Dope Boys

We had Sunny in a spring break camp for last week. My schedule, Guy's schedule and my mother's schedule were all very busy, so we thought it would be better than having Sunny stay home and mostly complain about being bored during the day.

The organization that holds the camp is pretty close to us and has a good reputation. Sunny had fun and got lots of time playing outdoors... but we're both feeling very ambivalent about the camp and are not going to do it again next year.

This is a difficult subject to talk about, but we don't want Sunny associating too much with some of the children that went there.

The last day, when Guy came to pick him up, he overheard an older boy talking about how some other boy wanted to be a dope boy just like he was. Being a drug dealer (or more likely, pretending to be a drug dealer) is not something elementary-aged kids should be doing!

Also, Sunny told me a girl called him a bitch. He said he went to tell an adult, and I complimented him for that decision. If I was minding kids that age, I would want to know if they started using such bad language so I could go break it up.

A lot of the kids came from a very low-income part of the neighborhood and could pay a subsidized rate for the spring break camp.

I've had both friendly discussions and heated arguments with Guy over the subject of class. And class is the looming issue here... of course race is involved, but it's not the most important aspect. Sunny's friends at school are almost all black, his neighborhood block friends are all black, his summer camp is majority black... but they're all also middle-class. They're from families that have enough resources so that they can be really involved with their kids' lives, they can demand high standards in education, and they're able to minimize contact with horrible negative stuff like crack dealing.

I know that the poorer parents living in the dilapidated apartment blocks one mile and another world up the street from us want exactly the same things for their kids... they just don't have the resources to do it.

Guy admits he has a stronger reaction against what he sees as low-class behavior. He grew up in a small-town Georgia setting where his family wasn't at the bottom, but they were a lot closer to the bottom than the top. The bad things that happen to lower-class small-town white kids aren't that much different than the bad things that happen to lower-class urban black kids, except that the drug of choice is meth instead of crack.

People who grow up in protected settings (and this means me, because I also had a solid middle-class existence for a crucial stretch of my life) have a certain freedom from class-related fears. But if you grew up a few rungs from the bottom, and saw some kids fall off that ladder, that's a lesson that's going to stay with you the rest of your life.... and it might cause you to make much harsher judgments than otherwise.

I see a related kind of issue with my stepfather, who did grow up at the bottom of the ladder. Often, he won't want to take advantage of certain disability or insurance claims because he's got this weird idea that that's what lazy white trash does, game the system, and he's not like that anymore, and then my mother has to browbeat him into actually claiming the money he's entitled to.

I think Guy is often too paranoid... when he sees a group of dangerous kids that might shoot us, I see a group of rowdy teenagers, like we used to be a while back.

However, in this case, I agree 100% with Guy. I don't want Sunny to be exposed to any group of kids that thinks being a dope boy is a worthy real-life ambition. It's not like we're keeping him in an ivory tower. We live on the edge of a huge, constantly changing city, and he's going to come in contact with this stuff. I just want to minimize it as much as possible. I don't want him to look down on people from lower-class families, or be afraid of them, but I do want him to have a healthy sense of caution and know how to stay out of trouble. Atlanta is a very dangerous city, especially for a young black man. It's a difficult balancing act... I guess you'll have to check back in 12 years to see how it all works out!

From "Dope Boys" by T.I.

A crack a ki' a crumb do it fifty mo' times
The quarter go for 5 and the half go for 9
Still in the trapp wit them break down dimes
Hit me on the hipper anytime, I don't mind
Why y'all n****s bitching on and whining I'm a grind
Shack it in the winter and the summer I'm a shine (getting mine)
It's plenty of money to be made from Candler Road to Bankhead
It's plenty of room to get paid for those that ain't scared
I got the hard for the j's and dro' for the dank heads
The dope game still strong like pimping ain't dead