Martin Luther King Jr.
January 10, 2018
2018 special edition
Promoting Black Male Achievement
Continued from Page 4
ment’s coordinator, told the
Portland Observer.
Robbins works with a
20-person steering committee
led by black male leaders of
the community who focus their
efforts on the justice system,
employment, education and
family stability.
The group’s economic de-
velopment subcommittee, led
my Portland Opportunities In-
dustrialization Center Direc-
tor Joe McFerrin II, recently
helped improve the success
rates of young men of col-
or in high school completing
work-readiness training.
The county-sponsored Sum-
merworks job training program
improved its success rate of
African American youth com-
pleting internships from 17
percent to 90 percent.
Last year, the group’s Fam-
ily Stability subcommittee co-
ordinated a healing summit for
black men and boys experienc-
ing trauma to improve home
life.
Robbins said there’s more
work to do.
He credits Antoinette Ed-
wards, director of the Office
of Youth Violence Prevention,
and Erika Preuitt, director of
Adult Services Division of
Multnomah County’s Depart-
ment of Community Justice, as
two influential figures, among
many others, in the early stages
of Black Male Achievement’s
formation.
Robbins came on board in
2015 after being a stay-at-home
dad for a year. Before then, he
worked with Portland Opportu-
nities Industrialization Center,
which is a non-profit working
to secure the future success of
at- risk youth through employ-
ment training, education, men-
toring, and family outreach.
Before then he was a law stu-
dent.
He said he was inspired to
do direct public service or pol-
icy work, instead of pursuing
a career as a lawyer from the
experience he gained working
under the supervision of a de-
fense attorney in law school
“I saw a very broken sys-
tem,” he said. “I saw way too
many, especially young men,
who were black and brown
who were coming in at a point
where they had no options.
And I could see that there are
clear signs the person needed
help, long before they stepped
into the courtroom.”
Robbins said he jumped at
the opportunity to work with
Black Male Achievement be-
cause it aligns with his values
and affords him a chance to
address some of the issues he’d
witnessed assisting with court
cases.
Ongoing issues the organi-
zation is currently trying to re-
form are Measure 11, Oregon’s
mandatory sentencing law that
allows minors to be tried as
adults for violent crimes, and
how school resource officers
are used in public schools.
The group’s Justice System
subcommittee is focused on
reforming the way Measure 11
is used in courts. The mandato-
ry sentencing law that Oregon
voters passed back in 1994 sets
mandatory sentences for 21 vi-
olent crimes and mandates that
youths be charged as adults for
those crimes.
But, Robbins said, the way
it’s been applied has been prob-
lematic. He said there has been
a tremendous disparity in the in
the number of charges against
black youth when compared to
similarly situated white youth.
A report from 2011 by Part-
nerhsip for Safety and Justice
and Campaign for Youth and
Justice confirmed that while
the black youth population of
the state was around 4 percent,
they represented 19 percent of
Measure 11 indictments.
Another area of focus is on
is the prevalence of police of-
ficers in public schools. There
is currently at least one school
resource officer for each high
school in Portland Public
Schools.
“We just don’t think they’re
safer with police there, ul-
timately,” he said. “Police
should come in when there is
a crime and they are investi-
gating it. They shouldn’t be
sitting in a school waiting for
the crime to happen,” Robbins
explained.
According to the Portland
Police website, the officers are
meant to keep youth out of the
criminal justice system through
“mediation, dialogue and ac-
countability” and to “serve as a
resource and role model for our
city’s families and schools.”
According to a 2011 study
from
Southeast
Missouri
State University, however,
school-assigned police officers
were unable to dislodge youths’
already negative perceptions of
police officers. What’s more, a
2012 report from the Bureau of
Justice Statistics showed that,
on a national scale, school-
based arrests disproportionate-
ly affect black boys.
Robbins calls on community
members who are interested to
get involved.
“People of all walks of life
are needed in different ways,”
he said. “We need people to be
joining in our effort, even if
it’s just staying informed about
what we do.”
Anyone interested in getting
involved, becoming a steering
committee member or sub-
committee member can check
out the Office of Equity and
Human Rights’ Black Male
Achievement website, portlan-
doregon.gov/oehr/66514.
The ultimate measure of a man is not
where he stands in moments
of comfort and convenience,
but where he stands at times
of challenge and controversy.
--Martin Luther King Jr.
Page 9