The Socialization of Black Boys

I was reading a very interesting book entitled "The Origins of War in Child Abuse" by Lloyd deMause. The book is provided free online at the link. It basically proclaims that the violent behavior exhibited so often by men is not be the result of higher testosterone levels as has been the common belief, but rather due to the childhood conditioning that they commonly receive from their mothers:

"The only neurobiological condition inherited by boys that affects later violence
is they have a smaller corpus callosum, the part of the brain that connects the
right and the left hemisphere.16 The larger corpus callosum of infant girls
allows them to work through trauma and neglect more easily than boys.
Furthermore, boys who are abused had a 25 percent reduction in sections of the
corpus callosum, while girls did not.17 This means boys actually need more love
and caretaking than girls as they grow up. If they do not receive enough
interpersonal attention from their caretakers they suffer from damaged
prefrontal cortices (self control, empathy) and from hyperactive amygdalae (fear
centers), their corpus callosum is reduced further, and they have reduced
serotonin levels (calming ability) and increased corticosterone production
(stress hormone). All these factors make them have weak selves, reduced empathy,
less control over impulsive violence and far more fears than girls.18"

So as we see, for neurobiological reasons, boys are in greater need of love and caregiving than girls. This brings up the question of whether they actually receive such greater love and caregiving:

"The central psychobiological question, then, is this: Are boys given more love
and attention than girls by their caretakers in order to help them offset their
greater needs? The answer, of course, is just the opposite: boys are given less
care and support, from everyone in the family and in society, and they are
abused far more than girls, so by the time they are three years of age they
become twice as violent as girls.19 Boys’ greater violence by this time,
including their propensity to form dominance gangs and to endlessly “play war,”
are the results of their greater abuse and distancing by adults and being
subject to demands to “grow up” and “be manly” and “not be a crybaby” and not
need attachments—attitudes taught by their parents, teachers and coaches. By age
four boys’ play is full of provocations that test their self-worth: “At 4 years
of age, girls’ insults to one another are infrequent and minor…Boy/boy insults,
however, are numerous and tough.”20 The so-called “aggressiveness” usually
ascribed to boys is in fact wholly defensive, as they try to ward off their
greater feelings of insecurity and hopelessness.21 It isn’t “aggression” males
display; it’s bravado—defensive testing and disproof of their fears."

So as one might clearly suspect, boys are typically shown less affection and given less support than girls. Such lesser affection probably comes from both mothers and fathers, yet that which comes from mothers is most important:

"The mother, of course, is the focal point of this widespread distancing and
insecure attachment pattern. High levels of violence and of testosterone have
been shown to be associated with poorer relationships with mothers, not fathers,
since mothers are the primary caretakers in most families (even in America
today, fathers spend only an average of eleven minutes a day with their
children).22 It is not just genetics but more importantly maternal environment
that Tronick and Weinberg blame when they see from their studies that “Infant
boys are more emotionally reactive than girls. They display more positive as
well as negative affect, focus more on the mother, and display more signals
expressing escape and distress and demands for contact than do girls.”23 This is
because from infancy boys are expected to “just grow up” and not need as much
emotional care as girls—indeed, boys are regularly encouraged not to express any
of their feelings, since this is seen as “weak” or “babyish” in boys.24 While
mothers may sometimes dominate their little girls and expect them to share their
emotional problems, they distance their boys by not making contact with them and
expect them to “be a man.” This begins from birth: “Over the first three months
of life, a baby girl’s skills in eye contact and mutual facial gazing will
increase by over 400 percent, whereas facial gazing skills in a boy during this
time will not increase at all.”25 Boys grow up with less attachment strengths
because careful studies show that mothers look at their boys less, because both
parents hit their boys two or three times as much as they do their girls,
because boys are at much higher risk than girls for serious violence against
them, and because boys are continuously told to be “tough,” not to be a “wimp”
or a “weakling,” not to be “soft” or a “sissy.”26"

Here is more good information on the subject:

"Perhaps because boys’ needs are greater than girls’, harried and often depressed
mothers give them less love and attention from birth. Careful studies reveal
that mothers look at and talk more with their daughters than with their sons,
spend more time interacting with them, smile more at their daughters than at
their sons, direct more orders and prohibitions toward their sons, and use more
severe disciplinary styles and more shaming techniques toward them.50

If they are ashamed of what their mothers have taught them they are and by their continuing need for her understanding, they “learn to suffer quietly, in retreat behind the mask of masculinity [and] cover up the more gentle, caring, vulnerable sides of themselves.”63 If, of course, they are brought up with love and care, like my sons—and probably like yours—they grow up neither violent nor war lovers. But abandoned and abused boys regularly hide their shame and fears behind a defensive fantasy of grandiosity, dominance and violent bravado.64 The violence they exhibit both kills other Bad Selves (called “enemies”), who like themselves are seen as both angry and weak, plus it provokes the violence of others, inviting self-destructive, suicidal responses. Confrontation, “carrying a chip on their shoulders,” is their defense against admitting that they feel weak, rejected and worthless.65"

