Читать книгу Everyday Courage - Niobe Way - Страница 33

In Malcolm’s sophomore year, he is again interviewed by Mike in the “piano” room. Malcolm still has the same appearance as in the previous year, only his hair is now cut in a “fade” in keeping with current fashion. Malcolm seems more confident this year as he virtually struts into the room and sits down in a chair he has nearly outgrown. He begins the interview by telling Mike that he still lives with his mother and younger sister and “nothing particularly” has changed over the past year except that his mother now works as a receptionist at a local hospital.

When Mike asks Malcolm about his relationship with his mother this year, Malcolm says:

We, like, respect each other. We don’t communicate too much on certain things. Some things you know we—I talk with my friends or whoever. But we talk about certain things, you know, like she communicates. She’s sick of something, she tells me. And she tells my sister too ’cause she doesn’t want nothing to be a surprise. She goes to work. That’s really influenced me ’cause she proves to me that she’s strong. She doesn’t have the best of health, but she feels that she’s strong. She goes to work, gets up, like that.

Malcolm’s response conveys a closeness to his mother although he still maintains certain boundaries within this relationship. He admires and respects her strength, worries about her health, and seems to appreciate her frankness. It is unclear, however, whether Malcolm reciprocates this directness. Malcolm once again says his relationship with his mother is the most important of all of his relationships: “It’s just my mother ’cause she’s the one really supporting me and stuff, you know. None of [my friends or girlfriend] are.”

Malcolm’s mother, however, doesn’t always support him:

Last night I cooked for everybody—my mother and I ate and my—my mother’s friend came over ’cause he was watching my little nephew. So then he ate, you know. Then my sister comes in with McDonald’s almost every night and stuff. Eating that nasty stuff too much.

So she doesn’t really eat at home that much?

No, like she keeps getting stuff to drink, bringing it up to her room, leaving it there. And she don’t clean up and then when my mother argues about no one cleaning, that’s not true and that’s what gets me mad. That’s really the only thing. Because you know I clean because I see my mother working and sometimes she like works three to eleven and then sometimes she works a double shift so she don’t get off until seven in the morning. So then, you know, I be trying to clean up, but I can’t be all cleaning, plus doing my schoolwork. Then I have the responsibility of the dog … I walk her myself and stuff like that.

Malcolm’s frustration with his sister’s behavior and his mother’s accusations, as well as his desire to take care of his mother, and perhaps his sister, are immediately apparent. The variability of Malcolm’s relationship with his mother is evident in his stories—he admires, respects, and cares for his mother and is also angry and frustrated with her. Perhaps he also feels a bit guilty that he does not help her as much as she needs. Unlike many of his male peers in the study (see chapter 6), Malcolm is consistently willing to speak about the range of his feelings for his mother. He seems comfortable with Mike’s questions and willing to reflect on the details of his relationships.

Speaking about his sister, Malcolm does not suggest a similar range of feelings. He is angry at her irresponsibility and outraged that, though younger than Malcolm, she expects to enjoy the same privileges. Because she is not doing as well in school as Malcolm, however, his sister is not allowed to stay out late, go to movies, or attend concerts, and Malcolm says this causes a lot of tension in their relationship:

Okay, does that come into play between the two of you [that his sister is not doing as well in school as he is]?

Well, not really. My mother doesn’t bring that up ’cause she doesn’t try to compare us. I just try to prove—show my mother that I’m capable of doing good. You know, being responsible and stuff. ’Cause I slept late this morning and she woke me up and it was 7:00. Supposed to be here [at school] at 7:30. I got here on time.

You were here even though you slept in late?

Yeah. Washed up, ironed my clothes, everything.

Moving swiftly from a discussion of his sister to a discussion of the extent to which he is responsible, Malcolm demonstrates the intensity of his desire to “prove” to his mother, and perhaps to Mike, that he can take care of himself. He clearly wants to continue having the privileges his mother gives him and to be respected by her. He is also, perhaps, competing with his sister for his mother’s praise and attention.

Malcolm says that although he had no interest in seeing his natural father, his father recently visited him at home:

To me he’s just a stranger, really. When he came over, I didn’t know who he was. I had like the door open, screen door locked. He knocked on the door, he was all talking about—He didn’t even say “Hi,” that’s how much communication we got. He didn’t even say, “Hi.”

Did he know you?

Yeah, he knows me ’cause he said he walked in, he was all—he was like, “Can I use the bathroom?” Like who are you? He was like, “I’m your father.”

Wow, what was it like seeing him after so many years?

Didn’t do nothing to me. It just made me mad the way he came to the door and stuff. You know, all talking about, “Can I use your bathroom?”

