Why Inner-City Kids are Fucked Before They Grow Up

How can our young African American men identify with society’s mainstream values when they cannot even identify themselves? I speak from lived experience. But first, let’s talk about theories. This identity crisis which young African American men in the inner-cities face could be attributed to fatherless homes, resulting from the ill-effects of drugs, violence, and mass incarceration. It is a position that states that young boys gain a perspective of who they are (an identity) from the men in their homes.

Just as Gordon Dalbey wrote: “I am convinced that what men are missing is a sense of their own identity; a very primitive and very deep sense of validation that passes from father to son.”

But a child’s identity is rooted in his/her humanity. Sexual identity is a mere facet of that humanity, not the whole sum. What the young African American men in the inner cities lack is an identity rooted in humanity, regardless of masculine or feminine influences. You could attribute this identity crisis to sub-cultural norms, such as the presentation of a “false self.” In this case, the person knows their identity, but presents to those around them a false version of who they are. This is done to either fit in or as a means of protection. Just as Bell Hooks wrote:

“Many children create a false self early in life. In the case of Black Children, the idea of a false self has become a norm in many families; wherein folk believe that survival depends on wearing a mask, never letting anyone know how you feel or who you really are.”

If we accept this approach on face value, we are then saying that this identity crisis is not really a crisis, but a well-orchestrated and strategic process of thought which permeates in the inner-cities. Speaking from a position of Lived Experience, I believe that both positions are meaningless unless they are viewed through the lens of early childhood trauma. Many studies have been done regarding the effects of trauma on a child. And there is currently new studies being analyzed regarding the specific trauma of Poverty, Racial Inequality, and the Environmental Disparities which are harsh realities for African American children growing up in the city within a city. And sometimes Harsh realities are traumatic.

Trauma results in a fundamental reorganization of the way mind and brain manage perceptions. It changes not only how we think and what we think about, but also our very capacity to think.”

In inner-city life, you don’t have to go far to look for the trauma. The children live in homes invested with trauma. Acute Trauma, Chronic Trauma, Complex Trauma, and Historical-Generational Trauma; it is all served up to the child upon a platter of regret and hopelessness, which the adults around them prepare daily.

The effects of trauma on an undeveloped mind are many. Dr. Bessel Van Der Kolk wrote in his book, “The Body Keeps the Score”:

“We have also begun to understand how overwhelming experiences affect our innermost sensations and our relationship to our physical reality – the core of who we are. We have learned that trauma is not an event that took place sometime in the past; it is also the imprint left by that experience on mind, brain, and body. This imprint has ongoing consequences for how the human organism manages to survive in the present.

Trauma results in a fundamental reorganization of the way mind and brain manage perceptions. It changes not only how we think and what we think about, but also our very capacity to think.”

A vast majority of inner-city children experience trauma way before they reach the age where they can step out from their mother’s purview and into the surrounding environment. And in this case, their environment is an amalgamation of toxic masculinity, sexual promiscuity, ubiquitous and intense drug misuse, a confrontational presence of law enforcement, dilapidated structures, vacant lots, and an utter gloom that you cannot see, but feel, when you walk to the corner of the block. The corner where young men dressed in fine clothing gather to sell drugs, next to the fast food spot; which is next to the weed spot masquerading as a candy store; which is next to a bar; which is next to an empty lot where a dead body was found; which is next to an abandoned house; which is next to a crack house which the cops raid on a weekly bases; which is next to a second abandoned lot.

As for this child of trauma — of whom there is a disconnect, an absence of self-identity – he steps out into that strange world and has to figure it out (Because no one teaches young children how to survive in the hood. It’s a sink or swim situation. Straight into the deep end.) But children of trauma do not know who they are, and the Ghetto only offers three archetypes. And you must choose one in order to survive! Or at least, to an inner-city child of trauma that’s how it feels.

You quickly learn as a child newly introduced to this strange, even seductive world, that you must assume one of three identities: The Victor, The Victim, and The Victimizer.

Now the Victor, he’s your drug dealer or Pro-Sports hopeful. Everyone likes him. He has all the money and all the girls. People fear and/or respect him. He wears nice clothes, drives nice cars, and to the child of trauma, his future seems the brightest. Never mind the fact that he sells drugs, because in the Ghetto — by which I mean the sub-culture of the inner-city — drug dealing is romanticized. The drug dealer is looked at as a modern day Robin Hood.

The Victim, he’s your addict, weirdo, or coward. There are probably many more degrading titles I could think up, but he is just as the word implies, a victim. The girls don’t like him. He has no money. No nice clothes. He can’t play sports or rap. He’s not physically strong or courageous. But sometimes, he’s the smartest one in the neighborhood. No one chooses to be him, he is chosen by circumstances beyond his control.

The Victimizer, he’s your bully, stick boy, and all around opportunist. He has no allegiance. He follows no rules. He does what he wants, when he wants, to whomever he wants. If the Drug dealer is the protagonist in a story, then the victimizer is the Antagonist. Much of the violence which plays out on the inner-city streets is the dramaturgy between these two archetypes.

So the child of trauma makes his choice, or a choice is made for him. And now that is his identity. He ends up in prison shortly thereafter, where he has to assume another identity, given to him by the state. He is then placed in programs designed to restructure the way he thinks — a program imposed upon him by the State. A State whose programs are designed to get felons and returning citizens to identify with society’s mainstream values.

If you tell a child who has never seen, held, or used a hammer before to, “Go get the hammer,” you are setting them up for failure. Being a part of society means to connect your Self to the communal integrity of the whole. But what if you don’t know who your Self is? The inner-cities are very thin on road-maps towards self-identification. But we need more.

More voices. More choices. And more education about the effects of Adverse Childhood Experiences.

Shawn Harris #DC3424
Pennsylvania Department of Corrections
Coal Township
PO Box 33028
St Petersburg, FL 33733