him want to live his life.
His optimism is evident as well in his response to a question about potential discrimination:5
How do you see being black having an effect on what you would do in the future?
Well, it depends on how the person sees me—if they see me as black and therefore won’t speak to me at all, I feel that it’s just gonna make things even more difficult. But if they see me as black but don’t like me too much … but if they speak to me, I feel like I can influence them in some way to make them understand I got the quality, I could do the job, I give it my best. You know, I’m gonna be here on time. If you wanna put it all hard on me, you know … I’ll prove myself, that’s what I’m saying.
Keenly aware of the racist stereotypes that will follow him into the work world, Malcolm is intent on proving them wrong. Yet he understands he will only be able to challenge such beliefs if his future bosses are willing to give him a chance. His determination to defy his bosses’ negative expectations reminds me of his conviction to “prove” to his mother that he can be responsible. While it is impossible to know what is not being said here, since Malcolm may feel that he is, in fact, speaking to one of those “bosses” (“If you wanna put it all hard on me you know …”), Malcolm appears to believe he can prove his potential to others. This confidence, hopefulness, and persistence are typical of Malcolm’s outlook on his world.
Malcolm speaks about fearing an early death and about having hope for the future; he speaks about being responsible and about being arrested for being in a stolen car; he speaks about being lazy and about being on the honorable mention list at school; he says he does not want a committed relationship with a girl and claims that the closest relationship he has right now is with his girlfriend. Malcolm seems caring and reflective and, at other times, tentative and disengaged.
His presentation of himself and his life in his freshman and sophomore years is typical of the adolescents we interviewed. While there were a few students who presented themselves as one-dimensional (e.g., those who were seemingly the most depressed), the stories of the majority of students were three-dimensional, alive, and filled with ambiguities, contradictions, and continuities.
Malcolm’s Junior Year
Because of scheduling difficulties, I am Malcolm’s interviewer in his junior year. Malcolm does not seem bothered by the switch. He is much as I expect him to be from Mike’s descriptions—a tall, lanky, handsome African American young man. He wears the latest “hip hop” fashions, a brightly colored sweatshirt and baggy pants riding low enough on his hips to reveal the waist band of his boxer shorts. I interview him in the “piano” room where he was interviewed in the previous years. The small, claustrophobic, soundproof closet seems to get smaller with each passing year. When I go to Malcolm’s classroom to ask him if he is willing to be interviewed again this year, he and a friend (who is also a participant in the study) enthusiastically agree. They tell me that they like getting out of their class for one period, and I suspect, judging from their enthusiasm, that they also enjoy speaking to someone who wants to listen to their stories.
Malcolm and I begin the interview by going over the past year and discussing the changes that occurred in his life. His fifteen-year-old sister has been diagnosed with malignant cancer and has been given six months to live. Also, he has recently become a father to a child born three months premature (a few weeks before the interview). Malcolm has had an eventful and difficult year.
Malcolm tells me that he and his mother do not have time to be close with each other this year because most of their time is spent trying to care for his sister. His mother stays home because they cannot afford a home nurse, and his sister is too ill to be by herself. He or his mother is constantly with his sister “because it’s really scary like, you know, how she [his sister] can go to sleep and not wake up or something.” Because his mother’s attention is directed toward his sister, he says he has been mostly by himself this year: “I don’t feel that my mother’s neglecting me because I understand the situation. But it’s just that it’s not like she’s around all the time or anything” (she goes to the hospital frequently with his sister). Malcolm sounds and looks depressed and scared. He tells me that his sister is undergoing chemotherapy and spends most of the time in the hospital. When she is home, she hardly eats: “It’s real hard ’cause, you get her a plate like—a regular meal from McDonald’s or something, she won’t even finish a whole Happy Meal. Sometimes she’ll just throw it up.” Malcolm is clearly struggling with his sister’s illness.
When I ask him directly how he is doing, Malcolm replies: “I really take it from what my sister tells me. If she’s having a real bad day, then that’s when I start feeling bad. If she’s feeling good, then I feel good. I don’t feel bad when she’s feeling good to make her feel bad, you know. You know, I just go with how she reacts.” As Malcolm explains how he carefully monitors his own feelings to make sure they are consonant with his sister’s, his concern for her is unmistakable. Briefly looking away from me, Malcolm says that he and his mother are “just barely keeping things together,” and that he and his mother try not to show their feelings too much “so that way it won’t affect us in our ability to do what we have to get done.”
Growing increasingly concerned about Malcolm’s well-being, I ask him:
Are you able to really talk with somebody about your fears with your sister?
I don’t really talk about it with anybody. … People thought I needed to have somebody to talk to and they tried to like—well, when I did speak to them, they said that I’m handling it pretty well on my own ’cause like I’m on the honor roll in school and I’m still working and all.
While “people” have told Malcolm that he is doing well (based on his behavior), it is not clear from his response whether he himself thinks he is okay. When I ask him again if there is anybody with whom he could share his feelings, he says “there ain’t nobody there” and he is “tired” of people telling him that he should talk to somebody. Malcolm sounds defensive, predicting, perhaps, that I too will recommend speaking with somebody. His willingness to be interviewed, however, suggests that while he is not interested in counseling per se, he is interested in telling his story to someone.
Malcolm does not really have time, he states, to think about what is happening at the moment because he is so busy with schoolwork, going to the hospital, or going to work: “There’s so much going on, it’s really hard to let myself get down. You know, I know it’s good at times to, like, feel sympathy, which I do. It’s just that I don’t want it to affect me real bad, then it affects my schoolwork and I have to work at my job.” His school and work responsibilities may be important for Malcolm because they provide him with some sense of control over the events in his life. Although in the previous year he also spoke about “maintaining order” and “keeping things decent” and “neat,” this year these themes return with a new kind of urgency.
How are you able to be so strong? It’s not like you’re surrounded by people that are supportive.
Well it’s not people supporting me, but people showing the same strength.
And so they inspired you?
Yeah. Not in school, but people that I’ve seen as I grew up. You know, like my mother, she has some real hard times. But she is always doing her best. She always tried, you know. She never gave up. To keep myself from the same struggle that she went through and to keep my girlfriend and my child now, I’m doing what I can. I wanna make something of myself. I don’t think it’s just that I got this way like it just happened to be. It’s
