THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, February 12, 1995 TAG: 9502080532
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J2 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Book Review
SOURCE: BY RITA B. DANDRIDGE
LENGTH: Medium: 72 lines
SAVING OUR SONS
MARITA GOLDEN
Doubleday. 195 pp. $18.50.
MARITA GOLDEN'S Saving Our Sons describes candidly the devastating plague of black-on-black male violence in America. A creative-writing faculty member at Virginia Commonwealth University and the mother of a teenage son, Golden records her concerns and fears as well as those of other African-American parents who send their children to school not knowing if they will return home alive.
The incredible difficulty of rearing an African-American boy pervades this slim book. Golden talks about her emotional investment and physical maneuvers to bring up her adolescent son Michael, born in Nigeria and brought to America after her divorce from Michael's father. Michael's transfer from a Yoruba tribe that valued men to the inner city of the nation's capital which devalues black youth influences Golden's choice of private schools, after-school activities, friends and discipline for her son. That Michael was surrounded by bullies and racism, had attention-deficit disorder, was caught shoplifting and was taunted by his peers because of his dark skin made Golden's task of mothering all the more difficult.
Eclectic in form, the book consists of a memoir, a roll call of slain black youth and diary entries with irregular dates and lengths. Three of its four divisions appropriate titles from African-American spirituals, giving the book a Christian emphasis. Through home visits and interviews, Golden empathizes with other black mothers, including Lonise Bias, who lost two sons, Len and Jay, to drug overdose and violence.
Golden specifically names several factors that have hindered the eradication of violence among black youth: The nation's indifference to poor children generally reflects its indifference to black children whose safety, health and education are at risk. The black church, too, rooted in a Protestant ethic and an unwavering conservatism, often fails to respond to social ills generated by black youth considered to have a moral lapse. The greatest culprit, according to Golden, is integration.
Integration removed the unity and cohesion among African-Americans that segregation enforced; now, parents can no longer depend on neighbors and friends to discipline their children. Viewing the bitterness left by the exchange of segregation for integration, Golden questions, ``Did we want to integrate more than we want to save ourselves from extinction?'' Her personal answer is no. She fled the inner city in Washington, but she sought a better environment for her family in a black middle-class community in a Maryland suburb.
Among the solutions Golden offers to stem the tide of black violence are family unity, forgiveness, eradication of institutional racism and individual responsibility. The last, however, is not stressed enough. While Golden carefully details the sacrifices she makes for her son, the hard-core lessons about choice and accountability are wanting. She would have done well to have reached back to notable black male role models such as Booker T. Washington and Frederick Douglass for salient lessons in fortitude and self-reliance. These men conquered extraordinary odds with fewer supports than those available to black youth today.
Saving our Souls, despite its relevant sociology, ends prematurely. It terminates with Michael's mere completion of his first year of high school in a private boarding school. An older, wiser, more responsible Michael would have given the reader the satisfaction of knowing that at least a mother's painful sacrifices to save her son had not been in vain. MEMO: Rita B. Dandridge is a free-lance writer in Chesapeake. by CNB