It must have felt kind of weird or strange in some way.

It didn’t really faze me. I just saw him as a stranger.

The “I” statements in Malcolm’s story (“I didn’t know who he was. … Didn’t do nothing to me. It just made me mad. … It didn’t really faze me”) suggest that he is denying his anger while feeling angry. He does not want to be “fazed” by the presence of his father, but his shaky tone indicates otherwise (this was the first time that he can remember meeting his father). While his sister will occasionally have contact with their father, Malcolm prefers not to have any.

As you’re getting older, do you ever think that you want to talk to your father about anything? I don’t mean about problems that you have, but about any feelings you have toward him not being around when you were growing up?

No, ’cause I feel I turned out pretty good, so you know. It probably would’ve been more better. I would’ve had an easier view. I’m not saying that I had it hard, ’cause I had plenty of time to play and all, but I’m just saying, you know, I don’t feel nothing.

In his shifts from saying he “turned out pretty good” to “it probably would’ve been more better” to “I don’t feel nothing,” Malcolm suggests, once again, that he is trying to ward off feelings of hurt and anger. “I just try to, like, grow up, take things as they come. I don’t try to be like ‘[I] depend on nobody’ or ’you’re not here, now we’re having all this trouble.’ You know, I feel we can do for ourselves.” The absence of his father, Malcolm maintains, has made him neither wary nor desirous of dependency. He seems resolute not to be affected by his father’s absence.

When Mike repeats the previous year’s questions about having any adult males who he looks up to, Malcolm says:

Not really, ’cause there wasn’t really nobody around besides my mother’s boyfriend. He was, you know, cool and all. He liked to tell us things. He used to play with me and my sister. But besides that there was nobody else because [my mother] was always trying to do for us. She’d like come home, clean, and all that stuff. And then after a while, I just like—somehow she—I just took over that role really. I started cleaning and stuff. Trying to keep things in shape, whatever. Keep my room neat so everything would be decent.

Malcolm’s repeated stories to Mike of his duties at home suggest pride but also, perhaps, a sense of feeling overwhelmed (his frequent reference to needing “to relax” also suggest a sense of burden). The roles at home have changed since last year so that now Malcolm appears to feel more like the mother and/or father figure in the household. It is not clear from his discussions whether, for Malcolm, this apparent shift in roles (“I just took over that role”) is frustrating, enjoyable, overwhelming, or, perhaps, a mixture of all these emotions. However, he has taken on the caretaker role and he wants Mike to know this.

In response to a question about whether or not he has a best or close friend this year, Malcolm says:

Just my girlfriend really. I be chilling with her, but besides that I’m getting tired of being crowded really. I like hanging out but it just gets boring when you, like, do the same things so much. So when, like, people say, you know, “Why don’t you come out anymore,” I don’t feel like just going out, sitting on the corner or nothing.

What exactly do you mean by being crowded?

Well, it could just be one person. But sometimes, that one person just get aggravating. Not what he says and stuff, it’s just that he’s being—that he’s there. ’Cause it’s just most of the time I like to be alone, you know, just me and my dark side. I like music a lot. So I just buy a lot of albums and stuff, but I don’t like people always around me and stuff.

While Mike asks Malcolm about “friends,” Malcolm responds by referring either to his girlfriend or to “people” (last year it was “associates”). Like last year, Malcolm is seemingly frustrated with his male peers and does not believe he has a close male friend.

Malcolm mentions, at a later point in his interview, that spending time with his male peers may not only be “aggravating” but also dangerous:

So like I’d rather just go [out] by myself if anything’s going to happen it’s gonna happen with me alone. Therefore, I won’t have to bring nobody else into it. You know, ’cause when you’re hanging with a gang, there might be a dude that’s hanging with you that got a beef with these people over here. And then all of a sudden you getting stabbed up or you in a fight or something or arrested over that.

Remarkably, Malcolm’s peers do not provide him with a sense of security but rather with a grave sense of peril. Keeping to himself, however, has not protected Malcolm from all threats of violence. He was recently shot at by a gang of boys while walking his dog. Since these situations frighten him, he tries to stay “out of trouble” and not make any “enemies.” For Malcolm, there are dangers to being alone as well as being with his peers. He is caught in an environment that has no clear route toward safety.

