AKRON, Ohio -- What makes a thug?
Nathan Howell, a psychologist and doctoral candidate at the Chicago School of Professional Psychology, set out to answer that question. What psychological factors make up the aggressive young black men portrayed in news reports and films, incarcerated at a rate higher than peers with different skin colors?
One in six black men have been incarcerated as of 2001, according to the NAACP. If current trends continue, one in three black males born today can expect to spend time in prison.
The University of Akron's eighth annual Black Male Summit -- which gathers high school and college-aged black men from around the nation, along with top academic minds -- is attempting to help more black men stay away from prison and graduate from college. This year 24 states are represented, with 1,600 people expected to attend.
Howell spoke on thug culture, explaining that the word's meaning varies depending on the background of the person.
One offered by the late 1990s rapper Tupac Shakur: "His definition of a thug is his pride, somebody who is an underdog, somebody who came from nothing but can still hold his head high," Howell said.
So, what makes for a thug life?
Hopelessness
Howell's explanation began with the word hopelessness. He started with news video of shootings, guns and violence on the south side of Chicago. A little boy told a reporter that he was afraid to go outside.
Then footage switched to a black man in his mid-20s. The reporter asked if he felt bad that the child was afraid to go outside.
"If you're scared, go to bed, stay in the house," the man said. "I was raised around here, 21 years in the same crib, I'm outside, I'm alive."
Why that answer? Howell concluded that the aggressive, prideful response was derived largely as a mechanism to stave off hopelessness.
"It tells me he was more proud that he was able to survive that environment," Howell said. "When trauma happens they get stuck in survival mode, they are constantly trying to survive and never learn how to live."
For the fearful, the man's advice to stay inside and go to bed could have been a genuine statement, Howell said, rather than disrespectful as it was conveyed in the interview.
Conflicting identity
Howell used a personal anecdote, one of a devilish 2-year-old nephew who torments his older brothers and sisters. The boy was often characterized as "bad," Howell said. "They say, I don't like calling any kids bad, but that boy is the devil himself."
While many of the things the child did were called bad, Howell's cousin would play with the boy and encouraged the behavior as "good." Why? Because nobody is going to mess with him.
"That little boy is hearing these conflicting messages constantly. 'I'm bad. I'm bad. I'm bad but that's good,'" Howell said. "That's the message that 2-year-old is getting. 'In order to be good, I have to continue these habits.'"
A source of strength
When sadness becomes a life-threatening vulnerability, Howell said, the only emotion that remains acceptable is anger. He showed footage of a man being confronted by police and family. The man lashed out at the police officer, and bragged about having a lot of women.
At one point the man was driven to the ground. The police officer asked him what is fabulous about his lifestyle.
"Ain't nothing fabulous about it, you have to get it how you live. I ain't nobody's b****."
Again, Howell pressed the audience to try to understand what the man was trying to say. Without the presence of father figures or strong neighborhoods, Howell told the audience black men have to find a source of strength, often times superficially.
Drugs and guns provide a sense of power, which gives the man a feeling of inner strength, Howell said.
Healing
Howell ended the presentation with a positive message: the status quo can change. Healing must come from inside, Howell said, a slow and persistent consciousness to change how black men think of themselves and how the rest of society sees them.
He used the analogy of the rose in the concrete.
Again, Tupac: "If you were walking on broken concrete and you saw a rose broken (through the) concrete, even if it had messed up petals and was laying on its side, you would marvel that there was a rose growing out of concrete. So why when when you see a ghetto kid, coming out of the dirtiest circumstances, and he can talk -- make you smile, make you cry, make you laugh -- all you can talk about is my dirty rose, my dirty stems that came out of the side."
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