Some  Child(ren)  Left  Behind:  

Dedric  Darnell  Owens    and  the  

“Three  Strikes”  of  Black  Male  Development      

Center  for  the  Study  of  Ethnicity  and  Race  Senior  Thesis  

Jasmine  Ayana  Sudarkasa  4/30/13  

                 

               

For  Jonathan  and  Nigel  

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Preface    

 

Shortly  before  10  AM,  on  February  29th,  2000,  a  6-­‐year-­‐old  boy  in  Flint,  Michingan  

became  the  youngest  killer  in  the  history  of  the  United  States.  Dedric  Darnell  Owens,  

an  African-­‐American  boy,  shot  and  killed  his  classmate  Kayla  Rollins  during  the  

change  of  period  between  their  first  grade  classes  at  Theo  J.  Buell  Elementary  

School.  Reports  vary  as  to  the  sequence  of  events  that  led  to  the  murder  of  Rollins,  

but  an  eyewitness  report  from  Time  Magazine  relates  the  following:    

The  kids  were  on  the  first  level  heading  to  the  second  when  the  boy  pulled  

out  his  pistol.  Kayla  was  walking  ahead  of  him,  up  the  school  stairs.  He  called  

out,  "I  don't  like  you."  She  had  her  back  to  him,  then  turned  and  asked,  as  a  

challenge,  "So?"  The  boy,  who  had  first  pointed  the  gun  at  another  classmate,  

swung  around  and  fired  a  single  bullet  that  entered  Kayla's  right  arm  and  

traveled  through  her  vital  organs.  Boaz  says  he  saw  blood  on  both  sides  of  

Kayla's  stomach.  She  grabbed  her  stomach,  then  her  neck,  gasping  for  air.  

                (Rosenblatt,  4)  

After  the  shooting,  Owens  threw  the  handgun  into  the  trash  and  hid  in  the  

bathroom.  Rollins  was  taken  to  a  local  hospital,  where  she  was  pronounced  dead  at  

10:29  am.  Owens  was  retained  in  the  principal’s  office,  questioned  and  ultimately  

released.  At  6  years  old,  he  was  constitutionally  protected  from  prosecution  but,  as  a  

first  grade  student,  Owens  also  became  “America’s  youngest  killer”  (Bowling  for  

Columbine).      

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Ultimately,  Owens’  mother  and  uncle  were  held  responsible  for  the  affair:  

Tamarla  Owens  had  been  recently  evicted  from  her  home  and  moved  her  two  sons  

into  “a  crack  house”  where,  allegedly,  “guns  were  traded  for  drugs,  with  their  uncle  

and  the  19-­‐year-­‐old  man  who  left  the  murder  weapon,  evidently  loaded,  under  some  

blankets.”  (Rosenblatt,  7)  Dedric’s  uncle,  Jarnelle  James,  was  ultimately  prosecuted  

for  his  negligence:  for  owning  the  gun,  James  served  two  years  and  five  months  for  

involuntary  manslaughter.  In  this,  the  household  narrative  in  the  case  of  Dedric  

Owens  is  a  familiar  one,  featuring  an  almost  stereotypical  relationship  between  a  

single-­‐parent  household,  drug  abuse  and  poverty.  As  news  of  the  shooting  began  to  

spread,  a  concerted  fear  and  uproar  rose  throughout  the  United  States,  with  social  

consensus  ranging  from  empathetic  considerations  of  Owens’  household  to  calls  for  

the  prosecution  of  the  boy.  Roger  Rosenblatt,  in  an  article  for  Time  Magazine,  

considered  the  social  implications  of  the  case  for  American  society  and  its  treatment  

of  the  boy,  and  found  culpability  to  be  the  pendulum  around  which  the  case  swung.  

Ultimately,  however,  it  appears  that  culpability  falls  in  the  face  of  the  larger  

problematic:  What  does  first  grade  murder  suggest  about  the  American  condition?  

Dedric  Owens  was  a  child  that  shot  another  child,  acting  out  a  “rage  and  confusion”  

(10)  that  seems  remiss  at  six  years  of  age.  His  youth  made  for  a  case  that  baffled  the  

American  public;  his  race  made  for  an  all  too  familiar  typecast:  Owens  presented  as  

a  black  male  child,  a  conflation  of  both  inherently  criminalized  (black  male)  and  

inherently  innocent  (child)  identities  in  American  society.  His  identities  seemed  at  

odds,  and  the  caveat  of  his  childhood  seemed  to  qualify  his  criminality,  allowing  

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news  media  and  public  consensus  to  afford  far  more  empathy  to  Dedric  than  any  of  

his  older  (Black  male)  counterparts.  

In  all,  the  case  of  Dedric  Owens  presented  as  a  point  of  self-­‐reflection  for  the  

American  population.  A  society  that  can  exist  on  a  paradigm  where  six  year  olds  can  

arm  themselves  and  commit  murder  is  surely  a  society  that  needs  to  consider  its  

condition...Or  is  it?  The  criminalization  of  the  black  male  identity  may  have  robbed  

Owens  of  the  innocence  assumed  of  all  children,  and  the  subsequent  racialization  of  

the  incident,  featuring  archetypes  of  white  innocence  and  black  aggression,  only  

complicated  the  matter:  was  Owens  simply  another  “violent  black  man”  in  a  country  

pre-­‐occupied  with  its  own  fear  of  blackness?  Or,  was  he  a  child,  misplaced  amongst  

the  furor  of  his  social  condition?      

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CHAPTER  1:  Childhood,  Blackness,  and  the  Binary  

 

The  Methodologies  of  Childhood  

When  distilled,  childhood  theory  presents  as  an  interdisciplinary  study  of  the  

relationship  between  the  child  and  its  society,  and  the  various  protections  or  

privileges  afforded  to  children  in  a  contemporary  setting.  Authors  James,  Jenks  and  

Prout  present  “childhood”  as  an  intersectional  experience,  whereby  sociological  and  

anthropological  concern  is  not  only  warranted,  but  necessary.  The  preliminary  

thrust  of  their  work  suggests,  specifically,  that  there  exists  an  “intimate  relationship  

between  "the  child"  and  the  idea  of  social  order,”  wherein  “children  offer  living  

exemplars  of  the  very  margins  of  that  order,  of  its  volatility  and,  in  fact,  its  fragility.”  

(James,  Jenks  and  Prout,  140)  In  this  context,  childhood  can  be  understood  as  a  

socialization,  wherein  children  are  rendered,  rather  than  a  biological/physiological  

state  of  being  that  is  somehow  implicitly  defined.    

In  considering  the  case  of  Dedric  Owens,  and  the  cases  of  children  of  color  

throughout  the  United  States,  this  platform  could  not  be  more  accurate.  While  we  

may  be  predisposed  to  assume  childhood  as  “the  time  for  children  to  be  in  school  

and  at  play,  to  grow  strong  and  confident  with  the  love  and  encouragement  of  their  

family  and  an  extended  community  of  caring  adults,”  (UNICEF,  Childhood  Defined)  

the  intricacies  of  the  social  condition  and  its  relationship  with  childhood  make  this  

an  impossible  assumption.  Childhood  theory  holds  that  the  true  nature  of  

development  is  contingent  on  the  peculiarities  and  impediments  of  the  social  order  

in  which  the  child  develops.  Even  with  the  adoption  of  international  mandates  such  

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as  the  Convention  on  the  Rights  of  the  Child  (1989),  there  can  be  no  universally  

protected  and/or  innocent  childhood  in  a  society  that  is  as  intricately  hierarchical  as  

that  in  which  we  live.  What  is  most  crucial,  in  this,  is  the  acknowledgement  that  

childhood  is  both  a  deliberate  and  deliberately  constructed  act  –  children  depend  on  

the  socialization  of  adults  to  know  the  parameters  of  social  expectation,  and  then  

are  expected  to  act  within  these  confines.  In  this,  childhood  becomes  somewhat  of  a  

paradoxical  learning  curve,  wherein  children  are  expected  to  explore  the  

boundaries  of  their  childhood,  but  are  given  decisive  and  clearly  delineated  confines  

depending  on  their  social  standing  and/or  identity.  If  we  further  accept  that  

“children  learn  who  they  are  through  interaction  with  (usually)  the  adult  other,”  

(James,  Jenks  and  Prout,  141)  then  it  is  somewhat  obvious  that  the  boundaries  

delineated  in  crafting  the  childhood  experience  would  refer  to  the  preoccupations  of  

the  adults  teaching  them.  Thereafter,  it  becomes  difficult  to  accept  childhood  as  a  

neutral,  overarching  experience,  as  its  construction  depends  solely  on  its  

recognition  by  the  adults  that  shape  it.    

According  to  this  capitulation,  childhood  and  its  purported  social  innocence  

present  us  with  a  very  tangible  understanding  of  the  fringes  of  society  –  in  

attempting  to  construct  an  ideal  or  stylized  path  of  instruction  for  children,  we  are  

forced  to,  in  turn,  construct  somewhat  of  a  hierarchical  social  order.  We  preoccupy  

ourselves  with  “good”  and  “bad”,  attempting  to  stratify  the  human  experience  into  a  

learning  curve  and  point  of  instruction  for  children,  through  constructing  some  sort  

of  methodological  relationship  between  various  human  experiences.  In  this,  

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childhood  is  both  an  “epiphenomenon  of  adulthood”  (141)  and  a  tangible  

presentation  of  the  margins  in  which  we,  as  social  beings,  choose  to  live.  

