Young black urban men are finding hope in Barack Obama

Change was President Barack Obama's campaign mantra. It was a charge to everyone, but young black men are embracing it and feeling a special sense of pride because of where the words are coming from.

"He makes it OK to be black, the way he walks and talks, his preferences," said Shawn O. Utsey, chairman of the Department of African American Studies at Virginia Commonwealth University. "He makes it OK to be himself. Those are things I think black men can benefit from -- I can be myself. I can be smart. I can be cool and still be smart."

But will that translate into a better life and opportunities for young black men marginalized by poverty and unemployment, living in communities where the temptation to do wrong is not borne of some innate criminality but of necessity to put food on the table?

Will what some pundits are calling the "Obama effect" trickle down and make a difference for some of those who need it most?

There is no discounting the inauguration was a feel-good moment in a country that has struggled over race. Obama represents change a lot of people thought would never come. It was just 46 years ago the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. led the march on Washington and made his "I Have a Dream" speech.

Obama's presidency, to many, is that dream no longer deferred.

"I am not going to sit here and say I can be the president," said Daniel Winston, 23, who is studying for an associate's degree in automotive technology at J. Sargeant Reynolds Community College.

"I am not telling someone from the'hood you can be the president, but it just makes you set your standards a little bit higher," said Winston, who grew up in Highland Park in North Richmond. "It makes me set my standards higher. It makes me proud to be a black man. People probably have to respect our race a little more."

Winston, father of a 3-year-old and a 5-year-old, is the first to say that just a few years ago he was headed in the wrong direction. His mom, a social worker, was doing her best but he wasn't listening. His father is incarcerated.

"One day a family member asked me, 'What have you been up to, what have you been doing lately?'" Winston said. "The only response I could give them was 'nothing.' I really wasn't doing anything productive. That is just the life I chose to live at the time. It wasn't nobody's fault but mine. People tried to tell me to go back to school, but it basically went in one ear and out the other."

Last fall he enrolled in the Middle College Program at J. Sargeant Reynolds Community College. The program allows 18to 24-year-olds without a high school diploma to earn a GED, take college courses and explore career options.

"When I started school last September, I was still hanging in the streets," Winston said. "I got hope. I ain't going to throw it away. The stuff I was doing [before that], everybody knows the end of that story. There are two ends to that story -- you are going to the penitentiary or to the graveyard."

Last month, he started taking classes toward an associate's degree.

"You see a black man as president, you can shoot for the stars," Winston said.

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The Obama euphoria has settled down enough that experts are taking a more critical look at its meaning. Some worry that his presidency will be viewed as evidence this country's race problem is fixed. Others worry people are overestimating the impact Obama can have because they don't quite understand the root causes of problems, such as unemployment rates of black men.

Among black men 20 and older, the unemployment rate is 13.4 percent, almost twice that of the national rate of 7.2 percent and much higher than it is for white men, 6.5 percent.

After months of searching for a job and not getting any offers, Breon Williams, 25, has stopped looking. Instead, he does odd jobs, writes and performs songs such as the semi-autobiographical "Rehabilitated" featured on his Daddy Cool MySpace page, and with his wife takes care of their three children, ages 1, 2 and 6.

"I would not say they are not hiring, it's more they don't hire with the type of background I have," Williams said.

When Williams was younger, he got into trouble that resulted in a nonviolent felony conviction. In a tight job market with the highest unemployment rates this country has seen in decades, employers can be choosy. So Williams stays at home with the kids. He helps get his 6-year-old off to school in the morning and then cares for the younger ones when his wife of three years, Jaywanna, is at work as a clerk in a discount store.

Even with the obstacles before him, Williams, who last spring completed a job-readiness program that covered things such as résumé writing and dressing for interviews, is hopeful about his future.

"It's been hard for me, but at that same time, I have people who care about me -- my wife, my three children. I am trying to do what is best, what is right for my family and myself. Things do get hard out here. I know we have a black president now and things are going to change. Therefore, I have to change myself," Williams said. "Change only comes with changing yourself."

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With Obama as president, VCU's Utsey, a psychologist, worries there will be fewer meaningful discussions about racial-justice issues. Poor blacks are probably worse off economically than they have ever been, but there is a sense that "we have arrived," Utsey said. He is afraid that issues such as the criminal justice system's double standard and the disparity in rates of HIV infection in black women when compared to white women won't get talked about.

"We are not thinking deeply about this," Utsey said. "The one thing that concerns me about black America is we are very reactionary. When we get complacent, you can do anything to us. When there is a crisis, we really have a call to arms and we act. I can't think of any better reason to be complacent than having a black president."

And in a cautionary way, having a black man as president may in fact pose a risk to young black men, he said. "There is an undercurrent of resentment. Not all of America is happy. Given the risk that black males are at with respect to law enforcement and mob violence prior to Obama, I think we would have a heightened sense of caution now."

Utsey suggests the celebrating and the tears shed on Election Day were about more than one man.

"What Obama represents is the collective efforts of black America to persevere under incredible circumstances," Utsey said. "That is more inspiring than Obama himself being president, that that opportunity could be made available through the sacrifice of folks known and unknown."

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Some educators see Harvard Law School-educated Obama as sending a message to young black males that it's OK to achieve.

"These black young men who are running around, dropping babies, thinking that's being cool will see it's important to have a family, for children to have two parents," said Dr. William Harvey, president of Hampton University.

Different estimates suggest that only 47 percent to 48 percent of black males graduate from high school on time or at all. White male graduation rates are about 75 percent. Black males are also a disproportionate number of those expelled and suspended from school, and some scholars suggest that as they proceed through school they learn to underachieve rather than achieve.

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It will take time to quantify an "Obama effect," said Oliver Hill Jr., chairman of the Virginia State University psychology department.

"I don't think we can overestimate the effect of symbols, both on the black community and the white community," Hill said. "There has been a lot of research on things like the expectancies of teachers and that impacts students' performances."

In Carl Tabb's mind, nothing is holding him back now.

"People are telling us it's not more excuses," said Tabb, 16, a student at George Wythe High School in Richmond. "I see a change in folks my age."

Realistically, the obstacles that were there the day before the election are still there.

Tabb lives in Richmond, where 53 percent of households are headed by single mothers and about 25 percent of children live in poverty, and the crime rate, while falling, is still high. At his school only about 63 percent of students graduate on time, compared to about 81 percent of students statewide.

Tabb says being raised in a Christian home and being involved in his church have kept him on the right track.

This month he will be repeating some of the president's words as he plays Obama in Black History Month programs at his church and the Boys and Girls Club on Bainbridge Street where he volunteers, teaching a class on values and coaching basketball.

He has been told he resembles Obama. The speech Tabb picked is the one Obama gave the night he was elected.

"I've really stepped up my game," Tabb said.

Contact Tammie Smith at (804) 649-6572 or .