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Originally posted on September 24, 2020

It is believed that the ideas proposed here should identify the target audience when drafted into policy: Black males. It should be made unapologetically clear that these are not just for people of color, the poor, etc. 

STREAMLINED LIST:

1) Family Court Reform (13 subpoints)
2) Education (3 subpoints)
3) Affirmative Action
4) Targeted Homelessness Programs
5) Targeted Unemployment Programs
6) Law Enforcement (10 subpoints)
7) Intimate Partner Violence/Homicide Policy Reform (3 subpoints)
8) Health: Targeted Cancer Campaigning, Treatment and Recognition
9) Targeted Small Business Support
10) Social Security & Life Insurance Family Support
11) Paternity Leave
12) Reverse Voter Disenfranchisement
13) Black Male Specific Reparations for the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade through 21st Century Hyperincarceration (3 subpoints)
14) The United Nations: We Charge the U.S. With the Genocide of the Black Male

DETAILED LIST:

1) Family Court Reform

The Family Court’s treatment of Black men has unfairly and drastically diminished Black men and boy’s quality of life by privileging women as the primary caregivers.  

a) Child Custody

This includes automatic 50/50 child custody as long as fathers can prove what mothers are required to as far as being able to provide a stable and safe living environment. Once determined, pre-existing income-based alimony/child support judgements levied against Black men should be re-assessed. Also, child support payments for either parent should be eliminated (scroll to 27 min.) with 50/50 custody and should only be considered if there isn’t a 50/50 custody arrangement.

The presumption of law that 50/50 custody is in the best interest of the child or children. Child support only available where 50/50 custody has not been awarded.8

b) Mandatory Paternity Testing at Birth

Prior to signing the birth certificate, newborn children should be given a DNA test to assure the parentage of the father, thus avoiding men being unjustly responsible for supporting children under false pretenses. This should be REQUIRED prior to any issuance of child support judgments.

Addendum A:

Once determined that the father has been misled regarding the child’s parentage (no matter how long it has been), he should be excused from both the birth certificate and child support (at his determination) and the exploited party should be subject to legally-sanctioned reimbursement from the mother, the biological father, and relevant city/state/federal government offices. Interest should be 7% (compounded annually) in addition to the principle owed to the injured party. “Presumption of fatherhood” be formally stricken down as established law.

c) Reinstituting AT-FAULT divorce standards (2)

In alignment with gynocentric family court policies, no-fault divorce negatively impacted Black men by authorizing a massive shift in marital culture that dramatically underdeveloped them economically.

d) Termination of Parental Obligation (2)

As we understand the law, it is a woman’s right to choose whether or not she will carry a baby to term, put the child up for adoption, or abort it. Therefore, within the first 6 months of being informed about the pregnancy, men should have the right to financially disassociate themselves from the pregnancy. (Formerly “Financial Abortion.” Term renamed by Hoodservative.)

Also, we should automate financial abortion for cases of “female stealthing” (when a woman sabotages male contraception) and criminal charges should also be added. See article here.

e) Child Support Value System (2, 8)

We advocate instituting a system where goods, services, and time spent with a child should be calculated and valued at a dollar amount (any remaining deficit to be paid in cash). Also, child support should be capped at $2500 per child regardless of income (except in the case of suggested practice addressed in letter “i” below). (See Attorney Dennis Spurling).

f) Right-to-Lifestyle (2)

Post-divorce, men should be entitled to the life they have been accustomed to in marriage. Thus, any judgement or consent determination made must ensure that the husband can enjoy the same privileges and lifestyle enjoyed BEFORE or DURING the marriage whichever costs more to maintain.2

g) Require Formal Child Support Management Reports

Ensure that child support payments are earmarked specifically for approved child-related expenses only. Payments used on non-child related expenses must be accounted for by the custodial parent. (Xavier B.)

h) Prohibit Jailing for Failure to Pay Child Support (5)

Such incarceration frequently punishes men for being poor more than anything else. This, in turn, increases Black male unemployment and further hurts families’ economic stability.

https://www.ncsl.org/research/human-services/child-support-and-incarceration.aspx

i) Income Floor for Child Support (1)

There should be a set minimum income for anyone on child support. 