 

America,  the  Beautiful  

In  the  contemporary  United  States,  social  margins  range  from  astringent  to  

unprotected.  While  it  appears  that,  legislatively  at  least,  we’ve  reached  a  consensus  

on  the  need  for  (the  previously  controversial)  tenets  of  racial  equality,  women’s  

rights  and  universal  enfranchisement,  Americans  remain  undecided  on  the  nuance  

of  their  social  condition.  There  is  a  pervasive  separatist  culture  in  the  history  of  the  

United  States,  with  society  often  divided  based  on  income  level,  sex  or  race.  Charles  

Murray,  in  a  piece  entitled  “The  New  American  Divide”,  suggests  that  America  has  

reached  a  cultural  and  societal  tipping  point,  whereby  –  succinctly  –  “America  is  

coming  apart.”  (Murray,  1)  Where  American  ideologues  may  once  have  boasted  of  a  

“civic  culture  that  swept  an  extremely  large  proportion  of  Americans  of  all  classes  

into  its  embrace,”  (33)  in  actuality  the  United  States  (past  and  present)  purports  

nothing  if  not  intersectional  binaries  that  divide  its  social  order.  American  society  

has  always  had  its  “qualifiers,”  deigning  to  include  and  exclude  based  on  a  particular  

people’s  ability  to  align  itself  with  a  majoritarian  “culture,  encompassing  shared  

experiences  of  daily  life  and  shared  assumptions  about  central  American  values  

involving  marriage,  honesty,  hard  work  and  religiosity.”  (3)  Those  that  cannot  or  

will  not  align  themselves  with  the  so-­‐called  universality  of  the  American  condition  

face  what  Murray  calls  a  “cultural  inequality,”  whereby  the  privileging  of  some  

cultures  over  others  in  the  political,  social  and  economic  strata  make  for  hierarchies  

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of  identity.  Accordingly,  America  appears  to  exist  on  a  perpetually  dualistic  axis,  

stratifying  its  populations  based  on  varying  identities  and  revealing  itself  as  a  

society  that  often  exists  and  thinks  on  the  binary.    

Jacques  Derrida,  in  his  seminal  work  “Positions,”  furthers  this  interaction  

between  Western  ideology  and  theories  of  binary  opposition,  whereby  he  discusses  

the  implications  of  the  duality  of  Western  discourse  as  evidenced  by  its  language.  

He  suggests  that  the  West  understand  its  ideological  direction  as  one  that  rests  on  

the  idea  of  the  “double  gesture,  according  to  a  unity  that  is  both  systematic  and  in  

and  of  itself  divided,  a  double  writing,  that  is,  a  writing  that  is  in  and  of  itself  

multiple.”  (Derrida,  41)  His  Western  social  order  rests  on  binary  opposition,  

structuring  itself  around  poles  that  present  at  the  extremities  of  the  social  condition.  

These  poles  are  by  no  means  passive,  either;  Derrida  insists  that  binary  oppositions  

resist  “the  peaceful  co-­‐existence  of  a  vis-­‐à-­‐vis,”  instead  finding  meaning  in  their  

“violent  hierarchy”  whereby  “one  of  the  two  terms  governs  the  other  (axiologically,  

logically,  etc.),  or  has  the  upper  hand.”  (41)  In  this,  then,  it  appears  the  American  

social  order  rests  on  various  “violent  hierarchies”  that  corral  public  opinion  and  

polarize  the  population.    This  violence  is  both  literal  and  metaphoric:  interactions  

between  members  of  the  upper  and  lower  echelons  of  the  Western  order  are  often  

violent,  ranging  from  wars  of  dominion  to  the  violence  of  the  contemporary  criminal  

justice  system  in  the  US;  the  metaphorical  component  lies  in  the  

subordinate/dominant  tensions  of  binary  opposition:  through  the  actualization  of  

an  identity  that  is  fundamentally  both  itself  and  in  opposition  to  another,  there  can  

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be  no  co-­‐existence.  According  to  Derrida,  when  one’s  identity  finds  meaning  in  its  

ability  to  oppose  another’s,  there  can  be  no  peace.    

With  a  social  order  contingent  on  specific  binaries  and  general  polarizations,  

it  comes  as  no  surprise  that  childhood  experiences  differ  throughout  the  United  

States.  If  we  accept  that  childhood,  at  its  core,  presents  us  with  a  lens  through  which  

to  consider  the  social  order,  we  must  accept  that  certain  power  relationships  inform  

the  socialization  of  childhood  in  its  contemporary  iteration.  In  a  nation  where  rich  

exists  on  an  axis  with  poor,  old  exists  on  an  axis  with  young,  and  other  identities  

exist  in  conversation  with  one  another,  the  hierarchies  that  inform  the  lives  of  all  of  

America’s  adults  have  tangible  effects  on  America’s  children.    

It  is  this  relationship  that  is  most  important  to  consider  when  looking  at  

identities  and  their  interaction  with  childhood  –  the  social  order  privileges  various  

identities  over  others,  and  these  seen-­‐but-­‐not-­‐heard  tendencies  tend  to  reveal  

themselves  during  the  instruction  of  childhood.  If  we  focus  specifically  on  power,  

and  hegemonic  societal  structures,  it  is  not  difficult  to  concede  to  the  point  that  

Bourdieu  makes,  whereby  childhood  becomes  a  point  of  ideological  reproduction.  

To  him,  the  educational  instruction  that  is  implicit  to  childhood  presents  as  little  

more  than  “mechanism  of  mass  socialization  which  helped  to  ensure...continued  

dominance  and  also  to  perpetuate  [the]  covert  exercise  of  power.”  (Bordieu,  145)  

The  subjectivity  of  childhood  finds  root  in  this  statement,  and  this  subjectivity  

presents  most  aptly  in  considering  the  racial  climate  of  the  United  States.      

 

 

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The  Black-­‐White  Binary  

In  the  history  of  the  United  States,  there  may  be  no  binary  with  more  

violent/hierarchical  social  repercussions  than  that  of  the  Black/White  binary.  Racial  

tensions  between  Black  and  White  Americans  have  informed  much  of  the  social  

strata  of  this  country,  and  have  had  sweeping  ramifications  throughout  the  political  

and  economic  histories  of  the  US.  Issues  of  citizenship  and  human  rights  have  

revolved  almost  solely  around  race  identity  (with  gender  identity  playing  somewhat  

of  a  role),  and  in  this  nexus  “the  most  pervasive  and  powerful  paradigm  of  race  in  

the  United  States  is  the  Black/White  binary  paradigm.”  (Perea,  1219)  In  a  

pervasively  racialized  America,  binary  opposition  allows  for  the  “conception  that  

race…consists,  either  exclusively  or  primarily,  of  only  two  constituent  racial  groups,  

the  Black  and  the  White.”  (ibid.)  Socio-­‐economic  status,  marriage  status  and  other  

identities  conflate  around  the  realities  of  the  racial  experiences  of  the  Black/White  

binary,  resulting  in  variously  recognizable  Black  or  White  archetypes.  Images  such  

as  the  “WASP”  or  the  “Angry  Black  Woman,”  reveal  themselves  as  both  relevant  and  

exaggerated  in  the  day-­‐to-­‐day  socializations  of  Americans.    

With  this  is  in  mind,  the  parameters  of  the  Black/White  binary  must  have  

some  incredible  impetus  on  the  childhood  experience.  If  we  accept  that  childhood  is  

a  socialization,  primarily,  and  that  this  socialization  is  contingent  on  the  nuance  of  

the  social  order,  and  that  the  American  social  order  pre-­‐occupies  itself  with  the  

Black/White  binary,  it  stands  to  reason  that  America’s  children  are  hierarchically  

racialized.  In  a  world  where,  according  to  James,  Jenks  and  Prout,  “adult  society  is  

considered  the  structure,  and  the  child  the  agent,  and  that  the  former  determines  or  

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socializes  the  latter,”  (James  et  al,  142)  the  racialized  American  child  presents  as  

both  a  current  and  future  agent  within  the  social  order.    

It  is  peculiarity  of  this  relationship  between  identity,  childhood  and  race  that  

this  paper  preoccupies  itself  with;  In  attempting  to  explain,  justify  or  simply  

understand  the  case  of  Dedric  Owens,  concerted  attention  must  be  paid  to  the  

interactions  of  childhood  conditioning  and  social  parameters.  In  my  opinion,  not  

enough  attention  has  been  paid  to  this  particular  junction:  discourse  surrounding  

Owens’  case  has  examined  his  Blackness,  his  poverty  and  his  age,  in  isolation,  but  

has  yet  to  put  them  in  conversation  with  one  another.  In  response,  this  paper  

attempts  to  establish  a  tangible  relationship  between  power,  privilege  and  

childhood,  whereby  Dedric  Owens  presents  as  an  archetype  of  blackness,  to  be  

feared  under  the  suppositions  of  the  American  Black/White  binary.  This  

archetypical  construction  began  before  he  committed  his  crime,  and  stands  at  odds  

with  the  tenets  of  successful  childhood  development,  as  defined  by  developmental  

psychologist  Erik  Erikson.  Accordingly,  the  emphasis  of  this  paper  holds  that  Dedric  

Owens  was  a  victim  in  the  killing  of  Kayla  Rollins,  due  to  developmental  tensions  (as  

defined  by  Erikson),  and  that  his  actions  came  as  a  response  to  the  disparity  of  the  

social  condition  of  black  male  children,  individually  and  collectively.    

