Tony's Blog: How a white man goes into the hood

Recently, a corporate executive asked me how a white man goes into the hood. My answer was that most of the time he drives east and then south.

No, seriously he said: How do you learn to speak their language?

I try to meet them at a place that is beyond language. Connect to their hearts.
If I try to talk like them I’m being inauthentic and they pick that up and that becomes what is communicated.

If I try to talk like an adult to a child, they turn off. So, we have to discover a common language together: A language of the heart, or perhaps the soul. The language they are used to from adults is the language of judgment. “This is what is wrong with the way you are living your life. Let me tell you the right way”.

"Out beyond the ideas of wrongdoing

and rightdoing, there is a field

I'll meet you there."

Rumi

The other thing they get is the eight words: “If you do this, you will get that.” Trust me, these kids know about accountability. They are hammered over the head with it every day. They just don’t see the point. What young people want is to be seen, to be valued. It is more important to the human spirit than the knowledge of reward and punishment. This is especially true during the years that they are trying to form their identity in the world. Youth in the city get messages everyday that they translate to mean, “you have no place in this world…you don’t belong here.”

So, I try to bring them a different language. One that is more imaginative, thoughtful and resourceful. One that is not based on “put downs” which is the most common language of youth today, but one that is based on connection and recognition. That is the spirit of “sawubona” (Zulu for “I see you”).

Finally, I try to see them as bearers of great gifts, not as receptacles for my wisdom. This is perhaps the key to their respect and to my humility which makes us both approachable.

This is my approach to ‘inner city youth’, but come to think of it:

Isn’t this what we should all be doing for each other?

respectfully,

Tony

Out of the Darkness comes the Light

One of the things I am most proud of at Youth Mentoring is our approach. We call it a gift centered approach in which we “see” our young people’s gifts, and understand that sometimes, actually most times, these gifts lie right next to their wounds. And these wounds run deep… so deep at times that they are afraid to look at them much less talk about them. So I have to be patient, not a quality I am known for I will admit. But I do not walk away, no matter what, and eventually, the door opens ever so slowly and cautiously – and I stick my toe in! And I wait.

I have been having a similar conversation with two of my “babies”. One is a young woman I have known for about 6 years, and the other is a now a man who I have known for about 15 years, and they have both held me at arms length while holding on to me fiercely. They always tell me they are “fine” or “okay”, or how “they can handle it” as their eyes punch me in the heart with their pain. And I wait.

Then, she writes me a letter on her graduation, telling me how I always talked to her about letting me in, but I was the only one who she let in – I was the only one she let in…. she explains. How she will miss me when she goes to college. And she loves me.

We are talking about basketball, and how he can’t give it up because it helps him escape, and what he is escaping from, and I listen. He slept that night “real good”.

The light always comes…

Juliana

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