Psychology The Child's Will and Spirit Assignment

Teens Who Hurt: Clinical Interventions to Break the Cycle of Adolescent Violence

Hardy, Kenneth V.; Laszloffy, Tracey A.

Hardy, K. V., & Laszloffy, T. A. (2013). Teens Who Hurt. Guilford Publications, Inc..  https://mbsdirect.vitalsource.com/books/9781462512423

CHAPTER 2 Devaluation

Timothy Ryan was 15 when he and a pair of friends attacked a boy and a girl who were walking home from a movie together. They beat the couple so badly that they both had to be hospitalized. They raped the girl. A witness who saw them running from the scene identified the boys, and they were arrested hours later. When questioned by the police, Timothy admitted his involvement without remorse, proclaiming, “I told him not to mess with me, but he didn’t listen. He got what was coming to him. And although that little rich bitch always acted like she thought she was better than everyone else, I didn’t touch her.”

Kate and Shaun Ryan sat before us looking shell-shocked. They knew their son had done some troubling things before this, like attacking his younger brother and punching a hole in a bedroom door. But they never could have imagined that their son could go this far. Kate, seemingly oblivious to our presence, wondered aloud but to herself:

“What happened to the innocent boy I used to bake chocolate chip cookies for? I can still see him smiling, his eyes twinkling as he grabbed two cookies at once, smearing chocolate everywhere. I can still hear him asking for ‘just one, Mommy . . . please, Mommy.’ ”

That was how she remembered him; he was eager, hungry to taste the sweetness of life, and unfettered by his slightly clumsy demeanor. Where was that child now? What had happened since then to transform Timothy into such a bitter, cynical, angry young teenager?

The Ryans’ questions are not unlike those that parents and other concerned adults all across this nation are asking in response to the disturbing numbers of once seemingly “normal, happy” children who have mutated into cold, heartless adolescent aggressors. One of the things that makes Timothy’s case compelling is the fact that prior to his violent attack on the couple there was little on the surface that revealed the trauma and unrest that were dwelling within the Ryan household. Several members of the community expressed shock and disbelief when they learned of Timothy’s violence because when they looked at him they saw a quiet, intelligent boy from a “normal family.”

When we look beyond the surface and the stereotypes about “normal” and “ideal,” we quickly find that among kids who become violent there are several common features they all share. The first of these involves devaluation, which is a process that strips a person or a group of dignity and a sense of worth. Devaluation is like an untreated cancer that attacks deep inside one’s core. It slowly eats away at one’s sense of self-esteem, and often does so unbeknownst to the affected individual or group. All of us have experiences with devaluation at some point in our lives. What is most important to bear in mind with adolescents who become violent is that, in addition to suffering from multiple experiences with devaluation, even more significantly the emotional wounds inflicted by devaluation go largely untreated and unhealed, which has a crippling emotional effect.

There are two types of devaluation: situational and societal. Situational devaluation occurs when the source of the devaluation is limited to a specific time and place. It is idiosyncratic in nature and involves any circumstance or event that assaults the dignity of those affected. Situational devaluation is distinguishable from societal devaluation, which refers to the degradation that an individual or group experiences as a result of having membership in a group that is marginalized by or within society. Societal devaluation is inextricably tied to broader social forces such as class, gender, race, and sexual orientation. Given our conceptualization of devaluation, it is highly conceivable that one individual could simultaneously suffer from both situational and societal devaluation. While one could certainly argue that devaluation is devaluation, we believe the distinctions that we have drawn are necessary because they have strong implications for how we work with violent and aggressive youth. SITUATIONAL DEVALUATION

The factors associated with situational devaluation can range from experiences with incessant childhood rejection to learning disabilities. The forces that contribute to situational devaluation are virtually countless and quite varied. They often cover a wide range of experiences that are not always predictable or easy to discern. After years of working with troubled youth, we have found that there are several strains of situational devaluation that are most common among adolescents who have some propensity toward violence and aggression. We have found evidence of abandonment, abuse, and social ostracism among the overwhelming number of violent youth with whom we have worked. Because abandonment, abuse, and social ostracism are repeatedly associated with situational devaluation and ultimately violence, we want to provide a closer look at these concepts.

Abandonment

Timothy Ryan, in many respects, was a textbook example of devaluation associated with abandonment and abuse. When we started our work with the Ryan family, we tried to identify where, in his life, Timothy might have encountered devaluation. This was no easy task. Timothy was committed to not talking to us during the first few weeks of therapy, and his parents, while willing to talk, had great difficulty doing so about anything that they feared might portray them as bad parents.

“We’ve been good parents,” Shaun exclaimed. “We set limits for our kids. We don’t allow any crazy stuff. We spend time with the kids. Let’s put it this way: I see my kids more than my dad ever saw me or my brothers.”

Kate agreed with her husband. “We tried to teach the kids morals. I take them to church every week. Timothy and Robert are very involved with our church. We did everything we could think of. What more could we have done as parents?”

Like many parents, the Ryans were focused on all the things they had done right. It was too painful for them to see the things that had happened that might have hurt their son, even though they never wanted to hurt him—like the fact that the Ryan’s had spent the first few years of their marriage arguing constantly. When Timothy was 5, his parents had a fight that was so bitter his father left for 6 months. Although his parents later reconciled, little Timothy was left carrying the scars of his parents’ early marital strife. As we eventually discovered after months of therapy, when Shaun left the family, Timothy felt abandoned and blamed himself for his father’s departure. This experience, at such a young vulnerable age, deeply wounded Timothy and was a source of pain and shame—a form of situational devaluation that continued to haunt him 10 years later.

When this traumatic episode that had occurred early in the Ryans’ marriage finally came to light, both parents dismissed it as “something from the past.” It was difficult for them to believe that something that had happened so long ago could have had any impact on Timothy’s present troubles. They had difficulty relating to how Timothy might have perceived things as a little boy. When we suggested that Timothy felt abandoned by his father when he was 5 and blamed himself, Shaun lashed back: “That’s ridiculous. I never abandoned my family. We just needed space apart, and it actually helped. It had nothing to do with Timothy. Besides, that was 10 years ago.”

Unfortunately, it was hard for Shaun to put himself into the mind of a 5-year-old and imagine how things must have seemed from Timothy’s perspective. Shaun found it difficult to acknowledge the deep insecurities that Timothy suffered from as a result of his earlier childhood experiences. Acknowledging that his decision to leave Timothy (and the family) at such an early age could have possibly left his son feeling abandoned was simply too painful for Shaun. It stirred up feelings of guilt and failure.