 

 

 

 

 

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Chapter  2:  Fear  of  Blackness,  Loss  of  Innocence    

 In  order  to  consider  the  innocence  and/or  guilt  of  Dedric  Owens,  this  chapter  

considers  the  theoretical  implications  of  his  identities  as  both  “black  male”  and  

“child.”  His  blackness  is  considered  through  the  lens  of  societal  fear,  whereby  the  

American  social  order  is  identified  as  agentic  in  the  construction  and  operations  of  a  

public  “fear  of  blackness.”  Thereafter,  his  childhood  is  considered  in  conversation  

with  Erikson’s  theory  of  childhood  development  through  the  examination  of  various  

stages,  identified  as  crisis  points  in  the  normative  development  of  children,  in  the  

specific  case  of  black  male  children.  

 

The  “fear  of  blackness”  

The  intricacy  of  the  image  of  the  “violent  black”  is  rooted  in  fear,  whereby  

blackness  presents  itself  as  an  identity  to  be  feared  by  the  white  patriarchal  

individual  and  (representatively)  the  white  power  structure.  While  there  is  an  

abundance  of  literature  chronicling  this  “swartgevaar1”,  very  little  has  been  done  to  

consider  the  locus  of  this  fear.  It  is  my  endeavor  to  root  the  conditioning  for  the  fear  

of  blackness  in  the  conditioning  of  the  childhood  experience,  whereby  the  

household  becomes  the  learning  environment  inherent  to  the  fear  condition2.  In  

this,  childhood  becomes  a  conditioning  environment,  and  that  which  he  fears  

                                                                                                               1  Afrikaans  word  meaning  “black  threat,”  often  used  to  summarily  describe  blacks  during  the  Apartheid  years  of  South  Africa.    2  John  Watson’s  Little  Albert  experiment  (1920)  demonstrated  that  fear  is  a  conditioned  (rather  than  implicit)  response,  wherein  he  was  able  to  condition  a  fear  of  rats  into  an  otherwise  stable  8-­‐month-­‐old  child.  Through  graduated  exposure  to  a  rat  in  tandem  with  a  loud  bang,  Watson  was  able  to  condition  the  child  to  associate  his  fear  of  the  bang  with  the  rat,  ultimately  resulting  in  a  conditioned  fear  of  the  rat  itself.  This  study  on  classical  conditioning  was  able  to  effectively  prove  that  a  child  can  be  taught  the  fear  condition.    

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becomes  symptomatic  of  the  implicit  and  explicit  fears  of  his  household.  Thus,  it  is  

our  primary  position  that  the  fear  of  blackness  is  a  condition  first  taught  in  the  

home.    

This  impetus,  for  the  home  as  the  primary  conditioning  environment,  aligns  

itself  with  childhood  development  theories  discussed  in  Chapter  1,  whereby  the  

suggestion  of  this  paper  is  that  the  home  is  the  primary  platform  for  learned  

childhood  behaviors.  While  race  is  an  identity  that  is  indeed  conditioned,  for  the  

purpose  of  this  argument,  we  can  concede  that  (by  middle  childhood)  race  has  

already  been  learned  and  incorporated  into  the  child’s  sense  of  self.    Professor  Erin  

Winkler,  of  University  of  Wisconsin-­‐Madison,  contributes  to  the  conversation  by  

suggesting  (based  on  empirical  evidence)  that  “children  not  only  recognize  race  

from  a  very  young  age,  but  also  develop  racial  biases  by  ages  three  to  five.”  (Winkler,  

1)  Based  on  various  childhood  development  studies,  she  posits  that  race  is  a  learned  

behavior,  and  that  children  are  able  to  examine  and  determine  their  own  race  

identity  from  a  very  early  age.  In  addition,  she  holds  that  race  identities  are  

incentivized  based  on  the  implicit  behaviors  exhibit  when  privileging  certain  

identities  over  others:  “environments  teach  young  children  which  categories  seem  

to  be  the  most  important…Children  then  attach  meaning  to  these  social  categories  

on  their  own.”  (Winkler,  2)  Accordingly,  in  a  US  system  where  “whiteness  is  

normalized  and  privileged”  (Winkler,  3),  it  stands  to  reason  that  any  child  existing  in  

the  social  order  would  acquire  some  exaltation  towards  whiteness.  While  this  does  

not  conclusively  prove  a  fear  of  blackness,  it  certainly  pre-­‐empts  an  aversion  to  it:  In  

a  1997  study,  child  psychologists  Katz  and  Kofkin  were  able  to  effectively  prove  the  

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racialized  condition  of  the  child,  whereby  (when  given  the  choice)  “by  36  months  

old,  the  majority  of  both  black  and  white  children  chose  white  playmates”  (Katz  and  

Kofkin,  59)  and  “white  children  rarely  exhibit  anything  other  than  a  pro-­‐white  bias.”  

(Katz  and  Kofkin,  62)  

It  is  in  this  vein  that  we  locate  our  definition  of  the  “fear  of  blackness,”  

mentioned  above:  the  fear  of  blackness  is  more  an  implicit  aversion  to  blackness,  

rather  than  a  conscientious  phobia.  It  is  my  assertion  that  black  children  develop  an  

aversion  to  blackness  early  in  their  development,  and  that  this  informs  the  

development  of  their  identity  in  later  years.  It  is  important  to  locate  the  conditioning  

of  the  childhood  racial  experience  in  the  societal  parameters  and  implicit  privileging  

of  identities  in  the  US  system  as  well  as  the  household,  as  (according  to  Winkler)  

“children’s  racial  beliefs  are  not  significantly  or  reliably  related  to  those  of  their  

parents.”  (Winkler,  2)  The  supposition  then  must  be  that  children  learn  value  

judgments  about  race  from  an  amalgam  of  stimuli,  and  that  the  impetus  cannot  be  

put  solely  on  the  parent’s  behaviors  in  locating  racist  tendencies.  However,  if  we  

evaluate  this  position  in  tandem  with  Watson’s  theory  on  child  conditioning,  it  may  

serve  to  reason  that  the  conversation  is  far  more  complicated.    

While  we  can  summarily  absolve  parents  of  full  responsibility  in  conditioning  

the  prejudices  of  their  children,  we  cannot  deny  that  the  condition  of  the  household  

and  the  family  structure  serve  as  the  primary  apparatus  for  the  teaching  of  societal  

norms.  Therefore,  if  we  accept  that  children  learn  behaviors  based  on  the  their  

motivation  to  “learn  and  conform  to  the  broader  cultural  and  societal  norms  that  

will  help  them  function  in  society,”  (2)  it  stands  to  reason  that  the  norms  espoused  

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by  the  household  would  hold  weight  in  predisposing  the  child  to  certain  beliefs  and  

and/or  behaviors.  It  is  this  that  is  key  to  the  argument,  as  it  is  this  paper’s  pre-­‐

occupation  that  the  household  is  an  implicit  rather  than  overt  conditioning  

environment,  with  the  structure  of  the  family  weighing  more  in  the  development  of  

the  racial  identity  and  psyche  of  the  child  than  the  actual  demonstrated  prejudices  

(or  lack  thereof)  of  the  parent.  In  this  way,  the  social  conditions  of  race  identity  

inform  the  child’s  understanding  of  his  difference  (or  normativity),  and  the  

structure  of  his  family  re-­‐enforces  these  understandings  of  the  value  judgment  

placed  on  his  different/normative  identity.  It  is  in  this  way  that  we  can  locate  the  

black/white  paradigm  in  the  nuance  of  childhood  development,  and  it  is  this  that  

informs  our  further  consideration  of  childhood  development  and  race.    

 

The  case  of  the  black  male  child  

To  further  our  conversation,  our  analysis  of  the  child  must  be  pared  down  to  

a  specific  childhood  case.  For  the  purpose  of  this  argument  and  its  focus  on  the  role  

of  childhood  development  in  predicting  and/or  explaining  the  criminalization  of  

Dedric  Owens,  the  childhood  condition  of  the  male  is  of  obvious  interest.  Males  are  

proportionally  overrepresented  in  the  incarceration  system  of  the  United  States,  

with  “the  male  incarceration  rate  [at]  ~15  times  the  female  rate.”3  Within  this  

population,  African-­‐American  males  are  grossly  overrepresented,  with  “One  in  six  

                                                                                                               3  U.S.  Department  of  Justice,  Bureau  of  Justice  Statistics,  Prisoners  1925-­‐81,  Bulletin  NCJ-­‐85861,  p.  2;  Prisoners  in  1998,  Bulletin  NCJ  175687,  p.  3,Table  3  and  p.  5,  Table  6;  2000,  Bulletin  NCJ  188207,  p.  5,  Table  6;  2001,  Bulletin  NCJ  195189,  p.  5  and  p.  6,  Table  7;  2002,  Bulletin  NCJ  200248,  p.  4  and  p.  5,  Table5;  2003,  Bulletin  NCJ  205335,  p.  4  (Washington,  DC:  U.S.  Department  of  Justice);    and  U.S.  Department  of  Justice,  Bureau  of  Justice  Statistics,  Correctional  Populations  in  the  United  States,  1994,  NCJ-­‐160091,  Tables  1.8  and  1.9;  1997,  NCJ177613,  Tables  1.8  and  1.9  (Washington,  DC:  U.S.  Department  of  Justice).  