If someone is chronically under this floor in terms of income, then state governments should provide opportunities for them to intern at an apprenticeship in a trade.

Only if they quit and refuse to work in an apprenticeship should they be incarcerated.

j) Child Support and Alimony Assistance Program (2)

Where it can be proven that a man’s Child Support and Alimony Judgement requirements are causing a practical impact on his standard of living, the state government and municipality shall pay the cost in whole or in part (but no less than 66%) of the total cost of the child support and alimony payments. 

k) Tax Filing Options

At income tax time, it is believed that some women “sell” their children’s social security numbers to friends, family members, etc.; either when the mother is not working, or has maxed out her 2-child benefit to receive income credits. Thus, 

1. Whenever a 3rd party submits tax returns claiming care of another person’s child, any child support orders to the mother of stated child, should be rendered void. (Or, denial of the 3rd party’s claims on the child as a dependent. This should fall under saving tax dollars.) The natural question should be, why is the mother being paid for a child under the care of 3rd party?

2. Welfare benefits and incentives for women fuel the single mother phenomenon. So, to eliminate welfare contingencies (or to incentivize contingencies for fathers), we propose a cap on subsidizing single mothers and/or subsidize single fathers. 

3. Any child support paid should be considered earned income (due to it being taxed). Women are allowed to claim child support as an extra earned income that improves their credit and ability to finance vehicles and other products and services. Men who pay child support are not allowed to claim payments made when filing taxes even when the amount can be a third to even 50% of their earned income.

4. We advocate policy that exempts child support payments from the applicant’s gross income when they apply for public housing and or housing assistance. The payment is counted as income for the custodial parent and counted in the gross income for the non-custodial parent, their gross income dictates their acceptance into the program and their rent amount. Some men may not qualify due to their gross income being over the limit, but he may not actually bring that amount home due to child support payments. His rent may be exceptionally higher, since HUD states that 30% of gross income should go to rent. This leads to a plethora of issues for many brothers in in the community such as Black male homelessness, joblessness, and the propagating of children born out of wedlock.7

Amend Title IV(D) Of the Social Security administration code granting states matching funds up to 66% of what they recover from persons who have committed paternity fraud and collected child support and arrears, and other state and federal benefits. (8)

l) Revising the Child Support Formula

Child support is treated as another form of alimony, two things should be addressed by the Family Court (nationally):

a) Fifty-fifty custody should eliminate child support (assuming expenses are jointly paid by both parents).

b) The formula that determines child support is predicated on an outdated model of women not working. Now that labor participation is fairly equalized in terms of gender, the notion used by some states of children requiring 25-50% of parent’s income should also be paid in equal measure by both parents—but reducing:

1) men’s majority child support default status where men are the secondary parent needs to be re-assessed (see The Tender Years Doctrine), and

2) the 25-50% child support for men required to pay it (who do not have 50/50 custody) should have their payments pro-rated to a percentage-based judgement against her (usually ignored) labor.  

m) Child Support and DNA Testing

Mandatory DNA testing prior to the granting of child support orders. (8)

2) Education

Educational institutions play a huge role in influencing Black boys and men from pre-school through graduate school. Yet the discrimination and underdevelopment they experience at the hands of teachers, practices, the administrative bureaucracy, and educational policies that do a great disservice to the supposed mission to educate Black males.

a) Single Sex Pedagogy & Institutions

As there is documentation to suggest that Black boys perform better in all-male environments—(particularly under male teachers), it is proposed that boys be educated in environments that are all male, preferably Black, and rooted in a pedagogy that seeks to improve their performance by prioritizing their history, culture, and gender.

b) Preparatory Reading/STEM Educational Support

Ten percent of city, state, and federally targeted resources for incarceration be diverted to educational afterschool programs for ADOS boys. Even funds earmarked for special education can be used to draft male college-level teaching assistants to create an all-male educational support structure. Also provide tax breaks for private companies who may philanthropically donate materials, tech, etc. Lastly, cable/internet companies to be incentivized by federal/tax policy to provide free high-speed internet.

c) Single Sex Education 

Should include curricula that accommodates the learning style of young boys. Rote learning styles may be insufficient, and tactile styles of learning may need to be implemented for them. In later years of schooling, financial education for black boys should be a requirement.

