peace,
e.

I’ll start with the headline “Eleven Arrested, One Tasered, During Manchester Drug Bust” – and now you can tell where we’re going. In that day’s newspaper, there were actually three different stories about drug busts in CT, but this one involved my younger brother.  In fact, he’s almost the star of the article

MANCHESTER — Police arrested 11 people and seized more than a pound of marijuana, plus $7,796 in cash, during a drug bust Monday that included a violent struggle.

Many of the arrests were the result of drug dealing in the Spruce Street area of town, where undercover officers from a regional task force had bought marijuana, crack cocaine and heroin over several months, police said. One of the arrested people is accused of having children sell drugs near a school. In all, police served 28 warrants.

Millard “Marquise” Jackson, 19, of Oak Street was shot with a Taser by officers when he resisted arrest on a warrant charging him with selling marijuana to an undercover officer in the Spruce Street neighborhood. He continued struggling after being Tasered, police said.

When officers got Jackson under control, they found 86 bags of marijuana on him, police said. Officers added charges of possession of marijuana, possession with intent to sell and resisting arrest.

Yeah so that’s my bro. And while I could go on and talk about how hard his life has been (which is has) and his issues with mental illness, the fact of the matter is that my brother is his father’s son.  And I expect to see more stories like this for at least another 10 – 20 years.  And at this point, I’m trying to figure out how I want to deal with this, or if I want to deal with this.  Because I’ve been here before, and I’m not looking forward to doing this again.

So where does this theory come in?  The last time my brother was incarcerated he blew up my phone.  He called multiple times a day, told me how much he loved me and told me he was going to turn his life around.  Now rewind about 15, and this is exactly how my father behaved.  Much like my father, my brother pretty much calls when he needs something (the last time was to read a contract for a record deal that never worked out) or he disappears for months.  And like how I felt with my father, I’m used to him being gone and silent because that means that he’s fine. Fine here is relative, because for a long time with my father, and for the next 10 – 20 years for my brother, fine means running around in the streets doing things that are most likely illegal.

Long story short, some (a lot of?) sons who grow up without their fathers mimic their behavior as adults. I’m not sure that this has actually been written and this may be where I need to start. But I know a lot of nonresident fathers grew up without their fathers.  (Not knowing your father may make it hard to “prove” that they act in similar manners).  Anyway the theory that I want to work on involves the daughter’s relationship to her brother, who now acts like her father.  How does she act?  How should she act?  By this point in life,  I’ve had about 23 years of dealing with my dad acting crazy and simply do not have the patience to humor this behavior in my brother.  But I am unsure if this is the norm.  I need to flush this idea through… or just write my dissertation, graduate and then flush this idea through, but I wanted to put it on paper.

peace,
e.

peace,
e.

So everyone’s asking if I read the NYT’s article, In Prisoner’s Wake, a Tide of Troubled Kids.  Yeah I read it and I did not like.  As a child of a parent who spent most of my childhood in jail or cracked out, I turned out fine and I am tired of reading all these articles about how kids growing up in single parent households are screwed for life.    This is defeatist.  Yes, fathers are important to a child’s well-being but if a father is not there, that does not mean that child has no chance of  a positive upbringing.

I had many problems with the article.  The article appears to say create difference categories in father absence by protraying a parent is jail as more damaging to a child’s well-being than a child whose father just isn’t around?  In both cases, a child does not have a father.

The chances of seeing a parent go to prison have never been greater, especially for poor black Americans, and new research is documenting the long-term harm to the children they leave behind. Recent studies indicate that having an incarcerated parent doubles the chance that a child will be at least temporarily homeless and measurably increases the likelihood of physically aggressive behavior, social isolation, depression and problems in school — all portending dimmer prospects in adulthood.

Children who grow up with fathers, whether they are in jail or not, are all at risk of low educational attainment, risky sexual behavior and violence.   I don’t understand the need to create levels of father absence as if one reason a father is gone is better than another.  They are all damaging.

We are introduced to the “Incarceration Generation,”   children who grew up with at least one parent in prison and the article.  The two children of the Incarceration Generation interviewed for this article are, in my opinion, extreme examples.  Herbert Scott, who is 20 with a child and was awaiting sentencing for drug possession and robbery.  By the end of the article, he was in jail.   Then there is Terrisa Bryant who also had a child and was a high school dropout.  I get it, the prospects are dim but it is not hopeless.  Why not at least provide an example of a child of an incarecerated parent who was jail bound, a young (single) parent, or a drop out.

The article feels like CNN’s Black in America – providing no new information to the Black community, downplaying the positive – specifically Adam Gaine’s story – to focus on the negative Herbet Scott and providing no solutions.  I would have rather read about how Gaine’s beat his addiction and how he got into (and stayed in) a program to train him to become a fitness teacher.  I am not interested in Scott’s oh to common story of coming out of jail, talking about how he wants to be there for his kids and then winds up back in jail within a year.  I don’t need to read that.  I don’t want to read that.  I would rather read about programming or policies that reach out to these children offer assistance.  I would have rather read about programming that successfully reintroduces Black men into society and assists with training and housing.  I would rather read about policies to loosen licensing restrictions to ex prisoners so that even low skill men can acquire jobs and make a decent living.

The article ultimately ignores a glaring issue – why are these men going to jail in the first place?  It makes little  mention of extremely harsh drug laws, and no mention of  the limited employment of ex-felons, the impact of low educational attainment on potential earnings, lack of support upon reentry to society, I could go on for days.  To place the blame solely on parents who are incarcerated is dangerous.

peace,
e.

Would this still be a problem if she was married?  It depends, if her husband was loaded and they had a house large enough to accommodate 14 children and could afford enough child care, I would probably say no.  But if he was as broke as she is, then yes.  As it stands now, her parents are trying to support her.  Her father is going back to Iraq to make some money, I guess the mother’s going to stay home and take care of the kids and perhaps Nadya will go back to school and get the degree?  Then what?  We are in a major recession, it’s not easy to get a job, no matter what type of education you have.

I get it, she was an only child and she wanted a large family.  That’s perfectly fine, but the manner in which she chose to do this is crazy.  After successfully having six children, she decided to go back and use the 6 remaining eggs.  It’s not that she’s ignorant, she’s actually quite knowledgeable about the process and risks, she just didn’t care.  She just wanted to have those children.

I think if you’re lonely and a broke grad school student, get a pet.

peace,
e.

This is my new little brother, I call him baby k. it’s crazy, I found out about him on sunday (even though he was born last tuesday), i got a picture of him on Monday and I fell in love with him exactly three seconds later.  Every time I look at this picture (which is all day since it’s my blackberry background), I smile.  That is love.  That is something I haven’t been able to feel in a very long time.

Ours is not a traditional family.  Every additional sibling is a total surprise.  My father, as it turns out, is incredibly fertile, as are the women he chooses to date.  Unlike my other siblings from my father, I have been expecting Baby K for a few months now.  His mother is pretty stable, so I’m sure I can maintain a strong relationship with him.  I wish I could say that was the case with my other siblings

especially her. My little sister.  I have seen her only once, when she was born. I felt like this when she was born.  Although I was much younger then, I couldn’t help but smile to look at her, to think of her, to dream of her.

And then she was gone.  Due to circumstances out of her (and my) control, she was adopted.  Her adoptive family left the country back in the 90′s and my father has not done the best job of keeping track of where she is.

I miss the tiny baby I met for a few moments.  I wonder what kind of woman she is turning into.  I wonder how she would look at Baby K.  I’m sure she couldn’t keep herself from smiling.

peace,
e.