Inside NorthBay
I’ve been writing a series in The Erickson Tribune on NorthBay, an outdoor adventure camp and environmental center in North East, Md., located at the top of the Chesapeake Bay. It’s been an amazing and eye-opening experience for me. Not just because I get to escape from the office to the breathtaking beauty of NorthBay’s waterfront campus (and climb the ropes course!), but also because I’ve met amazing kids who have experienced life in a way I never could imagine. And they’re just 12 years old. I wanted to write this blog to express my thoughts, my experience of covering this story. Some of it will probably overlap or summarize what I’ve already written or will write in the Tribune. But here I will express my personal emotions that I’ve felt along the way.
The goal of my series, from the beginning, was to get an insider’s view–to find out if NorthBay really does have an effect on the young students they invite there each week of the school year. It took me a while to really dig in and find my hook, but on my third trip to the camp I found D.C. (for his safety and privacy I use only his initials). D.C. is a 15-year-old sixth grader. Saying he has a bad home life would be an understatement.
When I met him in April he lived in his own apartment in Park Heights in downtown Baltimore. He justified it by saying his dad lived down the street, but to me, born and raised in rural Cecil County, Md., 15-year-olds just don’t live unsupervised. A month later, when his NorthBay educator, Phil, and I visited him at Booker T. Washington Middle School, he lived with his grandmother. When I spoke to his teacher last night (the first year teacher has really taken him under her wing and been extremely helpful to me), she said he now lives with his mother. Ok, so plenty of kids move around a lot. No big deal. But for D.C. that’s just the beginning.
During one of my interviews with him he told me almost every member in his family is a member of the Bloods, one of the most prominent and well-known gangs in the nation. I’ve always sort of considered gangs as their own little world, one which I would never enter. I guess I just put them out of my mind and figured they were made up of delinquent teenagers who have nothing better to do than rob people and fight amongst themselves. But D.C. has faced drugs, shootings, fights every single day for his whole life. Five of his friends have been tortured and burned to death.
As he tells me this my stomach turns. Geez, as I write this now my stomach turns.
Tortured and burned by other human beings. Are we really in the 21st century? I still haven’t entered the world of gang life, but I’m standing at the gate looking in. In writing the last two articles in which I have featured D.C. (scheduled for July and August in The Erickson Tribune) I have researched gang statistics and reports, read gang blogs, and scoured the newspapers for stories about youth gang involvement. But nothing has prepared me like my conversation with D.C. that day in his classroom. Although he says he only carries himself as an affiliated Bloods member, he knows more than most official members. He told me about the Blood Bible, a book of rules, codes, and everything you need to know about being a Blood. He told me members have to earn their “stars and stripes,” which means they have to rob, fight and kill people. Kill people. I can’t wrap my head around it.
Research shows youth join gangs because of the sense of family and protection they perceive the gang will give them. Do they know the price they have to pay for that before they join? I’m trying to find out.
If you want to catch up on my series in The Erickson Tribune click on the links below:
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