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black  men  [having]  been  incarcerated  as  of  2001,”  and  the  statistical  prediction  that  

“one  in  three  black  males  born  today  can  expect  to  spend  time  in  prison  during  his  

lifetime.”  (NAACP  Criminal  Justice  Fact  Sheet,  2009)  Sequentially,  we  can  identify  

the  black  male  as  the  primary  submissive  subject  of  the  criminal  justice  system  and  

thus  pare  our  consideration  to  the  consideration  of  the  black  male  child  as  the  

primary  victim  of  the  prison  industrial  complex.  It  is  important  to  note  at  this  point  

that  this  stratification  of  the  black  male  identity  to  “victim”  is  strictly  for  the  

purposes  of  the  consideration  of  black  male  power  and  disempowerment,  

specifically  in  the  case  of  Owens,  and  with  obvious  implications  for  the  theoretical  

black  male  condition.  The  assertion  therein  is  not  that  all  white  males  are  prison  

wardens,  or  at  all  involved  in  the  prison  industrial  system,  or  that  all  black  males  are  

prisoners/defeated  by  the  prison  industrial  system.  Instead,  this  analysis  relies  on  

somewhat  of  a  stereotyped  and/or  stratified  identity  in  order  to  make  conclusive  

arguments  on  the  role  of  childhood  development  in  predicting  the  fear  of  blackness  

narrative  and/or  violence  of  the  black  male  within  the  prison  industrial  complex  

and  its  representations  of  the  American  psyche.  With  this  in  mind,  we  proceed  to  the  

consideration  of  developmental  phases  in  informing  the  conditioning  of  black/white  

male  children.  e  

 

Erikson’s  theory  of  development  

Initially,  it  is  imperative  to  distinguish  between  the  “childhoods”  discussed  in  

the  methodologies  available  for  understanding  the  maturity  of  the  child.  Throughout  

childhood  theory,  theorists  posit  that  there  are  various  stages  of  development  in  the  

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childhood  experience,  and  that  each  of  these  “childhoods”  is  innately  different  from  

(while  contingent  upon)  the  other.  Sequentially,  we  can  identify  childhood  as  

developmental,  with  the  preliminary  phases  of  early  and  middle  childhood  and  

adolescence,  whereby  different  experiences  are  privileged  in  the  psychological  

development  of  the  child  in  these  different  stages,  and  that  these  stages  are  in  

dialogue  with  ones  another  in  informing  the  adult  perspective  of  the  now-­‐mature  

child.    

With  this  in  mind,  Erikson’s  theory  of  personality  development  (1968)  best  

informs  our  consideration  of  development,  whereby  development  is  established  as  a  

series  of  conflicts,  privileged  based  on  the  normative  social  experiences  of  children  

at  various  stages  in  their  maturity.  In  tandem  with  our  understanding  of  fear  of  

blackness,  this  series  of  societal  conflicts  aligns  itself  most  aptly  with  our  

consideration  of  childhood  development  and  race  as  a  conditioning  based  on  

“broader  cultural  and  societal  norms.”  (Winkler,  2).  This  interaction  between  

Erikson’s  general  stages  of  development  and  the  development  of  race  identity  

and/or  prejudice  allow  us  to  draw  a  deductive  methodology  for  the  tension  of  

childhood  development,  which  will  in  turn  inform  our  consideration  of  the  racial  

parameters  of  the  childhood  experience.  Specifically,  we  can  posit  that  Erikson’s  

theory  of  development  relays  the  tensions  of  the  “ambulatory”  (224)  and  middle  

childhoods  and  adolescence  as  most  prescient  to  development,  and  that  these  

tensions    are  –  in  turn  -­‐  informed  by  the  psychosexual  intricacies  of  the  childhood  

condition  and  the  family.  To  this  dialogue,  I  contribute  the  assertion  that  these  

intricacies  are  contingent  on  the  racial  experiences  of  Black  and  Whiteness  in  the  

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household  and  the  family.  Accordingly,  we  can  posit  that  the  difference  in  the  Black  

family  experience  informs  the  psychosexual  tensions  of  the  Black  child,  which  in  

turn  informs  his  developmental  decisions  regarding  the  tensions  of  his  maturity  and  

foreshadow  the  particularities  of  his  participation  in  the  prison  industrial  system.    

Erikson’s  theory  of  personality  development  delineates  8  “stages  of  man,”  

identified  primarily  by  the  tensions  that  confront  man  at  each  step.  The  stages  most  

prescient  to  our  discussion  are  those  identified  by  Erikson  as  “initiative  vs.  guilt”  

(224),  “industry  vs.  inferiority”  (226)  and  “identity  vs.  role  diffusion.”  (227)  The  

“initiative  vs.  guilt  paradigm”  first  informs  the  white/black  fear  relationship  by  

presenting  the  child  with  his  own  autonomy  in  the  familial  realm,  with  limits  

established  not  only  by  his  position  as  subordinate  in  his  family  but  by  how  this  

position  is  affected  by  the  race  identity  that  informs  the  structure  of  his  family.  

Thereafter,  the  “industry  vs.  inferiority”  paradigm  locates  the  tension  of  the  child’s  

autonomy  in  an  external  environment,  whereby  the  child  is  encouraged  to  measure  

his  performance  against  others  and  draw  conclusions  on  his  own  worth.  When  these  

measures  are  informed  by  his  race  identity,  the  child  begins  to  (accordingly)  draw  

conclusions  on  his  self-­‐worth  based  on  his  race  identity.  Finally,  the  “identity  vs.  role  

diffusion”  phase  conflates  sexual  maturity  with  identity  formation,  whereby  the  

child  must  now  consider  the  implications  of  his  performance  on  other’s  perception  

of  him  and,  thereafter,  how  these  perceptions  inform  his  adult  identity.  With  his  

sexual  performativity  tied  both  to  his  autonomy  and  perception  of  self-­‐worth,  it  

comes  as  no  surprise  that  his  race  identity  (and  its  bearings  on  previous  phases)  

informs  his  perception  of  others’  perceptions  of  him.  Together,  these  phases  

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represent  the  crux  of  the  developmental  process  and  the  central  point  of  

construction  for  the  black  male  identity.    

 

Initiative  vs.  Guilt    

The  “initiative  vs.  guilt”  paradigm  is  crucial  to  any  understanding  of  the  

divergence  of  black  and  white  masculinities,  as  it  is  the  phase  in  which  the  child  

begins  to  develop  autonomy  in  the  construction  of  his  existence.  Erikson  articulates  

this  phase  as  that  of  “being  on  the  make,”  (224)  whereby  the  child  is  able  to  

construct  his  own  goals  and  actions  independent  of  the  parent.  In  this,  Erikson  

constructs  the  primary  tension  as  one  of  divergence,  whereby  the  child  must  decide  

(for  the  first  time)  how  to  act  on  his  own  initiative  in  the  face  of  social  prescription  

and  the  idea  of  “guilt”:  should  the  child  act  in  accordance  with  authority/convention,  

or  diverge  and  stay  true  to  his  own  agency?  This  choice,  according  to  Erikson,  

proves  the  point  of  departure  between  “potential  human  glory  and  potential  total  

destruction.”  (225)  The  deciding  factor  between  these  binaries  of  power  and  

destruction  is  distilled  to  “mutual  regulation”  (226),  whereby  the  child  can  “develop  

a  sense  of  paternal  responsibility  where  he  can  gain  some  insight  into  the  

institutions,  functions,  and  roles  which  will  permit  his  responsible  participation”  

(226)  but  must  do  so  under  the  regulatory  forces  of  his  social  circumstance.  It  is  this  

that  informs  us  of  the  importance  of  the  peculiarities  of  the  Black  family  experience,  

as  the  household  and  its  parameters  directly  inform  the  child  of  the  limits  of  these  

institutions  and  functions.    

 

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The  black  family  experience,  though  varied,  must  be  distilled  at  this  point  in  order  to  

make  any  deductive  decisions  about  the  role  of  the  family  as  a  regulatory  force  in  

childhood  development.  Based  on  data  available  from  the  Census  Bureau4,  which  

details  that  67%  of  black  children  live  in  single-­‐parent  households,  the  black  family  

experience  must  be  summarily  identified  as  that  of  the  single-­‐parent  household5.  

Concurrently,  as  the  same  data  provides  that  25%  of  non-­‐Hispanic  white  children  

live  in  single  parent  households,  the  white  family  experience  can  be  summarily  

identified  as  that  of  the  two-­‐parent  household.  It  is  with  these  experiences  in  mind,  

that  of  the  black  single-­‐parent  family  and  the  white  two-­‐parent  family,  that  we  

proceed.    

