Wrong Place, Wrong Time: Trauma and Violence in the Lives of Young Black Men

The statistics startle: homicide death rates are more than 17 times higher for young black men than their white counterparts. Rich, chair of the department of health management and policy at the Drexel University School of Public Health, considers the impact of post-traumatic stress disorder on the survivors. His account is professional, as he finds analogies between his subjects and “combat veterans and victims of sexual assault,” and personal, as he reports “how spending hours and days with these young men transformed” him. Two particularly detailed moments stand out: one follows a young man through emergency room protocols, another follows Rich through prison visit procedures. Although Rich’s research spans two decades, he focuses most sharply upon four young men he encountered at Boston City Hospital. The “high level of violence in their communities makes young men feel physically, psychologically, and socially unsafe,” Rich observes; thus, ironically, these violent young men seem to be looking for safety in a violent world. Rich joins the ranks of Rachel Carson, Michael Harrington and Ralph Nader for bringing attention to a pervasive social problem with a fresh perspective and warranted urgency. (Dec.)