I'm going to withhold comment on the dolls and their poses.
But here's an interesting Chicago Sun-Times piece:
Davis calls on young black men to shape up
October 17, 2003
BY CURTIS LAWRENCE Staff Reporter
Many a night, a distraught Danny Davis says, he drives through his West Side congressional district and sees a group of out-of-work black men hanging out on a corner. Or he pulls into a gas station where he watches a "sister" pumping gas in the rain while her male companion relaxes in the car.
Thursday he said he had watched enough and that it was time to take action.
"There is a crisis in our community as it relates to the African-American male," Davis said in a conference call from Washington touting an initiative -- "The State of the African-American Male."
Davis, who has raised concerns about the disproportionate numbers of black men in prison and lack of resources for ex-offenders, said the initiative will focus not only on what government should do but will also call young black men and
their parents on the carpet to take responsibility. A weekend conference in Washington starting Nov. 14 will kick off the effort, which will include similar meetings across the country.
Not mincing words, Davis talked of his frustration with a lack of chivalry toward black women and with the isolation of young men who show an interest in academics or staying on the straight and narrow.
In one example, Davis talked about seeing a young black woman drive into a gas station.
"The sister gets out of the car to pump gas and he continues to sit there and rock," Davis said. "I don't think that's appropriate."
Davis also talked about young men being ostracized if they "appear to be straight-laced or wear normal-looking clothing as opposed to designer baggy pants or the highest-priced Nikes.
He said some black men "generate a quality of life activity that diminishes not just the individual who is participating, but diminishes the quality of life for the entire community."
Davis said he focused on black men because of the alarming statistics:
"There are more African men in prison than in college," Davis said, citing a litany of questions including "why a staggering 31.9 percent of African males are not employed and why African-American youth drop out of school at much higher rates than other groups."
Davis stressed that while he is calling on black men to be responsible for their actions and for successful black men to reach back to help. But "we're never going to give up on trying to force government to treat us fairly and to make use of public policy," he said.
In the East Garfield Park community Davis represents, his call to action got good reviews.
"To me it's degrading when you see young men not being respectful to themselves and to others," said Columbus Brooks, 87,
outside of Edna's Soul Food Restaurant on Kedzie and Madison, where he is a regular.
Brooks, who worked for the city doing community outreach before he retired,blamed part of the problems in the community on a breakdown in two-parent families.
"When you don't have a solid foundation, then you can expect a kid to go astray," Brooks said.
"We were certainly not raised to disrespect women and elderly, and the younger generation for some reason has lost that lesson, said Larry McDonald, who works at the Family Start Learning Program at the city's Department of Human Services
office near Madison and Kedzie. He tied the root causes of the problems to underfunded neighborhoods and "elementary schools that don't have what they need to bring students into a technical society."
Sabrina Bell, a cashier at Edna's, said that when she talks to young men selling drugs, "they say there are no jobs or they lack education."
While Bell says young African-American men bear the responsibility for staying in school, she acknowledged that many have an uphill battle, especially those getting out of prison who find themselves locked out of many jobs because of felony records.
Dr. Carl Bell, a leading mental health expert at the University of Illinois at Chicago, said in a phone interview he has no problem holding black men accountable, but he cautioned against the further "demonizing" of black men, especially young men.
"I don't know how you hold them accountable if they're raising themselves,'' he said.
He hammered away at "a society that is unfairly slanted against black people and, in turn, black children. The quality of education you get is dependent upon the tax base where you live. How is education a right if that's the case?''
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