This paper examines President Barack Obama's 2014 My Brother's Keeper initiative, a public-private partnership designed to address systemic challenges facing young African American and Latino men. The paper reviews the program's five key focus areas — from early literacy to criminal justice — and draws on UN Human Rights Commission data, Center for American Progress reports, and journalist analyses to explain why the initiative was needed. Topics covered include racial disparities in incarceration rates, implicit bias in policing, underfunded public defender systems, and unequal distribution of effective teachers in high-poverty schools. The paper also surveys early public and political responses to the program.
President Barack Obama announced in March 2014 that he was launching a program called "My Brother's Keeper," designed to address the many challenges facing young African American and Latino men — commonly referred to as young men of color. Obama insisted in presenting this program that it is not just another big-government initiative using taxpayer money; rather, he pointed out that wealthy philanthropic sources and corporate business leaders would provide up to $200 million over five years to fund its activities. This paper reviews the strategies that Obama's initiative would employ, and points to specific evidence within the literature that explains why the president felt compelled to launch the program.
Obama has been an activist president on several fronts, including his Affordable Care Act legislation, his push for fair pay for women, his advocacy of a $10.10 minimum wage, his support for marriage equality, his push to allow gay and lesbian soldiers to serve openly, his criticism of states attempting to suppress voting opportunities, and his proposals for paycheck fairness. It should therefore come as no surprise that Obama would also address the fact that minority students do not get the fair opportunities they deserve, and that leaders across the nation should be "committed to creating more pathways to success for these boys and young men" (White House).
Recognizing that many people had been "committed to this cause for years," Obama thanked those efforts while announcing that a Federal Task Force would provide, within 90 days, recommendations on how "public and private actors can improve measurable expected educational and life outcomes and address persistent opportunity gaps" (White House). The task force would pursue what the White House calls "collaborative and multidisciplinary approaches to building ladders of opportunity." The specific nature of those approaches remained to be determined, but the chair of My Brother's Keeper, Broderick Johnson — a cabinet member — said that this effort could potentially "teach us a great deal about using evidence-based strategies" in order to reach the goals that are best for America's young people (White House).
The president made clear that government cannot solve these issues alone, but added that it can — and does, through programs like Head Start — "help give every child access to quality preschool" so that learning can begin at an early age. He also offered a point that rings true: "nothing keeps a young man out of trouble like a father who takes an active role in his son's life" (White House). In other words, families must be accountable to their children.
"Parents will have to parent — and turn off the television and help with homework," Obama emphasized. He added that teachers need to make sure students do not fall so far behind that they begin to feel lost or insignificant; that business leaders need to "create more mentorships and apprenticeships" to help youth establish good careers; that technology leaders need to "open young eyes" to computer science and engineering; and that faith leaders need to help instill values and an "ethical framework" in young men so they can enjoy a "good and productive life" (White House).
The task force created by Obama committed to generating ideas to help young men of color at five key points in time that significantly affect this population: (a) "early learning and literacy"; (b) pathways to higher education and good careers; (c) "ladders to jobs"; (d) support networks including mentors; and (e) "interactions with criminal justice and violent crime" (White House).
On the subject of the criminal justice system, reporting in the Huffington Post highlights the alarming statistic that "one in every three black males born today can expect to go to prison at some point in their life" (Knafo, 2013). For Latino males, one in every six will be imprisoned at some point, compared to one in every seventeen white males (Knafo). These data were released by the United Nations Human Rights Commission as part of its review of American compliance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, a treaty the United States ratified in 1992.
The Covenant requires that "all citizens must be treated equally under the law," and the fact that one in three black males will serve time — and are "more likely to spend time behind bars than their white counterparts" — points to a clear pattern of racial injustice (Knafo, p. 1). The report indicates that police arrest black youth for drug offenses "at more than twice the rate of white youth," despite a finding from the National Institute on Drug Abuse that "white high school students were slightly more likely to have abused illegal drugs than black students of the same age" (Knafo, p. 1).
Two additional factors cited in the UN report contribute to this disparity: first, an "implicit racial bias" on the part of police, which means black individuals are "far more likely than whites" to be stopped by police while driving; and second, because blacks and Latinos are generally less affluent than whites, they are more often assigned "court-appointed public defenders" — a system that U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder declared was in "a state of crisis" due to chronic underfunding (Knafo, p. 1).
Public defender offices are short-staffed and therefore unable to properly serve all the accused individuals who require their legal support. This can lead to longer periods of incarceration. In many cases, young men of color are sent to prison when a well-resourced attorney might have secured probation, community service restitution, or some form of restorative justice on their behalf.
"Unequal teacher quality in high-poverty minority schools"
"Reactions from advocates, educators, and conservatives"
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