I still feel the horror and pain of Freddie Gray’s death at the hands of Baltimore police officers. I also feel hope for the future that those responsible may be brought to justice.
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I’d like to say justice will be brought, but that is yet to be determined. Clearly the police officers involved need to be held accountable, but so too does the system that criminalizes so many people, particularly young men, and most particularly, young, Black men.
Like most everyone I had never heard of Freddie Gray before he was arrested and made news.
“Before the world heard his name chanted in the streets, before his cries echoed across televisions and sparked protests in Baltimore, Freddie Gray was struggling to make a life for himself,” says a CNN news report.
Here are a few things I’ve learned about Freddie Gray and his life:
- Freddie was 25 years old at the time of his death on April 19, 2015.
- Freddie was well-liked by his community. “He was so funny. Any time you’re looking for a laugh, you’re going straight to Freddie,” his friend Raheem Gaither said. “We’re all from the same neighborhood. All of us here are family.”
- Freddie was 5’8’’ tall and weighed 145 pounds.
- Freddie loved football and had always wanted to play tight end but was too small, his friend William Stewart said.
- Freddie had a drug problem and was in trouble with the law. “When people come to buy narcotics or gamble or anything and they put their money in your hand, what makes you so bad?” his brother-in-law Juan Grant asked. “He had responsibilities. Responsibilities don’t stop because you don’t have a job.”
- Eighteen months before Freddie died, his brother was killed on the streets of Baltimore.
- Freddie’s mother and stepfather raised him and his siblings in a home so squalid, they won a settlement from the landlord over lead paint exposure.
- Freddie and his sisters had damaging levels of lead in their blood, which lead to myriad educational and medical issues.
- Freddie and his sisters were born “preemie” to a mother who couldn’t read, had never been to high school and had a daily heroin habit.
We live in a world with such serious problems it overwhelms our minds. If you want to catch a glimpse of what we all must deal with, take a look at the Worldometer and see real time numbers of population growth, environmental destruction, C02 emissions, toxic chemicals released into the environment, 800 million undernourished people in the world alongside 1.6 billion who are overweight, 700 million people with no access to clean drinking water, and on and on and on.
When We Can’t Solve Our Problems We Look for Scapegoats
One of the time-tested ways we attempt to deal with problems that overwhelm us is by finding a scapegoat. In ancient Greece, a cripple or beggar or criminal (interestingly called the pharmakos) was cast out of the community, either in response to a natural disaster, such as a plague, famine, or an invasion; or in response to a calendrical crisis, such as the end of the year. In the bible (Leviticus 16:8) a goat was sent into the wilderness after the Jewish chief priest had symbolically laid the sins of the people upon it.
I still have my 1961 copy of The Myth of Mental Illness by psychiatrist Thomas S. Szasz, M.D. who offers clear insight into the underlying reasons we scapegoat others.
“Unable to admit ignorance and relative helplessness,” says Szasz, “yet equally unable to achieve scientific understanding and mastery of diverse physical, biological, and social problems, men have sought refuge in scapegoat explanations.”
Szasz points out that the specific identities of scapegoats are legion. They have included:
- Lepers
- Women
- Witches
- Jews
- Communists
- Muslims
- Blacks
- Japanese Americans
- The mentally ill
- Marijuana and other drugs
- Young men
Scapegoats are always a minority in the dominant culture and always a group that elicits fear. All around us, we see a world of violence. We feel vulnerable and afraid. Those that are most likely to engage in violence are young men, bursting with testosterone, who feel disconnected from the larger society and don’t have a lot to lose. I suspect that the police in Baltimore, and every major city in the world, see young males who scare the hell out of them.
They are told that their duty is to “protect and serve.” They are on the front-line facing problems our society has not been able to solve such as poverty, racism, the increasing divide been the rich and the poor, environmental deterioration, and violence. In this context, young men, particularly young men of color, become scapegoats.
There are three things that are needed to effectively address these problems:
Understand and confront the phenomenon of scapegoating.
Scapegoating is as old as mankind, but it is little understood. One organization that is attempting to expand our understanding and offer solutions is The Scapegoat Society. Formed in the autumn of 1997, the Scapegoat Society is for those concerned with the dynamics of attributing blame to others—the core of scapegoating and demonizing. The Scapegoat Society is a resource both for people who have experienced being a scapegoat, and for people working professionally to resolve scapegoat problems.
Offer Rites of Passage for youth.
An African proverb reminds us:
“If we don’t initiate the young, they will burn down the village to feel the heat.”
We see the burning going on all over the world, but look for scapegoats rather than treat the problems at its roots. One person who understands the need for rites of passage is film maker, Frederick Marx.
Marx is an internationally acclaimed, Oscar and Emmy nominated director/writer with 35 years in the film business who is best known for his award-winning 1994 film, Hoop Dreams. He’s now working on an important new film, Rites of Passage: Mentoring the Future, a feature length documentary that will do for rites of passage what Inconvenient Truth did for global warming – bring it out of the underground into the mainstream.
Expand our minds to deal with the complexity of modern life.
If we scapegoat others because we can’t get our heads around the complex problems we face in the world, while the real problems go unresolved, are we doomed? We are clearly overwhelmed with stresses and are suffering everything from increases in atrial fibrillation and stroke. Our hearts are telling us that we’re not dealing well with our world.
One person who has some real answers is sociobiologist Rebecca Costa. In her widely acclaimed book, The Watchman’s Rattle: A Radical New Theory of Collapse, Costa articulates the problem we face trying to get our stone-age brains to deal with the complexities of the modern world. Costa believes that we must develop our ability to transform our brains into a new kind of thinking machine. Costa demonstrates that our brains can be trained to develop and sharpen this skill—insight on demand—the next evolutionary “tool” we need to assure our survival on planet Earth.
Young men like Freddie Gray need to be helped rather than harmed, mentored rather than disrespected, and loved rather than feared. These young men are our future and are vital to our survival. Their passion can light the way. If we refuse to engage them whole heartedly, their rage will destroy us all.
Photo Credit: Getty Images
Jed, I agree with you and I believe there is another very large factor in this equation. I call it the “Common Denominator” that no one wants to talk about: What is the “Common Denominator” that’s causing the majority of the following problems? Bullying Drug abuse Violence to women Rape Homeless people Gangs Alcoholism Violent crimes Murder Mass murderers Over crowded prisons The single most common condition that causes the majority of these social problems is Divorce & Broken Homes (and/or the absence of fathers or a GOOD male role model). IT’S true and No One Wants to Talk About… Read more »
Bob,
Thanks for your detailed response. I agree that helping couples work out their differences so that they can feel loving support for each other and their children. Broken families too often leave men, women, and children in trouble. We can do better.