Verwandte Artikel zu If I Grow Up

If I Grow Up - Softcover

Strasser, Todd

 
9781847387318: If I Grow Up
Softcover
ISBN 10: 1847387314 ISBN 13: 9781847387318
Verlag: Simon & Schuster UK, 2010

Inhaltsangabe

In the Frederick Douglass Project where DeShawn lives, daily life is ruled by drugs and gang violence. Dropping out of school and joining a gang is the norm and every kid knows someone who's died. Gunshots ring out on a regular basis.
DeShawn is smart enough to know he should stay in school and keep away from the gangs. But while his friends have drug money to buy anything they want, DeShawn's family can barely afford food for the month. How can he stick to his principles when his family is hungry?
In this gritty novel about growing up in the inner-city projects, award-winning author Todd Strasser opens a window into the life of a teenager struggling with right and wrong under the ever-present shadow of gangs.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Todd Strasser has written many award-winning novels for adults, teenagers and children including Boot Camp, Can't Get There from Here, Give a Boy a Gun and Girl Gives Birth to Own Prom Date, the latter of which was adapted for the Fox feature film Drive Me Crazy, with script by Rob Thomas. Todd Strasser speaks frequently at schools. He lives in Westchester County, New York.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

In my last book, Boot Camp , I wrote about a secret prison system for teenagers in the United States. Teens do not have to be found guilty of a crime to be sent to one of these facilities, also known as boot camps. All they have to be is under the age of eighteen and have parents or guardians who want to send them away.
There is yet another system of detention in our country that holds not thousands, but millions, of innocent people against their wills. Unlike boot camps, which are often located in remote parts of the landscape, these social and economic gulags are hidden in plain sight, often in inner cities, but also anywhere that young people are denied the basic social, economic, and educational opportunities necessary to succeed.
Like many Americans, I believe that the United States provides its citizens with some of the greatest educational, social, and financial opportunities on Earth. But those opportunities are not shared equally. Today significant numbers of American citizens-mostly minorities, and many living in impoverished inner-city areas-are doomed to fail before they have the chance to embrace the possibilities for a happy and rewarding life that so many of the rest of us enjoy.

For those of us who live in suburbs, small towns, and in the better parts of urban areas, the impoverished inner cities are portrayed by the media as a cauldron of moral decay and crime that now and then produces a talented athlete or music star. We forget that millions of inner-city denizens are just like us-well-meaning human beings who yearn for the simple and basic privileges our country promises: a decent education, a job with a chance for advancement, and a safe place to raise children.

When those privileges are denied, or are unattainable, young men and women seek other avenues to satisfy their needs and fulfill their dreams. This, many believe, accounts for the steady increase in gang membership that has occurred over the past three decades. It is important to note that gang membership knows no ethnic or racial bounds. In addition to Hispanic, African-American, and Asian gangs, it is currently estimated that close to 30 percent of gang membership in smaller cities and rural communities is Caucasian.
Still, the majority of gang members in this country are minority city dwellers. As Malcolm W. Klein states in his book The American Street Gang: Its Nature, Prevalence, and Control , "Street gangs are an amalgam of racism, of urban underclass poverty, of minority and youth culture, of fatalism in the face of rampant deprivation, of political insensitivity, and the gross ignorance of inner-city . . . America on the part of most of us who do not have to survive there ." (My italics.)

Since the dawn of the human race, we have banded together to improve our chances of survival. It seems to be basic to our nature. Given this, perhaps we can understand why, when faced with hopelessness, racism, and inescapable poverty, young inner-city men are likely to join gangs.
Perhaps the saddest, most sinister, and devastating aspect of gangs is that, in the absence of positive influences, opportunities, and role models, they recruit basically good, constructive, and naturally well-meaning young men (and to a lesser degree, young women) and turn them bad.
This is the story of one of those young men.

TWELVE YEARS OLD
The divisions between black and white, and rich and poor, begin at birth and are reinforced every day of a child's life.

"Some ask us why we act the way we act
Without lookin' how long they kept us back."
-from "Rightstarter (Message to a Black Man)"
by Public Enemy

A Shorty Falls

The shouting and screaming outside started at dinnertime. We were sitting on the living room couch, eating macaroni and cheese, and watching Judge Joe Brown on the TV. Between the banging of the heat pipes and the noise outside, it was

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Verlag
Simon & Schuster UK
Erscheinungsdatum
2010
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
1847387314
ISBN 13 
9781847387318
Einband
Taschenbuch
Anzahl der Seiten
240
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
Simon and Schuster Netherlands BV
info@simonandschuster.nl

Herculesplein 96
Utrecht
3584 AA
Niederlande