Humans were made to create. When the creating is stymied, we start to die
inside. Along with the sense of being killed comes anger. Kids are creative from day one. Too often, their
creativity gets interpreted as infantile foolishness that, some fine day, will
yield to adult sensibility. Thus, when a toddler between ages one and two makes
up syllables and uses them like words, the "babbling" gets
interpreted as an errant attempt at human speech. But that interpretation is
inaccurate. In reality, the child is doing what humans do: using consistent sounds
to convey meaning. If the child's sounds are treated
with respect and their meaning is responded to, the child experiences
encouragement at a baseline, necessary level. When the child's effort to make
meaning is treated as foolish, then the child's very self is downgraded in the
child's own eyes. This downgrading is profoundly unjust. The injustice provokes
anger. Unfortunately, the child hasn’t the words to express the anger, which manifests
as irrational bad behavior that gets punished without its underlying cause ever
being addressed. Additionally, there is the mistaken focus on good
behavior. Parents want their children to behave well, that is, to be
considerate of others and responsible about upkeep -- preserving rather than
breaking things, cleaning up. Good behavior is vital. I'm not denying its importance.
But “good” behavior becomes a skewed focus. Many, many children are treated as
objects of anger the instant they overstep some invisible line. They express
outrage and are smacked down. By the time they reach age 11, they have been
trained to see an interpersonal relationship as a conflict to be won, so they can’t
develop satisfying friendships. Their early efforts to have fun, which were
efforts to develop their capacities, have been squelched in favor of punishing
them for bad behavior. They are frustrated. The parents are frustrated, too,
having increased harsh punishments and denied their child’s creative outlets in
hope of forcing the child to comply – without the desired good-child result. The child arrives at age 11 with no sense of
personal meaning, but instead, a habit of anger. Excitement, not creative
production, becomes a goal, because excitement distracts from the constantly
bad internal feeling. And then a gang recruiter gives the child a path to
both excitement and meaning. Gang members memorize a constitution and a host of
secret signals. They have specific roles as gang members. They get to skip
school. Gang life is creative. It's fun.
It also makes the child feel normal because it is full of underlying,
ridiculous conflict. It befits the child's inarticulate, long-standing anger.
Gang life gives the child outlet for that anger, substance abuse to assuage the
child's pain, and a sense of freedom, since the child has found a new support
system and feels free to disobey established authorities. The project is done! A gang member has been
created: someone riddled with deep pain because he or she has grown up with prolonged,
unjust punishment, or else with unjust neglect, seeing peers succeed in school
where he or she has failed, or seeing peers with developed skills where his or
her innate skills have rarely been supported. Now the child can replace that
sense of inferiority with the newfound right to smash and grab, to feel in
control, to feel superior to the drones that go to school every day, and never
have to confront why he or she feels unhappy and restless upon wakening every
morning. The gang member has no personal dreams anymore -- those were snuffed
before he or she could talk. Life becomes a moment-to-moment journey toward an
early physical death, which itself reflects the inward death that has been imposed on the child for so long. |
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CategoriesBalanchine-related postsFocus: Gangs General Joining the Battle against Racism and Colorism Reine Duell Bethany drawings Reine Duell Bethany's Poems Reine Duell Bethany's Short Stories Reine Duell Bethany's Songs The Boneheads (cartoon series) The Shu Factor Unlocking the Writer in Every Student Village of Hempstead |
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