Malcolm prefers to spend time with his girlfriend rather than with his male friends:

We could talk, you know, we go out, we go to the movies. But we could do certain things that you can’t—you don’t—well you can do it [with male friends], but it is just not the same feeling like when you’re walking with a girl because with a girl you can express certain feelings and stuff. Like, say if you don’t really want to spend no money, you just go for a walk on the river, whatever. You know, you can do that with a girl. And you can talk about certain things, you know, be laughing, have fun. That’s the kind of stuff I do with her and stuff. You know, me and her, we went to the park and stuff, chill, walk, took pictures. … [With boys] it’s just harder to like—’cause some of the things you may [want to do] make you seem as if you’re gay or something. You know, … it’s more relaxing when you’re with a girl so you can just chill. Seems like you have more to talk about.

In dramatic contrast to his dismissive attitude about girls in his freshman year, Malcolm tells Mike that he finds girls more relaxing and easier to talk with than boys. Interestingly, Malcolm discusses “certain feelings” with Mike while, at the same time, claiming that he can only express such feelings with girls. Malcolm may feel that his male peers are less trustworthy than an adult male—even an adult male who is a stranger to him. However, as suggested by some of his peers, Malcolm may feel comfortable with Mike precisely because he is a stranger: there is no risk that Mike will spread his stories to others and tarnish his reputation.⁴

About his feelings for his girlfriend, Malcolm says:

I don’t feel myself falling in love or nothing like that because you know—I feel if she left me, it would leave a little emptiness but after a while I could fill that with a different girl … so I feel like if she left me, I feel empty because I ain’t got a girl there. But see, once I do have a girl there, then all thought of her is gone. [My girlfriend] claims she’s in love with me, but you know, I just, you know, don’t let myself—I don’t even think like that. Therefore, I won’t fall in love, I guess, because it ain’t the right time in my life. I gotta be handling things for myself right now.

Describing how he would know if he were in love (“I feel if she left me …”), Malcolm makes it clear to Mike that, although he enjoys spending time with his girlfriend of two months and considers her a close friend, he is not in love with her. Like last year, Malcolm seems cautious of being intimate with others. He also explains that while his girlfriend is a close friend, she is not a best friend because “if you have a best friend, you know, you express yourself more and … you, like, feel lost without them.” Articulating the subtleties of relationships, Malcolm vividly conveys a personal understanding of love and friendships.

Malcolm explains to Mike that he likes his girlfriend because she has encouraged him to do things that he has never done before:

That’s helping me really to expand like when you learn a new word in your vocabulary. You open up more vocabulary words. She’s just like expanding in a different variety of things you can do instead of just going to the park, playing ball, hanging on the corner you know. … But she was like, “Let’s go take some pictures,” And while you’re actually taking pictures, when you’re done with that, you go get some ice cream, then go chill in the park, you know, go ride the [boats] or whatever, you know, and just chill. And that’s really things that girls like.

Do you like doing those things?

Well, yeah, they’re cool.

Despite his previous concerns about sounding “gay,” Malcolm describes the pleasure he takes in doing things that are not stereotypically male activities. In fact, he perceives such “girl” activities as mind expanding and as “cool.” Malcolm’s comfort in communicating these potentially risky thoughts and feelings attests not only to Mike’s skill as an interviewer (Malcolm seems to trust Mike), but also, perhaps, to Malcolm’s growing self-confidence and pride in his ability to transcend his peers’ expectations.

Malcolm says that both he and his girlfriend consistently use birth control, but if she got pregnant he would support her in whatever decision she would make: “I want her to do what’s right for her. Whatever she feels she could do.” Once again, Malcolm seems uncertain about whether or not he wants a child. He claims, however, that he is more cautious than he was last year:

[Everything is] more of a struggle. So you gotta make—I gotta make sure my life’s right first before anything surprising happens.

When you say it seems more like a struggle, what do you mean?

You know, it’s like—’cause it’s now the time when I’m in the tenth grade and stuff and this year’s ending so I’ll be in the eleventh grade. So therefore, I’m growing up, you know, I’m about to get out of school. I gotta figure out everything. If I’m going to college right away or whatever.

So you try to be especially safe so nothing gets in the way.

So I won’t have this responsibility that holds me off from that, you know.

Malcolm seems particularly focused on “figuring things out” for himself this year. His sense of “growing up” has heightened his concerns about his future and has made him more careful.

When Mike inquires about Malcolm’s role models, Malcolm says, as in the previous year, that he likes certain rap stars such as Public Enemy because they “talk knowledge”:

They speak of the history and stuff. Certain stuff that could help you so you can fill that confidence inside you. ’Cause if you just know what’s going on now, sometimes you might hear the wrong things and you feel like you can’t do nothing, you can’t get out. But that’s not always true because when you see other people done it, there are just certain ways you gotta go about things. You can’t always go about things with your fist. You gotta go about it with your mind.