It’s important to stress that this experience alone did not lead to Timothy’s violence, but it played a role. It was one of the threads that had been woven into his evolving psychosocial tapestry. It has been our clinical experience that abandonment is difficult to contend with at any age. However, it is particularly challenging when it occurs in childhood. There probably is no other human experience that confirms for a child his or her lack of worth in the way that abandonment does. It probably sounds ludicrous and disingenuous to discuss abandonment and abuse in terms of which is actually worse, since both are exceedingly harmful. However, we believe that, while both can be painfully harmful, abandonment is usually more devastating. The deep feeling of personal rejection that usually accompanies abandonment provides the foundation for devaluation and ultimately the assault on one’s sense of personhood, dignity, and self-respect. Abuse, even in its most horrific forms, usually does not leave most children feeling unloved. Most abused children are left with very ambivalent and complex feelings about themselves and those who have abused them, especially if it has been a parental figure. It is common for the abandoned child to typically think of him- or herself as unworthy and unlovable, while the abused child frequently thinks of him- or herself as bad.

Abuse

Abuse is another common factor associated with situational devaluation in the lives of young people. Victims of abuse often blame themselves for their victimization. All too often, they conclude that it was some defect of theirs that invited the maltreatment. Deep within, most abused kids believe either that they are inherently unworthy of love and affirmation by their parents and/or caretakers or that the abusive behavior is their parents’ way of demonstrating love. In either case, the result is usually the same: devaluation.

With time and patience the Ryans began to trust us a little more, and gradually they began to disclose more about their family. In particular, we found out that when Timothy was very young, his father was often verbally and physically abusive toward him. After the Ryans reconciled, Shaun learned to manage his behavior and feelings more effectively, but Timothy’s scars remained unhealed. Because Timothy was so young when the abuse occurred, he was virtually defenseless against the barrage of critical, contemptuous, condemning messages he received from his father. Each angry word, raised voice, and irritable expression was evidence to the young Timothy that he was unloved and unwanted by his father. Moreover, each time Shaun Ryan slapped Timothy’s cheek, swatted the back of his head, or pounded his fist into his back, he was wielding a blow against the very core of his son’s fragile sense of self. These experiences were a form of situational devaluation. They were wounding events that had occurred in the past, and it didn’t matter that Shaun no longer did these things. Because the wounds had never been treated or healed, they continued to fester within Timothy, crippling some piece of his spirit.

Abused children and adolescents often internalize intense feelings of shame and humiliation. Because they believe their own deficiencies are the basis for the abuse, they interpret it as a stain on their sense of dignity and pride. Abused kids will often attempt to keep the abuse hidden from view for fear that if others knew it would expose something “bad” about themselves. In this way, abused kids suffer from both the actual pain involved in the abuse and the emotional pain that lasts long after the physical wounds have healed. The emotional wounds are rooted in a belief that the abuse is proof that one is a bad, maybe unlovable, person. The feeling of “badness” is linked to a deep sense of shame that accompanies doubts about one’s self-worth and value as a human being. We especially observe this among children and adolescents who are victims of sexual abuse. The general stigma attached to sex intensifies the feelings of shame and lack of worth that victims of sexual abuse often experience. Long after the abuse is over and the physical scars have disappeared from view, the emotional damage of abuse and the sense of devaluation it breeds, if untreated and unhealed, can last a lifetime.

In Timothy’s case, his experiences with situational devaluation profoundly deformed his sense of self. Long after the bruises on his arms and back had healed, the bruises on his fragile self-esteem remained painfully ripe. No further evidence is needed of Timothy’s self-hate than the extreme acts of violence toward those whom he viewed as weaker and more helpless. His actions revealed the part of his psyche that identified with feeling weak and helpless; he hated that feeling within himself so intensely that he had to destroy it any cost. With each assault he wielded upon someone of a weaker stature, it was as if he were punishing himself for his own weakness and helplessness in the face of a more powerful aggressive force. It was as if he were trying to annihilate the very weaknesses and helplessness within himself that had made him vulnerable in the past. In fact, in a therapy session with Timothy and his parents, his mother painfully said, “I don’t understand how someone can be begging you to stop hurting them, and you just don’t stop.” Timothy responded by saying, “If they gotta beg, they don’t deserve for it to stop.”

Timothy’s comment again revealed the contempt he held for any sign of vulnerability, stemming from the resentment he felt toward his own vulnerability and the ways it had made him a target for abuse. For Timothy, his vulnerability made him feel “less than,” which is at the heart of experiences with devaluation. Those who are devalued struggle incessantly with feeling “less than.” And, as we learned more about Timothy, the more apparent it became that his experiences with situational devaluation were inextricably linked to a profound sense of feeling “less than,” which played a salient role in his violence toward others.

Divorce

For many young people divorce is another common factor associated with situational devaluation. It is not our view nor has it been our experience that divorce de facto translates into devaluation. In fact, we have seen repeatedly that it is the quality of the experience that ultimately dictates the impact that it has on the life of the child. When divorce is carried out in a way that keeps the child’s needs and welfare in the forefront of the experience, devaluation is averted. However, when the child, on the other hand, is caught in the crossfire of the parents’ bitter acrimony, devaluation is very likely. Anisha Jenkins’s parents divorced when she was only 4 years old. Her father left her mother to marry another woman. The divorce was brimming with bitterness and pain. Anisha’s mother felt profoundly rejected and betrayed by her husband. The divorce devastated her emotionally and severely impaired her financially. Although 12 years had passed, she still felt extreme rage toward her ex-husband and his second wife. She still bad-mouthed him anytime his name entered the conversation. When Anisha wanted to buy a prom dress or asked for money to go on a senior class trip to Washington, DC, her mother’s reply was always some version of the following: “Ask your no-good, playboy, rich father. Thanks to him I can’t afford to give you these things.”

During the same 12 years, Anisha’s father was also still stuck in feelings of anger and contempt toward his former wife. He still referred to her as “a selfish, vindictive woman who would have sucked all the life out of me if I had stayed with her.” Twelve years after the divorce, when Anisha came to her father for money for her prom dress, he told her, “If your mother managed her finances better, you wouldn’t have to come to me for this.” As a result, Anisha had spent the last 12 years of her life trapped between hostile parents who had been unable to resolve their feelings of bitterness, contempt, and pain. Unfortunately, each time one of them fired a missile at the other, Anisha was wounded by the resulting explosion.

Sitting in our office looking small and helpless with tears streaming quietly down her face, Anisha told us she would do anything to stop her parents from hating each other. She complained that their hatred for each other made it impossible for them to love her or for her to feel close to either one of them. Her voice was filled with anguished yearning. At the age of 4 she had lived through ground zero of her parent’s nuclear explosion—their divorce.

