Three times more black men live in jail cells than in college dorms.
“We all gonna die someday So, die hustlin for yourself Or die hustlin for millions of your people.”—from “Fo Da Money” by Coup
PRISON
Four months later, a week after I turned eighteen, I was picked up and charged with the murder of Rance Jones. They also got me for racketeering, money laundering, and drug and weapons trafficking. Before I killed him, Rance had made a deal with the cops, and the back room of the club had been wired with video. It was supposed to have shown me killing William. That way Rance would have gotten rid of both of us.
Instead it showed me killing Rance. And thanks to the video, the cops didn’t need the testimony of any snitches.
That was ten years ago. Today I sit in a prison cell, where I will almost surely spend the rest of my life. For much of each day, my view of the outside world is through a narrow sliver of window six inches wide and two feet tall. I will never get to play with Simon. I will never feel the softness of Tanisha’s skin. I will never eat a steak or good crispy french fries or a milk shake again. Compared to this, living in the Frederick Douglass Project was paradise.
Do I wish I’d listened to Mr. Brand and my other teachers and done things differently? Darn right, I do. But that’s one of the biggest problems impoverished, young black men face in the hood. We don’t know who to believe or trust or listen to.
According to statistics, black Americans represent 13 percent of the overall population in this country, but we make up 50 percent of the prison population. Many of the young men who get sent here were in gangs on the outside, and they join them on the inside, because there are gangs in here, too. Just like on the outside, these young men feel they have no choice and are afraid of what will happen to them if they don’t join.
Is our situation hopeless? Sometimes it feels that way. But I cling to the idea that there is hope in education. Not necessarily the “education” they’re giving inner-city kids in schools today, but an education that relates to their lives; one that helps them understand why their world is the way it is, and what they can do to change it. If kids understood why their parents and older brothers and sisters can’t find work, and why so many take drugs and join gangs, then maybe we could begin to educate our way out of poverty and self-destruction.
But I also know that this isn’t a problem that’s going to be solved overnight. It’s going to take generations. It’s going to take vast amounts of money. It’s going to take a government that is willing to acknowledge the overwhelming failure of this country’s inner-city public schools, and is willing to dedicate a larger part of its energies and resources to rebuilding them.
I still hear from some of the folks from my past. Detective Patterson’s retired. But he writes me letters now and then, mostly about what his grandchildren are up to. He’s also written to the parole board on my behalf. But he says I shouldn’t get my hopes up.
I hear from Nia. The twins are almost twelve, and her daughter DeShawna is almost ten. They’re all in school, which is good. Nathan’s long gone. Gramma still spends most of her days in front of the TV. Lightbulb writes now and then. He still lives with his momma and works as a janitor. Probably will for the rest of his life. Last time he wrote, he said Sechelle had some kids but they were put in foster homes because she was messed up on drugs.
Darius got out of prison and became a recording engineer. He’s worked with some semifamous rap stars. Tanisha is a saleswoman in a department store. She’s married, but she sends me photos and news about Simon. She’s a good woman, and I miss her. Precious is a registered nurse. Ms. Rodriguez is still an assistant principal.
So a few made it, but just about every other guy I grew up with is either dead or in prison. You get plenty of time to think in here, and sometimes I wonder what my life would have been like if I’d been born in a small town or some nice suburb. If I had, how many of my friends would have been murdered? How many would have wound up in jail?
There’s one other person I hear from:
YO DESHAWN,
SO HOW THEY TREET YOU UP THERE? OK, I HOPE. THINGS IS GOOD HERE. DAWN MAE IS PREGNANT WITH OUR 3RD BABY. SHE’S REALLY HOPING FOR A GIRL NOW THAT WE GOT 2 BOYS. THOMAS IS GOING INTO 2ND GRADE. JASON’S IN KINTERGATERTEN. THEY ARE A COUPLE OF RASKELS.
I’M STILL WORKIN’ MY BUT OFF ON THE FARM. AFTER ALL THOSE YEARS BEING INSIDE SO MUCH, I LOVE BEING OUTSIDE. EVEN WHEN IT’S 110 AND SWETS POORIN OFF YOU LIKE A WATERFALL. WE PUT IN A GOOD CROP THIS YEAR AND MADE SOME MONEY. DAWN MAE SAYS MAYBE IT TIME FOR US TO BUY A HOUSE.
THAT DETECTIVE STIL TRYING TO HELP YOU WITH PAROLE? I HOPE SO. STRANGE HOW THINGS WORK OUT, AIN’T IT? IF SOMEONE ASKED ME BACK IN THE DAY WHICH ONE BE MARRIED WITH KIDS AND A JOB? AND WHICH BE IN JAIL? I’D HAVE BET FOR SURE IT WOULD BE THE OTHER WAY ROUND.
SO THAT’S ALL FOR NOW. KEEP THE FAITH, BRO. I STILL GOT YOUR BACK.
TERRELL.
NOTES
My sources for this book were many and varied and included conversations with gang members and residents of projects in and around the New York City area.
The following four books were helpful:
There Are No Children Here: The Story of Two Boys Growing Up in the Other America by Alex Kotlowitz. New York: Anchor Books, 1991.
Random Family: Love, Drugs, Trouble, and Coming of Age in the Bronx by Adrian Nicole LeBlanc. New York: Scribner, 2003.
The Shame of the Nation: The Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America by Jonathan Kozol. New York: Crown, 2005.
The American Street Gang: Its Nature, Prevalence and Control by Malcolm W. Klein. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995.
In addition, I used dozens of newspaper and magazine articles. The following three stand out in my mind:
“An Economic Analysis of a Drug-Selling Gang’s Finances” by Steven D. Levitt and Sudhir Alladi Venkatesh in the Quarterly Journal of Economics, August 2000.
“A Poverty of the Mind” by Orlando Patterson in the New York Times, March 26, 2006.
“Preventing Adolescent Gang Involvement” by Finn-Aage Esbensen in the Juvenile Justice Bulletin, September 2002.
There is a great deal of information about gangs on the Internet. Two of the best organized and most thorough sites I visited were:
Street Gangs resource center at http://www.streetgangs. com (This offers a large bibliography on gang culture.)
Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention at http://www.ojjdp.ncjrs.org
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Todd Strasser has written many award-winning novels, including Boot Camp, Can’t Get There from Here, Give a Boy a Gun, How I Changed My Life, and How I Created My Perfect Prom Date, which was adapted for the Fox feature film Drive Me Crazy. He decided to write If I Grow Up after visiting several inner-city schools and reading about the growing problem of gangs. Strasser frequently speaks at schools about the craft of writing and conducts writing workshops for young people. He lives in a suburb of New York City.
If I Grow Up Page 15
