The MacArthur Foundation speaks for America. America has a reputation for helping people all over the world. We have soldiers stationed in dozens of countries and we invest hundreds of billions of dollars in countries worldwide. But in the streets of most American large cities, police shoot down young Black men with alarming regularity (about one every 28 hours); tens of thousands of young Black men die every year in an undeclared “ghetto war”; hundreds of thousands of young Black men are annually ushered into the prison system of America; and millions of young Black men and boys are under-educated and mis-educated in American schools. These realities constitute a sophisticated, 21st -century form of lynching young Black men and boys.
Such genocidal treatment of any population should gain international attention including sanctions by the United Nations and massive national and international petition drives led by human rights groups. But because these are young Black men and boys in America, little is said or done to change this horror. And Black America, by its inaction, remains complicit in these horrendous outcomes for young Black men and boys! Most Black church and business leaders, educators, and elected officials are silent as this gargantuan-scale human tragedy continues unabated.