It's Like a Jungle Sometimes, It Makes Me Wonder How I Keep From Going Under

6,783 black men were murdered in 2005. 6,783. That breaks down to nearly 19 murders per day for the entire year. 13% of the population and we account for 49% of the homicides. It’s hard to make sense of numbers like that. At that point the numbers become mere statistics like reading how many people die of hunger per day worldwide. You look at it, shake your head a bit and then go back to doing your Sudoku. This is not meant as a negative comment about our society. It’s just a fact that in the face of such bleakness, the human mind disassociates. It’s how we survive.

The thing is I look at the neighborhood I live in and its social-economic dynamics and I feel like I can understand those numbers. The area of Crown Heights that I currently call home is a microcosm of the black working and underclass nationwide.

I leave for work between 8 and 8:30 each morning. I see only a handful of guys who appear dressed for work waiting in the train station. When I return home in the early evening, large groups of working age black men are convened on the corners and in front of buildings. During the summer, the front of my building becomes a social club of sorts. Teens and twenty-somethings hang out playing dominoes, drinking and shooting the $#!t. They are sometimes loud (as people that age tend to be) and make sleeping at a reasonable hour at times impossible. But what’s really striking is that the group will be outside hanging out until 1 or 2, sometimes 3 in the morning every day of the week. I understand it’s summer, but not all of them are school age. Many are of working age and yet as I said, I see none of them during my morning commute. This reinforces for me the reality of the current statistics that say 48% of working age black men in NYC are unemployed.

This leaves many pairs of idle hands. And you know what they say about idle hands.

I don’t know how anybody who has experienced life in neighborhoods like the ones I have lived in could ever be anything but the staunchest of gun control advocates. Gunshots in the near distance puncture the night silence at least a couple of times a month. (Though they do seem to increase with the heat.) It is an environment where when two men (or boys) argue outside, adrenaline begins to flow because the real possibility of deadly escalation exists. Just the other day I heard such a verbal altercation. Two boys no older than 16 maybe, one threatening to shoot the other, the other daring him to make good on his word. A few female voices pleaded with both boys to stop their posturing. Luckily that’s all it turned out to be. But as the numbers show, it’s not always posturing.

“If you ain’t been to jail, I don’t respect you.”

I overheard this from a conversation taking place below my window. Its intent neither irony nor humor. Although I know the history, I still can’t help but ask myself: “How did we get here?” It feels as if a large segment of my people have lost their self-determination. Children with no guidance, fathers gone, mothers giving Herculean efforts trying to do the work of two parents…why have we been singing the same refrain for so long?

Sometimes I wish I could be a father/big brother/mentor to every lost kid I see on the block. But then I just go back to my Sudoku.