So how does all of this relate to the excessive violence that is so prevalent among black men? Is the lack of affection and support received by black men greater than that of other men. One study entitled Parent-child Play: Descriptions and Implications, does address this basic idea:

Blacks:
1) Infants are doted on; much attention to food and clothes.
2) But 'most black women believe the children are easily spoiled by too much attention including being held, carried, and praised.'
3) Infants are often left unattended for long periods of time. Black infants forced to be autonomous earlier than other groups.
4) Teenage pregnancy is tolerated but mother soon becomes disinterested in baby and grandmother takes over most of the care.
5) High levels of physical discipline, including 'shaking and spanking, often with belts and switches.'

Cuban-Americans
1) Teenage pregnancy not sanctioned. High rate of abortions.
2) Infants are the center of attention of entire extended household.
3) Infants are carried everywhere and rocked a great deal, are scolded infrequently, and are seldom physically punished.

More details of the study can be found here. The trends shown by the study applies to both teenage and adult mothers.

So this leaves the final question of whether there is a difference between the affection level given black girls and black boys. For a couple of decades, the idea that black mothers love their boys and raise their daughters has made it into black folklore, despite there being no empirical evidence to support this notion. One study finally takes a look at it with the following results:

'While no differences were found in the way that the mother uses control with her children, the mother did appear to have a more warm and guiding-producing relationship with her daughter. This finding runs contrary to the stereotype that the “African American mother ‘loves’ her son, but ‘raises’ her daughter.”'

So the evidence seems to say that boys are shown less affection and support than girls, black mothers show less affection and support to their young children than other groups and black boys receive less affection and support than black girls. While numerous other factors certainly are among the reasons why black males today show so much excessive violence, evidence does support that lesser attention and affection from their mothers at an early age could play a major role in this.

The Plight of Missing Black Men and Boys

Missing:
Delshawn and Rakaem Green





I understand that it is normal for most people, male or female, to have less concern about the well being of men as compared to women as well as to have less concern over the well being of boys compared to girls. Men traditionally have been viewed as the stronger sex and traditionally viewed as being in less need of aid, comfort, support, etc. As flawed as this is, it is something that I and most men accept even with today’s growing one sidedness regarding gender double standards (expecting a man to fulfill the manly role is fine but expecting a woman to fulfill a “woman’s role” is chauvinistic).

The problem is that in order to justify their victimism, the so called “black women empowerment bloggers” love to declare that society, the media, black community, etc. show less concern over the well being of black women than they do all other groups including black men. They truly express that there are those who jump to the aid and rescue of black men and boys while turning a blind eye to black women and girls in distress. Where they got this from is a mystery, but when you really dig for the truth, you find something quite the opposite from their assertions. For example:

Missing black men get even less media than black women
By: Diasia
Ellerbee, NNPA Special Correspondent

Posted: Monday, April 20, 2009
12:37 pm

"Why don't you talk about me? Don't you care where I might be?
Am I the wrong color to have my story on TV?"

"Why don't I get air time?
Is it the fact that I don't have naturally
straight hair? Is it that America
isn't interested? Is it that America just doesn't care?"

"So ABC, NBC,
CBS, CNN, MSNBC, FOX News Why don't you talk about me?! Don't you care where I
might be?! Am I the wrong color to have my story on TV?!"

Each one above
is from the poem "Black Woman Missing" by George L. Cook III. The poem
represents the lack of national media focus on missing Black women
- but, Black males get even less.

According to Connie
Marstiller of the National Crime Information Center, there were 614,925 people
missing in 2008 under the age of 18. About 16 percent, were Black men.

During that same year there were 163,239 people missing over the age of
18, according to Marstiller. Approximately 14 percent, represent missing Black
males over the age 18.

African-American men and boys such as William Van
Croft IV, 17, Wallace Richards, 23, Dennis Palmer, 44, and Adji Desir, 6, are
currently missing and have not yet received the national media attention as
other missing people such as Laci Peterson, Elizabeth Smart, or Haleigh
Cummings; white women usually get more attention than men of all races when they
are missing.

Blackandmissing.blogspot.com is an online blog site that is
dedicated to informing the public about missing Black children both male and
female that may or may not have been heard about in the media.

According
to blackandmiss-ing.blogspot.com, Adji Desir is an
African-American boy who
has been missing since January 10 from Immokalee, Fla. Desir is developmentally
disabled with the mental capacity of a two-year-old.

If you put both
these names in Yahoo's search engine, Adji Desir name will produce 478,000
results. Haleigh Cummings name will produce 4,440,000 results, which is 10
percent more.

