Meredith Clark • Associate Editor

Fwd: FW: 500 African American men graduating — Where's the media???

I usually ignore e-mail forwards, but this one hooked me. It was sent in 2006, a few days after actor Denzel Washington's eldest son graduated from Morehouse, a historically black college in Atlanta.

"Where was ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX, CNN, MSNBC, UPN, BET and every other news media," the e-mail read, "was (the ceremony) not newsworthy? If this had been 500 blacks rioting, every network would have provided coverage ... in spite of what the news media paint of young blacks, not all of them are illiterate, bangers, rappers or in jail."

The e-mail complains that the accomplishments of black men are overlooked by news media outlets, which instead choose to sensationalize negative statistics. Oddly, the e-mail seemed to indicate that a thrice-yearly ceremony in a city where two HBCUs regularly produce graduates be unquestionably viewed as a modern marvel.

Which message is on target? Are we so jaded by negative news that we're awed when a crowd of black men has done what a progressive society expects them to do? Or are we so fixated on bad news that we miss the significance in watching a class of black men defeat the odds when their names are called during a university's commencement exercises?

As a journalist, an HBCU grad and the sister to a college-age younger brother, I see the merit of both arguments. I feel downtrodden when the numbers are trotted out: that only 16 percent of black men over age 25 hold a baccalaureate degree; that one in 33 black men were incarcerated in 2006.

But while I sat through Florida A&M's 2 p.m. graduation ceremony Sunday, I was reminded of what Ed Tolliver, director of the Black Male College Explorers program at FAMU, says to counter the bad news participants are so used to hearing: Where one in 33 black men is incarcerated, perhaps there are 32 others who are doing the right thing.

The brothers

Johnoson Crutchfield Jr. and Marshall Watson are two of them. Both were awarded their bachelor's degrees last weekend — Crutchfield in social science from FSU, Watson in health-care management from FAMU. Each faced special circumstances to earn his degree.

By marrying and becoming a homeowner, Crutchfield, 21, beat a wealth of statistics before becoming an FSU alum. He began a career as an operations manager for Chase bank before finishing his degree online — three years after he entered school. The 2005 Rickards High School graduate said there was never a question of whether he'd finish, even while balancing additional real-life demands.

"Getting married was a complement," he said. His wife, Jandel, holds a master's in social work from FSU.

"My background, my wife and my overall aspirations made me push for it," he said.

Crutchfield credits surviving the International Baccalaureate program at Rickards with preparing him for the demands of college and life.

"I started with pre-IB at Fairview Middle School, and at the time, we were told that only 30 percent of us would complete the program. So I already had experience with dropout rates in that regard," he said. "And the racial disparity was also present in the program. There were only six black guys in the program when I started; I think only three of us made it through."

While Crutchfield was raised by two college-educated parents, Watson dealt with a different set of circumstances and achieved the same end result. The Jackson, Miss., native was raised by a single mother. Last weekend, after a progress-stalling change of major and five years of paying out-of-state tuition, Watson, 23, became the first man in his family to graduate from college. His attitude remains matter-of-fact.

"The only obstacles I had were personal," he said. "I had to try to transition myself into becoming a man; I had to tell myself what I needed to do to succeed in life."

For Watson, that meant getting his grades on track after one disappointing semester, and choosing a field that he loved instead of being lured into another by the possibility of greater financial gain.

Still, on Sunday evening, he sounded underwhelmed about joining the minority of black men who hold a bachelor's degree.

"The way society is changing, a bachelor's degree feels like it's just right above a high-school diploma. People are graduating, but that doesn't mean they have opportunities and income," he said. Watson plans to spend a year working before enrolling in a master's degree program at FAMU.

Cynicism and reality

Watson may not sound wholly impressed with his accomplishment, but in light of commonplace messages peddled about the underachievements of black men, I am.

Whether I'd watched 500 or just five black men graduate Sunday, the newsworthiness of their achievement was not lost on me, especially when the visibly grieving parents of Hugh Cunningham Jr. were called to the stage to accept their son's degree, issued posthumously.

Cunningham was shot and killed in November, one semester and two weeks before he could have graduated with his health-science class.

In that moment, I had my answer. Like the families and communities of any new graduate, we rejoice with the miracle of seeing our loved ones survive tragedies of fate or obstacles of their own making. But when those graduates are young black men, whom we see perishing in different ways every day, we realize that what we're watching is indeed nothing short of a praiseworthy feat.