COMMENTARY:“What’s Going On”: New book tells it like it really is

c. 1997 Religion News Service UNDATED _ In my work as a prison chaplain, I have discovered the most effective crime prevention message is often delivered by those who have”been there, done that.”A perfect example is a new book,”What’s Going On”(Random House), by Nathan McCall. McCall, a reporter currently on leave from the Washington Post, […]

c. 1997 Religion News Service

UNDATED _ In my work as a prison chaplain, I have discovered the most effective crime prevention message is often delivered by those who have”been there, done that.”A perfect example is a new book,”What’s Going On”(Random House), by Nathan McCall.

McCall, a reporter currently on leave from the Washington Post, spent three years in prison for armed robbery during the 1970’s and once shot a man for disrespecting his girlfriend. As chronicled in his 1994 memoir,”Makes Me Wanna Holler,”(Random House), he made a successful but difficult transition from gangbanger and thief to first-class journalist.


It is this combination of reportorial skills and personal experiences that make”What’s Going On”such a wonderful read. As in the first volume, McCall engages his readers by allowing them to see issues existing in the black community from the perspective of someone still struggling with himself.

Thus, what comes through in this series of personal essays is not a list of one-size-fits-all solutions, but a process whereby old views _ on race, sex, violence and success _ are challenged in an attempt to gain a clearer understanding of reality.

Of particular relevance for my work with criminals and young wannabes is McCall’s chapter,”Gangstas, Guns, and Shoot-’em-ups.”Here his experience as a teenager enamored with the violence depicted in the movie,”The Godfather,”sets the stage for an impassioned yet well-reasoned polemic against”gangsta rap”music.

He argues, for example, that the tenets which governed the movie’s gangsters were appealing to”us as teenage boys trying to work through the murky rites of manhood.” If somebody double-crosses you, according to the gangster code,”he must be punished; and if somebody disrespects you, he deserves to die.”McCall says it was this creed that led him to shoot the man who threatened his girlfriend.”To my way of thinking, that dude had offended my lady, and by extension, he’d disrespected me,”he writes.”I concluded, `He deserves to die.'” A generation later, McCall sees these same dynamics _ the struggle for identity, the perpetual anger, the craving for respect _ finding expression through the pulsating rhythms of”gangsta rap.”And, as seen in the shooting deaths of rap artists Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls, with the same violent results.

What’s more, he says, such murders are often viewed by rappers and their followers as a means of establishing one’s street credentials, as an authentic”gangsta”from the `hood. As with the media influences of an earlier generation, including movies like”The Godfather,””Shaft,”and”Superfly,”gangsta rap has changed the way young blacks view manhood _ celebrating random violence as a rite of passage.

Moreover, though gangsta rap lyrics often contain a measure of truth in their analysis of urban oppression, the rappers themselves contribute to the oppression. Tupac Shakur, for example,”recorded one of the most heartwarming, memorable raps ever, a sweet tribute to his mother called, `Dear Mama.’ Then Tupac gets sent up the river for his role in the gang rape of one of his female fans _ a woman, just like his mama.” Indeed, for McCall,”some rappers are no more than … hypocrites. In that sense, they’re no better than the drug dealer, the pimp _ or the wicked white man who earns his riches exploiting blacks.” As a pastor who lacks the personal history of street violence to establish his bonafides, McCall’s words are music to my ears.

For those of us who minister on city streets and behind prison walls, our presence, though appreciated, is not enough. Before some of our clients can embrace the truth, they need to hear the personal testimonies of those who have experienced their pain: the former prostitute, the converted drug dealer, the ex-convict.


Nathan McCall has such a testimony. Though his book reveals the struggles of one still putting the pieces together he tells it like it really is.

In so doing, he makes my job infinitely easier.

DEA END ATCHISON

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