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Try and try again, is how the saying goes. Booker T. Washington said, “The world needs men, be they black or white, who can rise on successive failures.”

These and other lessons in perseverance are not getting through to too many of our inner city youth, and they are giving up too soon. Many of them end up in agencies like the one I work for that provides counseling, crises intervention, and diversion services, for “at-risk” youth and their families. But there are many others who we don’t see, who fall through the cracks in society daily.

A 2005 study by Harvard University’s Civil Rights Project described Oakland Public Schools as “drop-out” factories, with less than half of the freshmen (48 percent) who enter high school graduating four years later.

For many of these children, the real crisis begins at home, and is transferred from home to elementary school. By the time they reach middle school, they’ve given up on struggling through a math problem or reading assignment, and they trade in perseverance for a life of selling drugs, substance abuse, and/or joining gangs who welcome them with open arms.

Although I wholeheartedly agree with the part of Bill Cosby’s message that says the proper training of children must begin at home, I question how you tell that to the10-year old whose mother is on crack, and father is missing in action, or in prison. How does he transfer what he learns in the home to a positive school experience? This is just one example of a myriad of scenarios that I come face-to-face with at the agency, and on the disciplinary boards I sit on in two school districts.

In class these children are humiliated and embarrassed by not knowing answers when they are called upon. To draw attention away from their lack of knowledge they display negative behavior. Often times their acting out gets them kicked out of class because a frustrated, underpaid teacher does not have the time, nor the patience to understand that these children’s spirits were broken, and their hopes were crushed long before they got to school.

We, who have only narrowly escaped living in the midst of these families, don’t realize just how difficult it is for some of our youth to make better choices. We don’t know the depth of what takes place in their emotional worlds. Many of the parents refuse to accept any responsibility for how their children reached their plight. As these youth begin having children of their own, and become adults, the generational pattern continues.

Mentoring programs like Big Brothers are too few, and have long waiting list, and they usually don’t cater to 15-17 year olds, which happens to be the age range of many “at-risk” youth. When children do not have anyone to look up to, they turn to role models like rapper 50-cent, who says he doesn’t even allow his own son to listen to the uncut lyrics in his music.

My job can be particularly challenging, but I do this work because I was an “at-risk” youth, and in fact a product of Oakland Public Schools who beat the odds indicated in the Harvard University study. At seventeen I lived on my own with my one-year old son in a housing project in East Oakland.  I had to travel on two buses to get to my high school in North Oakland, drop my son off at day care before, and rush to class, yet I graduated six months ahead of my class. Today I have a master’s degree in professional psychology, and I attribute my ability to persevere above my circumstances to those adults in my life who offered encouragement, and who helped me to believe in myself.

Those of us who have been blessed to be on the outside looking in can dramatically change society by volunteering time to mentor a youth, or make a financial contribution to a program designed to help “at-risk” youth. At the very least, have a genuine heart-to-heart conversation, a simple word of encouragement, an endearing smile, or just the willingness to listen to a child who feels like they’ve never been heard. The reward comes from witnessing someone finally realize hope, as they grab on and take the ride.

Sarah O’Neal Rush, M.A. is the great-granddaughter of Booker T. Washington. She is an inspirational speaker and a mental health professional. To contact her, visit her website at www.bookertwashington.net, call 510-278-1634 or email LiftingtheVeil2@aol.com.