ThreeSixty -

By MaKaLa Farr

Nico Brown graduated this spring from Face To Face Academy in St. Paul. It was his toughest year; Barack Obama helped him through.

“I sat and I watched him on TV and listened to some things he would say, and it made me want to push more. He said that I could be something — you know, more than just the stereotype.”

Like a lot of young black men, the buff 18-year-old playing four-on-four basketball game at Hazel Park Recreation Center has been inspired by the first African American to run for president as the endorsed candidate of a major party.

As he talked, Brown grabbed his white, green and blue Timberwolves home jersey by the neck and wiped his face. Thanks to Obama, he has registered to vote in November.

“He’s taking that chance to run for president, and that shows me that I can take a chance to do whatever I want to do in life.”

Catherine Squires, a journalism professor at the University of Minnesota who analyzes media coverage of gender and race, believes that Obama inspires young women of color as well as young men. She points to his policies on education, environment, the war in Iraq and taxes as the more significant part of his appeal to young people of color.

“The policies he represents would be much more beneficial to them” as a group that has been disproportionately poorer, she said.

But she agrees that his race matters. “It matters symbolically, and that’s nothing to sneeze at. The symbolic power of having a person of African descent who is poised to become ‘the leader of the free world’ is historic and certainly gives hope to people who thought it would never happen in their lifetime.”

Steffon McKinley, who graduated from St. Paul Johnson High School this spring and will start college in Texas this fall, is excited to have a role model who isn’t a rapper or an athlete.

“I think for a lot of young African American men…it helps us see somebody other than — you know — a rapper or an athlete be very successful in what he does. And it just gives young men a new outlook on the career choices they have instead of just sports or whatever it may be.”

Will Wallace runs a group home in North Minneapolis for young black men who have police records and are trying to get their act together. One resident – who saw no chance for himself to go to college — was interested in Obama’s idea of lowering college tuition for young people who are willing to serve their communities.

“For those young males here to see someone like Obama that’s running for president of the United States gives them more than hope,” Wallace said. “It gives them inspiration. It gives them a chance to say that, you know, my life ain’t just gotta be like this in the group home….I think Obama running for president makes a huge difference.”

Nico Brown doesn’t talk much about Obama and the election with his friends. But he does with his family and at his church.

A lot of young people in his church have just turned 18, and church leaders make a point to speak up on how historic the election is and how important it is that young people vote, Brown said. The family members and church leaders also stress that they’re of age and need to start making their own decisions.