Them a the new congressional directory is a handy guide to the 114 congress with color photos of every house and senate e member plus bios and twitter handles. Also, a look at congressional committees, the president ial cabinet. Order yours today. It is 13. 95 through the cspan store. Next, a discussion on the state of black men in the u. S. Among these speakers is the head of the president my brothers Keeper Initiative also, professors from john hopkins and harvard. This was hosted by the American Enterprise institute. It is an hour and a half. Robert good afternoon, and welcome to the American Enterprise institute. I am the morgan fellow here at e aei. I am happy to welcome you to our discussion, on the role of economics and policy. The cultural matrix understanding black youth, doing the best i can fatherhood in the , inner city. Helping black men thrive. My brother keeper, these are the works of our very distinguished panel. Each of our guests has produced important work about the issues facing black men in high poverty communities. To be sure, what were talking about today is not the condition or status of all black men. As professor patterson has shown, the influence and contributions of African American men far exceed what you might expect based on their percentage in the population. And we have our twiceelected president of the United States to show the extent to which black men succeed in our country. But as todays headlines make clear, there are very serious problems. Policing, violence unemployment, poor schools all , are significant components of black life in america. And they are also too significant facts of american life. To discuss these issues, issues which aei is focused upon, we have a great group of scholars. First, we have professor orlando patterson. Professor patterson is the john cole professor of sociology at harvard. He is the author of numerous papers and five major academic works. His most recent publication is the cultural matrix understanding black youth. I i recommend it highly. After professor patterson, she catherine neededen is the bloomberg professor of Public Health at johns hopkins. She is one of the nations leading poverty researchers, researching family life. Her most recent work is doing the best i can, fatherhood in the innercity,. Robert cherry is the stearns professor of economics at the brooklyn college. His article, helping black men thrive appears in the Current Issue of National Affairs. Finally Michael Smith manages , president obamas initiative to ensure that all young people can fulfill their potential. Michael, i have to say, my heart is with you. As a former practitioner of social services, i have a special affinity for people who s are in the game working for outcomes people struggling. No disparagement on the scholars, but we wanted to give you a special shout out. Thank you for being here. We know it is busy at the white house. With that, i will turn it over to professor patterson to begin the discussion. Thank you. [applause] professor patterson thank you for inviting me. I originally planned to do a powerpoint but with only 10 , minutes, i think it is best if i just spoke without it. And i want to talk about what we have learned from this work, which was just published. The cultural matrix. It was several years in the making, and a collaborative study. Let me first say that culture occupies a status in the social sciences. Starting with traditionally, most people thought, culture was important in understanding the plight of the poor. And understanding the trials of the rich. Starting about the middle of the 60s, with the publication of the report, as well as academic works in the culture of poverty, there was a sharp swing against using culture to explain everything. There are complex reasons why. For complex reasons, it deals with racial pride. Having to do with changes in intellectual fashion, and so on. Im happy to say that that is beginning to change. The reputation has gone through a revival, partly because the predictions are not be quite quite correct. Turned out to be but i am not here to defend, i want to talk about this issue. Also, how culture matters. A couple of points about culture. There is no such thing as a culture of the poor. Or the culture of poverty. It bothers me that economists, especially the behavior of economists, have picked up the subject beyond a rational approach. It looks to me very much like a psychology of poverty. They are destined to make the mistakes we made 20 years ago. What we mean by culture, essentially, is shared knowledge about the world. It is not static. If i make one important point with you, it is quite dynamic. Culture can change. One reason that policy people need to talk about culture theres nothing you can do about it. Culture can change, and we have dramatic examples of that. The change in attitudes, the civil rights movement, even most recent the change towards gay people. Isnt that phenomenal . Over a period of 10 or 15 years. Cultures can change, and we can change it. In every place of the world, we never talk about culture in isolation. It is their culture and there is a deus ex machina that guides you. Culture works in context. In the same cultural pattern, it may have multiple consequences in one context. Remember that. Culture never perceives in isolation. Regarding youth and the cold for inner cities, again, i want to make a few points i want you to go away with. We never talk about innercity culture. Or even black youth culture. There are cultures, the innercity is remarkably heterogeneous. Socially and culturally. There are at least three major groups in the innercity. There is, and it may come as a surprise you, a middle class there. The shock has been shown that as much as 6. 