Can we truly feel empathy? Can we truly understand other people’s experiences and what they go through based off of situations that are similar to theirs? This was a topic of question that my English CST class discussed last Thursday. In “My Bloody Life: The Making of a Latin King”, by Reymundo Sanchez, the author goes through the lives of gang members in the Latin Kings of Chicago, and the struggles and violence that they partake in daily. Even if people in the Northshore can’t relate to living in the hood and see the pain and suffering of the people of Chicago, how can we understand them on a personal level? We, as humans, never react exactly the same as one another, even in precisely the same circumstances. Abraham Maslow, a renowned psychologist in the 1940s, published a pyramid that is known as the “Hierarchy of Needs”, in order to explain what goes through the minds of everyday people. Each level on the pyramid gives us a better understanding of the human mind and the priorities that allow us to see why humans do what they do.
In Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, the Physiological aspect is always first. The base of an entire pyramid that cannot function without these basic needs, is usually the one that falls first in the life of a gang member. They would place drugs and sex over food and water and would waste all of their money just so that they could have that euphoric feeling for just one minute longer… “I didn’t bathe or change clothes for weeks at a time. I spent most of my time drinking and getting high. I rarely ate full meals anymore. They were a luxury. Getting high made me forget about being hungry. I slept in the gutter most of the time: rooftops, benches, hallways, gangways. Call them what you want, they’re still the gutter” (247). Because of Reymundo’s drug addiction, he would change his priorities of food and water with cocaine and marijuana, which gives us a better understanding of why he acts a certain way and how his choices are affecting his life by being a gang member.
Question:
What would you do if your mother was an abusive bitch that fell under the authority of the selfish stepfather that only cared about his own children and hated your guts? We’d probably just cry and complain here in the Northshore. But in the hood, children have to grow up quickly. They don’t have time to sit around, sulk and wait for someone to come rescue them. “Stories of abuse while the other parent ignores the cries for help are all too common where I was raised. Mostly it was uneducated, unskilled, and scared mothers who ignored the abuse. The memories of my mother’s ignorance were so vivid as I listened to China. That’s what China and I and many other gangbangers had in common. These memories bonded us together. That’s why gang members embrace each other’s acts of violence. That’s why they go to jail for one another. That’s why gang members kill and die together. That bond relieves the pain of what is the truth” (99). Due to their abusive and violent environment, most children are forced to join gangs in order to protect themselves and feel safe. The idea of having multiple people to protect you at a moment’s notice is a very reassuring feeling, and I think that you too have people that will come running when you need help or are feeling a lot of pain and suffering in any situation.
I left Fulfillment blank…
Why?
The book ends with a series of events that all lead to the point when Reymundo decides to quit out of the gang. The ending scene is just him getting beat up by two fellow Latin King brothers, and him walking out of the warehouse as a free man. Did he truly learn his lesson? Has he found what his purpose in life is yet? We can’t know for certain how his life is gonna turn out. Because we are human, we cannot read each other’s minds. That’s why Maslow created a Hierarchy of Needs in the first place, to give us the power of EMPATHY: to see where people’s minds are at and how consciousness affects every one of us.
Signing off,
Christopher
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