A BLINK IN THE LIFE OF AN INNER CITY CHILD
Posted: Wednesday, August 21, 2013 by Unknown in Labels: child, concrete, education, gang, ghetto, gun, inner city, parentless, rose, schools, single parent, single-parent, thug, troubled
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If a rose can grow from concrete...
A nine year old child leaves school and walks home, with his book pack slung over his shoulder. Upon reaching home, he discovers his mother is not there, but this is not at all unusual. He pours a bowl of cereal and plops on a chair in front of the television.
After about an hour of watching television, he becomes bored and steps outside, sitting in a chair in front of his apartment door. Inside of his apartment complex is a bustle of activity. It was like this all during the daytime and most of the night - nonstop. None of his friends are outside, however. He is sure their mother's have them all doing homework or chores or whatever else it is that mothers have their kids do.
Suddenly, a group of individuals began arguing loudly. The child watched, almost disinterested. But just as suddenly, one of the individuals pulls a black gun from his waistband and holds it to his side, the barrel pointing at the ground.
But the arguing only intensifies and the child notices that anyone else that was outside has run inside or left the apartment complex. He decided that he should go inside as well.
A shot rings out, the sound smashing into the walls of the apartment hallway.The child almost falls out of his chair and runs inside. As he closes the door, he sees the man with the gun pointed skyward. It looks as if the man had simply shot into the air. The child slams the door and locks it. He is shaking.
Seconds later, he hears a key being inserted into the keyhole and the lock turning. His mother bursts in, with a look of concern on her face. She attempts to hide it when seeing her son sitting in a chair. But the relief on her face is obvious.
"Mom, where were you?", the child asks.
"I had to take care of some business baby."
He knew that she had probably been gambling or was with one of the men from the corner store.
"Somebody was shooting out there!" He has a story to tell his mother now.
She is in a good mood, so he knows that she has some money, which means they may be eating out tonight.
"You do your homework?" she asks as they walk into her bedroom.
"Yea."
"You sure?'
"Yea!" he exclaims, exasperated. "I did it at school!"
But in fact, he had done nothing of the sort. His teacher had sent a note home advising his mother that the child needs to improve drastically or would be flunk his grade. But the note was buried in his book bag. He could have thrown it away. But he considers this. If his mother really wanted to know about his school work, all that she had to do was look in his book bag.
The next morning, he wakes up to his friend knocking on the door.
"You ready for school?", his friend asks when the door opens.
"Hold on," he replies.
He leaves the door open and runs to his room. He puts on the same shirt and pants that he had on the day before, slings his back pack over his shoulder and runs out of the house, shutting and locking the door with his key. He knows his mother is asleep and decides not to disturb her. He and his friend walk the 7 blocks that it takes to get to school.
This example is simply an illustration of what many inner city children have to look forward to everyday after school. In fact, this is actually an extremely tame version of events compared to the harsher events that many youth face. The question is,
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