the foot soldiers on the streets, who do his dealings, end up in jail or in the grave. The buyers and the supplier, the two key criminal elements who keep the drug industry going strong, often do not live in the actual community that is affected by their illicit dealings.
A number of young men living in low-income neighbourhoods feel they have little hope for the future and fall prey to the “easy life” of drug dealing. They are the perfect suckers, primed by our society of rejection to be easy targets for drug suppliers. These young people are used by the supplier to make money for him by becoming his resident drug dispensers on the streets. They are bigger victims than the buyers who are addicted to what they sell. The end result of all of this is that many innocent people who reside in these communities are forced to struggle with stereotypical negative media coverage that harms their reputations and, in far too many cases, results in death.
It is a sad fact that many of the youth with whom we work with are easily drawn into the gang lifestyle. In many poorer communities, the thug life can be very appealing. To many of our desperate young people, it seems to be the only option they have. I remember reading an interview with the famous “gangsta rapper” 50 Cent, whose real name is Curtis Jackson. He is famous for his gritty raps about money, sex and violence. On his web site, you can see pictures of him with photographs of various types of guns. He even starred in a Hollywood movie based loosely on his life. The title of the movie aptly describes the mantra of many urban gangstas: Get Rich or Die Tryin’. The problem is that no one seems to notice that most die trying.
50 Cent knows what he is rapping about, as he once was a drug dealer himself. The various bullet hole scars left on his body tell a tale of gang life. He has become a role model for many low-income youth as a man who has “kept it real” with his true street credentials. In this interview, 50 Cent explains why urban young people get involved in criminal activity. We can learn much from 50 Cent regarding the pressures facing our low-income youth who live in “at-risk” communities that are void of many positive alternatives. This is what he says in the interview:
“Where I’m from, when you tell people you’re hungry, instead of giving you fish they give you a pole. Cause they know if I’m asking for a pair of sneakers right now, because it’s cool to have that pair of sneakers, two weeks from now I’m going to want another pair. So, instead of giving me $100 they gave me 3 1/2 grams of cocaine and permission to sell it in the area. When you tell a kid that’s 12 years old, that’s having a hard time in school, ‘If you do good in school for 8 more years you can have the things that you’re after’—and he sees someone in his neighbourhood who got it in a few months hustling—it doesn’t seem like one of the options, it seems like the only option.” (Rapper 50 Cent)2
We live in a culture that overwhelmingly pressures young people to believe that they are nothing unless they wear a certain brand or drive a specific car. True success is based not on character but on how many materialistic baubles one has in his or her possession. The pressures of our “bling, bling,” money-oriented society creates temptations that are much stronger for a youth who faces poverty, racism, police profiling and cultural stereotyping. Can you really blame a kid who lives below the poverty line and has no options that many upper class youth have for caving into the gang-life mentality? For them, it seems that everyone is opposed to them, and with the odds stacked against them, why not lash out and do it alone? When those who live in low-income communities seemingly have friends who now have all the trappings of materialistic success the easy way through dealing drugs, why not give into the temptation and join them? After all, the legitimate way to make it in life leads through college or university, but with the extremely high tuition costs and with many family members who have never had the chance to attend a place of higher learning, how can a poor kid ever afford or be motivated to try post-secondary education?
With limited hope, many at-risk youth feel that they might as well drop out of school and make money some other way. They are not dumb, and they know that there are two ways to success—the hard route through school and jobs (which is full of a multitude of obstacles), or the easy way through criminal activity. They understand that in their society it is not what you know that counts, but whom that matters, and unfortunately for them they do not know the right people.
From their negative life experiences, urban youth know very well that in order to succeed in school and in the marketplace one must have “social capital.” They have seen many (less qualified) people gain job opportunities and college acceptance interviews not because of their character but because they knew people in high places. Because of this, the other route, a life of crime, often seems like the only viable option for them. It is for this reason that many gang members actually believe what they do is a legitimate lifestyle that is reserved for those who lack the “social capital” that many upper-class individuals have. Just those terms “upper class” and “lower class” say it all. Who ever came up with this discriminatory terminology and why has it been accepted in our day-to-day conversation? Who gives anyone the right to say that the poor are “lower class” and the rich are “upper class”? Yet the sad thing is these terms are totally acceptable in a society that attempts to keep people locked into neat categories that enslave them to a life of lower-class living.
At-risk youth look at all of this and say to themselves: “This is wrong and I refuse to play by their rules. I am not lower-class, and I will make it in life my way and by my rules!” They are angry at this great injustice and rightfully so, for it is wrong to be labelled by such terms. Unfortunately, without hope and social capital, they feel that there is no other option for them to escape the labels they have been stuck with from birth. All they think they have going for them is the “street life” that is available to them staring them right in the eye as a luring temptation.
It is with this knowledge and empathy towards our youth that I often pray that God would keep them safe from gangs, as many face seemingly insurmountable odds simply because they live in the ’hood. Each time I hear of another gang-related shooting in the city, my antennae go up. This is because in the back of my mind I have a list of names and faces that I know are into trouble and could easily get themselves seriously hurt or killed.
I remember reading the newspaper one day and seeing the face of one of the youths I had personally mentored when I was a youth worker 12 years earlier. He was a real nice kid, quiet and introspective, but very eager to please. Unfortunately, he had got caught up in drugs and slowly disappeared from my life. The article was describing how he was involved in a gruesome murder. Apparently, he killed a businessman who had paid him to provide sexual favours. What this sad story did not mention was how this young man lived a tormented life as a child after being given up for adoption as a baby. Whatever inner turmoil he faced was soothed by his use of illegal drugs, and in time he became so addicted to crack that he was selling himself as a male prostitute in order to get money to support his drug habit. The article went on to state that he had stabbed his “john” over forty times with a knife and was arrested shortly after the police found him driving aimlessly around the city in the victim’s car. With my background knowledge of this young man’s life, I understood the anger that was so violently displayed in each swing of the knife that he placed into his victim’s chest. Over 40 wounds! For every violent act there is usually a sad story left unsaid.
Yes, I had my list of names and faces of teens who desired to live the over-hyped “thug” life, but “Blue Boy” was not on that list. Patrick was shot simply because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. But how could he be any place else—he lived there! He was one of the many innocent and good citizens.
Patrick was on staff with us and one of our finest StreetLeaders, a perfect poster child for our StreetLeader program. This program allows us to hire young people from the community to work with us as after-school tutors and summer camp counsellors and is a powerful tool providing leadership, self-esteem and job skill development for inner-city youth. It also provides a positive outlet for their energies where they can give back to their communities and, at the same time, get paid for doing what is right.