Divorces that are characterized by high doses of resentment, contempt, and bitterness tend to be devaluing to all concerned. If friends and family perceive the divorce as a shameful event, and if one or both partners fail to receive support or compassion from loved ones, the divorce can be extremely devaluing. Moreover, when a divorcing couple fails to find a way to retain their parental relationship in the midst of severing their marital relationship, divorce can be extremely disruptive to children and adolescents. These types of divorce, from a child’s perspective, are tantamount to abandonment. We routinely hear kids say:

•  “I was afraid I would never see my mother or father again—like maybe they didn’t love me anymore.”

•  “I felt like it was my fault that my parents got a divorce. Maybe if I had been better, this never would have happened.”

•  “My family is gone now. Now that my parents are getting a divorce, I won’t have a family anymore.”

Each of these comments is a typical response from kids of divorcing parents, especially when the parents do not find healthy ways of negotiating the experience. Each of these common responses is also indicative of devaluation. In these scenarios, the kids in question relate to their parents’ divorce by seeing it as something that reflects negatively upon them. They view the divorce as evidence of their inherent deficiencies, and therefore they hold themselves responsible for the breakup. These comments also reveal the sense of losing something that was valuable and, hence, of feeling less valuable themselves. In other words, many kids typically interpret divorce to mean that they no longer have a whole family, which becomes equated with not being a whole person. In this way, for some kids, the divorce constitutes a fracturing of their families—and therefore of themselves—making them “less than.” This is the epitome of devaluation.

Peer Rejection: Kids Who Are Outcasts

In some instances the roots of situational devaluation are tied to something that is specific to an individual. We commonly see this with kids who are labeled and treated as outcasts by their peers because they aren’t attractive enough, athletic enough, charismatic enough, or because they are too fat or too skinny, too brainy, or, as one teen told us, “just plain weird.” For kids like these, social ostracism is the consequence. While all people crave affirmation to some degree, this need is especially intense for adolescents. Few adults reading this will have to stretch their imagination to understand the awkwardness and uncertainty that haunts most adolescents. No matter what our contemporary experiences are, each of us has advanced through this difficult period of development, and while the transition was smoother for some than for others, it is probably safe to say that all of us had at least some encounter with pangs of insecurity, fears of rejection, and anxiety about wanting to “fit in” and be accepted. For kids “who don’t fit in” in the ways that matter to prevailing peer norms, their fate as outcasts can be worse than death.

Situational devaluation as “outcasts” was evident in the lives of Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, the infamous teenaged pair who murdered 12 of their fellow students and a teacher during a shooting rampage in April 1999 at Columbine High School in Litttleton, Colorado. As criminologists, sociologists, and mental health experts began to piece together clues about the lives of both boys, what eventually emerged were portraits of two teenagers who felt profoundly devalued by their peers. They were outcasts, scorned and rejected by their contemporaries. In typical teen fashion, the two boys did not let their feelings of rejection, hurt, and shame show outwardly. They mostly kept their pain hidden from view, buried beneath the black trench coats they wore menacingly to school. Yet, in retrospect, it requires little effort to see the deep-seated feelings of isolation, alienation, and rejection that both boys felt in relation to their peers. In a word, they suffered from devaluation.

Eric and Dylan had compiled a “hit list” of students they intended to target during their reign of terror. These were kids who had been the most rejecting and scornful toward them. In their mind’s eye, these other kids were perpetrators, and they were victims—victims who had developed a plot to righteously reclaim their dignity and avenge their battered sense of honor. Obviously, their plan was grossly twisted and lacking in perspective. And yet, the extreme nature of their actions provides a clue about how the world looked inside the borders of their minds. For Eric and Dylan, the scorn and rejection they felt from peers was gargantuan. The injustices they experienced at the hands of some of their schoolmates were a matter of “life and death”a matter so severe that the only way they thought they could balance the scales of justice was by taking the lives of (as it turned out) 13 people. One can only imagine how intensely these two boys must have felt persecuted, rejected, and utterly devalued to devise a retaliatory plan of such extreme destructiveness.

In addition to revealing how deeply devalued by their peers Eric and Dylan felt, the diaries, letters, and videotapes they left behind demonstrate how firmly resolved they were about their own deaths. They were willing to die to save their dignity. They stated explicitly that they never planned to survive their attack upon the school. They were clear that, by seeking retribution for the crimes they believed had been committed against them, they would have to sacrifice their own lives. From their perspective, they were going to die for the sake of their dignity, which was preferable to living with the dishonor and disgrace that came with their status as outcasts. In this way, Eric and Dylan were like many of the urban, mostly African American and Latino, adolescents we work with from poor, gang-infested communities.

Like Eric and Dylan, many urban poor, minority teens are driven by a similar mantra: “death before dis” (“dis” being an abbreviated form for “disrespect”). While Eric and Dylan were responding to situational devaluation related to being personally rejected by their community of peers, many adolescents of color residing within inner cities are subjected to societal devaluation (we will say more about this in the following section) associated with their intersecting racial and class identities. We have lost count of the number of times we have heard a Latino or African American youth defiantly assert that he hit (or worse) another youth for “dissing” him. Moreover, the nature of the “dis” is often something that seems benign to those who are not young, poor, and a person of color. For example, Steve, a 15-year-old male whose mother was Puerto Rican and father was African American, proudly described to us how he “busted that doughboys butt for steppin’ on my sneaks.” He went on to explain that by stepping on Steve’s sneakers—and worse, by not expressing extreme contrition—this other boy was essentially stepping on Steve’s honor.

Whenever he recounts this story to adults, they often become reactive to Steve. They cannot understand how such a minor infraction could justify such an extreme act of aggression. But what typically gets missed is that Steve and those like him live in a world where the opportunities for validation and respect are amazingly sparse, and almost every aspect of their identities and lives is denigrated. In their world, respect is a rare commodity of such value that many are willing to kill or die to obtain it.

EXPERIENCES WITH SITUATIONAL DEVALUATION AND THE WOUNDS OF DEVALUATION

As stated earlier, there is an important distinction between the actual experience that has an initial impact in the moment, on the one hand, and the emotional–psychological wounds that result, which if untreated and unhealed, can persist and remain a source of pain and shame long after the actual event has passed. Ravaged by the wounds of the actual divorce with all the cruel words, hateful acts, and vicious maneuvers, Anisha Jenkins might have been able to begin to heal over time except that the fallout from the bitter and contentious separation had never been addressed. The toxic emotional energy that had been generated had never dissipated. As a result, Anisha grew up watching episodes of the Cosby Show, fantasizing that the Huxtables were her family. She looked at her friends with envy and tried to imagine what it would be like “to grow up in a normal family.” After her parents got embroiled in a screaming match at one of her soccer games when she was 9, Anisha spent endless hours carefully planning the exact school events and soccer games she would invite each of her parents to attend. She never wanted them together in public again—the risk of personal humiliation was just too high. She still wasn’t sure how she would handle her graduation, as this was one thing that she still had not worked out in her plan.

