Series: "Being a Black Man"

A Look Back

"Being a Black Man," a series launched on June 2, 2006 by The Washington Post and washingtonpost.com, explored what it means to be a black man in today's society through stories and other multimedia.

Washington Post associate editor Kevin Merida was online at noon ET on Monday, Jan. 8 to discuss the issues explored and raised by the project as well as his Dec. 31 story, "In or Out Of the Game?," which follows an ex-con as he tries to figure out how to recreate his life and resist the lure of the streets.

Video: "Why Are So Many Black Men in Prison?"

The transcript follows:

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Downtown Washington, D.C.: Thank you for producing an objective and balanced exploration into being a Black Man in Washington, DC. Does the Post plan to produce a bound, hard-cover version of the various pieces that were written on that subject matter (from the past few months)? It would serve as a wonderful, keepsake publication.

washingtonpost.com:

The entire series can be found here along with the multimedia content: www.washingtonpost.com/blackmen

Kevin Merida: Thank you, Downtown D.C...We are discussing publishing a book. There have been many requests for reprints and suggestions that we do a book. So stay tuned. Our web page will stay up.

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New Carrollton, Md.: WILL WE EVER LEARN?

It seems as though each generations gets worse, not better. Why? Why do we hate ourselves and each-other so much? Why do we uplift the negative, and try to quiet the positive? Michael Baisden, a radio personality on WHUR tackles alot of issues that our people, churches, and communities tend to shy away from. Mr. Baisden is not afraid to tell the truth, and he doesn't preach nor teach hate and separation.

Michael Baisden tries to bring us all together no matter if you are poor, rich, dum, educated, gay, straight, light-skin, dark-skin, fat, or skinny. Michael Baisden is like the male Oparah of the radio. My hat is off to Mr. Baisden with much respect and admiration. I support people and programs like Michael Baisden's. Please include him as part of your series. God Bless.

K.A. Robinson

Kevin Merida: I, too, think Michael Baisden is a provocative, engaging talk radio host.

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New Carrollton, Md.: Keep Up the Good Work

We, as blacks, tend to forget we have to work just that much harder than our counterparts. Have we failed to teach our children this? It seems like to me, in white corporate America, the black females are promoted much more than the black males, and the black males are left behind, rarely promoted. I'm sure if a study were done on this, you would find it to be true, and most black females don't waste any time rubbing it in your face.

When are we as a people going to start dealing with the true issues at hand that are holding us back and killing us off? Is there anyone out there besides Rev. Al Sharpton, Bill Cosby, and Michael Baisden bold enough to tackle such issues that hinder us as a people? Our children and loved ones are dying out here, and hardly anyone wants to do anything about it or talk about it. What was the Million Mman March for if we are not going to work hard and together to change things?

Our priorities need to be redefined and set accordingly. We need to be re-taught, and re-learned to get away from self-hate, hating others, petty jealousy, being disrespectful and inconsideration to one another, and killing each other. It is not cool or manly to hate and kill, so the songs we listen to, movies we watch need to stop sending this message. If we teach our children that it is okay to mistreat and disrespect others who are different, than we are teaching hate, and that's not right. We need to get over and past this hate and killing, this lightskinned - darkskinned thing, fat and skinny, gay or straight, rich over poor, lack of education and learning, and being so materialistic at the expense of our souls, loved ones, and families. If we stand together as a people, we will overcome, we will win. But if we don't stand together, we all we suffer and lose.

Those rappers, or black men who refer to themselves as thugs, gangsters, players; that is not cute, it's not cool. You all think that being feared is respect, and it is not. Look it up in Webster's dictionary. Fear and Respect do not have the same meaning and are two totally separate things. And know this; fear is an unstable weapon; that will eventually lead to your own destruction, so you would not want people to fear you. Get a clue. Real men protect and provide, they don't kill, steal, destroy, rape, beat-up on the weak or someone who is different. Ask yourself, are you a real man? Are you secure in your manhood and who you are? Do you feel you have something to prove? Except yourself and love yourself my brothers, and regardless of those around you and circumstances, you will come out on top, but most of all, you will have peace and peace of mind. There is more black on black crime and murder committed by us against our own than the history of the KKK. That's really sad my people. As a black man, I have a better chance of living a longer life in the mountains with the KKK, than I do in the hood with my own people. How sad.

