2023 24 Black Pages FINAL 2 - Flipbook - Page 118
The Way Forward To The Beloved Community In
The Macon Middle Georgia Community
Solutions to the African Education Achievement Gap and Black On Black Crime
by: Thomas Duval D.D.S., M.P.H.
The goal of this article is to inspire a movement that can implement practical solution strategies to substantially
reduce and subsequently eliminate the unutterable elephants in the room epidemic problems plaguing the
Macon Middle Georgia community. These ubiquitous elephants in the room problems include:
1. Single Parent low income families
2. Racial income disparity
3. Bad behavior in public schools
4. Education minority achievement gap
5. Black on black violent community crime
6. African American community blight
Nationally no African American (AA) leader has stepped to
the forefront to propose a solution strategy to the unutterable
elephants in the room problems that lead to the school to
prison pipeline. The fundamental question becomes; what
can the public, private, and religious sectors in the Middle
Georgia community realistically do to reduce and potentially
eliminate these ubiquitous problems; especially the violence
in our predominantly African American local
neighborhoods?
Public health has a long history of prescribing prevention as
the best solution for epidemics. To solve an epidemic one
must go upstream to find the source of the problem. To
eliminate a problematic epidemic, public health staff must
reduce the incidence of new cases of the problem or
problems. The public health definition of incidence is
defined as the proportion of new cases (numerator) over the
defined population (denominator). Public health describes
vectors as living organisms that can transmit infectious
pathogens between humans, or from animals to humans.
This public health strategy can also be used to reduce and
potentially eliminate social epidemic problems. A major
vector contributing to the rampant elephant in the room
problems is illiteracy; more specifically, not reading at
grade-level.
Two major vectors that contribute to the school to prison pipeline are:
1. Lack of factual A A local and state history and culture knowledge
2. Illiteracy – Inability to read at grade level
118
