Seeing the real world

So I was doing my weekly volunteering at this after school program today, and after a session I sat down with a couple of 13 year olds from a local middle school to enjoy some free pizza. This is roughly how the conversation went.

"So A____, why didn't C_____ come today?"

"Oh, he got suspended from school."

"What happened?" I asked casually.

"Oh, it was bad. They got caught stealing a thousand dollars."

"What? Where was this?"

"It was at a school dance. They went through everyone's purses. I____ got away with a lot of money. But C____ got caught by the metal detector. I was with them, I tried to hide an ipod in my belt, so they didn't catch me. But C____ got caught so now he's suspended."

"Oh yeah, didn't you get suspended last time I saw you? Did you get it bad?"

"Yeah, my mom punched me for like 2 minutes."

"What happened that time?"

Someone else said, "Oh you guys got caught real bad..." The kids all started giggling.

Puzzled, I ask, "what happened, did you stealing anything?"

"Oh I didn't steal nothing."

"What happened then?"

Someone else said, "oh, he got caught dealing"

A_____ laughed, then he confessed, "oh D____, I_____, and I" (pointing at others at the table) "went to this abandon warehouse to do weed. I was dealing..."

I gasped, unable to believe this cute cudley innocent looking 13-year old boy is already a drug dealer. Trying to hide my shock, I kept asking, "Wow, how did you get into this stuff?"

"Oh my brother was caught dealing. Then one day my aunt went through his stuff and found this pound of majuanana. She threw it out and was going to tell the police. I needed to cover for my brother so I took all the weed I can. Now I deal at school. It's good money. Yesterday I made $75.""

The kids then started goofing off over pizza and playing with each other, as what you would imagine 13 year old boys do. But I was taken aback by what I just heard, and the natural straightforward way A____ talked about it. Later a staff from the program offered to drive me home after dropping off the kids, so I got to talk with the kids more in the van. They talked more about their drug dealing experience, about how they knew every supply center in town, about how they have this special house which they will not tell me the location of to do drugs, and as they were driving by various neighborhoods they joked around about how many prostitutes are in the streets. Again, they told this in a natural, innocent tone, straightforwardly showing me the neighborhoods they grew up in and sharing their world. It was as if drug dealing was the most natural thing to do for a 13 year old.

For a while I've been coming to this after school program, doing some tutoring and supervising kids in the game room. All this time I've watched the kids play Wii, ping pong, pool, card games, and I've always viewed them as any other middle school kid. I never knew there's so much negative baggage in their lives. It pains me to see hear that these adorable little kids are already dealing drugs, and how they are struggling with going to high school, and may simply end up as a statistic about gang violence in the inner city. But what can you do, when the kids older brothers, parents are doing drugs and routinely dealing with crime? I'm glad simply that I have the opportunity to be there, to listen to them, and to see a new world far removed from my Duke academic bubble. This has helped me to associate real faces with abstract terms such as theft, delinquency, and drug dealing. It also reminds me that behind every person that society labels as "criminal," there is a misguided little kid who needs to be loved.