Incarcerated Dad... : A Gangsta's Warning

I have spent three decades watching young men come in and out of prison. In many instances these youth accept the prison experience as a rite of passage to manhood. They have the idea that being convicted of a felony and sentenced to a correctional facility certifies their street credit and gives them permission to return to society as an honored street soldier. This is a fallacy of a subculture that is destroying generations of African-American families as well as diminishing the foundation of our society. Experiencing prison life and seeing our youths come into the system without any positive male role models to imitate, I am inspired to write the second installment in the Gangsta Rap trilogy and share the untold stories of this subculture - the things you will not hear on inner city streets, in drug houses, in the news, at board meetings, in neighbor-hood barbershops or beauty salons, in school, at church, in college, in the temple, or in the many other places people gather. Understanding that most inner city and rural area youths lack the examples of positive male role models, I've watched the cycle of male-hood continue to perpetuate itself as these young men come into the prison system boasting of fathering several children by different young ladies without any consideration or means for supporting their children. They continue to brag about returning to society and impregnating more unsuspecting girls with the intentions of not accepting the responsibility of traditional fatherhood.