Four of the young men that I work with came in for our weekly session. They sat scattered in a circle. I pulled a chair to the center of them. Did you all watch the elections? I heard muffled “no’s” and one “yes.” I asked, “What do you all think about a black man being the next president?” The room was silent until someone said, “I don’t know that man.” “Did you all follow the race?” I asked. “No, not really,” they said. I planned to have a serious conversation with them today about giving up gangbanging. So I asked them, “Are you all considering throwing in the towel?” “No!” Then one young man said, “T, I told you this nigga ain’t got no future.” I ask the others what they felt about that. One of them, a 16-year-old, replied, “I ain’t shit and I know I ain’t shit.” How do I hope and hold possibility for my boys, who believe they don’t have a future and they ain’t shit?
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