THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, March 7, 1996 TAG: 9603070429
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Charlise Lyles
LENGTH: Medium: 74 lines
Nearly a dozen teenage boys at the Pines Residential Treatment Center in Portsmouth gather around the jumbo television screen. The weekly meeting of the ``Healthy Masculinity Group'' is in session.
And what is our purpose, counselor Leah Stith asks one youngster.
``This is a group that helps us deal with anger and stuff,'' says a 16 year old who seems a bit shy, swallowed up in a big black jacket. ``It's to teach us not to make others suffer because of what's going on with us.''
Director of clinical services Dr. John Hunter praises the youth for an apt explanation. The boy's eyes are almost reluctant to accept the stroking. In his short life, there hasn't been much.
This week, Stith and Hunter are prepared to talk about the ``cycle of violence'' that may have landed the youths in this center for adolescent sexual offenders. An example is fresh in their minds from recent newspapers.
Just days before, Sammy J. Gary, a 20-year-old Portsmouth man, had been shot and killed by police after shooting one man and slaying two other people. Was Gary's behavior influenced by a cycle of violence beginning when his father killed his mother then himself?
In a few days, Gary's funeral would be held in a church just blocks from the center on Portsmouth Boulevard.
Next, a video blinks on. The image of Nathan McCall consumes the screen. He is Portsmouth bad-boy-turned-journalist and best-selling author of ``Makes Me Wanna Holler: A Young Black Man in America.''
The boys nod, approving of McCall's collegiate but cool style of dress and overall polished appearance. He's not wearing baggies and too-big T-shirts like some of them.
``You go from childhood optimism,'' says McCall, explaining the cycle. One boys nods.
``To disillusionment to anger and hopelessness.'' Another mouths the words silently along with McCall.
``To crime and violence, prison or the grave.'' By now, several others are reciting aloud.
``That's almost exactly the route I went when I grew up,'' says McCall as if concluding a poem. The screen blinks off.
``And what does disillusionment mean,'' Stith asks.
``They don't feel they have a future,'' says a 13-year-old.
Black, white, older, younger they all share their reaction to the violence they've experienced: seeing their mothers beaten, being beaten themselves.
And the violence they have visited upon others.
This is a tender portrait, a brotherhood of healing.
Each young man's eyes are locked in inner concentration, trying to figure out his pathologies. And trying hard to understand the meaning of manhood in a world that shoots mixed signals that slice like lasers through their subconscious.
Is a man a macho/stud babymaker who reproduces recklessly with any woman who will?
Does he duke and shoot his way out of every difficult situation?
Or does he earn good grades, hold on to his virginity and walk away from a fight?
And just how does a real man handle it when others cause him to hurt?
In a few years, these young men will turn 18.
But if they do not find the right answers, they will not have grown from boys to real men. And this scene of healing will likely play out again.
In a prison.
In a new play, writer and performer Glenn Alan of Maryland takes on some of those questions about manhood.
``The Weight of Being Black: For Brothers Who Have Contemplated Suicide'' challenges the media portrayals and stereotypes of black men. You can see it on Friday, March 8, 8 p.m., at Virginia Wesleyan College's Hofheimer Theater. Tickets are $5. Call 455-3200 for more information. by CNB