Our Generation

November 2, 2014 - Uncategorized

The newsletter that Prisoners in Christ published for 5 years was called “Our Generation.” I was reminded of it this morning when I read Clayton Hardiman’s column in the Nov. 2, 2014 GR Press, p. H3 “We keep losing the very ones we need.”

I ran into the lost generation in the grocery store. It was in the condiments aisle, not far from the pickles. It was as if I’d absentmindedly steered my shopping cart into it. Bang.

I could have blamed it on inattention or plain bad luck — or even the T-shirt I was wearing. But in retrospect, it was none of those things. The only thing it was was inevitable.
I mentioned a T-shirt. On the front was a symbol. I won’t go into details, except to say it is an illustration that calls to mind peace, reconciliation, harmony and a host of other good things.
There was a young man in the aisle — young to me, anyway. Early 30s. I thought he was staring at me. Actually he was staring at what I was wearing.
“Where’d you get that shirt?” he asked.

I started to tell him about the organization that produced it, an organization I’d been involved with. I told him about its work and its lofty goals. But that wasn’t what he was asking.
“My nephew drew that,” he said.

At that point, it all came back — the drawing, its history, its origin. I remembered it had been drawn years ago — 10 to 12, if I’m not mistaken —by a 14-year-old, a winning entry in a contest. Our organization adopted it as its official logo.

I explained all this to the young man in front of me. I asked him how his nephew was doing. Then I was struck by a feeling of dread. The moment I framed the question I wanted to call it back. “Well, he’s incarcerated,” the young man said.

The rest of the conversation was mop-up. We exchanged names and history. I found out he knew one of my sons. He asked me to tell my son hello. I wanted him to tell his nephew that I was praying for him. All that time and the rest of the evening, I was thinking two words. Lost generation.
I first started hearing about a lost generation 35 to 40 years ago. Of course, that’s not when the phrase originated. Ernest Hemingway used it in an epigraph to his 1926 novel, “The Sun Also Rises.” He quoted his mentor Gertrude Stein as applying the words to those who grew up in the shadow of World War I.

But in the late ’70s, I heard it applied to young black men we were losing to prison, street violence, drugs, unemployment, criminalization and marginalization. At the time, the phrase — and those conditions — seemed nothing less than horrific.

But even more horrific is this: The term, as it applies to young black men, is entering its third generation. And here’s my greatest fear: If we get too used to this, we might start believing this is how it’s supposed to be.

It’s not just racism — just racism? — that endangers young, black males. It’s the shattering of the family structure. It’s spiritual rootlessness. It’s the blunt object of media, the absence of role models, economic devastation and educational failure. Young black men are growing up in a world that tells them marriage is obsolete, women are no more than conquests, death and prison are no longer to be feared. They are being told they are disposable, and they are believing the lie.

We have been talking about this for decades. We’ve discussed action, solutions. And yet here we are, still. Spiraling unemployment, incarceration and homicide rates are just one way of telling the story. This nagging instinct that makes me dread asking the fate of a talented 14-year-old? That’s another.

Here’s what I might tell that 14-year-old now, given another chance. I’d tell him to finish his education. I’d tell him to get a job, any job. I’d tell him to get married first, have kids second. I’d tell him to expand his embrace — to take care of his own children, and at least one more.

And if he did mess up and wind up behind bars, I’d tell him — beg him — not to give up. I’d tell him a productive life is never out of reach. Come home complete, I’d tell him. We need you as the creative, functioning man you were meant to be.