I sat down across from him and took in his weary eyes. His face seemed different than before, as if it weren't trying so hard to hide what lay just beneath the surface. He seemed more childlike, not so hardened from years in the streets, years without a father, years with a mother that didn't really see what was right in front of her face. Today, he actually looked like the 17 year old that he is.
I will never in a million years forget that kid... the one that opened my eyes to life as a second generation gang member. The one who would be just as afraid to walk a day in my shoes as I would be to walk a day in his. We had absolutely nothing in common, maybe except fear of the other. Yet somehow managed to find common ground on which we could stand and bridge the gap between us: our skin color, age, gender, culture, education, background, future.
He's the one that really began tearing down my misconceptions and wrong perceptions of those we so often label as thugs, thieves, liars, miscreants, good-for-nothings, gangbangers, losers, murderers, waste of space. We look at them and want to run.. RUN... in the opposite direction. If I'd met him in the streets instead of in jail, I probably would have. But since I was supposed to "help" him, here we were... with him believing it was a waste of time and me praying to God that I could say anything, demonstrate anything, communicate anything that might pierce that hardened heart and wall of armor... when in reality it was mine that needed to be pierced....because underneath I saw a child that grew up before it was his time. He simply saw what was his childhood in the hood. I saw a child that witnessed life taken away before his had even begun. He saw the cycle of life. People live, people die. I saw someone that learned to hate the police for taking his father before he ever had a chance to learn that the police are "supposed to protect us". He saw the reality that police are just as human and flawed as the rest of us; they just get to hide behind a badge and call it law. I saw a future with prison. He saw a future of just being alive. What I saw as a threat to society, he saw as survival. The drug dealing was a way to provide for his family. A kid trying to raise a kid. ...but clearly my perceptions were better because they didn't land me in prison. ...or was it just a different kind of prison?
Over the next 9 months, I found my mind untangling itself from its tightly wound, knotted ideas of right and wrong, justice and injustice, living and surviving... and I found myself unable to say I'd live any differently had I walked 17 years in his shoes.
That's the thing about labels. They write people off before we ever give them a chance to show us who they are. They cheapen the image of God in us. They lie about who we were, who we are, and who we will be... and worse, they sabatoge hope.
Had I listened to the lies and believed the labels, I never would have given ear to the old, wise soul inside a teenage gangbanger's body. I never would have questioned him, weighing his words between truth and lies in order to learn the real truth of who he was. Not the gangbanger, but the person. Had I not allowed him to test me, my sincerity, my intentions, my belief in a better future for him... allowing him to weigh me between authenticity and hypocricy, he would not have understood that not all white people are hypocrites and believe themselves to be"saviors of the poor". Had I listened to the labels, both our walls of misunderstanding and misconception would not have begun to crumble.
Yeah, we found our common ground and understanding... We're both just two broken people doing our best to make life the best it possibly can be. We just have different methods.
I just hope and pray to God I become half the social worker that he is gangbanger.
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