“Filling” his confidence, dispelling feelings of hopelessness and despair, and providing him with positive messages on “how to get out,” rap music plays an important role in Malcolm’s life. While he never explains and is never asked what he means by “getting out,” Malcolm suggests in other parts of his interview that he wants to “get out” of living a life in which both being at home and in the streets of his community is fraught with danger.

Malcolm wants to be a rapper who speaks

clear and stuff, not all hard. But you know [I want] everything to sound nice. You know, I want it to be like a memory song—a song that people play after a while.

What are some of the messages you want to get across?

Like I said be confident, you know, try your hardest, don’t look back too much. Just ’cause you done wrong then, just look forward to what you can do now. Stuff like that.

A strong but not mindless sense of optimism, trying hard, and “looking forward” are themes that are evident in each of Malcolm’s interviews and summarize well his strategy for living.

Asked to describe himself, Malcolm says:

Somewhat mature. I’m sort of caring. I could say I’m caring. You know, understanding at some level. I’m responsible, I feel. That’s really it. I won’t try to get all conceited or nothing ’cause I don’t really try to judge myself. I just try to be who I am and go for what I want.

Anything you don’t like about yourself?

No, I feel that I’m fine. You know, I’m not gonna try to say I wish I was like this or like that because I just have to accept myself for who I am now. I can’t say I’m all good. I can’t say I’m all bad. I just try to do my best. If you try to be all good, sometimes you just—what you think is good might not always be right.

Malcolm again reveals a capacity to understand the variation of his personality and of his relationships. Malcolm’s self-description seems honest (“I’m sort of caring”) and astute.

Does anything stand out for you [over the past year] as having been especially good or bad?

Just [my] grades. It shows people feel that I’m good, but then I take it as like, you know, I can go out and be in a gang or whatever, come to school and do my best. You know, so, therefore, those grades don’t mean I’m good. But then it’s just when I’m in the gang they think I’m bad. So it’s really odd.

Malcolm’s critique of one-sided perceptions is unique among the adolescents we interviewed. He is cognizant—perhaps due to his own experiences (although he currently does not belong to a gang)—that one can be both “good” and “bad” at the same moment and is baffled by the fact that most people refuse to allow for such complexity. Offering evidence of his different sides, Malcolm tells Mike of his arrest last month for being in a stolen car (he received a short probation), and of his recent academic achievements that include making the honorable mention list.

Malcolm is quite proud of being on the honorable mention list. He tells Mike that he received a “little medal” for that honor, but immediately explains that he is not on the more prestigious honors list because he is getting a C in one of his classes. He is pleased with himself for improving his grades from last year, but believes he is capable of doing even better. He has done well in school because for “the first time” he “really tries to listen” when he is in class. Relying exclusively on homework to help him understand the class material does not work for Malcolm because “I do get lazy when it comes to like reading the whole section like I said, I do [homework] while I’m at school. I’ll say I’ll do it at home, then when I get home, I just get lazy.” Malcolm speaks about his own “laziness” in the midst of telling Mike of his academic achievements. While he listens in class and is doing better in school, he admits to not completing his homework. When I listen to Malcolm speak about his school performance, my professional training leads me to want to categorize his school performance as “good,” “average,” or, perhaps, “lazy.” Malcolm’s perception of himself in school, however, resists these flat categories. He is a student who is doing well and who is struggling to do better.

Reflecting on his high school, Malcolm considers the only problem to be the absence of a Black History course “because it could help [black] students realize that they can be somebody.” Learning for Malcolm is an experience directly linked to his life. Through education, and particularly education about the past and present lives of his ancestors, he believes that he and his black peers would realize their potential. In a school where almost half of the student body is black, Malcolm is, I think, justifiably distressed at the lack of such a course.

Aside from this gap in the curriculum, Malcolm, to my surprise, likes his high school. Because his junior high school did not enforce the rules or encourage learning, he says he did not do as well in school as he does now in high school (he says he was also spending time with the “wrong people” in junior high). He appreciates that the administrators and teachers at his high school are strict because their actions, he believes, create an environment that is conducive to learning.

When asked about his plans for college, Malcolm responds affirmatively but sounds unsure whether he will really go. After high school, Malcolm says he would like to be an entertainer or an engineer.

When you think of the future, what do you think of?

I just think of me growing up. I just wanna be well-set even if I gotta work. ’Cause I rather be an entertainer, therefore, I can, you know, have fun at what I’m doing, at what I like to do. But like if I gotta work, I just wanna have a well-set job where I’m getting paid a good amount of money where I could save stuff. Being—doing good for me. I’m standing on my own feet, not asking people. Even if I do gotta ask, I wanna make sure, I’m able to—I got the right things in my head, so I could pay it back, give it back.

