Black Males in Medicine: My View

On August 28, 1955, a black 14-year-old male, named Emmett Till, was found murdered after he had been accused of flirting with a white woman. August 28, 1955, was also my eighth birthday. Today, I suppose that most parents would want to shelter an 8-year-old from such gruesome news, but I remember the magazines depicting the gory details lying around the house for weeks. In my young mind, it would have been merciful if Emmett had been hanged. I could not comprehend that his eye was gouged out, but I understood his extreme suffering at the hands of people determined to teach a horrific lesson. My mother repeated stories of what whites in the South will do to black males for flirting with white women each time that we traveled to Arkansas or Alabama to visit extended family members. The necessity of my mother’s message was clear. You can’t shelter kids when there is life-threatening danger in what may appear to be an ordinary occurrence. Until the civil rights movement came along, a whole generation of young mothers did what was necessary to protect their children. Such messaging can have unintended consequences. Recently, a colleague sent me an e-mail concerning the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) report indicating that the number of black males entering medical school is currently lower than it was in 1978. I flippantly responded, ‘‘Unfortunately, young black men are reading the signals they are getting from Ferguson and Baltimore and opting for the short-term view.’’ It was one of those e-mails that I, as a black male physician, should have put more thought into before hitting the send button. But, I stand by my statement and wish to explain. After Trayvon Martin was shot, for many months and through his murder trial, the ‘‘stand your ground’’ defense was touted. To young black males, that sounded like a license for self-appointed authorities to kill. When police left Michael Brown’s body lay in the streets of Ferguson for hours, the black community saw the symbolic message of how powerless they were. From the nearly constant feed of live phone videos that we since experienced, showing questionable behavior by ‘‘authority figures,’’ the Emmett Till defense mechanisms have resurfaced. Community groups are now giving courses on ‘‘driving while black’’ and ‘‘do’s and don’ts, if stopped by police.’’ The vulnerability of simply being black in America is chronically refreshed, and young black males, in particular, struggle through what is (at best) unconscious bias against them. Striving to get into medical school seems to fly in the face of the hunker-down mentality, which is now so prevalent. Two passages in the AAMC report caught my attention. On page 16, the statements are made that ‘‘18% of black high school sophomores in 2002 aspired to become a doctor,’’ and ‘‘The aspirations of African-American boys and girls and youth of color are just as high, if not higher, than [those of] kids from other racial and ethnic groups.’’ But what happens after that? The lyrics of a 1970 song by the Whispers that say ‘‘Seems like I gotta do wrong, gotta do wrong, before they notice me’’ come to mind. Is the clearest route to acceptance and admiration for the black male, the time honored route of high school, collegiate, and professional athletics? Coaches inspire black males, most premed advisors seem to discourage them! If America is so bad for black males, how do people like me manage to become so successful? I have long known that relationships were the keys that unlocked my life. One of my first formative relationships was with my high school football coach. Coach also happened to be the driver’s education teacher. After driving around with me for 6 weeks, during the summer before my senior year, coach somehow became invested in my future after football. I went on to win 18 football scholarships to places like Nebraska, Arizona State, Maryland, Wake Forest, and so on, but coach tried to cut a deal for me