Both children went missing around the same time and in the
same state. Although conditions of their disappearances are different, does race
or gender play a factor in the national media attention that they receive?

Clearly, yes, says Derrica Wilson, president and CEO of Black &
Missing Foundation, Inc., an online website that provides exposure and
educational training for the missing persons loved ones.

Wilson believes
that when it comes to African-American boys, people are more likely to associate
their disappearance as being a runaway. Wilson mentions that the Black
men on her website never receive national attention and are never seen on
television.

"Therefore there is no amber alert and without an
amber alert there is no media coverage locally or nationally," said Wilson. "Now when it comes to Black men, there are more missing Black men in the
United States than missing Black women, according to the FBI missing person's
report. The reason I believe that Black men do not receive media
exposure is because society, media, and law enforcement like to relate their
disappearance to drugs, crime, or violence."

Missing children's
activist and founder of the online blog "omega7.com," Alonzo Washing_ton agree
that African-American men and boys get the least amount of media attention among
missing people.

In terms of Black males, the only Black males
that would receive coverage would be someone of high stature, according to
Washington. "If you're grown, a man, and Black, then you can forget
about it," Washington said. "Young Black boys may get a little teaser, but never
an ongoing investigation like Caylee Anthony, Elizabeth Smart or Samantha
Runnion."

"The mindset of the media is that if it bleeds it
leads," said Detective Richard Adams of the Youth Investigation Division Missing
Person Unit in the District of Columbia. "Media wants something sensational,"
Adams said. "They have to have something fantastic and that's going to catch the
viewer's eye. It's all about numbers and ratings to them."

William Van
Croft IV has been missing from the District since January 31, 2009. He has
Asperger's Syndrome and went missing a year after the death of his father.

According to Jason Cherkis who writes an online blog for the Washington
City Paper, the police department waited until February 11, 2009 to issue a
press release.

In his blog, he cited a comment by Cherita Whiting that
speculated an indifference in Van Croft's case. Whiting is a activist for
education in the D.C. metropolitan area.

"Billy's mother filed a missing
person report with DC Youth Investigations on Jan 31", Whiting said. "It sat on
a desk somewhere and they just started investigating this case on 2/10. I have
sent multiple messages to the At-Large Council members and every Police officer
that I can find who is associated with
Ward 1 Precinct 107. It would make
sense that a missing person, especially a special needs teenager could get the
attention of the police and public officials to at least have the police issue a
press release that the child is missing. This has not been done. When the press
release occurs, the media responds and starts spreading the word that Billy is
missing."

Washington also believes that when it comes to
African-American children especially males, the police will say that they ran
away.

"When it comes to the area you live in, your color, and gender,
the more unlikely the police will be in finding you and the less the media will
cover you," Washington said. "Even when Jennifer's Hudson nephew was missing,
her story took the backseat to the Caylee Anthony story. They covered it for a
minute, and now it's like it didn't happen."

According to Detective
Adams, every police department has their own way of handling a missing person's
case.

Tim Ryan is an assistant news director for KUSA, a local NBC
station in Denver, CO.

Ryan said that in almost every case, it's about
if law enforcement decided how important the case is. He believes that the media
needs some sort of belief or standard for the stories that they report on.

"Local news people like myself are not the ones who determines what
makes local news," Ryan said. "There are certain reasons why stories get played
or not. I can't tell you if race does play a role. There are cases that we
covered of all races that hasn't received national media coverage. Things that
make
national news is whimsical. I think it is important to state that local
media does not make those choices."

Martin G. Reynolds is the editor of
the Oakland Tribune in California. Reynolds said that they don't necessarily
have a reporter dedicated to missing children and that it would have to come
across the radar for us to report about it.

When told about the numbers
of missing African-American males, Reynolds said:

"They get less
positive attention...There is plenty negative attention. We were not
aware that there was such a large number particularly in African-American
children. It was something I wasn't aware of, but something I will look into."

Reporter Kathy Chaney for the Chicago Defender believes that
Black males do get far less national media coverage which leads to
families looking for other media outlets such as the Jerry Springer, Maury
Povich, or Steve Wilkos show.

Chaney admits that when the Chicago
Defender was daily they had a problem reporting missing children because they
would be found the next day and the newspaper would have already printed the
story.

"I think they get far less coverage," said Chaney. "I think it's
because they are boys. It's just not reported of teenage boys running away. I
don't think that anyone expects them of running away or missing. You think of
foul play immediately."

Adji Desir and William Van Croft IV are still
missing and they need their stories heard.

"There is a defect in
journalism when a certain prototype is given more media coverage," Washing_ton
said. "There is clearly a standard in television. There are so many
ramifications we have to fight for. There are some disparities when it comes to
equality in the value of our lives."