When Shaun Ryan left his family, this was a devaluing event in Timothy’s life. The event was time-limited, lasting for just 6 months. But Timothy suffered deep emotional and psychological wounds from the event, which he perceived as abandonment. Additionally, Shaun’s physical and verbal abusiveness with Timothy, while it only occurred during his early childhood, left emotional and psychological wounds that persisted long after the actual events had passed. Years later, Timothy was still suffering from devaluation rooted in the time when his father was gone, as well as the times when his father was abusively present.

According to Timothy, several weeks after his father left he was taunted by a neighborhood boy who was a few years older. ”He told me I didn’t have anyone to stick up for me now that my father was gone. I told him my father would be back, and he said it wasn’t true. He said my father didn’t want me.” Although Timothy wore a stoic expression while recounting this experience, the way he suddenly began to swivel his chair alerted us to the underlying emotional intensity he felt many years following that difficult period in his life. Even though his father returned after 6 months and his parents reconciled, Timothy continued to bear the pain of the wound that had been inflicted.

Moreover, imagine the dilemmas Shaun’s return created for Timothy when his father beat him with his words and his fists. Whatever relief Timothy felt upon having his father back home inevitably was tempered by the pain of his father’s abusiveness. And while the abuse eventually stopped, the adverse effects of these experiences with situational devaluation persisted long after. The same was true for Anisha with respect to her parent’s divorce. While the divorce was a time-limited event, the devaluation it generated persisted long after the experience because the wounds inflicted by it were never addressed or ultimately healed. Twelve years after her parents’ divorce, Anisha was still struggling with the pain and shame of the devaluation that this event had triggered all those years ago.

THE ALL-CONSUMING CONCERN WITH RESPECT

To be devalued is to be disrespected. One of the central features of those who have been devalued is that they suffer from an exaggerated, all-consuming concern with obtaining respect. Ironically, perpetual efforts to obtain respect often becloud the devaluation that underpins the need for respect. When all of one’s energy becomes focused around respect, it is easy for those around to lose sight of the devaluation that drives the need for the respect in the first place. In particular, the ways in which many adolescents strive to obtain respect distracts others from appreciating the underlying devaluation that resides at the heart of their unrelenting quest for respect. Hence, the devaluation that generates the need for respect is obscured by attitude and behaviors associated with the all-consuming quest to gain respect. For example, when one kid shoots another kid who “dissed” him, it is easy to overlook the role that devaluation played in this lethal pursuit for respect.

Respect and the phenomenon of “being dissed” are often at the center of much of our work with schools. We have seen far too much violence, death, and destruction spearheaded by the all consuming concern with respect. We have seen the multitudinous ways in which it can shape every aspect of young peoples’ lives while simultaneously remaining invisible to the naked eye. When we consult with teachers and counselors about the relationship between devaluation and respect, we often are posed with the challenge: “It’s funny that you would talk about these kids needing respect so much because they are the ones who are the most disrespectful.” This is an honest, heartfelt assessment that rarely surprises us. It is entirely reasonable and predictable that the youth who have been the most devalued (and probably disrespected) will also be those who are the most disrespectful. From their perspective, respect is to be “gotten” by any means necessary. Through the eyes of devalued youth, “respect” earned disrespectfully is worthy of respect nonetheless. Their need for respect, and the means of achieving it, is often buried under layers of adolescent bravado. Neither the adolescents nor many of the adults working with them are consciously aware that their behavior is so heavily driven by the connections between devaluation and desire for respect. The adolescents are too often distracted by their “the end justifies the means” philosophy, while most adults get trapped into focusing on the bad, or antisocial, behavior. In both cases, devaluation and the all-consuming concern with respect are overlooked.

Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold were obsessed with respect and willing to die for it. Timothy Ryan was obsessed with respect. After the incident where he beat another boy unmercifully he stated, “I needed to teach him what respect is. He used to think he was all that . . . being all flashy and shit . . . Well, I showed him. . . I’m no punk. He may have some cash but that couldn’t save his ass . . . I beat the mothafucker and I would do it again.”

It’s easy to get distracted by Timothy’s belief that violence is the way to solve his problems. Certainly we wished that he had chosen to solve his problems in another way, but we also could see that underneath the bravado was a boy who felt very badly about himself for many reasons. The issue of money and class clearly underpinned Timothy’s aggression. His reference to the other boy thinking he was better because he had more money exposed the ways in which Timothy struggled with devaluation related to his working-class status and his family’s limited economic resources. To Timothy, all of this translated into an issue of respect. Respect is a rare commodity that is highly valued and difficult to secure for those who have suffered from high doses of devaluation. Those who feel devalued and therefore disrespected will go to almost any length to “take” that which they feel they deserve.

Timothy clearly struggled with not feeling respected. He was consumed with his mission to seek out and, if need be, take respect in whatever way he deemed necessary. This dynamic has been true of virtually every adolescent we have worked with where violence and aggression have been major difficulties. Like so many of his adolescent counterparts, when Timothy felt disrespected, his options for responding were far too limited. Unfortunately, his seemingly rigid and impulsive actions seldom provided a complete portrait of Timothy. Although he always turned to violence as his first, second, third, and final options, what few people ever saw were the painful emotional wounds that his bravado disguised.

Much of our discussion about Timothy has been devoted to an examination of how situational devaluation played such a huge role in his life. We have said very little up to this point about the ways in which societal devaluation also contributed heavily to his ongoing struggles with violence and aggression. We believe that, even if Timothy’s relationship with his father had been profoundly different, devaluation would have remained a manifest part of his life experience because of his working-class status, that is, he also experienced devaluation at the societal level.

SOCIETAL DEVALUATION

Whereas situational devaluation is confined to a specific time and place or an experience that is unique to an individual, societal devaluation involves a generalized sense of being dehumanized because of one’s membership in a socially stigmatized and depreciated group. Adolescents who are members of socially marginalized groups (e.g., those who are poor or working-class, youth of color, girls, gays or lesbians) are encumbered by a sense of devaluation within themselves at all times.

