When I tell the stories of young victims, I am also telling my own . . . .
I attended a small book launch event here in Philly for my book Wrong Place, Wrong Time: Trauma and Violence in the Lives of Young Black Men. The book tells the stories of young patients who were shot or stabbed who I met when I was a practicing as a doctor at Boston City Hospital. Roy, a young man and former gangster who is profiled in the book for his generous efforts to help me understand the streets, came down from Boston to join us. The event was held in the Pyramid Club, a lavish but tasteful setting on the 52nd floor of the Mellon Bank Building on Market Street in downtown Philadelphia.
I spent a few minutes telling the guests why I wrote the book and what the stories meant to me. I emphasized that the stories of these young men needed to be told and needed to be heard. These are human beings who are so often treated like they are not. When they are blamed for the horrible violence that has befallen them, it traumatizes them further.
I introduced Roy and he sauntered to the microphone with an air of humility. He talked about how our friendship had helped him and how the fact that I was not “gangsta” helped him to see a different set of possibilities in the world. But what most struck me was when Roy turned to me and said “This is your story too. You might be talking about the lives of other young guys, but you have a right to tell your story the way you want to tell it. And I am cool with that.”
I thought about it a lot even as the evening wound down and the mini crab cake appetizers got munched away. There really is no way to tell someone else’s story without also telling our own. We cannot channel these young men without channeling ourselves as well. It is a shared story, and because of this, we also share the responsibility for making things change.
Roy got it right tonight. But, then again, he usually does.