3) Affirmative Action (1 and 6)

Double minority status for Black males where they have access to employment and higher payment income floors based on their race and gender. This is in response to generations of policies that disproportionately disadvantaged Black males on the basis of their race and gender—most particularly Affirmative Action practices from the 1980s onward that prioritized white women and Black women over Black men. 

4) Targeted Homelessness Programs

Especially post-incarceration, Black men should be prioritized for housing as they are most often turned away despite having housing vouchers. Consequently, as Black America constituted half of America’s homeless (pre-COVID), and remain disproportionately homeless, the majority of the homeless (across race) tend to be male. This makes Black males the most susceptible group to homelessness.

5) Targeted Unemployment Programs

As Black males experience unemployment at rates over 40-50% in over 34 major cities prior to COVID, they need advocacy and policy that prioritizes their employment on both racial and gendered grounds.

6) Criminal Law Reform & Law Enforcement

Law enforcement has historically barred Black males from justice, while at times being the source of injustice for Black men. 

a) Criminal Sentencing Reform

Black men should be arrested and sentenced to no greater degree than any other members of any race who commit the same crimes.

b) Licensing Law Enforcement (3)

“Law enforcement professionals have a revocable license that can be permanently stripped to keep them out of the profession like lawyers, doctors, etc.” Police are protected under the ruling of police protection from incriminating information or keeping their job. Can save plenty of BM.”- Anonymous

c) Proxy Violence

Recognition of proxy violence as a criminal offense, punishable by no less than 50% of the primary offense prison time. (2)

d) End “Qualified Immunity”

Often negotiated into union contracts, qualified immunity is a legal principle that grants government officials (especially law enforcement) performing discretionary functions immunity from civil suits unless the plaintiff shows that the official violated “clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known.”

e) Jury Nullification

“Jury nullification (US) generally occurs when members of a criminal trial jury believe that a defendant is guilty, but choose to acquit the defendant anyway, because the jurors consider that the law itself is unjust, that the prosecutor has misapplied the law in the defendant’s case, or that the potential punishment for breaking the law is too harsh. Some juries have also refused to convict due to their own prejudices in favour of the defendant.” (Wikipedia)

Jury nullification disproportionately affects Black men. Thus, 30% of the jury should be Black men. More specifically, when an ADOS man has to go before a jury, 30% of that jury must be of his peers who would be ADOS men.”

f) False Accusations

There should be clear and more stringent punishments for filing false charges against Black men. Knowing that Black men are denigrated, stereotyped, and wrongfully convicted more than (and to greater degrees) than others, such accusations can have a more far-reaching and detrimental impact on Black men’s lives. Black men are the most exonerated group due to false accusations according to the National Registry of Exonerations Newkirk Center for Science and Society, University of California Irvine. They state,

“African Americans are only 13% of the American population but a majority of innocent defendants wrongfully convicted of crimes and later exonerated. They constitute 47% of the 1,900 exonerations listed in the National Registry of Exonerations (as of October 2016), and the great majority of more than 1,800 additional innocent defendants who were framed and convicted of crimes in 15 large-scale police scandals and later cleared in “group exonerations.”(p. 1)

Thus, whimsically dangerous charges with questionable/unreliable evidence (or no evidence at all) should be harshly dealt with to dissuade others from repeating this act against an already vulnerable population.

g) Minimum Age of Criminal Responsibility (5)

The minimum age of criminal responsibility in the US raised to at least 18 years of age. Most states do not have a lower age limit to where a person can be charged, prosecuted, sentenced, etc. for a statutory offense. The states that do specify an age floor, mostly range between 7 to 10 years of age. Such legal precedents contribute greatly to the criminalization of black boys. 

http://www.ncjj.org/pdf/JJGPS%20StateScan/JJGPS_U.S._age_boundaries_of_delinquency_2016.pdf

http://www.jjgps.org/jurisdictional-boundaries

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_criminal_responsibility#The_age_of_criminal_responsibility

h) End Law Enforcement Collaboration (3)

Prohibits state and local officers from using federal databases to search for prior criminal records when in the process of questioning or apprehending a Black male. Officers more often than not decide their level of aggression based on one’s alleged prior history. There is legislative precedent for such a law already as California has adopted it under designation SB54 to protect illegal immigrants. 