Youth of Color

A few years ago we interviewed a young African American male named Carter who lived in an economically depressed community. He was talking about how the city was building another prison only a few blocks from his neighborhood. In fact, he could view the rear of the prison grounds from his bedroom window. To Carter, the prison was a symbol of how little the city and society at large cared about him and those like him. He explained:

“When we see that prison, we know it’s meant for us. We know they put it here because they want us to know it’s for us. Whenever we see it there, we know this society don’t care nothing about us. They just want to lock us all up, because they think we are just a bunch of criminals. That’s what they see when they look at a young black man. So, if that’s how they feel about us, what’s the point? We might as well just get high and go out and shoot a nigger. No one expects anything different from us, anyway. They already have our cells ready for us, so what the hell.”

As Carter’s haunting words depict, he was suffering from the pain of societal devaluation in relation to his identity as a young black (poor) male.

Living within a society that is organized on the basis of a skin color hierarchy creates a complex set of challenges for adolescents of color. While many teens have insecurities about feeling as though they don’t fit in, these feelings often are intensified for kids of color, who receive powerful rejecting messages on the basis of their race and skin color. All around them they are exposed to messages that suggest beauty is defined by white skin, blue eyes, thin lips, and a small pointy nose. They are consistently bombarded with messages that defile and devalue anything that is dark and/or associated with negroid features. Because of the pervasiveness of the social programming that occurs with respect to the race/skin color hierarchy, most kids of color cannot graduate from adolescence without having internalized some of the seeds of self-hate. This is true for boys as well as girls.

Jory and Ron were best friends. They had grown up together and were more like brothers than friends. Both were African American males, but Ron was dark-skinned and Jory was light-skinned. While they both shared membership in a socially devalued group, their experiences with devaluation varied in relation to their complexions. According to Ron:

“It makes me so mad how girls always prefer Jory ’cause he’s the lighter one. They are always saying how cute and fine he is and how he has nice hair and pretty eyes. It gets to me. It’s to the point that I hate looking in the mirror, and I resent this.”

According to Jory:

“In America people like what’s white . . . or light. The truth is that girls usually like me more ’cause I’m light and I have good hair. I know it bothers Ron . . . and like once he even told me that I think I’m better ’cause I’m light. It’s not true, but I can see why he feels that way.”

The pain that Ron experienced was directly related to his devaluation as a dark-skinned black person. As a result, he had internalized rejecting messages that were the basis for profound psychic, social, and spiritual pain and hardship. These messages are even more devastating for girls of color, who not only have to deal with race but with gender as well. For girls of color, these dynamics are intensified by the fact that such a large aspect of female identity is tied to physical beauty. We will say more about this in the following section.

Girls

Most girls experience societal devaluation on the basis of their gender. The journey from girlhood toward womanhood involves the struggle to achieve a narrowly defined standard of physical beauty and a disposition toward males that can be characterized simply as “ready and willing to serve.” The transition from girlhood into womanhood involves the creation of a sexual object. Yet, paradoxically, the very sexuality that is a girl’s passport to womanhood is also the basis of her inevitable defamation and shame. While most girls are eager to “become a woman,” interactions with family, friends, teachers, coaches, and the broader culture all teach girls that to do so they must acquire a necessary but highly sinful sexuality. It is this sexuality that will offer the promise of status, validation, and self-worth, but will ultimately deliver, for the majority of girls at least, a strong, disorienting dose of devaluation.

Most boys receive messages that suggest their blossoming sexuality is a source of pride—a vigorous, exquisite, healthy need that should be honored, catered to, and nurtured. In contrast, most girls receive messages that suggest their emerging sexuality is either a passive, barely perceptible flicker unworthy of meaningful consideration or an uncontrollable, vulgar, sinful force that must be curbed, controlled, and contained. Simply stated, girls learn that their emerging sexuality is something to be regarded with shame. Author Naomi Wolf (1997) has captured powerfully the devaluation that girls are subjected to with respect to female sexuality.

Every day, one of us adolescent girls might hear in conversation in the schoolyard, or on the street, these words: “cunt,” “fuck,” “pussy,” “whore,” “bitch,” and of course “slut.” We shrugged them off again and again but always felt as if a small stain from them clung to us, a show, as Lawrence put it, of dirt. Of course we knew the words were about us, our bodies, our wishes. If we consider the slang terms that describe female sexual anatomy, the veil of ugliness through which our culture sees women’s sexuality is all too obvious. Many have noted that the words tend to connote, at their worst, wounds; at best, receptacles. Not one slang sexual term—or formal term, for that matter—about women that we girls heard encoded the idea of value or preciousness. (p. 182)

As girls journey toward womanhood, they are exposed to a multiplicity of messages that convey a profound disrespect for femaleness in general, and female sexuality more specifically. At best, girls experience their developing bodies as a joke, a source of crude locker room humor. At worst, they experience their bodies as a license for others (specifically males) to abuse, exploit, and violate them. Their emerging sexual desire is also a source of profound devaluation. While boys are affirmed for experiencing their budding sexual needs, girls are shamed for feeling—let alone, for acting upon—their sexual needs. As a result, many girls develop protective mechanisms that involve curbing and controlling their sexuality, in some cases, denying it altogether, both to others and to themselves. Girls who do not learn how to constrain their sexuality are punished in the harshest of ways. They are targeted for a type of devaluation that transcends the generalized devaluation that affects all girls. These are the girls who are labeled as sluts.

As Wolf pointed out, the badness in all girls—their sexuality—makes all girls “sluts.” But only a segment of the population of girls directly incurs the humiliation of being publicly branded a slut. These girls become symbolic manifestations of the badness that belongs to all girls. As such, they carry a disproportionate piece of the burden of shame that is associated with female sexuality in general.

The rules regarding who is singled out to carry the burden of the slut label, while arbitrary in one sense, are also mediated by informants such as race and class. Wolf (1997) described a girlhood friend, Dinah, who lost the maddening game of musical chairs. Dinah was no more sexually active—and maybe was less so—than Wolf and her other friends. But because she was female, had developed large breasts at a young age, walked with her head held high, and was poor, she was labeled a slut. “Class had declared Dinah a slut by fourteen, while she was still technically a virgin. It kept her there and kept me and my other little middle-class friends, who were wilder than she was, just on the right side of safe” (p. 71).

Dinah’s story involved interlocking rings of devaluation. She was devalued on the basis of several factors—class, gender, physique, attitude—each of which interacted with and informed the others in a complex manner. It was each of these, separately, and in terms of how they all fit together that defiled Dinah. It was the fact that she had the nerve to be a poor girl with a voluptuous body who didn’t apologize for any of it. One of the most interesting aspects of Dinah’s story involved the way that she walked with her head held high, which most likely was both a response to her devaluation (e.g., “If you don’t respect me, then screw you. I’ll hold my head high to spite you for your low opinion of me”) as well as a contributing factor (e.g., she was punished for having the nerve to hold her head high as a poor girl with big breasts).

