I was searching the Internets today when I ran across this excellent article by freelance writer Emily Badger. Badger tells the story of Kenny Cross, a young black man raised in Raleigh in a loving, supportive, well-off home but who deliberately took a wrong turn in life. Cross had the potential to become an Olympic swimmer but fell in with the wrong crowd in college. Convinced he needed to prove he was “black enough,” Cross joined his criminal friends on an armed-robbery crime spree across the Southeast, holding up dozens of motels and check-cashing stores. He’s now in prison serving a 15-year sentence.
Though Cross’s mother is a doctor and his family apparently did everything right, Cross still chose a life of crime. As his father put it, “He’s stealing from people $300 when he could have called home for a thousand. It made no sense. It still doesn’t make any sense.” Cross had such a promising future but he threw it away. Why?
Reading of Cross reminded me of the case of Reggie Gemeille, whose online life tells a story of a kid trying to figure out who he is, only to fall victim to peer pressure to be “hard.” Gemeille is now accused of murder.
Gemeille might not have come from a well-off family, but Cross did, so while poverty may be a factor in some cases you can’t say it’s the only one. Perhaps if society didn’t glorify thug life? If society provided more positive role models for young black men? I don’t know. It’s a complicated issue and not an easy one to solve. All I know is that it makes me shake my head to watch as these kids trade their potential for a life in the prison system. Especially kids like Reggie Gemeille and Kenny Cross, who could’ve become so much more.