“A Rose out of This Cement”

Chapter 5 tells the story of Jay, one of several young men that Eric and his group tried to support shortly in his efforts to break free from the criminal justice system. I first met Jay when he was in his early twenties. He was just beginning to construct the kind of narrative and life that would lead him away from the street. Five years after our first meeting, I found myself speaking at Jay’s funeral. This chapter reveals the limitations of buffer-and-bridge work when it comes to changing the life trajectory of young men like Jay and highlights the limitations of the crime-fighting community when it comes to protecting Black youth from violence. The chapter provides a compelling illustration of how and why individualistic efforts at transformation or narrowly focused calls for the redemption of Black men in general and Black fathers in particular – narratives often embraced by a variety of community residents – will always fall short of delivering young people from the various forms of violence that shape their adolescence.

The Crime-Fighting Community

Chapter 2 examines closely how battles over representation – specifically, battles over who should be chosen to save the neighborhood – have evolved in the city over time. In San Francisco, efforts to respond to violence in the city’s Black neighborhoods shifted from “peacekeeping” to crime fighting over the course of the late 20th and early 21st century. Today, the crime-fighting community relies on an intimate collaboration among law enforcement (federal, state and local) and a select group of community members, including leaders of youth-based organizations, faith leaders and street outreach workers, to manage problems associated with public safety in a particular geographic area, especially the persistent problem of violence. Yet, the crime-fighting community provides a circumscribed place for men like Eric (and, in some cases, women) with street credentials who are willing to take on the labor-intensive work (and largely subordinate position) of street outreach worker. Efforts to preserve the social organization of the crime-fighting community can lead to the alienation and exclusion of community members like Eric, a loss that can ultimately undermine its stated objectives and cede primary responsibility for youth likely to be victims or perpetrators of violence to law enforcement.

Conclusion

The conclusion of this book summarizes the most compelling lessons from this study. These lessons are likely to be of interest to practitioners, policymakers, and scholars interested in helping to address what is commonly described as “the crisis” facing young Black men. At the interpersonal level, these lessons are profound in their simplicity. First, change takes time. Second, change is often framed as an individual’s personal journey, but successful change is better imagined as an interactional process. Finally, relationships are transformative. Put simply, an individual’s pathway to change may begin with an internal awakening, but successful efforts at change are often sustained with and for others. At the structural level, these lessons challenge the objectives and organization of the crime-fighting community and strengthens calls for a more effective, inclusive and liberating form of organization that would build buffers and bridges for youth most vulnerable to violence and contact with the criminal justice system. An appreciation of these lessons can improve current efforts to support people and programs that are committed to helping people change their lives. The conclusion moves beyond the Fillmore to programs that embrace these principles. These lessons are necessary, but not sufficient components to addressing the persistence of violence in poor, Black neighborhoods; reaching that objective requires a commitment from social institutions to create the conditions for change and, more importantly, freedom for those most vulnerable to violence.

Targets

Chapter 3 illustrates how the crime-fighting community cedes responsibility for the control of young Black men most vulnerable to violence as either victim or perpetrator to the most powerful and punitive member of the community: the criminal justice system. This isolation and vulnerability is evidenced in the daily and routine interactions among a range of law enforcement actors in the neighborhood and young Black men, which makes the adolescent period for today’s youth markedly different than that of Eric and his peers. In places where targeted policing practices persist over time, the juvenile and criminal justice system can become the most significant institutional presence in young men’s lives, which can make it even harder to reach young, Black men in crisis. Routine encounters with the police, which are facilitated and legitimized by the crime-fighting community, also shape the gender socialization of young men and exacerbate the vulnerability of other neighborhood adolescents to gendered forms of violence, including Black women and girls.

Eric’s Awakening

Chapter 1 tells the story of Eric’s transformation from “weed man” to Pastor. The chapter illuminates the earliest moments in which Eric begins to imagine pulling himself out of street life. By the end of the chapter, we come to see Eric’s transformation as the accumulation of a gradual series of awakening moments that took place over a period of years. Over time, his sense of awakening becomes a commitment and then a conviction. Eric’s awakening is not marked by a total break from the street. Instead, Eric maintains his ties to his old friends and his old neighborhood even as he works to change his life. Eric’s story demonstrates how being “half-and-half” acts as a normative phase for young adults as they desist from involvement in illegal activities. The chapter ends with a discussion of how Eric’s organized efforts to make good led to his entanglement in the community and city politics that have emerged between and within the organizations that serve troubled residents in and around the Fillmore, especially young people.

Buffers and Bridges

Chapter 4 highlights the strategies Eric and the men of Brothers Changing the Hood used in their efforts to help young men in their neighborhood. The men met the gendered expectations of being protectors and providers by serving as buffers from the various threats that young men in the neighborhood encounter, from violence to the intervention of law enforcement, and as bridges between other organizations and the young men these organizations often have difficulty reaching. The chapter also illuminates the ways that men extend understandings of Black masculinity by investing in emotional and relational aspects of caregiving. Their efforts reveal that strength need not always be coupled with dominance – a revelation that holds the seeds of a radically redefined understanding of Black gender ideologies. The chapter also provides evidence of the limits of these efforts, especially the degree to which surveillance and state-sanctioned violence can impede men’s efforts to redeem themselves as Black fathers.

Introduction

From: Eric Johnson To: Nicky Jones Subject: Murder Date: July 5, 2013, 1:49 PM Message: Corey was murdered last night This was not the first message I received from Eric about a murder of someone we both knew. I had received a similar message just six months earlier. This time, it was Corey....