In spite of the defiant posture Dinah assumed in the face of her devaluation, over time, she began to show signs of weariness. The strain of devaluation left a mark on her. As reported by Wolf:

Her clothes tighter and her makeup heavier than ever, Dinah still seemed proud and she still carried herself with that head-held-high, fuck-you regalness. . . . But I could see that something was getting worn down in her. By the time we started high school, there were always dark circles under her eyes. She seemed to me to look fatigued from the effort it all took. (p. 71)

For girls of color, the interaction between gender and race makes for an even more complex experience in terms of devaluation. In U.S. culture, sexuality and physical beauty constitute the defining features of female worth. Yet, we also impose narrowly defined standards of beauty that are blatantly racist. Hence, for a female to be deemed beautiful and desirable in mainstream U.S. society, she must be white, thin, with large breasts and a flat stomach, and ideally with silky blond hair, blue eyes, and narrow, angular facial features. This is the archetypal American beauty. Certainly this norm means that most American females, by virtue of body size alone, do not measure up to the standard. But more poignantly, it means that virtually no female of color can ever fulfill this standard by virtue of her skin color. Girls of color are also less likely than their white counterparts to measure up to the ideal by virtue of their more typical heavier figures, the thickness of their hair texture, and the shape of facial features.

Poor and Working-Class Youth

One of the great American myths is of the classless society. In reality, class is a powerful shaper of social reality. While the indicators of class are often subtle, and rarely recognized consciously or named overtly, they organize human relationships in powerful ways. One of the inevitable consequences of living in a class-based society is that attributions about the moral, intellectual, and social worth of individuals and families are made on the basis of class. For those who are members of the middle and upper classes, assumptions of innate value and decency are made. Conversely, the lower-income and working classes of society are often equated with deficiency and worthlessness. I (KVH) will never forget when I was the plaintiff in a personal injury case. The day before we were to appear in court I was reviewing various aspects of the case with my attorney. At the time I was wearing what I refer to as my “comfortable clothes.” Needless to say, the wear and tear was showing. These clothes looked as if I had owned them for most of my life. Toward the end of our conversation my attorney said, “I don’t suppose I need to tell you that what you wear tomorrow is important. I would stay away from anything like what you have on now. Try one of your most expensive suits instead.” I was intrigued by his statement.

“I would think it would be a mistake to go in there tomorrow looking as if I am well-off. Won’t that undermine the jury’s sympathy for me? Won’t they say that I look like I’m doing okay already, and use that as a rationale to vote against me?”

I’ll never forget my attorney’s response. He explained, “What you’re saying makes sense only if you’re thinking in terms of justice. But this isn’t a just world, professor. If you go into court tomorrow looking like you’re poor, the jury will give you what they think you’re worth—nothing.”

These words have haunted me ever since because I know that they reflect a cold truth. The members of the jury, like all of us, would draw certain class-based conclusions about who I was as a person, and these would inform their decision.

While his reference to the jury pertained to the 12 men and women who would be deciding my case, in fact, the jury is an excellent metaphor for all of us as members of this society. To some degree, we all sit in judgment, drawing conclusions about one another’s character and worth based on a variety of factors, not the least of which is class. Most often, our attention to class, and the ways in which it shapes our perceptions and behaviors, occurs outside of our awareness. But whether we are aware of it or not, “the facts” often have little to do with the class-based judgments we pass. We live in a society that confuses class with character. So, if the jury members perceived me as poor, they would have less respect and consideration for me as a human being. I would become “less than” in their eyes, and as a result, they would give me less. On the other hand, if they viewed me as middle- to upper-class, they would unconsciously translate my socioeconomic worth into my worth as a person. Because they would conclude I was more of a human being, they would be more inclined to grant me more.

Several years ago we were conducting an in-service training workshop with the faculty of a law school at a large university. I (TAL) had forgotten we had the training that day, and as a result I did not dress accordingly. I wore slacks and a sweater that were visibly of a low quality. Nonetheless, I didn’t think any more about this until days later when speaking with a colleague who was friendly with a woman on the law school faculty who had participated in the training. As my colleague related to me, her friend reported to her that the training was useful, but she was especially surprised by me. Apparently, upon seeing me for the first time, this woman’s first impression was that she “didn’t expect much.” She was shocked once we actually got started and the training developed, because she actually found me “to be surprisingly assertive, poised, and competent.” When my colleague inquired about what had led to her initial erroneous impression of me, the woman replied: “I don’t exactly know. Some of it was probably how she was dressed. She just looked like she was probably poor.”

This woman’s assumptions are revealing in several ways. First, there is the issue regarding the types of markers she used to determine my class status. Somehow, just by looking at me, she saw something that led her to make conclusions about my class status, and in particular, that I was poor. While I do not know exactly what led to that conclusion, I strongly suspect that how I was dressed had much to do with her assumption. The second issue involves the leap she made from deducing I was poor, to not expecting very much from me. For this woman, poor people are less competent and less worthy of being given the benefit of the doubt.

The assumptions this faculty member made were powerful, and most likely outside of her consciousness, which is the case with most of us. But imagine how these assumptions and her lack of self-awareness might have affected her role as a faculty member interacting with students. When meeting with students whose clothes imply they are poor, it seems reasonable to wonder if she might expect less from these students, and perhaps even grade their assignments more (or possibly less) stringently than their assumed to be middle- to upper-class counterparts. The really complicated aspect of this is that class-based assumptions are rarely acknowledged and openly discussed. Consequently, some of her students, who may have felt subtly devalued or slighted in their interactions with her, would never have had the benefit of knowing the influence that class biases had had. Just imagine how many times every day little offenses like these probably occur, with little or no opportunity for those who are assaulted to seek any confirmation that an assault has occurred, let alone an opportunity for redress.

Ironically, had I grown up poor, I probably would never have allowed myself to leave my apartment dressed as I was on the day of the law school training. The devaluation that poor and working-class people feel propels many to engage in compensatory behaviors designed to challenge perceptions of their economic poverty and the devaluation that accompanies these. It never ceases to amaze us how many poor teens, particular those who are African American and Latino, are decked out in designer fashions and sporting extravagant jewelry. They believe that, with money and the things money buys, they can transform themselves. They want to distance themselves from the types of perceptions and attributions that were made about me that day at the law school. So, they devote themselves to trying to dress like and possess the items that they associate with being rich. Ironically, members of the upper classes enjoy the privilege of not having to worry about others seeing them as upper- or upper-middle-class—they take it for granted. They can even comfortably “dress down” because they don’t feel that they have anything to prove. There is no mark of shame from which they are desperately trying to escape.