To  further  the  argument,  the  Black  single-­‐parent  household  can  be  

summarily  redefined  as  the  single-­‐mother  household.  According  to  Jewell,  the  

percentage  of  single-­‐mother  headed  households  in  the  Black  community  almost  

doubled  between  1960  and  19806,  prompting  a  pervasive  social  inquiry  in  to  the  so-­‐

called  “thesis  of  “matriarchy”  as  the  primary  cause  of  intergenerational  poverty,  

crime,  and  other  forms  of  social  disorganization  among  black  families."  (Jewell,  12)  

While  we  must  concede  that  this  trend  towards  single-­‐parent  households  is  more  

symptomatic  of  structural  disparity  (Rockefeller  Drug  laws,  the  Crack  boom  etc)  

than  a  concerted  effort  towards  single-­‐parenthood,  the  focus  of  this  paper  is  the  

                                                                                                               4  Children  in  single-­‐parent  families  by  race  (Percent)  –  2011,  Data  Center  for  the  National  Kids  Count  Program,  2011  5  The  dissolution  of  the  black  nuclear  family  is  a  recent  phenomenon,  but  its  effects  have  been  far-­‐reaching.  It  must  be  noted  that  the  purpose  of  this  comparison  is  not  to  privilege  the  nuclear  family  structure  over  that  of  the  single  parent  household.  Rather,  it  is  my  intent  to  consider  how  the  single-­‐parent  household  informs  a  different  conditioning  of  the  male  child  than  the  two-­‐parent  household.    6  “In  1960…  22  percent  [of  households]  were  headed  by  women…  by  1980,  (…)  the  number  of  black  women  heading  families  rose  to  41  percent.”  (Jewell,  16)      

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implication  of  single-­‐mother  households,  moreso  than  the  reasoning  behind  their  

prevalence.  Social  programming  and  academic  inquiry  in  the  ‘80s  dedicated  a  

substantial  amount  of  time  and  energy  to  exploring  the  effect  of  the  single-­‐mother  

household  on  the  successes  of  black  children,  but  little  has  been  done  to  consider  

the  effect  of  this  dynamic  on  the  psychosexual  processes  of  the  child  during  the  

“initiative  vs.  guilt”  phase.    

 It  is  my  assertion  that  the  prevalence  of  single-­‐mother  households  in  the  

Black  community  has  distinct  psychosexual  effects  on  the  condition  of  the  black  

male,  best  described  by  Freud  as  the  “Oedipal  Complex.”  Freud  suggests  that  all  

children  display  an  implicit  sexual  entitlement  to  their  parent  of  the  opposite  sex,  

and  suggests  that  the  need  to  protect,  specifically  displayed  by  males,  is  crucial  to  

development  of  masculinity  and  the  male’s  ultimate  departure  from  the  household.  

The  predominance  of  the  single-­‐mother  household  compounds  the  Oedipal  

narrative,  whereby  the  young  male,  without  a  father,  becomes  the  subconscious  

protector  of  the  household.  His  Oedipal  attachment  to  his  mother  is  compounded  by  

the  absence  of  the  father,  whereby  the  impulse  to  protect  the  mother  and  establish  

an  alpha  male  persona  in  the  household  is  able  to  flourish  unfettered  but  without  a  

significant  male  counterpoint  to  act  against.  It  is  Freud’s  position  that  the  presence  

of  the  father  in  the  household  is  the  primary  regulating  authority,  allowing  for  the  

male  child  to  develop  a  composite  masculinity  that  is  both  diminutive  (in  relation  to  

his  father)  and  burgeoning  (in  the  development  of  his  own  sense  of  self  as  an  

autonomous  individual).  Without  the  regulating  force  of  the  father,  it  appears  that  

the  male  child  must  develop  an  autonomous  sense  of  self  without  a  significant  

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counteractive  balance.  This  is  compounded  when  considered  in  tandem  with  a  

racialized  narrative,  wherein  “authority”  is  displaced  from  the  household,  with  

regulating  power  manifesting  outside  of  the  home.  When  this  happens,  the  young  

male  becomes  the  protector  from  the  outside  world  in  tandem  with  protector  of  the  

household.  In  conversation  with  Erikson’s  initiative  vs  guilt  paradigm,  this  

premature  assumption  of  authority  has  particular  effects  on  the  extremity  of  the  

child’s  autonomy:    

“While  autonomy  concentrates  on  keeping  potential  rivals  out  and  is  

therefore  more  an  expression  of  jealous  rage…initiative  brings  with  it  

anticipatory  rivalry  with  those  who  have  been  there  first  and  may,  therefore,  

occupy  with  their  superior  equipment  the  field  toward  which  one’s  initiative  

is  directed”  (Erikson,  224-­‐5)    

With  this  is  mind,  one  can  suggest  that  the  black  male,  encouraged  by  this  particular  

psychosexual  tension,  must  assume  autonomy  in  order  to  protect  the  family  from  

“potential  rivals,”  with  outside  authority  (in  the  White  hetero-­‐patriarchal  society)  

becoming  the  primary  rival.  Additionally,  in  his  awareness  of  the  societal  superiority  

of  the  White  male  (as  discussed  by  Winkler),  the  black  male  child  is  first  confronted  

with  a  rival  with  “superior  equipment”  in  the  social  realm,  and  is  first  exposed  to  his  

societal  inferiority  therein.  In  tandem  with  the  development  of  his  masculinity,  the  

black  male  becomes  aware  of  his  dual  position  as  both  a  protector  and  a  subordinate  

against  an  unfamiliar,  White  society.      

 

Industry  vs.  Inferiority  

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According  to  Erikson,  the  age  bracket  of  6-­‐11  marks  the  arrival  of  the  

“industry  versus  inferiority”  complex,  whereby  the  child  begins  to  envision  himself  

as  comparative,  with  his  viability  measured  according  to  his  ability  to  perform  in  an  

academic  setting.  If  we  evaluate  this  developmental  stage  in  tandem  with  the  family  

(as  the  locus  of  racialized  conditioning),  it  becomes  clear  the  paradigm  of  race  and  

the  family  become  imperative  to  the  child’s  ability  to  evaluate  his  own  industry  

and/or  inferiority.  After  being  conditioned  to  see  himself  as  inherently  subordinate  

to  a  pervasively  White  social  order,  while  concurrently  being  conditioned  to  see  

himself  as  the  ultimate  protector  of  his  household,  the  Black  male  must  now  enter  

the  larger  social  order  outside  of  the  home  in  order  to  prove  his  “worth”  in  a  

competitive  setting,  whereby  “he  now  learns  to  win  recognition  by  producing  

things.”  (226)  Accordingly,  we  can  posit  that  the  stakes  for  this  recognition  are  

reasonably  high:  without  proving  himself  as  able,  how  can  the  Black  male  child  

possible  protect  his  household?  The  gravity  of  this  tension  cannot  be  understated,  as  

it  is  at  this  age  that  the  child  begins  to  build  a  comparative  sense  of  self,  with  “his  

ego  boundaries  [now]  includ[ing]  his  tools  and  skills.”  (227)  This  phase  defines  the  

child’s  relation  of  self  to  the  larger  world,  wherein  “wider  society  becomes  

significant  in  its  ways  of  admitting  the  child  to  an  understanding  of  meaningful  roles  

in  its  total  economy.”  (227)  With  this  is  in  mind,  we  turn  to  the  case  of  the  American  

public  school  system  and  its  effects  on  the  construction  of  initiative  for  the  Black  

male  child.    

 

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The  American  public  school  system,  at  its  best,  is  failing  the  African-­‐American  male  

child.  As  of  2008,  the  National  Assessment  of  Educational  Progress  found  that,  

among  other  things,  “the  reading  scores  of  African-­‐American  boys  in  eighth  grade  

were  barely  higher  than  the  scores  of  white  girls  in  fourth  grade  [and]  in  math,  46%  

of  African-­‐American  boys  demonstrated  "basic"  or  higher  grade-­‐level  skills,  

compared  with  82%  of  white  boys.”  (Kirp,  54) Black  males  persistently  

underperform  against  their  peers,  and  this  underperformance  is  tracked  throughout  

their  educational  experience,  with  “54%  of  16-­‐year-­‐old  African-­‐American  males  

scored  below  the  20th  percentile,  compared  with  24%  of  white  males  and  42%  of  

Hispanic  males.”  (ibid)  This  underperformance  is  attributed  to  a  number  of  causes,  

with  black  males  often  held  accountable  for  their  own  inability  to  close  the  

achievement  gap.  Regardless  of  the  locus  of  the  underperformance,  the  achievement  

gap  is  apparent  between  black  male  children  and  their  peers  from  a  very  early  age.  

If  we  consider  this  underachievement  in  conversation  with  Erikson’s  theory  of  

initiative,  it  becomes  clear  that  this  underperformance  can  (and  does)  have  reaching  

effects  on  the  black  male  child  in  this  crucial  stage  of  development.  Erikson  suggests  

that,  at  this  phase:    

“  his  [the  child’s]  danger  at  this  stage  lies  in  a  sense  of  inadequacy  and  

inferiority.  If  he  despairs  of  his  tools  and  skills  or  of  his  status  among  his  tool  

partners,  his  ego  boundaries  suffer,  and  he  abandons  hope  for  the  ability  to  

identify  early  with  others  who  apply  themselves  to  the  same  general  section  

of  the  tool  world.”    (Erikson,  227)    

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With  the  black  male  child  consistently  underachieving,  as  evidenced  above,  it  stands  

to  reason  then  that  he  may  acquire  a  sincere  sense  of  inadequacy,  whereby  he  is  

unable  to  prove  himself  in  an  academic  setting  with  his  own  tools/skills.  This  feeling  

of  inadequacy  is  then  compounded  by  his  position  in  relation  to  his  White  peers,  

who  consistently  outperform  him  and  overshadow  his  “position.”  Accordingly,  his  

“ego  boundaries”  fall,  re-­‐enforcing  the  inadequacy  pre-­‐empted  by  his  dual  

protector/subordinate  role.  Accordingly,  his  ability  to  identify  with  white  peers  

decreases,  and  the  black  male  begins  to  see  himself  as  extraneous  to  the  successful  

working  order,  but  bound  (by  law)  to  continue  in  his  schooling  and  (presumably)  

continue  to  fail.  Accordingly,  the  child  begins  to  “lose  hope  of…industrial  

association”  and  “consider  himself  doomed  to  mediocrity  or  mutilation.”  (227)  In  

this  moment,  the  black  male  child  begins  to  doubt  his  functionality  within  the  

normative  structures  of  society,  and  instead  turns  toward  extraneous  means  of  

becoming  autonomous.    

