This year’s Black History Month kicks off with recognition of a milestone that warrants no celebration whatsoever.
In response to my inquiry, the D.C. police department told me that the 9-year-old male arrested Jan. 26 and charged with assault with intent to rob a woman at 12:40 a.m. appears to be the youngest person arrested on suspicion of attempted robbery in the past five years. That’s nothing to cheer about.
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This month is for reflecting on Black struggles and sacrifices to achieve America’s promise. We will lionize great Black men and women of the past, and a legacy of Black history worthy of thanks and praise.
But while rhapsodizing, I’ll also be thinking about that 9-year-old and his 13-year-old companion, who allegedly approached a woman in the overnight hours and tried to steal her purse. There are hundreds of Black youths in this city traveling down that same path.
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Last year, 584 youths under 18 were arrested for violent crimes in D.C. Of those, 556 were Black, and 99 were between 12 and 14. Arrests of juveniles in robberies outmatched those of adults: 524 vs. 284.
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Look back with pride. But don’t ignore our present calamity.
In the coming days, the D.C. Council will debate crime-fighting legislation. Expect to hear impassioned pleas to get at crime’s “root causes” and about the need for more “wraparound” services to keep “at-risk” youths out of the criminal justice system.
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My thoughts remain with those two boys. Why were they in the streets after midnight? Who and, equally important, where were their parents? Who’s raising the 9-year-old and his 13-year-old cousin?
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Yes, I learned that the two boys are related.
I also was told by people familiar with the matter that the 9-year-old’s case never reached the Family Court Social Services Division of the D.C. Superior Court, where juveniles arrested for criminal offenses are referred. Instead, he was directed to a diversion referral program.
Was the child returned to the same home from which he absented himself last weekend? For child protection and privacy reasons, the government’s lips are sealed.
But it’s in the public’s interest to know whether the two children are in homes with adults who are doing their best to meet their basic needs — that these kids are getting good food and medical care, are safe and have secure roofs over their heads. Not only that. That those two boys, and other children similarly situated, also have good role models in the home to provide firm guidance and emotional support. I’m talking about a home where they learn about rules and why they matter, and where they are disciplined to act upon what’s taught.
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What is the story with those parents, especially the fathers whose sons have ended up in handcuffs?
Whoa, don’t turn the page and escape back to “root causes” and “wraparound services.”
Let’s stay with the people who brought these children into the world. Kids, after all, didn’t ask to come here. They don’t have a say in who their parents are.
That question gets us to this month — and the real, unsung heroes of Black history.
I’m talking about the Black mothers and fathers (many legally married, some single and unmarried but nonetheless moms and dads) who, over generations, have raised, nurtured and guided their children through the painful odyssey of Black life in America.
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They stuck it out for their children. And they built institutions with people who helped us get through the struggles — our preachers, teachers, elders and others who made ways for us when powerful opposing structures said there was no way.
I touched on this in an earlier column about the disruption and dreadful consequences of the displacement of Black communities in this city. And I received in response sneering comments from readers who suggested that I was recalling an idyllic Black world that never existed. But it did. Those cavalierly destroyed community strongholds helped bind families and neighbors.
This week, D.C. Attorney General Brian L. Schwalb (D) said at a community gathering on carjacking and juvenile crime: “We as a city and a community need to be much more focused on prevention and surrounding young people and their families with resources if we want to be safer in the long run. We cannot prosecute and arrest our way out of it.”
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I’ll leave it to others to figure out what Schwalb wants done.
Meanwhile, the D.C. Council will continue its high-minded debate over how to adjudicate children who get into trouble. There’s more to it. Some children are in homes with young adults who don’t know what they don’t know about raising children — including not knowing where their kids are after sundown.
It might not be a “root cause,” but this much a very senior citizen knows: The absence of supportive and constructive mothers and fathers — strong families — leaves a void in the lives of children that the D.C. government, even on its best days, cannot fill.
Not to take government off the hook, butthe community has a role to play. Helpful intervention is needed in the personal, material and spiritual realms that most Black history celebrants will understand.
Do nothing, forget about the world of that 9-year-old, condemn and discard troubled Black boys and girls as worthless refuse? I would rather die. Do that, and one day all the triumphs of Black history will be relegated to the dust heap.