“When you live on the wrong side of the tracks, it’s like being branded with an iron that says you’re trash.” Having lived her whole life in poverty, Tawny was intimately familiar with the devaluation that came with her class status. “It’s hard enough not having things that I want, like enough hot water to take a long, soaking bath whenever I want. Did I tell you about that? I’m only allowed three baths a week and I can’t even fill the tub all the way. But even worse than not having things is having the knowledge that people look down on me. I’m worthless in their eyes—I’m dirt. That’s what really hurts more than anything else.” For Tawny, being poor limited the things she had, but it also limited who she was, or who others perceived her to be. In the literal sense, her restricted baths were a symptom of her economic deprivation. But they also were powerful symbols of the ways in which she felt devalued by the judgments of the world around her. Because she was poor, she was made to feel dirty or less valuable than those of more privileged classes.

Societal devaluation tied to class can have a powerful effect on adolescents who are prone to violence. Coming from a working-class family, Timothy Ryan appeared to struggle intensely with the devaluation related to his class status. Recall his remark about the girl he had raped, “that rich bitch.” This reference revealed that for Timothy, class—and more specifically his sense of devaluation related to class—was an organizing variable in his act of violence. The devaluation he experienced in terms of class was one more way in which he felt inferior, and one more factor to bear in mind when trying to develop a clear picture of the anatomy of his violence.

Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Youth

The vast majority of gay, lesbian, and bisexual youth suffer profoundly from societal devaluation, and for the most part they suffer in silence. The struggles these youth face are tragically reflected in the fact that, while it is estimated that 10% of the U.S. adolescent population are gay and lesbian, between 30 and 40% of all youth suicides are committed by gay and lesbian youth. This disturbing statistic reveals the depth of the pain many of these adolescents feel, and this pain is directly tied to the societal devaluation that afflicts anyone in this society who is not heterosexual.

Within U.S. society there is a deeply entrenched assumption of heterosexuality. When speaking to little boys and girls, it is common for adults to make seemingly “innocent” comments that assume that all children will someday grow up to date and marry someone of the opposite gender. How many times have we heard someone say, for example, to a little girl, “You’ll marry a nice young man one day,” or about a little boy, “He’s going to make some woman really happy one day.” From the time they are very young, little kids are conditioned to believe that the only viable option available for them is one of heterosexual union. For children who are gay, lesbian, or bisexual this assumption can have devastating consequences. Initially, it generates extreme confusion in young children who never receive any acknowledgment that same-sex relationships are even a possibility—let alone that they are a valid, normal possibility. After confusion, these kids develop a deep sense of shame because most conclude early on that the feelings they have must be wrong and unnatural and that therefore there must be something wrong with them. Indeed, most gay, lesbian, and bisexual kids often are exposed to homophobic comments and actions that much more directly express contempt toward anything that is nonheterosexual.

Ellie knew from the time she was 7 that she was drawn to other little girls rather than boys. When she was 8 she was crushed when her best friend said she wanted to marry one of their classmates, who was a little boy. Ellie felt jealous because in her heart she wanted to marry Christie herself when they grew up. But Ellie hid her feelings. At 8, she did not have a vocabulary to explain what she already understood: that it was not okay for her to have romantic feelings toward other little girls.

“My family is really homophobic. Once we were in a park, and my father saw two men holding hands and he made us move away. He said they were perverts. I felt sick to my stomach when that happened because I knew that what he was saying was that I was a pervert. Even though he didn’t know he was talking about me, I knew.”

Many gay, lesbian, and bisexual youth internalize feelings of self-hatred in response to the relentless heterosexist and homophobic conditioning they receive that teaches them that who they are is wrong. Is it any wonder that so many of these kids turn violent toward themselves, either poisoning their bodies with drugs or making more overt attempts to end their lives? “I just couldn’t live with the shame any longer,” Roberto explained.

“I was living a secret life. I was in love with a guy named Pete, and I hated myself for it. I couldn’t stay away from him. I guess he was my first love. But I hated myself for it. I knew my family would never accept me as a gay person. They would rather I was dead than have me be gay. So, I wanted to be dead. It was easier than having to face their disgust, and it was easier than having to live a lie. I still wish I had pulled it off. I have to tell you, I’ll probably try again.”

For adolescents who are in a state of questioning with regard to sexual orientation, there is no breathing room, no space to take a deep breath and reflect. There is no margin for error. In a society that promotes heterosexuality, simply expressing doubt about one’s sexual orientation can be quite painful and costly. Closeted gay, lesbian, bisexual, and questioning youth are often forced to live double lives. They have to wear masks that support the presumption and privilege of heterosexuality while living trapped between the fear of being found out and the anxiety of wanting to be wholly integrated human beings. Unlike girls, or people of color whose physical presence can trigger “politically correct behavior and rhetoric” from adversaries, which can provide a type of shield from insult and assault, many gay, lesbian, and bisexual youth are not so lucky. Many, unfortunately, are relegated to the position of undignified witnesses to others’ homophobia, hatred, and threats to do physical harm to anyone who is presumed to be anything but heterosexual. These often experienced but seldom acknowledged experiences leave many gay, lesbian, bisexual, and questioning youth overcome with despair and devaluation. Ironically, any manifestation of their suffering is usually dismissed or attributed to their being “weird, queer, or mixed up.” No matter how complex the difficulties with devaluation are for gay, lesbian, bisexual and questioning youth, a firm declaration of their heterosexuality is believed to be the best remedy.

DEVALUATION AND THE EXPRESSION OF VIOLENCE

A fascinating relationship exists between experiences with devaluation and how adolescents ultimately express their violence. Among violent adolescents we have observed interesting differences in how white males, males of color, and females of all races unleash their violence.

In terms of race and gender, white male adolescents are socially privileged. Racist and sexist conditioning socializes almost all white males to believe that the world is theirs for the taking and, as such, they are justified in using tactics of domination and aggression to fulfill their needs and desires. For males of color, racially they are conditioned to see themselves as second-class citizens in a world that expects them to serve, not to rule. Yet, on the basis of their gender, they, like white males, are taught to view themselves as superior to females. From this perspective they are conditioned to use tactics of domination and aggression to fulfill their needs and desires. In particular, they are socialized to view girls as objects who exist to fulfill male desires.

Within a patriarchal culture, females are conditioned to subjugate their own needs and desires and to accept a place of subservience beneath men. Few girls graduate into adulthood without having internalized some of the broader messages that teach them to silence their voices, redirect their gazes, and accept an identity that is defined by “serving others.” This socialization is more intense for females of color who get multiple layers of this conditioning on the basis of gender and race.