   

Identity  vs.  Role  Diffusion    

  At  the  point  of  adolescence,  the  black  male  child  has  already  been  confronted  

with  the  failures  of  himself  and  his  society,  pre-­‐empting  the  crisis  of  his  sexual  

maturity.    Between  the  ages  of  12  and  18,  the  male  child  reaches  adolescence  and,  

according  to  Erikson,  “the  sense  of  ego  identity,  then,  is  the  accrued  confidence  that  

the  inner  sameness  and  continuity  are  matched  by  the  sameness  and  continuity  of  

one’s  meaning  for  others,  as  evidenced  by  the  tangible  promise  of  a  “career.”  

(Erikson,  227)  With  a  failing  academic  record,  it  comes  as  no  surprise  that  at  this  

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point  the  black  male’s  ego  identity  is  due  to  suffer.  His  crisis  of  identity  comes  to  a  

tipping  point  when  forced  to  consider  his  failings  in  tandem  with  the  advent  of  

sexual  maturity,  whereby  (typically)  “puberty  rites  and  confirmation  help  to  

integrate  and  affirm  the  new  identity.”  (228-­‐9)  However,  in  his  case,  instead  of  the  

affirmation  of  his  ego  identity,  the  black  male  must  confront  its  erosion.  His  inability  

to  perform  on  his  primary  stage  of  evaluation  (the  academic  setting)  places  the  

black  male  at  a  point  of  contention  before  even  beginning  this  phase  of  identity  

formation,  arguably  (according  to  Erikson)  his  most  crucial.    

Accordingly,  his  frustrations  at  his  lack  of  success  in  a  performative  setting  

result  in  a  crisis  of  identity,  which  is  then  acted  out  and/or  defined  by  his  sexual  

ability  or  desirability.  In  an  attempt  to  ground  himself,  at  this  moment,  “to  keep  

[himself]  together,  [he]  temporarily  overidentif[ies],  to  the  point  of  apparent  

complete  loss  of  identity,  with  the  heroes  of  cliques  and  crowds.”  (228)  In  a  society  

bereft  of  black  male  achievement,  the  pickings  for  “heroic”  role  models  are  slim:  

According  to  the  US  Census  2010,  of  the  total  population  of  black  males  aged  18  and  

up  (12.7  million),  only  1.2  million  black  men  were  actually  enrolled  in  a  four-­‐year  

college  program,  suggesting  that  only  9%  of  black  college-­‐aged  men  are  actually  

enrolled  in  college  (to  say  nothing  of  their  graduation  rate,  which  is  the  lowest  of  

any  demographic,  male  or  female7)  In  the  face  of  this  incredible  achievement  gap,  

and  in  the  absence  of  black  male  role  models  that  are  gainfully  employed  and/or  

college-­‐educated,  young  black  males  turn  towards  one  of  few  industries  that  

regularly  produces  fiscally  successful  black  men:  hip-­‐hop.                                                                                                                    7  Toldson,  Ivory  A.  Debunking  Education  Myths  About  Blacks;  Journal  of  Negro  Education.  July  19th,  2012.  Web.    

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  In  a  larger  narrative  on  progress,  it  appears  that  hip-­‐hop  music  should  indeed  

be  indicative  of  the  success  of  the  black  male.  The  international  popularity  of  the  

genre  has  created  successful  black  men,  often  of  low  initial  socio-­‐economic  status,  

and  has  made  so-­‐called  “black  culture”  an  international  phenomenon.  In  this  sense,  

hip-­‐hop  has  provided  leadership  and  role  models  for  millions  of  young  black  men,  as  

it  has  successfully  allowed  for  the  overcome  of  the  two  failure  conditions  noted  

previously  (i.e.  the  failings  of  the  home  and  the  academic  environment).  However,  

this  success  comes  at  a  price:  the  violence  and  misogyny  of  hip-­‐hop  music  has  

haunted  its  creators  and  consumers  since  its  inception.  At  this  point  in  his  

development,  hip-­‐hop  leans  itself  as  both  a  gift  and  a  curse  to  the  black  male,  

wherein  it  provides  him  with  a  reality  where  there  exist  substantive  images  of  black  

male  success,  but  that  these  images  are  inextricable  from  an  expectation  for  violence  

and  criminal  activity.  Authors  Guillermo  Rebollo-­‐Gil  and  Amanda  Moras  detail  the  

conflict  of  this  identity  in  their  piece  entitled  “Black  Women  and  Black  Men  in  Hip  

Hop  Music:  Misogyny,  Violence  and  the  Negotiation  of  (White-­‐Owned)  Space,”  

whereby  hip-­‐hop  becomes  synonymous  with  “the  blatant  embracing  of  a  criminal  

lifestyle,”  and:    

  “Some  of  the  most  popular  rap  acts  go  by  the  names  of  former  Mafia  kingpins,      

  actual  and  fictitious  drug  dealers,  and  even  corrupt  Latin  American  dictators…      

  You  see  music  videos  that  are  modeled  after  popular  gangster  films  like  Casino  

  and  The  Godfather.  Entire  album  concepts  are  based  on  drug  deals  gone  bad…  

  or  drug  deals  gone  well.  (i.e.  Jay-­‐Z’s  Reasonable  Doubt)”    

            (Rebollo-­‐Gil  and  Moras,  123;  italics  author’s  own)  

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In  this  paradigm,  it  comes  as  no  surprise  that  violence  and  criminal  activity  become  

over-­‐incentivized  in  the  ego  formation  of  the  young  black  male.  With  few  other  role  

models,  or  depictions  of  success,  the  black  male  turns  to  hip-­‐hop  role  models  for  

constructions  of  an  ideal  masculinity  in  a  system  where  no  other  black  masculinities  

are  recognized  with  the  same  magnanimity.  The  black  male  quickly  becomes  self-­‐

destructive,  implicitly  even,  as  he  begins  to  construct  a  self-­‐image  based  on  hip-­‐

hop’s  assertion  that  “individual  male  valor  and  honor…depend  on  the  ability  of  the  

male  speaker  to  quickly  do  away  with  his  presumed  (black)  enemies.”  (125)  The  

young  male  turns  to  violence  and  misogyny  as  a  means  to  establish  his  adolescence  

and  masculinity,  in  an  attempt  to  model  himself  after  an  industry  where  “in  

2004…at  least  16  well-­‐known  rap  artists  [were]  serving  time  behind  bars  for  

offenses  ranging  from  second-­‐degree  murder  to  sexual  assault  and  violation  of  

parole.”  (123)  Again,  it  comes  with  little  surprise  that,  as  the  black  male  reaches  the  

age  of  adulthood  and  has  self-­‐identified  as  a  criminal  and  societal  outcast  (based  on  

developmental  deficiencies),  he  also  reaches  the  age  of  criminal  prosecution.  His  

pre-­‐emptive  relationship  with  the  prison  industrial  complex  now  comes  to  fruition.    

  This  theoretical  consideration  of  the  frameworks  of  black  male  childhood  

development  provides  us  with  a  methodological  basis  for  the  synthesis  of  Dedric  

Owen’s  condition.  His  case  features  a  single  mother,  educational  and  behavioral  

barriers  to  competent  academic  participation,  and  a  propensity  and/or  exposure  to  

violent  behavior.  Accordingly,  further  evaluation  of  the  black  male  and  his  childhood  

condition  must  consider  agreements  and  discrepancies  within  this  framework  in  the  

individual  case  of  Dedric  Darnell  Owens.    

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Chapter  3:  Dedric’s  Story  

 

The  final  synthesis  and  success  of  this  paper  lies  in  its  ability  to  locate  the  crises  of  

Erikson’s  theory  of  development  in  the  case  of  Dedric  Owens.  Accordingly,  the  

paradigms  of  Initiative  vs.  Guilt,  Industry  vs.  Inferiority  and  Identity  vs.  Role  

Diffusion  can  be  reconsidered,  in  conversation  with  the  individual  intricacies  of  the  

case  of  Dedric  Owens,  as  follows:      

 

Initiative  vs.  Guilt    

As  noted,  the  initiative  vs  guilt  phase  revolves  around  the  idea  of  “mutual  

regulation,”  (Erikson,  226)  whereby  the  impetus  lies  on  the  father  figure  to  establish  

a  regulatory  environment  within  the  home  for  the  male  child.  Erikson  upholds  that  

the  child  relies  on  this  regulation  in  order  to  situate  himself  within  the  “institutions,  

functions,  and  roles  which  will  permit  his  responsible  participation”(ibid)  in  society.  

If  we  accept  the  supposition  that  the  male  child  models  himself  after  this  regulatory  

authority,  or  –  at  the  very  least  –  in  response  to  it,  then  the  case  of  Dedric  Owens  

provides  insight  into  the  possibilities  for  failure  within  this  paradigm.    

