It is time for the African American community to acknowledge and repair what may be our most vexatious problem:  the absence of too many fathers.
    Although it is true that half of our children are reared in families with fathers present, half are not.  This is a statistic that reverberates through the generations.
    A few years ago it was reported that one fourth of African American men between the ages of 18 and 30 were under the jurisdiction of law enforcement.  At the time, this fact was cited as evidence of something gone terribly awry in the African American community.  Today, one third of young African American men are under the jurisdiction of law enforcement--in jail or prison, on parole or on probation.
    In many urban areas, the African American high school attrition rate exceeds 50%.  A high school diploma, of course, should be viewed as a minimal measure of academic success in an increasingly complex and technologically sophisticated marketplace.
    Educational failure contributes to the motive for joining gangs.  The absence of marketable education and training produce children and young adults who misuse their creative genius in illicit activities.
    The number one killer of young African American men is homicide.  The perpetrators of this homicide are most likely other African American males.
    It is axiomatic that the problems confronting our youth -- educational failure, gangs, crime and violence -- are the products of improper childhood socialization.  And while we may agree that “It takes a village to raise a child,” that village effort must begin within the context of the African American family.
    This is not to fault African American women who have been the bedrock of stability within the African American community for hundreds of years.  But the tremendous economic demands of raising children properly are clearly proving problematic for single earner families.
    Nor is this to fault African American men, per se.  It is clear that the phenomenon of father absence has many complex contributing causes.  An epidemic number of African American males are caught in a vicious cycle of educational failure, joblessness and crime and violence.  Many of these realities are built into the lack of meaningful opportunity structures within the broader society.
    But the problems are also tied to our own beliefs, values and behaviors.  The definition of manhood has become perverted.  Too many of our young men believe that manhood is to be found in the bedroom; that the proof of manhood is in the impregnation of women.  We need to resocialize our male youth into recognizing that manhood is much more than making babies.  Manhood and fatherhood should be seen as nurturing, care taking, and ensuring the successful futures of our children and families.
    Father is a verb.  Father is what fathers do.
    Fathers are there when their children are born.  They are partners with the mothers of their children in delivering the child and being engaged in all of the intimate details of the care of newborn infants.  Fathers care for the mothers of their newborn infants.
    Fathers are gainfully employed, or self-employed, to help ensure that the material needs of the family are met.  Fathers avoid drug and alcohol addiction because of their severe handicapping effects on fatherhood.
    Fathers are connected to their neighborhood and communities – being part of the village to help raise all of the children in the community.
    Fathers are involved in the education of their children.  This means attending parent/teacher meetings, certainly, but it also means helping children with home work and taking a more primary role in the cultivation of academic excellence in their children and in their neighborhood schools.
    Fathers are engaged in the broader political economic system in redressing the ills of a society that has been more than indifferent to African American people for many generations.  Fathers recognize their debt to past generations that fought injustice and are engaged in continuing this struggle.
    Fatherhood in the African American community is thwarted by substandard schools and all of the things that follow educational marginality.  African American fatherhood is hampered by unemployment and the economic and psychological impotence that unemployment engenders.  But we can not realistically look to the broader society to correct these underlying fundamentals of disadvantage in the African American community.  Indeed, the broader society has shown a strong disdain for any programs that redress these historical inequities.
    The solution, then, is in our own hands.  We must first father our children.  We must assist in the fathering of other African American youth that are fatherless.  Only in shouldering the responsibility for our children are we to have any hope in reversing the terrible cycle of ignorance, poverty, crime and violence that currently afflicts our community.