The Lesser Value of Black Boys

As we know, there is a common theme among the so called “Black Women Empowerment Bloggers” and black female interracial bloggers; that theme being the alleged lack of care by the black community for black women and black girls. While this theme is repeated constantly by them, it is quite noticeable how this claim is practically never substantiated. It is something that they simply perceive or pretend to perceive.

What is also interesting is that they are the only ones with this perception. Not only do black men generally not perceive this alleged lack of care for black women, but most of the members of other races and ethnicities as well as black women not involved in their ‘movement’ don’t share this perception. The writer of the article below is an example of this. Note the part in bold:

______________________________________________

A Real Duke Rape Case

Written by Selwyn Duke

Tuesday, 30 June 2009 15:15

We all remember the infamous Duke University rape frame-up case, in which three white lacrosse players were falsely accused of raping a black female stripper. It was front-page news coast to coast, as it had all the elements of a mainstream-media cause célèbre: the perfect victim and the perfect villains, a “downtrodden” black woman of modest means and three “privileged” white college boys. Thus did the hard-left alliance of media, academia, and a Democrat prosecutor try its best to lynch the three, and if the stripper’s story hadn’t changed with the wind, the students could very well be sitting in prison currently.

But now we have a real Duke rape case, and one that largely conforms to the above narrative. Frank Lombard, Duke’s associate director of the Center for Health Policy, faces federal criminal charges for offering his adopted five-year-old son for sex. Where are the parallels? Lombard is white and well-to-do while his victim, the son, is black (Lombard also has a second adopted son, who is black as well).

Yet there are also differences. One is that, unlike the tenuous lacrosse-player case, authorities have Lombard dead to rights. Writes the blog Self Evident Truths:

The arrest warrant states that a person, later identified as Lombard, used video chat on the internet to perfom [sic] sex acts on a child under the age of ten.... The complaint says Lombard's chat room ID lists him as "perv dad for fun.

"The warrant states that an astute police detective contacted Lombard through Yahoo! Instant Messenger. Lombard admitted performing sexual acts on his adopted five year old son. He wrote that he would drug the boy with Benadryl before molesting him. He admitted that he waited to molest the boy until his partner was out of town.

The warrant continues describing the next day, when Lombard offered his five year old to the detective to perform sex acts on him. The detective said he lived out of state, making the solicitation a federal offense.

There are also other differences between the cases. One is that there is no reason to expect the media to do anything but bury this story posthaste. Why? Because, despite the aforementioned parallels, it doesn’t completely accord with today’s favored victimizer/victim narrative, as Lombard is a homosexual, making the victim a child who was adopted by a homosexual. Thus, while Lombard’s sexual inclination alone is enough to make the mainstream media treat this case with the “utmost discretion,” there is an additional factor: disseminate the facts of the crime enough, and people just may get the crazy notion that it’s lunacy to let homosexuals adopt children, especially little boys. So you’ve just got to watch the information you put in the yahoos’ heads.

Not surprisingly, this double standard is already apparent in the reportage. In the Duke lacrosse case, not only was the story front page, but an accuser of the easiest virtue was painted in the best light. For example, the stripper was often called an “exotic dancer,” which is much like calling a prostitute an exotic blind date. In contrast, now the mainstream media seem most reluctant to reveal Lombard’s homosexuality or the adopted victim’s race.

So, as far as how this story will most likely unfold, there are four things I cannot envision happening. First, I don’t foresee Duke’s administration and faculty coming out as a lynch mob and convicting Lombard in the court of public opinion.

Second, don’t expect Jesse Jackson et al. to venture to Durham County and play the race card like a Vegas high roller, even though this case lends itself perfectly to it. A white man who adopts a black boy to keep as a sex slave, anyone?

Next, at risk of being redundant, don’t hold your breath waiting for the mainstream stream media to get on board; like the National Organization for Women, with its deafening silence regarding the savaging of Sarah Palin and women’s plight in Moslem nations, they care not about little victims but leftist agendas.

Lastly, the News & Observer tells us that Lombard is “a licensed clinical social worker with a master's degree in social work, [and] is a health-disparities researcher who studies HIV/AIDS in the rural South” (read: professional victimologist). So, not that any more evidence of his ideological persuasion was necessary, but it’s obvious that the man is thoroughly liberal in his professional life — and libertine in his personal life. Yet don’t expect the purveyors of pablum to be point this out, either.

Speaking of the race card, the hierarchy of victim groups is much like a deck of cards: black is a good hand, but it’s trumped by female. And, it appears, homosexual trumps everything.

_____________________________________________

So as we can see, an adult black woman of highly questionable scruples can get enormous media attention by a simple allegation (later to be proven untrue) and while the proven sexual molestation of innocent black male children in the same area is practically ignored by the media and black activists. It seems that the notion that everyone comes to the defense of black men and boys as opposed to black women and girls is more perception than fact when you actually look at the evidence.