So what are we teaching? What are we passing down to the next generation? We need to get it together my people. I say again, stop the disrespecting others, stop the hate, stop the killing of each other physically, spiritually, mentally, emotionally, stop killing each one another. Stop gossiping and spreading rumors, putting others down, stop judging, stop keeping up mess my people; especially black women. Stop it, stop it, stop it!

Can't you see it's destroying us all? There use to be a time when it was well known that black children were the best behave and well mannered. Needless to say, that is no longer true. We need to start raising our kids, men need to be fathers, and stop being selfish and thinking about yourself all the time, especially when there are children involved. Man up to your responsibility of being a man whether your want to or not. You are still a man, so man up to being a protector, provider, or productive citizen in the black community. It doesn't matter or shouldn't matter if you are a big man, small man, rich man, poor man, gay man, straight man, uneducated man, fat man, skinny man, dark skin man, or light skin man, good looking man or ugly man; just man up. Protect, give some support and guidance every now and then. We all as a people will benefit in the long run. God bless you all with much love and peace in your hearts and minds.

K. A. Robinson 2007

Kevin Merida: You have set out quite a bit to contemplate. I think one of the intentions of the series was to add to a discussion that is happening in many places--online and in church forums and even on corners. There are fatherhood groups and gang-prevention activists and many others struggling with these issues, working hard to make some difference. So there are more people engaged in the lives of black men than Al Sharpton and the leaders we hear about. Thank you for your engagement.

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Bowie, Md.: Why is it necessary to do an expose on Black Men?

What about white men in America?

Kevin Merida: I have said this before, but I will say it again online: I think there is a lot of merit in doing a series on white men. But regarding the series we did on black men, I would not describe it as an expose. Its importance--and its power, I believe--was that it showed a range of black men, with all of their complexities. We got to see them and hear them, not as sound bites or the equivalent of movie extras, but as full human beings, with their unique experiences but also with identities other than their racial identities. i think it was a rare journalistic exercise and one that should be replicated with other groups--be they white men, day laborers, rural children, the rich or the poor.

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Burke, Va.: Thank you for taking the time to do the series. I found it thought provoking, scary and timely.

I was showing one of your articles to my wife one day and her comment was she wished that there were more positive articles published...I know that the plight of the black man in this world is dire (look at Africa today).

So, for your next project can we have a little more of the silver lining as opposed to the black clouds...

Kevin Merida: To Burke, Va...I honestly didn't find the stories to be a series of dark clouds. Was the story of two Ballou High School scholar-athletes trying to influence their peers a dark cloud? Or, the story of one of the top officials in the FBI? Or, the story of the three retired union workers who have found lasting friendship through a bowling league? I think the stories were about complexity.

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Washington, D.C.: Out of all the things you and the other staff learned from the series, what was the most impressive? The most disheartening? I was heartened to see that some brothers who don't always reach their goals consider a combination of luck and bad decisions -- not just racism and prejudice -- as playing a role in their success or failure. That tells me that, among those of us who are trying, we are not crying racism or victimhood as others would have us all believe.

washingtonpost.com: "The stories they told, the reality we share" (The Washington Post, January 7, 2007)

Kevin Merida: The most impressive thing, from my vantage point, was seeing how readers engaged the series. Whether praising or criticizing, the critiques were thoughtful and often impassioned. And that is rewarding. We carried our series to neighborhoods, in the form of forums, which were well-attended. And all of that reminded me that there is a readership for long-form journalism that touches people's lives and seems authentic to their experiences. The most dissappointing thing was having to end this series, and not being able to get to so many other topics worthy of inclusion--from black men and spirituality to single mothers and grandmothers who have raised so many black boys. But ending the series does not end our commitment to this kind of journalism and to those subjects.

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Rockville, Md.: I noticed in your 'singled out' section, about single black women seeking black men, that there was very little input from black males directly. It seems like this fact almost made that article out of place. Was any thought given to the possibility of following around a single Black male professional and discovering his view of the dating world?? The article quoted stats which made it seem like 'being a black man' in the D.C. dating world was a piece of cake -83 out of 100], however the reality is that many of us black male professionals often must get our dates from a pool that largely consists of bitter, attitudinal, babymommas that hate men to begin with. I understand that the 'black society' is unfortunately matriarchal, but in a series like this it would seem more insightful to have Black males' point of view [like in the other series topics], for example in the piece about the hairdresser that was falsely arrested in GA, you didn't follow the story from the various police accounts. The narrative was more telling from the view of the Black man, like anyone would have guessed this series should be.

