Friday, July 8, 2011

The Foreward, by Dr. James P. Griffin Jr./Research Assoicate Professor/Morehouse School of Medicine from "Traumatic Memoirs - Gangsta: To Be or Not To Be (Book 1)

Rarely does one come across so vivid of a story that it almost makes the reader feel that he is actually inside the author’s skin.  This real-life account delivers a message that gives a human face to the pain, hurt, and passions of a young man caught up in an inescapable emotional prison.  It is a prison that is not one of his own choosing but a by-product of a society that no longer has time or inclination to care.  This is a human story with universal implications for anyone who wishes to understand the conditions that lead young people to become dead to the humanity of those around them.  It unwraps the genesis of gang behavior on an individual level with perceptiveness and deep internal insight.
One wonders how in less than a decade an innocent youth can transform into a ruthless killer and hardened criminal with no compassion for himself or anyone else around him.  The answers lie within these pages.  This memoir goes far beyond sensationalized accounts of the violent events and tragic experiences that take place in urban America.  It peeks inside the soul of a juvenile offender whose only choice in his mind was no choice.  It describes situations and events that place too many young people on a self-destructive trajectory.  This is a path on which a common coping approach for them is withdrawing, shutting down, or striking out.  No one is ever really allowed to come into their world for fear that the intruder might turn their world upside down, again.
For these young people, their dilemma is that they are stuck.  Too many end up in prison, not recognizing that they were already in a prison while they were still in the community and before they were ever sentenced to a jail term.  As a response to these adverse conditions, they are reluctant to share a secret:  That deep inside they may have a sensitive and caring side.   Fear dictates their behavior as a way to avoid physical and emotional pain by bearing their most harsh and callous side to the world.  This is the side that helps them to ward off abuse, neglect, and mistreatment that still occurs all too often in many of our urban centers today.
This story is so deep, compelling, and heart-wrenching that it is difficult to pull oneself out of the main character’s world.  The reader is driven to keep coming back over and over, wondering what horrible truth could possibly lurk around the next corner of the author’s consciousness.  It is filled with so many shocking and often terrifying details that they must be true.  No fiction could be that disturbing.
Yet, in spite of the sheer, unvarnished violence presented in this story, the author points the reader in the direction of hope.  It exposes an important psychological fact.  One cannot use personal hurt and pain as an excuse to harm others.  This is a must read for anyone who seeks to understand the gang experience.  It provides an avenue for transcending race, class, and educational boundaries in a way that promotes genuine understanding.

No comments:

Post a Comment