5 are from families that grew up in the cities. It has a very stable workingclass population, about 60 which constitute the bulk of the population. And of course, it has about 20 living in the problematic areas. This is not entirely disconnected. These to call them the underclass. I want to emphasize this. When you think of the inner cities, including baltimore, just remember the great majority, 80 , are among the most stable, godfearing group. Workingclass black americans go to church more than any other group of americans. They are the most lawabiding of any people. Please disabuse yourself of the idea about the innercity. This is a problem with the baltimore police. They think of a single group, a single culture when fact, it is not. Most of the culture and the cities is very stable and godfearing and so on. If anything, it is very conservative and some respects. What you do have, though, is a about 20 , and it varies from city to city, to as much as 25 in detroit that are disconnected. The street people, the street culture. And that is a culture of violence. That is a culture with a strong emphasis on hypermasculinity. Misogynistic. And it is a zone of instability. And it creates real problems for people in the inner cities. Let me add here, the brutality and the savagery of the police. Rightly so. Being an Occupying Force, we forget something else. And i emphasize this, black americans in the inner cities are caught between a rock and a hard place. Between the rock of Police Brutality and savagery on the one hand, the Occupying Force, which profile the entire black population in terms of the 20 and on the other hand, that 20 of street culture types. And it is associated with violence. You heard that the rate of homicide has grown genetically grown genetically since the 1990s. That is to say that the homicide rate is still eight times the national average. Among teenagers, it is rising again. So we should not forget that side of the problem. Black americans in inner cities badly need the police. This is these i limit and are phase. They are the Occupying Force that is problematic, brutalizing everyone. But, you know, i was saying recently the worst thing that could happen to black americans, other than having an Occupying Force of brutal savages policing them, is to have no police. That is caught between a rock and our place. The other cultures, the other three their remarkable. Their remarkable. They contribute to the dominant popular culture, this is nothing more than black culture but in fact, it is the most popular group. That contributed to music, theater, fashion, and so on. Dont forget that. It has come from the innercity. The culture is one of the enormous creativity, one of the things we try to explain is this paradox of being socially isolated and segregated, but culturally very integrated. Because that powerful culture comes from the fact that there is a dialectic, and interaction. Black americans are very much absorbed into the dominant culture. And draws from it even as it gives back to that culture. And this continues to be the case. These values reflect the mainstream in many important ways. In fact, the individual taking responsibility for ones own actions. One of the things that really annoys me is when rich people talk about black americans, not talking about responsibility. Every survey we have done, and we have gone through all the major surveys they take responsibly for their actions. They are among the biggest supporters of the military in this country, in fact, they are essentially a group of people who are about as american as you can get. What we learned about this sort of culture of poverty in the cities, we learn that segregation matters. Segregation matters. There is a long history of how america has treated them. In the civil rights movement, Martin Luther king, and all the early leaders saw segregation as a problem. Martin luther king was referring to the need for integration. About the same time there was this group going against the culture, there is also a reaction the idea of segregation as problematic. Coming from the black leadership. And the same set of forces, in fact, they come from the rise of black pride. We do not have to sit next to a blockade and learn, so on. What it did, as well as the most decorated sociologist tried to point out, it brings segregation off the table. Let me tell you, it is a problem. To succeed in america, you need not just book knowledge, not the knowledge you learn in school, but Cultural Capital and social capital. Social capital is the interactions you make. Who you know. You come to harvard not because harvard has a superior teaching faculty, i can assure you, i can point out other places that are cheaper where you can get a great education in terms of the context. What you get at harvard is social capital. What you get at Harvard Business school, you can read the case studies, you can acquire the knowledge, but it is that important social capital, who you know. But there is another kind of knowledge, which is the culture of capital that is acquired. It is one of success in society. Those things you do not learn in school. You acquire them from families and so on. It is that knowledge that has invaded interaction. That is what blacks are excluded from. We find the culture of the ghetto enhances and provides protection, we have seen that religion is very important. Up until the age of 14, black men will never go to church again. But it also presents problems. I want to move quickly to the difference between culture and policy. Because i want to Say Something about it. We begin by pointing out that culture is not immutable. Those of you in policy say culture, what can we do about that . Lets get to the hard stuff. There is no problem with having many cultures. One sociologist recently argued that no, think of culture not in terms of macro black culture, think of it in micro cultures. As we do in the ghetto. What works . You know there are hundreds of programs from local and state governments that start to review the best cases. And what we have found, many of them work and some even showed profit. Ok . The Family Partnership program is an excellent example of a program that works. The National Guard youth challenge, very good. Thearand corporation has a great study of that. The use opportunity programs work. There are several that work but are not cost effective. The job corps, and some of them are overhyped, harvards own. Some are failures. There