Dedric  Owens  came  from  a  household  void  of  the  regulatory  archetype  that  is  

Erikson’s  “father”;  the  boy’s  father,  and  namesake,  was  incarcerated  at  the  time  of  

the  shooting  for  violation  of  parole.  He  had  been  apprehended  in  possession  of  

cocaine,  “with  intent  to  deliver”  (Rosenblatt,  7),  and  is  said  to  have  been  in  and  out  

of  his  son’s  life.  Owens’  mother,  Tamarla,  was  thus  responsible  for  the  upbringing  of  

her  three  small  children,  alone.  Tamarla  is  said  to  have  battled  substance  addiction,  

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in  addition  to  the  pervasive  unemployment  and  social  decay  that  persisted  in  the  

Owens’  hometown  of  Mount  Morris  Township  in  the  greater  Flint  area  (Bowling  for  

Columbine).  In  a  2005  article  on  the  case,  former  Genesee  County  Prosecutor  Arthur  

Busch  highlighted  the  poverty  of  the  region,  reporting  that  “parents  face  some  of  the  

state's  highest  unemployment  rates  and  the  majority  of  kids  are  eligible  for  free  or  

reduced-­‐price  lunches…  [and]  delinquency  and  neglect  cases  still  strain  the  system.”  

(Durbin,  7)  It  seems  inevitable,  then,  that  Owens  would  face  some  crisis  of  initiative:  

his  father  was  absent,  his  mother  struggled  under  the  double  burden  of  poverty  and  

substance  addiction,  and  he  stood  as  a  male  figure  in  a  decaying  household.  It  should  

be  said  that  Owens  has  an  older  brother,  and  younger  sister,  but  that  this  older  male  

presence  was  negligible:  his  brother  is  only  two  years  older  than  he.  Comparable  

male  figures,  in  the  life  of  Dedric  Owens,  manifested  in  the  figures  of  his  uncle  and  

the  young  men  that  moved  in  and  out  of  his  uncle’s  home,  purportedly  a  “crack  

house.”  (Rosenblatt)    

With  this  in  mind,  we  can  begin  to  make  some  substantive  deductions  on  the  

developmental  climate  of  the  childhood  of  Dedric  Owens.  In  addition  to  a  

psychological  displacement  from  Erikson’s  depiction  of  a  functional  household,  he  

was  literally  displaced  from  any  home  at  all:  Rosenblatt  reports  that,  just  prior  to  

the  shooting,  Tamarla  Owens  had  been  evicted  from  her  home  and  had  moved  her  

son’s  into  their  uncle’s  “crack  house,”  where  the  “the  boy  and  his  brother  had  been  

sharing  a  single  sofa  as  a  bed.”  (7)  Dedric  Owens  had  little  to  no  regulatory  function  

in  his  life:  his  parents  struggled  with  the  consequences  of  their  narcotics  use,  and  his  

older  relatives  were  actively  involved  in  the  trade.  The  transience  of  authority  

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within  his  household  made  for  the  displacement  of  authority  in  his  life.  If  we  accept  

Erikson’s  supposition  that  this  developmental  stage  seeks  recognition  from  an  

authoritative  figure  as  a  regulatory  development  mechanism,  and  the  initial  

supposition  of  this  analysis  that  (in  its  absence)  black  male  children  must  confront  

authority  as  external  to  the  home  environment,  then  the  violent  actions  of  Owens  

begin  to  make  substantive  sense.  We  can  posit  that  Owens’  only  real  confrontation  

with  regulating  authority  was  institutional:  both  of  his  parents  were  ultimately  

overcome  by  the  prison  industrial  system,  and  had  interacted  with  the  system  for  

much  of  his  life  prior  to  (and  after)  the  shooting.  If  the  supposition  is  that  the  child  

models  himself  in  opposition  to  the  pervasive  regulating  authority  in  his  life,  can  we  

suggest  that  Owens  modeled  himself  in  relation  to  the  criminal  justice  system?  It  

appears  that  this  must  be  the  case,  as  Erikson  holds  that  regulating  authority  models  

and  foreshadows  the  mechanisms  for  “responsible  participation”  (Erikson,  226)  in  

society.  If  the  only  model  of  responsible  participation  for  Owens  was  that  of  poverty,  

drug  abuse,  violence  and  interactions  with  the  ultimately  regulatory  criminal  justice  

system,  Owens’  motivations  for  shooting  his  classmate  begin  to  add  up.  

 

Industry  vs.  Inferiority    

Within  the  age  bracket  of  6  to  11,  Erikson  holds  that  the  developmental  

processes  of  the  child  revolved  around  his  ability  to  “win  recognition  by  producing  

things.”  (226)  The  school  environment  presents  as  the  primary  platform  for  the  

development  of  appropriate  tools  and  skills,  and  provides  (arguably)  the  first  

competitive  arena  for  the  child.  In  the  case  of  Dedric  Owens,  the  school  environment  

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is  perhaps  that  which  is  most  pivotal,  as  it  is  the  place  where  the  murder  was  

committed.  Rollins  was  his  classmate,  and  the  shooting  took  place  during  the  change  

of  period  in  front  of  his  fellow  students.    

Little  information  is  available  as  to  Owens’  academic  performance  in  school,  

and  his  placement  as  a  first  grader  at  the  time  of  the  shooting  makes  academic  

performance  more  of  a  trajectory  than  an  actuality  in  his  life.  What  is  known  is  that  

Owens’  “acted  out”  within  the  school  environment,  and  was  often  punished  for  his  

misbehavior.  Rosenblatt  relates  the  following  report  of  eyewitness  Chris  Boaz,  a  

fellow  student,  on  Owens’  behavior  at  school:    

“The  boy  was  said  to  have  played  normal  street  games.  He  was  also  known  to  

have  started  fights.  Boaz  said  the  boy  once  punched  him  because  he  wouldn't  

give  him  a  pickle.  He  said  the  boy  was  made  to  stay  after  school  nearly  every  

day  for  saying  "the  F  word,"  flipping  people  off,  pinching  and  hitting.  Some  

weeks  before,  he  had  stabbed  a  girl  with  a  pencil”  

              (Rosenblatt,  9)    

The  pervasive  use  of  violence  and  “lashing  out”  attributed  to  the  boy  comes  as  no  

surprise  in  considering  his  home  environment.  In  a  2005  report  on  the  interaction  

between  parental  conflict  and  school  performance,  Dr.  Gordon  Harold  found  that  

“children  living  in  a  family  environment  marked  by  frequent,  intense  and  poorly  

resolved  conflicts  between  parents  are  at  greater  risk  for  deficits  in  academic  

achievement  than  children  living  in  more  positive  family  environments.”  

(ScienceDaily,  3)  Thus,  while  conflict  in  his  household  was  abstracted  from  the  

parent-­‐to-­‐parent  relationship,  we  can  safely  deduce  that  Owens  was  exposed  to  

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household  conflict  in  his  uncle’s  home,  and  thus  summarily  assume  that  there  were  

deficits  in  his  academic  performance.  In  tandem  with  the  decay  of  his  household,  

Owens’  now  was  unable  to  adequately  perform  in  school.  In  the  face  of  Erikson’s  

suggestion  that,  at  this  phase,  the  child’s  “ego  boundaries  include  his  tools  and  

skills,”  (227)  we  can  further  assume  that  Owens’  sense  of  self  in  an  academic  

environment  was  irrevocably  jarred.  There  was  no  institutional  oversight  into  the  

violent  behaviors  of  Owens  on  the  school’s  side,  either:  Rosenblatt  reports  that,  on  

the  day  of  the  shooting,  Owens  had  been  apprehended  with  a  knife  as  well,  but  that  

“the  teacher  to  whom  the  knife  was  reported  did  not  take  him  to  the  principal's  

office,  where  he  could  have  been  searched.”  (Rosenblatt,  11)  Furthermore,  it  was  

reported  that  there  was  “no  sign  that  any  social-­‐service  organization  was  watching,  

or  even  that  one  was  in  the  vicinity.”  (13)  This  lapse  in  institutional  oversight,  in  

tandem  with  Owens’  premature  exposure  to  violence  in  the  home,  may  have  

conflated  in  the  event  of  the  shooting.  Erikson  holds  that,  in  the  face  of  failure  to  

establish  industry,  the  child  becomes  pre-­‐occupied  with  his  own  inferiority  and  may  

consider  himself  “doomed  to  mediocrity  or  mutilation.”  (Erikson,  227)  In  response,  

Owens  chose  to  lash  out.  

 

Identity  vs.  Role  Diffusion    

While  Erikson’s  theory  holds  the  crisis  of  identity  vs  role  diffusion  as  

developmentally  beyond  the  age  bracket  in  which  Owens’  fell,  there  are  warning  

signs  within  the  case  of  Owens  that  suggest  an  interaction  with  sexual  maturity  

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and/or  the  “puberty  rites  and  confirmation  [that]  help  to  integrate  and  affirm”  (228-­‐

9)  the  child’s  identity.    

Immediately  after  the  shooting,  reports  were  unclear  as  to  the  sequence  of  

events  that  led  Owens  to  kill  Rollins,  and  it  is  this  that  haunted  much  of  the  

discourse  on  the  shooting.  Why  did  Owens  kill  Rollins  in  particular?  Initial  reports  

held  the  shooting  to  have  been  somewhat  random,  claiming  that  “the  boy  was  

showing  off  a  handgun  to  classmates  when  it  fired.”  (CNN.com,  6)  However,  in  his  

later  report,  Rosenblatt  offers  what  is  perhaps  the  most  interesting  insight  into  the  

sequence  of  events  at  Buell  Elementary  School.  According  to  the  eyewitness  report  

of  Boaz,  Owens  and  Rollins  had  somewhat  of  a  history:  “He  (Dedric)  had  attacked  

Kayla  before  and,  on  the  day  prior  to  the  killing,  tried  to  kiss  her  and  was  rebuffed.”  

