Classified ad: Young, family-oriented, single female seeks 18- to 30-year-old, drug-free male for companionship and possible long-term relationship. Must be a kind, responsible gentleman who loves children and will treat me with respect. No games, please. This is serious.
Any men out there fit the description?
For many poor young women in urban America, the answer is a disappointing "no." This realization didn't come to me by watching Oprah or reading books written by ivory-tower sociology professors. It was something I observed during my first two years out of college when I left the bubble of my stable, middle-class neighborhood in Lexington, Ky., and moved to the socioeconomic mosaic of Los Angeles. As a confident, college-educated woman of the 21st century, I was ready to take on the world.
I'd secured a job at a non-profit organization in central LA. The biggest challenge remaining was finding an apartment. Without a car, I preferred to live within walking distance of my office. Luck blessed me, and I soon moved into a cozy, if austere, studio apartment four blocks from work.
Over the months, it became obvious that I was demographically out of place. Walking down the sidewalks, I saw that the average young woman my age headed to the grocery store with a chubby baby hanging on her hip, while I headed to the office with a laptop case hanging off my shoulder.
The young men headed nowhere. They loitered on the streets and leaned against store fronts.
Occasionally, I'd see a young man passed out drunk on the street or sidewalk. Or, I'd hear one blasting his obscene music head-throbbingly loud-or effing this and effing that in front of small children.
A culture of machismo prevailed. When I told the wife of the married couple who maintained my apartment building that the young man who lived above me was playing his music unacceptably loudly, she told me she couldn't talk to him-what man was going to listen to a woman telling him what to do? We'd have to wait until her husband came home.
Walking to work or running errands, I was a regular recipient of verbal harassment. One time I was mugged. I didn't know whether to hate them or pity them; or whether to hate them or to hate the world that created them.
An old, slightly boy-crazy friend of mine from elementary school asked if I had met any cute guys for dating purposes. I laughed. "There's a shortage of eligible males here," I explained. "No men make the cut."
Living among such misguided young men provided me insight into why so many poor urban women have children out of wedlock. For a woman looking for a man who doesn't do drugs, participate in a gang, have a criminal background, engage in violence, fool around with other women or demand subservience, but rather has the social skills and education to maintain healthy human relationships and a stable job, the pickings are slim.
According to the 2000 census, 32 percent of the adults 25 and older in my LA zipcode had an 8th-grade education or less; 47 percent lacked a high school diploma. In such a world, a child-not a career-gives a young woman her identity and sense of purpose. And, she's not going to wait around to marry a Mr. Right who's never going to show; she'll make motherhood happen with Mr. Right Now, however unqualified he may be.
In May 2003, as the school year drew to a close, my apartment building's maintenance man told me that his 17-year-old son was beginning to hang out with a questionable crowd. He asked me if I knew of any summer job or volunteer opportunities that could occupy his son's time and keep him out of trouble.
"No," I replied sadly. "I don't know of any."
Nearly two years later, in January 2005, I listened to President Bush's State of the Union address. He announced the creation of an initiative to help at-risk young urban men. It was one of the few moments during the address when I nodded in agreement.
A few weeks later, an employee of the federal Office of Management and Budget spoke to a group of students here at Duke. When I asked him about the political frustrations of his job, he cited Bush's slashing of gang prevention programs the day before the State of the Union.
So much for promoting marriage.
Preeti Aroon is a graduate student in public policy. Her column runs every other Wednesday. Toss in your two cents at: http://preetiontheweb.blogspot.com
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