was a wonderful study that shows what is important and what doesnt work. This book has gone through them. I want to emphasize the culture of elites is as important as the culture of blacks in understanding the problem. James rosenbaum, sociologist at nest where northwestern gives a thorough analysis on why we have such a high dropout rate in Community Colleges and date colleges. It finds that a good part of the problem has nothing to do with decisions, it has to do with the elaborate bureaucratic and academic demands. Extra academic obstacles which are put in the way which contributes to the culture of elites. Let me end by saying, one of the biggest problems is of course this 22 problem as it has come to be called. Black kids are being born i will even bring up what i call out of wedlock child rearing. The wedlock that is needed between adults. Bedrock that is needed of adult supervision, true whether you live in a primitive society or the most advanced society. Children require adult supervision. You cannot have a system, you cannot have a sustainable system where the result of this problem of single parenting single moms with resources can do fine, but on resource Single Parents is a disaster. The reason for this is many. They are partly social, partly cultural. I want to say that it is obvious that the solution to this problem, which is a resource for example for some of the violence. One of the main reasons that kids join a gang and shoot people, the answer in every study is family. The gang becomes a substitute family. The problem is that it is not just social, it is cultural. A single mom having to work two jobs from 6 00 in the morning to a the evening is coming home and the problem is between 3 00 and 8 00, there are no parents. They find another family and that is a gang. The solution is not a matter of saying pull up your socks. Remember the point i made, coulter cannot be seen in isolation. It also has an interaction with social and economic factors. The problem we face is how can we work out the best arrangement that will and motivate people to change. [applause] catherine that is an act to follow for sure. I just want to tell you a little bit about where im drawing my expertise. I spent eight years doing and ethonography of low income philadelphia fathers in the camden area. Since then, i have joined forces with mathematica in following 90 men in four cities. I am also, by coincidence, i have been following a cohort of baltimore youth. Who are all born in baltimore public housing. An early article from the study appeared in professor pattersons book. It is a terrific volume. So i am an not for and we will hear from an economist next. I think when i was asked to identify the biggest problems, everyone knows that the answer to that, as orlando alluded to, are jobs education. These are things we know. What i will focus on the something more subtle, but maybe possibly equally profound. I stumbled upon this insight. Some of you know bob lerman and heidi were around in these days in the 1990s, i studied how mothers made ends meet. I got a very strong sense of what welfare meant for people, and of course, it was a source of separation of pushing people across the road. Away from the citizenship side almost as if you had to trade or citizenship card in exchange for your benefits. Later, when i moved to boston and was a colleague of orlando i spent some time looking at the east boston welfare office, a gloomy office. Over the door, there are block letters that say overseers of Public Welfare. I wish i would have prepared a photo for you today. That building says everything about what welfare did and what it meant to people. It was a stripping of citizenship. I finished that book with laura ling, making ends meet, and went on to study the family. I came back to study the new welfare regime namely, eitc. You get about the same from the eit see as you did from the welfare, but you get the claim wages. It comes in as a lump sum at tax time. That is why you see all those dancing guys outside. 70 of claimers get there claim from a ford profit tax preparer. What i learned from the new recipients of the tax regime welfare regime is that something radically different had happened in regards to citizenship. Lets take h r block that is seven blocks away from the overseers of Public Welfare in east boston, they are, youre greeted with a smile. There are signs that say money in minutes, a Popular Campaign slogan that h r block was using in interview after interview. What we saw is that people viewed the eitc as a radically incorporating experience, almost a brand of citizenship. Laura and i wrote an oped about this two weeks ago. Why was this social policy or social provision, so radically different from what preceded it . What we learned was that it was very important that it was tied to work. You had to work to get it. It was keyed into American Values of independence and selfsufficiency. Second, it is part of a tax refund, therefore it is perceived as are. Third, you get it at h r block like every other american, so it is a brand of citizenship. What we argue in our book is that unlike its predecessors this form of social policy is actually knitting hardpressed citizens into their neighborhood and community in a way that policies have not done before. If you hear these entities people talk in such striking language about being real americans and how their children are real american kids. We know the eitc has real benefits for kids fixed in all the way through college education. These programs, radically incorporating programs may have positive externalities yet to be measured that extend to voting and community participation. All of that to say you know this is not a liberal idea, conservative idea, i think it is just plain common sense. I am a minnesotan and big on common sense. What this research taught me is that we need to have a new litmus test for social policy. When we think of a solution to any disenfranchised group, we need to ask yourself, is our solution incorporating or disincorporate . Does it build citizenship or deny it . What i am proposin