a number of disease, including colorectal
cancer, at higher rates than their White counterparts.
Part of the problem has to do with stigmas, and this is an area which
I have been working hard to address in my capacity as co-chair of the
Congressional Men's Health Caucus.
Along those lines, we need to eliminate the stigmas around mental
health and make sure that those suffering from mental illness have the
resources they need. No one struggling with mental illness should feel
isolated and that they have nowhere to turn. It is clear that we are
not doing enough, as a society, to get them the help they need.
We should not be seeing an uptick in the number of African American
boys dying from suicide, that dreaded suicide rate. For these young
boys and for others, we need to listen, and we need to encourage them
not to be afraid to seek help.
The problem of ``the missing black male'' is not going to be resolved
overnight, but closing the gap is a goal we all need to aspire to for
ourselves, for our community, and for our Nation.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
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