(Rosenblatt,  9)  Apparently,  this  rebuff  did  not  sit  well  with  Owens,  who  is  quoted  to  

have  said  “I  don’t  like  you”  to  Rollins  before  shooting  her.  Her  response  of  “So?”  is  

said  to  have  provoked  the  shooting,  and  this  interchange  weighs  heavily  on  

evaluations  of  the  identity/role  diffusion  paradigm.    

The  suggestion  of  Erikson,  within  this  particular  realm  of  development,  is  

that  the  child  now  confronts  himself  as  a  sexual  social  being,  and  examines  his  

achievement  as  indicative  of  his  ability  to  find  social  success  and  to  find  a  mate.  That  

Owens  attempted  to  kiss  Kayla,  and  was  rejected,  cements  that  this  theory  is  not  

remiss.  That  he  chose  to  respond  to  this  with  a  gun  speaks  to  the  magnanimous  

divide  between  the  impression  of  his  social  position  on  his  developmental  processes  

and  that  of  other  six  year  olds.  In  attempting  to  address  his  feeling  of  rejection,  at  

the  hands  of  a  girl,  Owens  followed  the  predicted  trajectory  of  overidentification,  “to  

  34  

the  point  of  apparent  complete  loss  of  identity,  with  the  heroes  of  cliques  and  

crowds.”  (Erikson,  228)    

Obviously,  the  role  of  hip  hop  masculinity  and  its  “heroes,”  in  this  case,  is  probably  

negligible  but  one  can  point  to  similar  tropes  of  drug  usage,  incarceration  and  

misogyny  within  Owens’  uncle’s  home.  On  the  morning  of  the  shooting,  Rosenblatt  

reports  that  Owens  and  his  brother  had  gotten  into  an  altercation  with  eyewitness  

Boaz’s  ten  year  old  uncle:  “He  and  his  brother  got  into  a  fight  with  Boaz's  10-­‐year-­‐

old  uncle.  Boaz's  uncle  punched  the  boy  (Owens),  who  said,  according  to  Boaz's  

grandmother,  "Do  you  want  me  to  take  my  gap  [sic]  out  and  shoot  you?"  

(Rosenblatt,  10)  The  language  here  is  obviously  not  the  language  of  a  six  year  old  

child;  hip  hop,  prison  and  gang  culture  all  provide  variants  of  the  slang  term  

“gat/gap,”  meaning  gun,  and  it  would  not  be  remiss  to  assume  that  Owens  was  

introduced  to  this  language  by  the  “heroes”  of  the  drug  subculture  that  persisted  in  

his  home.  It  is  clear,  then,  that  Owens  was  exposed  to  a  violent  hypermasculinity  in  

his  household,  signified  by  guns  and  dominion,  and  in  the  face  of  social  rejection  

chose  to  resort  to  that  which  he  knew.    

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  35  

Chapter  4:  Conclusions  

 

The  initial  endeavor  of  this  paper  was  to  establish  Dedric  Owens  as  a  victim  of  his  

circumstance  operating  in  a  paradigm  where,  developmentally,  he  was  almost  

certainly  doomed  to  fail.    Although  Rollins  lost  her  life  at  his  hands,  Dedric  Owens  

was  no  more  a  criminal  than  a  victim  –  although  he  wasn’t  imprisoned,  his  mother  

lost  custody  of  him  shortly  after  the  crime,  and  his  name  will  always  resonate  with  

societal  tropes  of  violence,  blackness  and  masculinity.  The  either/or  paradox  

considered  in  the  introduction8  becomes  especially  prescient  at  this  juncture:  social  

discourse  on  the  event  waivered  between  Owens’  presentation  as  a  “black  male”  and  

as  a  “child.”  That  these  two  identities  exist  in  opposition  to  one  another  presents  us  

with  the  crux  of  the  problem.  American  society  appears  to  hold  the  innocence  of  

some  children  over  that  of  others,  and  this  is  made  clear  through  the  evaluation  of  

Owens’  case.    

Using  Erikson’s  theory  of  development,  I  have  attempted  to  construct  a  

paradigm  that  explains  the  psychological  motivations  behind  the  act.  The  intention  

therein  is  to  present  that  the  childhood  of  black  males  is  neither  privileged  nor  

supported  by  the  social  deficits  for  black  males  operating  within  American  society,  

herein  distilled  to  the  challenges  of  the  single-­‐mother  household,  the  inadequate  

school  environment  and  socio-­‐sexual  rejection  (and  counteracting  

hypermasculinities).  To  reiterate,  Owens  confronted  Erikson’s  three  stages  of  

                                                                                                               8  “Owens  presented  as  a  black  male  child,  a  conflation  of  both  inherently  criminalized  (black  male)  and  inherently  innocent  (child)  identities  in  American  society,”    Preface  

  36  

development  with  predictable  outcomes;  his  authority  came  from  an  abstracted  

incarceration  system,  his  inferiority  appeared  requisite  in  an  under-­‐funded  school  

with  limited  oversight,    and  his  identity  was  rejected  by  Rollins  and  molded  by  

violent  male  archetypes  in  his  home  and  community.  Each  of  these  stages,  critical  to  

successful  development,  were  essentially  damning  in  the  development  of  Dedric  

Owens,  with  sweeping  implications  for  our  understanding  of  his  agentic  role  in  

committing  the  crime.    

 

Caveats    

At  this  point,  it  would  be  appropriate  to  qualify  the  victim  identity  of  Owens.  

The  intention  of  this  paper  is  not  to  absolve  Owens  of  his  responsibility  in  killing  

another  child.  Dedric  Owens  did  indeed  murder  his  fellow  student,  and  will  have  to  

carry  that  action  for  the  rest  of  his  life.  He  is  not  innocent,  that  must  be  made  clear,  

but  he  is  a  victim.  The  intent  was  to  provide  a  lens  through  which  to  evaluate  his  

actions  as  emblematic  of  a  larger  societal  aversion  to  black  masculinity,  and  larger  

societal  implications  of  poverty  and  inequality  in  the  psychological  development  of  

black  male  children.  Kayla  Rollins  has  been  dead  for  thirteen  years,  and  her  death  

cannot  and  will  not  be  muted  by  this  psychological  evaluation  of  the  development  of  

Dedric  Owens.  

 

Implications    

The  case  of  Dedric  Owens  offers  substantive  insight  into  the  implications  of  a  

“fear  of  blackness”  on  the  childhoods  of  America’s  black  male  children.  From  the  

  37  

above  consideration,  it  appears  that  there  is  a  substantive  developmental  difference  

between  America’s  children,  and  this  raises  certain  questions.  What  is  it  that  makes  

some  children  act  out  their  inequality  through  violence?  Is  this  case  relegated  to  

black  male  children  alone?  What  about  female  children?  What  about  children  of  

other  racial  identities  that  experience  similar  realities  of  poverty  and  drug  abuse?  

Kayla  Rollins  came  from  a  similar  socio-­‐economic  background,  as  did  most  of  the  

other  children  at  Buell  Elementary  School.  Why  didn’t  they  lash  out  with  violence?    

The  answers  to  these  questions  are  complicated,  and  –  to  an  extent  –  outside  

of  the  scope  of  this  paper.  What  we  can  suggest  is  the  following:  black  male  children  

operate  under  a  specific  psychological  condition,  wherein  their  blackness  and  

masculinity  challenge  their  childhood.  They  are  matured  rapidly  within  public  

opinion,  considered  violent  and  threatening  long  before  they  reach  adulthood,  and  

are  marginalized  as  such.  This,  in  tandem  with  the  typical  developmental  deficits  of  

the  societal  condition  of  poor,  unemployed  Black  peoples,  conflates  to  create  a  

specific  condition.  Using  Erikson’s  theory  of  development,  I  have  demonstrated  a  

significant  perception  of  inadequacy  that  pervades  the  developmental  processes  of  

black  male  children,  in  turn  pre-­‐empting  certain  violent  and/or  deviant  behavior.  

Again,  this  can  be  qualified:  not  all  black  men  are  violent,  not  all  black  men  are  

criminal.  At  this  point,  though,  it  is  my  position  that  this  is  a  null  point,  as  the  

majority  of  black  men  face  profiling,  regardless  of  their  innocence  or  guilt.  The  

overarching  suggestion  is  that  black  males  must  confront  a  society  that  fears  them,  

and  does  its  best  to  subdue  them  accordingly.    

  38  

In  this,  it  is  the  theoretical  contribution  of  this  paper  that  fear  of  blackness  is  

a  perceptive  mechanism  that  forces  black  men  to  confront  their  societal  inferiority  

at  an  incredibly  young  age  –  far  earlier  than  their  peers  –  and  that  this  confrontation  

has  overwhelming  consequences  for  black  men  in  their  development,  and  often  pre-­‐

empts  an  interaction  with  the  prison  industrial  complex.  It  is  this  that  is  the  tragedy  

of  the  Black/White  binary,  it  is  this  that  is  the  tragedy  of  the  childhood  conditioning  

in  an  American  context,  and  it  is  this  that  is  the  true  tragedy  of  the  case  of  Dedric  

Owens.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  39  

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