A puzzle that can be solved

Everyone knows life has gone wrong for too many black boys and men.

The question is what to do about it.

To solve a puzzle, you put a lot of different pieces together. That's easiest if one person has all the fragments, but what if the bits are in several hands?

And what if some of the people who hold them can see everyone's piece but their own?

You have one of those intractable social problems.

Except maybe there is a work-around.

Some people made a start the other night.

The Central District Forum for Arts & Ideas has been taking on sticky issues for years.

Last Thursday, the forum hosted another in its "Which Way Seattle" series, this one titled "The State of Young Black Men." A moderator and six panelists talked it out.

The moderator, Carl Livingston Jr., an attorney, minister and Seattle Central Community College professor of political science, opened with a list of failures.

I cringed. There were lots of kids in the audience. They didn't need to hear that, was my first thought.

But I suppose they did.

There has been a flurry of recent research that shows things are bleaker than we thought.

All the statistics about unemployment, school failure and joblessness keep getting worse. Yet the opportunities have never been greater.

Legal and social changes and a vibrant economy helped black women and members of every other group prosper over the past two decades, but large numbers of black men are worse off. Half of the black men in inner cities don't graduate from high school, and that means they don't get jobs.

Two successful high-school students were on the panel.

DeAndre Anderson, sophomore at Federal Way High School, listed programs and activities he has participated in and said few other black students were involved in them.

Spencer Brooks, a junior at Lakeside School, said he tries to get other boys to join the Black Achievers program, but few take advantage.

The Washington Post polled black men last year about stumbling blocks.

Racism is a big problem, according to 68 percent of the men surveyed.

But 91 percent said young black males not taking education seriously was an impediment. Nearly that many cited crime and drugs.

Livingston put heavy blame on a failure of leadership. Leaders need to give the people a plan, he said.

King County Juvenile Court Judge LeRoy McCullough emphasized parents staying involved with their kids' schooling.

People in the audience kept saying don't wait for someone else, do something yourself.

Most of the people on the panel are doing just that.

Jeanette Davis-Loeb founded Rising Oak Foundation to fund programs that help black boys; Reco Bembry has been working with black youngsters for 25 years; Jamal Farr, an artist, tutors black children.

The problem has a solution.

If the people who see their pieces clearly put them together, the outlines of the missing parts will be made clear.

The problem will no longer be intractable. What was fractured will be made whole.

Jerry Large's column appears Monday and Thursday. Reach him at 206-464-3346 or jlarge@seattletimes.com.