How likely does it seem to you that that will happen?

Well, I feel like there’s a great possibility ’cause it’s just that I gotta get out of this lazy mood. ’Cause like getting in shape, that seems so hard. So far I been doing that. So I think that’s like my first step to doing anything ’cause once I got everything in order, then I feel I could do it even though I might need a break once in a while.

Malcolm’s standards for himself are clear: he wants independence yet allows himself to ask for help when needed as long as he returns the favor. He “can do it” even though he may need a “break once in a while.” By repeatedly stating, throughout his interview, that he needs to “get everything in shape,” and make “things neat” or “decent” before he can “do anything,” Malcolm implies that he does not feel that his life is in order or “neat.” He is, however, intent on finding such order.

When Mike asks Malcolm, “When is the future?” Malcolm answers:

Everyday. I just, you know, take it as a new day because I don’t ever know what might pop up, you know. Therefore, I don’t try thinking too far ahead ’cause the way things are today. I don’t try to think too negative, but you gotta think in the right perspective where you’re at, you know, where you’re living. You know a lot of people getting killed, especially innocent people, for no reason. You gotta think like, “Well, I could be one of those people so why should I sit here and just wait for this to happen.” Make a name for yourself while you’re here. So, therefore, people can remember you for not being lazy, drinking beer all the time. They could think that you were trying to do for yourself, trying to make a name, trying to get out.

One reason for Malcolm’s concern with his own laziness becomes clear in this passage. He wants to be remembered as self-reliant and as someone who “got out.” Strikingly, his awareness of death pushes him to want to “be somebody.” He tries not to think “negatively,” but believes that he has to think realistically, and this “right perspective” seems to enhance his perseverance.

When you think about the future, is there anything that you’re afraid of?

Death, really. I’m not really afraid to die. I’m really afraid of the outcome after I die. If I died before my mother or my sister, I just think about how hard it would hit them. … I’m not saying they couldn’t go on, but I know it’d be very hard. Even when like me and my mother argue, all of a sudden she be like, “I don’t wanna argue like that.” She always wants to settle things and stuff.

Malcolm speaks each year about his worries concerning the effects his own death would have on his mother and sister. He knows that given “the way things are today … where you’re living,” his life is constantly in danger and this knowledge seems to haunt both him and his mother.

When Malcolm is asked what makes his life worth living, he tells Mike:

Just the fact that I feel I know I can make it. That I have the strength and the whatever it takes to succeed. Really, that’s really what makes me feel like “yeah, my life is worth living.” ’Cause if I was doing bad in school and I felt there was nothing I could do about it, I feel that there would be nothing else really going for me. You know, I would probably be drinking more, whatever.

A sense of optimism pervades Malcolm’s interviews. Knowing that he has the strength and ability to do what he wants and the control to change his life makes him want to live his life.

His optimism is evident as well in his response to a question about potential discrimination:⁵

How do you see being black having an effect on what you would do in the future?

Well, it depends on how the person sees me—if they see me as black and therefore won’t speak to me at all, I feel that it’s just gonna make things even more difficult. But if they see me as black but don’t like me too much … but if they speak to me, I feel like I can influence them in some way to make them understand I got the quality, I could do the job, I give it my best. You know, I’m gonna be here on time. If you wanna put it all hard on me, you know … I’ll prove myself, that’s what I’m saying.

Keenly aware of the racist stereotypes that will follow him into the work world, Malcolm is intent on proving them wrong. Yet he understands he will only be able to challenge such beliefs if his future bosses are willing to give him a chance. His determination to defy his bosses’ negative expectations reminds me of his conviction to “prove” to his mother that he can be responsible. While it is impossible to know what is not being said here, since Malcolm may feel that he is, in fact, speaking to one of those “bosses” (“If you wanna put it all hard on me you know …”), Malcolm appears to believe he can prove his potential to others. This confidence, hopefulness, and persistence are typical of Malcolm’s outlook on his world.

Malcolm speaks about fearing an early death and about having hope for the future; he speaks about being responsible and about being arrested for being in a stolen car; he speaks about being lazy and about being on the honorable mention list at school; he says he does not want a committed relationship with a girl and claims that the closest relationship he has right now is with his girlfriend. Malcolm seems caring and reflective and, at other times, tentative and disengaged.

His presentation of himself and his life in his freshman and sophomore years is typical of the adolescents we interviewed. While there were a few students who presented themselves as one-dimensional (e.g., those who were seemingly the most depressed), the stories of the majority of students were three-dimensional, alive, and filled with ambiguities, contradictions, and continuities.