Web: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Senate_Bill_54_(2017) And here is the official legislative

Text: https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=201720180SB54

i) End Arbitrary Stop and Frisk (8)

Enactment of legislation abating the US Supreme Court Case Terry v. Ohio 392 U.S. 1 (1968) which is a violation of the 4th and 14th amendment and the line of cases that flow from Terry, id.

“Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1 (1968), was a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision in which the Court ruled that it is constitutional for American police to “stop and frisk” a person they reasonably suspect to be armed and involved in a crime. Specifically, the decision held that a police officer does not violate the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution‘s prohibition on unreasonable searches and seizures when questioning someone even though the officer lacks probable cause to arrest the person, so long as the police officer has a reasonable suspicion that the person has committed, is committing, or is about to commit a crime.[1] The Court also ruled that the police officer may perform a quick surface search of the person’s outer clothing for weapons if they have reasonable suspicion that the person stopped is “armed and presently dangerous.” This reasonable suspicion must be based on “specific and articulable facts,” and not merely upon an officer’s hunch.” (Wikipedia)

j) Self-Financed Police Liability Insurance (8)

Require police officers to take out individual policies of liability insurance to cover intentional and negligent actions while performing their duties as peace officers thereby holding individual officers personally accountable and limiting the exposure to money judgments the taxpayers must bear.

7) Intimate Partner Violence/Homicide Policy Reform

Despite stereotypes that intimate partner violence/homicide aggression is the sole purview of Black males, it is nigh equal (bidirectional) in the Black community (meaning men assault women to the same degree women assault men, and the numbers of intraracial IPV homicide amongst the 40+ million Black population is negligible), with data suggesting that women (across race) initiate violence first while opting to use weapons more often than men.

a) Abolishing the Duluth Model. (2)

“…the Duluth Model is the most common batterer intervention program used in the United States. Critics argue that the method can be ineffective as it was developed without minority communities in mind and can fail to address root psychological or emotional causes of abuse, in addition to completely neglecting male victims and female perpetrators of abuse.” (Wikipedia)

More than ignoring male victims, the Duluth Model proposed that men were de facto guilty of being the primary abusers of women whenever a woman experienced some form of intimate partner violence. It ignored women’s greater capacity to initiate violence and/or be aggressors of IPV.

b) IPV Carceral Practices

Black men incarcerated for IPV require a massive re-evaluation of their status in relation to their victimization at the hands women. As rates of bidirectional abuse in the Black community suggest equal violence initiated by women to men (w=>m) and from men to women (m=>w) and the hypo-sentencing of women for the same crime as men by up to 63%, the under-representation of female aggressors suggests a massive bias in sentencing that disproportionately targets and criminalizes men.

c) Sexual Assault/Rape Acknowledgment

Includes legally recognizing the withholding of sex as a form of sexual abuse in marriage. That said, such an acknowledgement might allow for less punitive access to annulments and divorce options. (Also requires that all rape allegations require traditional standards of adequate evidence prior to arrest and sentencing.2)

8) Health: Targeted Cancer Campaigning, Treatment and Recognition

Black men are diagnosed with cancer at slightly less rates than WM and WW but die from it more than WM, WW, and BW. (Especially in Arkansas, Alabama, Connecticut, DC, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, South Carolina, Tennessee, and most especially in Wisconsin. The scales for measuring Black male cancer is 3x larger per 100K.)

9) Targeted Small Business Support

Commensurate with our status in society, and taking into account the lack of capital and inherited wealth, Black male-owned businesses should be targeted (particularly during COVID) for support.

10) Social Security & Life Insurance Family Support

Accrued social security and life insurance from deceased Black males should be partly applied to children and grandchildren (when applicable).4

11) Paternity Leave

Federally-mandated (nationally imposed) “parental Leave” for fathers on a state, private, and federal level and applied nationally across the board. As Black men have been designated the most participatory fathers across race in a recent study articulated by Josh Levs in his text, All In: How Our Work-First Culture Fails Dads, Families, and Businesses–And How We Can Fix It Together (2015), their lack of access to parental leave is unjust.

