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Coming of age in da hood
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HardTranceProd
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dy...d=news-col-blog

quote:

The Road to Manhood Isn't Easy Street

Man up, Ernest Parker.

You know what that means: Grow up. Buck up. Suck it up and move on.

I met Ernest when he was a boy of 9. He told me he wanted to be president of the United States. Now a man-child of 24, Ernest had just completed a four-month prison term when I caught up with him the other day.

You may know somebody like this. Good-looking, smart, lots of potential -- but caught up in the street life and maybe not strong enough to break free. The city is full of young people like that. So are the prisons and the morgues.

Man up, Ernest. It's do or die. And it's not just your life that's at stake.

"I'm okay with staying out of trouble," he told me the other day. Back in February, he pleaded guilty to possessing crack cocaine with intent to distribute. If he violates probation, he goes back to prison for two years. "I want to stay out of trouble," he insisted. But he was already in trouble and didn't seem to realize how deep.

We were sitting on the steps in front of an apartment building in the 1400 block of R Street NW, where the mother of his year-old son lives. Another girlfriend -- the mother of his 6-month-old daughter -- lives in Maryland. That's trouble twice over.

"I just want to work and be with my children," Ernest said.

Noble-sounding, indeed.

But as his grandmother Frances Johnson put it: "I want him to be a father and to recognize these two children. But both of these women want him. That's a lot of pressure, and Ernest doesn't handle pressure well. I don't want him using drugs to cope with the situation or selling drugs to make money to keep those mothers happy."

Man up, Ernest. How can you take care of a family, let alone two, when you can't take care of yourself? The job in the produce section at Safeway pays okay, and Ernest's supervisor was so impressed by his work ethic that he held his job until he returned from prison last week.

Nevertheless, there's more work to be done. Get yourself together, then return to your children when you have something to offer other than overpriced baby sneakers.

Ernest had lived with Johnson all his life. She resides in a federally subsidized apartment building on R Street, the same block as the mother of his son. "His parents . . . couldn't raise him, so I brought him home with me," Johnson recalled.

After Ernest's arrest in September, Johnson was threatened with eviction under the federal "one strike" rule, which holds that if one person living in a federally subsidized apartment breaks the law, everybody in the household can be kicked out.

Fortunately, because of her extraordinary record of community service, Johnson has been able to enlist some of the District's most powerful public officials in her cause. Add to that the fact that she has cancer and diabetes, and she is not likely to be evicted, her lawyer and a lawyer for the landlord told me.

But Ernest has been banned from the property, which is a real blow for Johnson because he was her primary caregiver. With most of the D.C. Council in her corner, as well as her church, Fifteenth Street Presbyterian, she'll probably get the care she needs.

Ernest, on the other hand, is on his own. Well, not exactly.

"Wass up, bro? Welcome back," one of his running buddies said, extending a hand. Women also stopped to speak. "Oh, baby, when you get back? Call me, okay?"

When they're gone, Ernest shakes his head. "They are my friends, but I am just not into the same things anymore."

A couple of years ago, he buckled down and earned a diploma by going to night school. Now he hopes that having his story told will help him meet people who in turn can help him pursue an education.

"I'd like to go to college and study business management or accounting," he said. "I like money."

No doubt.

RJT
I thought this thread was going to be about minority children losing their virginity at earlier and earlier ages.

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tubularbills
quote:
Originally posted by RJT
I thought this thread was going to be about minority children losing their virginity at earlier and earlier ages.

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:stongue: :stongue: :stongue:

oh rob
msz
i like that pic, more please
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