Kevin Merida: Rockville, you raised the same question that was part of the internal debate among editors and writers involved in the project. Let me say I thought Krissah Williams did a marvelous job reporting and writing that story. She is one of the young treasures at the Post. The idea with that piece was to have a lens on black men through the eyes of a black woman. And its intention was not to be solely a dating story, but a story through which you could learn something about relations between black men and women, romantic and plutonic and familial. There certainly is merit to doing the piece a different way, and maybe it could still be done--following around a black man who has dating options and trying to understand what is in his head.

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Arlington, Va.: What did you think of the comments Bill Cosby made at the event this summer? Was he right to chastise the Post for this series?

Kevin Merida: I think Bill Cosby, through the force of his personality and comedy (not to mention his longevity), has inserted himself with gusto into the larger debate about what plagues black America. And he has a contribution to make. But I think his comments at the Post-Kaiser forum were uninformed. He struck me as someone who had not actually read the series at that point.

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Black Struggle: The problem is the core of basically all the stories is the stereotypical poor or underprivileged Black. If the stats say only 30 percent of blacks are poor, what about the comfortable middle class kids from birth? Where are the articles about the black kid that grew up in Hillcrest, Brookland, Riggs Park, or the Gold Coast? The success story of the kids born and raised in D.C., who saw the dark clouds and knew to avoid them?

Kevin Merida: One of the early pieces, written by Robert Pierre, was set in Stafford, Va. and examined a black boy growing up in privilege with many opportunities, including a private school education and skiing trips. A photo of the boy and his peers, clad in tuxedo with red bow ties, appears in yesterday's Outlook section.

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washingtonpost.com: "The Young Apprentice" by Robert E. Pierre (The Washington Post, June 9, 2006)

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Bethesda, Md.: Regarding the entire series, kudos for a job well done. Not just to the author(s), but to the Post as well for even allowing the subject matter.

My question is simple--well actually judging by the state of black men as a whole, apparently it isn't: My question is, what can or do we now do, to counter some of the problems facing black men? I was at the orignal Million Man March and its sequal, yet to date, I haven't seen any of the suggestions and promises made come to fruition.

Kevin Merida: Thank you, Bethesda, for the kind words...I think one thing that can be done is that those who have something to offer--an opportunity, a skill, a career--is to share it with those who are not exposed to such. And to get involved in someone's life who could use your help. I think the multiplifcation of these small efforts goes a long way.

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Northeast Washington, D.C.: Is there a story you wanted to write, but didn't get to?

Kevin Merida: There were many. We had a long, long, good list of story ideas. I would have liked to have done a piece from the perspective of black men who are not from the U.S. As stated before, also a piece on black men and their relationship with the church. Also, a piece from the vantage point of a black man who has made his living as a janitor or bus driver or some other job that is not often seen as part of an ambitious career track.

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Washington, D.C.: These chats have been incredibly interesting to see the way people react.

The most repeated comment I see is asking about the "negative slant" of the articles to which each of you has quickly replied with article titles and details of several of the "positive" pieces.

So, my question is, why do you think so many more people appear to see only the negative??

Kevin Merida: Part of that may be conditioning and history and expectations. Many people don't expect much from the media, and a lot of people bring their own life experiences to these questions. I don't use the terms "positive" and "negative" when talking about works of journalism. I think the effort is to be authentic, deep, complex, fair.

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washingtonpost.com: Check out "One Man's Success," a video about Jonathan Shanks, a D.C. WASA employee, union leader and gospel musician.

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Southeast Washington, D.C.: Thank you for presenting this series. I had alot of mixed feelings when reading the articles, but I can only say "Thank you" for presenting a balance. I found myself becoming sad (in tears sometimes), or feeling anger. Overall, I eagerly awaited the articles.

Kevin Merida: Thank you, Southeast...One of the forums we held was in Southeast at the ARC, and it was one of the most exciting and intense of any of the sessions.

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Washington, D.C.: Why did the series end?

Kevin Merida: I think as a journalistic enterprise, all series have to end at some point. We had thought from the beginning that we would do a year's worth of stories, and spread those out over time, getting feedback and trying to keep the engagement with readers going. But ending the series does not mean we won't continue to write about black men. Some of the story suggestions received as feedback will find their way into print, I'm sure.

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Kevin Merida: Looks like it's time to say goodbye. Enjoyed this chat. And thanks for feedback on the series. Come to the website to see it all, www.washingtonpost.com/blackmen

Thank you so much.

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