In a January 24th, 2013 article in The Cutting Edge, Desmond Patton, a University of Michigan researcher on young African American men and gang culture, we are made aware that gangs are using social media to make threats that sometimes result in homicide. This is called “Internet banging.”
What his studies show
Patton says that it’s the assertive voice of urban youth as heard in hip-hop music, “it’s this identity, along with unemployment and poor educational opportunities, that fuels the behavior of some African-American men?
A slow, steady growth
Twenty years ago, I was hearing that schools on the south side were being invaded during the day by gang members who climbed into classroom windows and pulled young boys out while teachers stood by helplessly. That was the beginning of my understanding of how pervasive the gang culture had become in Chicago. That also seemed to be the beginning of the perfusion of drugs into middle class neighborhoods on the south side. It was the beginning of the destruction of a culture that had previously extended parenting rights to nearly every adult on the block. It was the slow and steady transformation of safe neighborhoods into a network of crack houses and turf wars.
The substitute baby sitter
Since then, gangs seem to have replaced family structure in their capacity to raise our young men. And they have raised them in the art of war – war against themselves – and one that can’t be won. The very essence of gang life is one that cannibalizes its’ young –our young. Where did the parents go? How might things have changed if our sons with learning problems and diminished self-esteem were properly diagnosed, adequately supported and helped to develop their innate strengths into employable skills?
Do you know where your child is?
Friends in Chicago note that parents are unable to be effective in challenging local gangs, but gang members are someone’s grandson, or cousin or classmate from elementary school. They come from somewhere. Most Chicago blacks are the grandchildren of the Great Migration of blacks from the South. People used to ask us, “Who are your people?” The answer was presumed to tell them something about our character. It’s been a long time since then and over that time we’ve become disconnected from our people. We have lost our attachment to values that were passed down – values that held our lives securely in the family web. A beehive of disenfranchised, disregarded young men have eaten away that web while we adults have become again the slaves of the economy.
Just soldiers in a battle for the neighborhood/economy?
As with the slavery (better understood as our manpower) that brought America to economic greathood, this new voluntary slavery leaves us without control of our children’s destiny – and therefore without control of our own destiny. Only that’s not happening just through gang members crawling into school windows. Now gangs can extend their reach right into your home, through the Internet. What can you do?
To learn more about Desmond Patton’s research, check out these articles:
Patton, D., Woolley, M., & Hong, J. (in press). Community violence, student fear and low academic achievement: African American males in the critical transition to high school. Children and Youth Services Review. Patton, D., & Johnson, D. (2010).
Community violence and social capital: African-American students in the critical transition to high school. Harvard Journal of African American Public Policy. Patton, D., & Garbarino, J. (2009).
The hurting child inside the black man. In K. Vaughans & W. Spielberg (Eds.), The psychology of black boys and adolescents: Practical and applied psychology.
