The REAL reason why black male college enrollment is dropping

Thanks a lot for this video FD!!! As a black man (ngl, I kinda cringe saying that) who didnt go to college, this whole 'conversation' is so damn frustrating. Like I would have loved to go to college, I was fully expecting to do so for most of my grade school years. But due to financial and family issues, I was not able to.

Its crazy how I was literally top of my class my entire life, but none of that mattered to colleges or even my own damn (extended) family. I had to constantly hear my grandparents and other folks pester me about going to college, but not one of them would help to actually Pay for the damn expenses, or even help us out when we were nearly homeless!

I had to figure out how to get income when my parents were too sick or injured to work. I had to carry all that shit on my back and didn't have the privilege of thinking I could wait a few years to come back with a degree while they suffered.

And yes I'm fully aware that this is anecdotal, but I also know that there are a LOT of black men and boys who were or still are in this exact sort of situation.

Then on top of all that you have the fact that most of us don't have people in our lives who we can look up to as examples of what college can do for you. Most of us have people struggling with debt, unemployment, long and hard hours, or perhaps even jail.
My uncles are the only ones I know who went to college, and one of them is depressed and lonely (works in law), the other does seem to be happy with a family (works in tech). But that didn't look like good odds to me for living my own happy life. Especially since I no longer felt called to going to church like them either.

What seemed more reliable was finding a way into tech, finding a career I actually enjoyed, and learning as many skills as I could. Not to mention achieving my own ambitions to change the world on a larger scale. I still figured I'd go back to school some day… but I simply can't afford to spend years racking up debt or at the very least not making much money for the people I need to support. Especially not just to get some degree that will become obsolete before I even graduate.
My partner was able to go back to school… largely because I can help support her through that endeavor. She's not even doing it for a job, but just because she can. I love that and I support her… but who will support me?

Not to say I'm not going after my dreams. I learned how to pivot and adapt my path to simply achieve my goals in more creative ways.

There's just so much that goes into this that a lot of people fail to think about. I understand the trauma that causes people to want to dunk on black men. Shit, I'm right there with them half the time… but at the end of the day, we have to recognize that we're ALL suffering from trauma one way or another.

It does no good to dunk on folks who are being shat on by the same OPs as you.

11:43 "They talk about it as if a black man that DOESN'T go to college, he's automatically going to end up dead or in jail…… And like the vast majority of Black men are JUST in the workforce."

You know, even if you were to tell 16-year-old High School this information as an attempt of reassurance, I still would have folded under societal & parental pressure (from my single) Mom to pursue college. With how chronically online I've been my whole life, I quickly observed online discussions about how crazy the push for college was for all American teens barely getting past puberty my 11th-12th grade years, then cried to my mom after confessing I didn't want pursue college (as I was living through others expectations ultimately and didn't research any college at all besides one).

The craziest thing about the whole ordeal to me at the time is that I would have to grow up and still continue life after HS, while those successful figures online and their lifestyles seemed like an eternal impossible task for me to come close to. I'm speaking as an about-to-be disqualified 19-year-old college dumbass, who only ever had myself (and mom on occasion) to push me to pursue postsecondary education, while all other road paths were insignificant or "unrealistic." I have no value to add to this complex issue, but I can share that I relate to some of these pressures.

It was only after I was on the brink of failing out that I finally got out of my comfort zone and realized that I could have go after my long lost "dreams" rooted in art; that I was a grown ass man by law who could've done anything I wanted to with a solid plan in this age of advanced technology, AND that I should've stayed my black ass in school to find the stepping stones to reach said dreams.

All this to say, concluding this long ass nothingburger yap, I appreciate you for educating me on the matter, because I have no idea where I fit in. I'm about as "white" as a Black man can be, yet learned how to be black from all of my ghetto Hispanic classmates from K-12. Although I chose college to postpone/AVOID getting a job for 4 years, at least I'll now know the importance of stacking up bread on the daily🙂👍

I honestly just don’t care about college anymore i failed twice and never look back gonna be 21 this April so…. 🤷‍♂️ looks like I ain’t gonna be shit after all

I might be showing my ass but, this isn't really about this specific video but I've been watching your videos a lot lately, slowly making my way through the backlog, etc, and I've started to notice you don't really ever mention native americans? Like, yeah obviously not the focus of your content when you're making videos for and about black folks and culture. But, like by nature of frequently talking about racism and race-related issues you do tend to bring up and discuss other races a lot, too, mostly white people but also hispanics and asians often enough that I have a general idea of your perception of them and the relationship you perceive them to have to black folks and usamerica as a whole. You even talk about some ethnicities like the irish enough that I got a general idea. But I think I've only ever heard you even acknowledge indigenous americans maybe once in passing? I don't know, it just strikes me as standing out after watching so much, and I'm curious why that is. As far as I'm aware native americans and african americans have quite the history, and not no modern relationship. Is it just because that's not an experience you've personally had? Is it that you're putting them under an umbrella with someone else, but I don't think that one is something you'd do given some other comments about the concept of hispanics. Is it that they're their own category of discussion separate from the rest?
IDK maybe you in fact have a whole video on it somewhere and I just haven't found it yet and I sound like an even bigger idiot than I already do. I'm not asking or expecting you to suddenly start dropping them into your topics if there's nothing to be said about them, just stood out to me, especially whenever you're giving some sort of list of races for various reasons off the top of your head, and made me wonder if there was a specific reason or if they just happen to be irrelevant to the content you make, and then made me wonder if that's the case then why? I've been noticing it a lot lately in general whenever I watch or listen to someone discussing race related issues in the americas. I've found indigenous issues are isolated from all other races issues, by being excluded in general discussions or by only exclusively speaking about them, and it made me wonder why.
I'm just rambling to myself at this point I think, sorry…

sun hit the coldest ad read in youtube history.

If you got black son send him to private school..if you can't pay for it, utilize online private school. K-12 has age da which is ( school to prison) ..I know, I worked as juvenile development officer

Another dishonest conversation. Why would anyone ask why wm arent going to college? They are still starting more businesses and still have higher incomes. Their percentage change isn’t huge either.

5:20 That's not even Jelly Roll. "NOT A DAM THING". 😂😂😂😂😂

I am a recent Black woman graduate and as I start my career I would like to know what can we do from a policy perspective an interpersonal perspective and community engaeent perspective to have educated Black women reaching out to those in high school and connect those Black men with supports or black male mentorship. I truly care for the growth and success of my Black brothers and I want to know what I can do as a young Black woman to help in the best way possible.

You are incredibly intelligent however, complaining without solutions is just complaining

9:06 i will come back to this

This is true! As a white person I know for a fact I was conditioned to expect the worst from a person of color when that is not true. For instance – I can remember being 7 years old and if I was walking down the street with my mom we would cross the street to be away from him. That was in 1987. As time went on I watched my mom's attitude change where we didn't do that anymore and other things but there's still a *residue. " I still catch myself with weird stereotypes and thoughts that I have to push away. All things being equal we are all equal.

Nobody invest in black men. The black community for the last 40 years along with the democrats have been pushing girl power and in reality the needs of black men and boys have been cast to the side. Now everyone wants to ask “what’s wrong with black men” we have had the attention and foot of white supremacy aimed at us for the most part since the creation of this nation.