The influence of the socialization processes on how adolescents express their violence is intriguing. It is significant, for example, that all of the perpetrators in the wave of mass school shootings have been white males. It seems beyond coincidence that no boys of color or girls of any race have channeled their violence in this manner. This is not to suggest that males of color and girls of all races do not become violent. They do. But they channel their violence in very different ways. For the white male shooters of Paducah (KY), Jonesboro (AR), Pearl (MS), Springfield (OR), and Littleton (CO) there was an audacity to their violence that reflects the entitlement that is part of white male socialization. Focusing their attacks on their schools revealed a boldness. These boys weren’t just targeting individuals, but an entire institution and, in fact, the whole of society. And yet, if this is true, it begs the question, why would these young boys feel such rage against society as a whole? Especially since, as white males, they held privileged positions within this very society. Or did they?

It is our view that—with these boys—the forces of racist and sexist socialization collided with their personal experiences with situational devaluation. On the one hand, they felt the pain of feeling rejected and shamed by other kids, and in some cases by their families as well. And yet, they also had been raised in a culture that had conditioned them to believe they were better than everyone else—that they were superior. Imagine the contradiction between these two levels of experience. This is a clash we often observe among adult white males who have failed to succeed professionally or economically. These men suffer from profound shame because their personal failure is intensified by the humiliation of knowing that as white males they had the benefit of broad-based social opportunities and privileges that no other groups have. At least for those men of color and women of all races who fail professionally or economically, while this failure is painful (especially for men who are taught to believe their worth is measured by their economic success), it is partially tempered by the knowledge that the deck was stacked against them from the beginning. This provides some buffer against the conclusion that one’s failure is solely attributable to personal weakness.

For white males who receive messages suggesting they are superior, and yet whose personal experiences involve feelings of profound rejection and inadequacy, the schism may be enough to generate a sense of shame, which is at the heart of devaluation. Moreover, this devaluation, if it remains unaddressed and unhealed, may lead to a deep sense of rage (in this case a rage against the world for not fulfilling its promise of absolute power and privilege). This globalized rage is especially dangerous because as white males, even if they feel their personal experiences don’t measure up to the promises of power and glory, they still operate according to the view the world is theirs for the taking. There is a comfort they have in the world at large, perhaps a sense of believing they are “owed” something by the world. Is it any wonder that when their rage finally erupts into violence, their target is “the world,” or the symbolic world as represented through a primary societal institution (like a school)? And is it any wonder that their form of violence is often broad, grandiose, and indiscriminate?

This may also explain why almost all serial killers are white males. These killers select targets who are virtual strangers. Their victims are not personal targets. In one sense, their victim is society at large. While the killer’s literal victim is an individual person, it is the whole of society who is victimized by the mass terror these killers breed. The same dynamics occur in cases of homegrown terrorism. Again, the perpetrators have all been white males. Consider one of the most well-publicized cases, the Oklahoma City bombing. Clearly the intended target was society (represented as a federal building), and the killing was mass, generalized, and indiscriminate. This is consistent with the globalized rage that stems from the white male orientation toward the world.

For males of color, like white males, their acts of violence tend to be externalized toward others, but more often than not, these others are their “symbolic selves.” The alarming rates of black-on-black homicide, particularly among young urban males, depict the complex intersection between race and gender. Literally speaking, these kids are lashing out and killing others, which is consistent with a masculine orientation. Yet, these “others” are their own brothers—in a sense, themselves. Many of these kids are simultaneously committing both homicide and suicide. We would find it highly unusual for any male youth of color to direct his violence in the way that the white male school shooters have. While kids of color may have even more reason to feel rage against society, at least whatever slights they endure from the world around them are consistent with their social programming, which teaches them to never expect anything better. They may be treated as if they are “less than,” which may hurt, but it also is consistent with the dominant story about who they are. Most kids of color grow up never expecting much of anything from the world, which tempers the sense of disillusionment that may arise when the world fails them. Hence, most kids of color would never contemplate an attack upon a whole school because it would defy the very socialization process that teaches them the world was never theirs in the first place.

An argument could be made that, to some extent, males of color do in fact lash out against the world, but it’s the world as it has been defined for them through racist conditioning. Within this scheme, that which constitutes “the world” is much more local, immediate, and tightly defined than it is for white males.

Many years ago, we knew a young black male, Barry, who grew up and lived in a fairly insular neighborhood within a much larger city. We will never forget the day that we tried to encourage Barry, who was a talented artist, to accept a job in another city that paid a much higher salary than his present job, with opportunities for advancement. But Barry refused it flatly. He explained that he was going to spend the remainder of his life in his neighborhood of origin. “I suppose everything I need is right here. There’s no need to venture out.” While we respected Barry’s right to make this decision, there was a part of his choice that didn’t seem like it had been a choice at all. We could not help but wonder in what ways Barry’s complacency, or lack of ambition, was a barometer of his deprivation. Having grown up with so little and having been socialized as a black person to expect so little, perhaps Barry was merely conforming to the social–psychological boundaries that had been established for him within a racist society.

As a function of their racial devaluation, few youth of color identify with society’s institutions. They see these institutions as part of the white world, which is not their world. This in part explains why many urban youth of color are ambivalent about performing well academically in school. To do so often invites criticism from peers who label this success as being “too white” and as “selling out to the white power.” This type of allegation makes it clear that these kids associate school with the white world, which is not their world. The line that divides them is sharply drawn, which is why we would not expect youth of color to focus their violence against schools (i.e., society at large), for example.

For girls of all colors, their violence is most likely to be internalized—to be directed inwardly against themselves, which is consistent with the socialization they receive that teaches them they have no right to expect anything of the world, and whatever failures and disappointments they suffer, they have only themselves to blame. Hence, girls are much more likely to cut themselves, develop eating disorders and drug/alcohol addictions, and commit suicide.

Hence, rather then reflecting a breaking out of social constraints, to some extent, expressions of adolescent violence are a reformulation of societal pressures that are grounded in the complex intersection of race, class, and gender politics. For those young people who are compelled toward acts of violence, the specific manifestations of this violence are largely mitigated by the socialization they receive in terms of broader dimensions of the sociocultural context.

CONCLUSION

It is important to remember that devaluation is but one aggravating factor that ultimately contributes to adolescent violence. There are millions of teenagers who endure painful experiences with devaluation, both situational and societal, and yet most do not resort to violence. We believe that the issue of what divides “those who do” from “those who don’t” lies in the complex interaction of the four aggravating factors that constitute our model—of which devaluation is only the first. In the next chapter we discuss the second aggravating factor: the disruption or erosion of community.