12) Reverse Voter Disenfranchisement

Allow Black male ex-convicts to have their voting rights restored upon release from incarceration. For context, review the origins of voter disenfranchisement for convicts:

“The historical context for this comes from old English common law which justified the concept of “civil death” as punishment for conviction of treason or a felony because a person committing a crime had “corrupt blood,” making the person “dead in the law.” America did not immediately adopt this position because the Constitution was silent on voting rights — it neither granted nor denied anyone the right to vote.

In 1787, the Constitution considered Black people as three-fifths of a human being. Blacks voting was not an issue. Then came the Civil War and the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments. Enslaving people, except as punishment for a crime, was illegal. Birthright U.S. citizenship was established, explicitly including freed enslaved people. Black men got the right to vote. Over 2,000 Black men were elected to government offices, and they began purchasing or homesteading property and voting.

America responded. The exception in the 13th Amendment allowing slavery as punishment for a crime was paired with “Black Codes,” which basically criminalized Black life. Blacks convicted under Black Code laws were leased out to do work, providing cheap labor to boost the South’s faltering economy. In 1850, 2% of prisoners in Alabama were non-white. By 1870, it was 74%. At least 90% of the “leased” prison laborers were Black.  

In the 15 years between 1865 and 1880, at least 13 states — more than a third of the country’s 38 states — enacted broad felony disenfranchisement laws. The theory was simple — convict them of crimes, strip away the right to vote, imprison them, and lease them out as convict labor and Blacks would be returned to a condition as close to slavery as possible.

What is the result of this history? Black Americans of voting age are more than four times as likely to lose their voting rights than the rest of the adult population. One of every 13 Black adults is disenfranchised. In some states like Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, and, until recently, Florida, one in five Blacks have been disenfranchised. In total, 2.2 million Black citizens are banned from voting. Thirty-eight percent of the disenfranchised population in America is Black.” (Jeffery Robinson, The Racist Roots of Denying Incarcerated People Their Right to Vote.)

13) Black Male Specific Reparations for the Trans-AtlanticSlave Trade through 21st Century Hyperincarceration

Reparations is a crucially overlooked area that has required redress since the late 19th century. Due to the United States’ treatment of Black men specifically, practices deemed legal dramatically targeted and impacted Black male life in a manner distinct from the rest of Black America altogether (see Jim Sidanius’ work on Social Dominance Theory for more detail on “outgroup male treatment”). 

a) Reparations should give Black men specific focus due to:

1) the exclusivity of treatment from the onset of slavery to (roughly) 1800, a time period where Black males were sought after to a greater degree than the even Black women for enslavement,

2) their prioritization in lynching and terrorist mistreatment,

3) the designation that they only were allowed 3/5th a vote when given the right, then terrorized not to even be able to use it,

4) the targeted campaign to be brutalized and killed by law enforcement, and

5) the target of hyper-incarceration policies from Reconstruction (convict leasing) through to the 1970s (prison industrial complex) to now.

b) Targeted Wealth Declines

Due to the impact of educational inequalities, neighborhood effects, workplace discrimination, parenting, access to credit, rates of incarceration, and many other factors, research has shown that Black males are more likely to experience

“…race gaps in intergenerational mobility largely reflect the poor outcomes for black men. The report is another contribution to the growing literature showing that race gaps in the intergenerational persistence of poverty are in large part the result of poor outcomes for black men. Specifically, Chetty et al. show that black men born to low-income parents are much more likely to end up with a low individual income than black women, white women, and—especially—white men.“

That said, reparations for Black males should be commensurate with what they’ve experienced both contemporarily and historically.

c) Targeted For Growth

Reparations for every black boy born with $10,000 in an investment account. The investment included in the account should be an S&P 500 ETF or mutual fund. This account shall not be drawn upon until the child becomes an adult and has had the financial training (outlined in the previous paragraph for provision 2). See article here.

14) The United Nations: We Charge the U.S. With the Genocide of the Black Male

According to the United Nations‘ definition, and much of what’s listed here, Black men have been subjugated, neglected, targeted, and killed to great enough degree to warrant an investigation that covers both contemporary and historical mistreatment.

Contributors:
1 BGS IBMOR
2 Adam IBMOR
3 David Williams
4 Stuart D. Knight
5 Tristan J.
6 Bryan M.
7 Chief in the South
8 Dennis Spurling