Yawu Miller
The widely-publicized death of Freddy Gray, who died in the custody of Baltimore police, and the riots that followed brought issues of police abuse and racial disparities into the national spotlight in recent weeks.
President Obama turned last week to a panel of black and Latino youth in New York City for insight.
The answer that appeared to stick with the president came from Boston Latin Academy junior Malachi Hernandez.
“Malachi, he just talked about — we should talk about love,” the New York Times quoted Obama as saying in off-the-cuff remarks following the roundtable discussion. “Because Malachi and I shared the fact that our dad wasn’t around and that sometimes we wondered why he wasn’t around and what had happened. But really, that’s what this comes down to is: Do we love these kids?”
Obama gleaned wisdom from Hernandez during a roundtable discussion with 12 black and Latino teens at Lehman College in the Bronx, as part of the My Brother’s Keeper initiative. The initiative, which Obama launched last year with $80 million in donations from corporations and foundations, is aimed at improving life outcomes for boys and young men of color in the United States.
Boston Latin Academy junior Malachi Hernandez addresses an audience at the Mildred Avenue Community Center.
The program is aimed at closing the so-called opportunity gaps that contribute to the low graduation rates and high unemployment rates among black, Latino, Asian and Native American boys.
Hernandez joined the Boston effort, launched last year by Boston Mayor Martin Walsh, and joined the Mayor’s Youth Council in October. At first, Hernandez says, he was intimidated speaking with his peers about the challenges he’s faced growing up. But by last week, Hernandez says, he was able to share his perspective freely with the president.
“He asked us to give him advice on how to help the nation,” he said. “One thing I said is that what we need is love. Communities are lacking love. The young people are acting out. We need to provide love and stability so that they know they’re cared for.”
A life-long resident of Upham’s Corner, Hernandez grew up with his mother and attended the Lila Frederick Pilot School before attending Boston Latin Academy. His mother, whose family moved to Boston from Arecibo, Puerto Rico, owns a barber shop in Roxbury. Hernandez’s father moved to Puerto Rico shortly after he was born.
Hernandez said Obama urged him to talk to his father. Although he and his brothers speak to his father weekly, Hernandez said he had never asked his father about why he left.
“He told me to reach out to my father and ask him tough questions,” Hernandez said. “Ask him why he did the things he did and explain to my father that it had an impact on my life.”
Hernandez’s meeting with Obama was on Monday. On Tuesday, he made the call to his father.
“I had a two-hour conversation,” he said. “It was amazing. The stories I heard, I had never heard before. I got a better understanding, and I know why he did the things that he did. And at the end of the day I love my father.”
Last Saturday, Hernandez was again in the media spotlight, one of three Boston teens brought to the podium at the Mildred Avenue Community Center to introduce the recommendations for action for Boston’s My Brother’s Keeper effort. The audience of city officials, students, youth workers and community members who gathered in the auditorium heard from a young man who spoke with the confidence of a man who has the ear of the president.
“Not every day does a young person from a low-income, single parent household get the opportunity to speak to the president,” Hernandez said after Saturday’s event. “I don’t know what the statistics are, but I know that I’m beating the odds.”
