Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Dartmouth College and is co-editor of Adolescent Portraits (1999). Janie Victoria Ward is Associate Professor of Education and Human Services at Simmons College and is co-editor of Mapping the Moral Domain (1988). Tracy L.Robinson is Associate Professor in the Department of Counselor Education at North Carolina State University and is co-author of The Convergence of Race, Ethnicityand Gender (1999). Robert Kilkenny is co-editor of Adolescent Portraits (1999) and is Clinical Instructor in Psychology at Harvard Medical School.

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Souls Looking Back

Routledge

Chapter One

Born with a Veil

PRINCE

Prince shows amazing strength and resiliency despite a childhood of extreme instability, poverty, and frequent upheavals, against a backdrop of crime, prisons, drugs, and violence. He eventually escaped the hardships of his youth, by way of "rich white" schools, which his mother always sought out for him, and through emulating positive role models as opposed to the omnipresent negative forces in his life. He excelled in school, being the only black kid in advanced classes. With the strong influence of teachers and a highly successful black Big Brother, Prince rose above his situation?to attend a prestigious college?while still feeling connected to his past and his "people."

Prince epitomizes the transformative power of the psyche, as he looks back on all the people who "hurt" him in life and reframes situations, viewing them as ultimately "helpful" in arriving at his present identity. This essay was written in his sophomore year.

My father received a phone call from some of his friends. They weregoing out and wanted him to come along. He said, "Hell, yeah. You know I'mdown for some action. When y'all coming by here?" As he got ready to go out,my mother grew worried. She had asked him to stop hanging around this set offriends, but he had told her to shut up and leave him alone.

"You trying to run my life again? I'm a man! Damn, I can make my ownmotherfucking decisions!"

    He pushed her aside gently and she jumped right back in his face and toldhim, "I am telling you not to go out tonight! I have a bad feeling." He lookedat her funny. She said, "I had a dream this morning that you would go out andnot come back for seven years. Don't leave! Please stay with metonight!" He said, "Awww, fuck that old voodoo shit. I'm going out, woman."That was the end of their discussion until his friends came by. She protestedagain for him not to leave, but he was even more adamant because his friendswere there waiting. He did not want to look pussy-whipped and he wasn't aboutto go out like some kind of sucker. He pushed her away from the door and left.He pulled his coat around him as he climbed into the back seat. She watchedfrom the balcony as the mist swallowed the car.

    That night, my father and his friends robbed a convenience store. Duringthe crime they shot and killed a bystander, the son of a wealthy local cardealer. Newly identified as one of the area's most wanted criminals, my fatherwent into hiding for more than a year. The police continued to search for himand ultimately followed my mother on one of her regular visits to his secretapartment. The police arrested both my parents and took them to jail, where Iwas born a few days later.

    While my mother was in custody for aiding and abetting a fugitive, she wentinto labor. She was taken to the hospital where, after my birth, they took meaway from her and sent her back to her cell. My grandmother picked me up fromthe hospital. At the time, my mother had been going to school and working. Shewas released from jail a week after my birth and turned to my father's mother,Jenelle, for support. We moved to an apartment in South Central L.A. I wouldfrequently spend the night at my Uncle William's house. Though William is myfather's younger brother, he is only four years older than I am. We had lots ofexperiences together?good and bad. When we were older, we grew closethrough fending off gang assaults and finding our way across South Central L.A.William is more like a brother to me than an uncle. These days, though, becausehe did not get out of that environment, he is hard to talk to. He still liveswith my grandmother and is struggling to support her, his daughter, andhimself.

    Some weekends, my mother would pack up our old Mercury Comet (completewith tail fins and rust spots) with cold fried chicken and lemonade andtake William and me to visit my father in Soledad State Prison, some 250 milesnorth of Los Angeles. We always ate at Denny's on the way up because thedrive took so long. On the visits we met my father in a common room withother prisoners, where he would show us off to the other inmates and thenproceed to argue with my mother about the course of his life and whether theycould be back together after he was released. William and I would escape thissituation as fast as we could. We usually asked my mom for the car keys so thatwe could go and get some lemonade out of the back of the car. When mymother returned from the meeting room, she would have tears in her eyes. Shewould tell me, because there was no one else to tell, how my father was tryingto change her into something she was not. I still do not know what she meant,but I do know that it greatly troubled her. I could never watch my mother crywithout crying myself.

    My first experiences with my father in prison struck me then as merelyinconvenient and a little troubling because of the fighting and tears. I didnot feel that something was strange or missing in my life. My mother took verygood care of me on her own, so I managed to ignore the gentle voice in mymind that told me something was seriously wrong with my father's situationand his relationship with my mother.

    My mother and I soon moved from South Central L.A. to a suburb in theSan Fernando Valley, known as the home of the "valley girls." By that time myfather had been in prison for 5 years, and my mother and I were living with aman named Lewis who owned a new Cutlass Supreme. I'm not sure who hewas or why we lived with him; I guess he was my mother's boyfriend. It is anindication of the relationship I have with my mother that I don't particularlyresent her or look down on her for living with another man while her husband,my father, was in jail; for the first 8 years of my life my mother and Istruggled by ourselves, relying heavily on each other. We were always veryclose; I got to know her as a human being?sometimes more than I wish I had. IfI didn't know so much about how she struggled to raise me, I could be moreselfish and just blame her for all of our problems, like most children do.Instead I find myself blaming others!

    When we were living in Canoga Park [San Fernando Valley], I had my firstexperience with racism. William came over and we decided to go to the park.We dug in the sand, played with the sand hornets, and made mud pies to throwat each other. Then, as we were about to get on the merry-go-round, a motherran up and yanked her child off of it. On the way home William told me she hadmuttered to her child about us "nigger children," and I was incredulous. I didnot yet have the slightest idea of what it meant to be black, much less blackand living in a valley suburb. That lady helped me to begin to understand.

    My early school experience in the valley was the first indication of whatwould become a trend in my life. I attended a preschool best characterized as awhite hippie experimental school. The school was built out of dark wooden logsto give it a natural look, like a logger's cabin, out there in the tree-coveredvalleys of Southern California. I guess I must have excelled at this schoolbecause I was labeled "gifted"...