Extremely Disturbing Book

I just finished an extremely disturbing book (All God's Children by Rene Denfeld) about street "families" that focused primarily on a series of murders that occurred here in my hometown. In fact, one of the murders took place within a few blocks of a house we used to rent. In the midst of the prolonged and brutal beating that preceded the murder, a couple of the participants went to the 7-11 that we used to go to regularly  because is was just a couple doors down from our house. 

Anyway, the whole thing is incredibly frightening and describes the highly organized and violent nature of the society created by a subset of street youth and homeless young adults. The people in this book (who hang out downtown to this day, the ones who aren't in jail, anyway) appear to have absolutely no sense of restraint in the use of violence and have the moral development of very young children. The really frightening thing is that quite a few of these kids appeared to have decent homes and parents who are functional and care about their children. I also found it shocking how many places provide good food, and how really well-served these youth are in terms of health care, social services, and a place to stay. To the point, the author contends, that it helps kids who have perfectly good homes stay on the streets. I do realize some kids don't have a home they can go back to, and I do think it is really important to get these kids services, but it seems like it wouldn't be a bad thing if street life could be less attractive.

The author points out that many of the street youth did come from awful circumstances, and that even some with loving homes arrived at those homes after being in the foster care system and suffered who knows what kind of abuse. Not surprisingly, these youth are vulnerable to being pulled into the street families, with the fake "mom" and "dad", the strict (albeit constantly changing) rules, the feeling of belonging and acceptance (until someone gets mad at you for whatever random reason and everyone turns on you). The people who were the focus of this book were also sexist white supremacists. The author also points out that few homeless youth of color wind up in the streets of downtown in the street families, but are more likely to be taken in by someone in their own neighborhood, where extended family and church networks play a bigger (and functional) role.

This society of street youth seems to reflect so many things that are wrong with the way main stream white America is going--the isolation, the lack of a sense of place and history, the mixing of reality and fantasy in TV and computers, the desensitization to violence, the consumerism and income disparities, and I'm sure many more factors I'm not thinking of at the moment. It is hard not to feel hopeless when you hear a story like this one. Sometimes I worry that I haven't done enough to push my kids out into the larger world, and wonder if it is OK that they don't really enjoy doing things without me coming along, but when I read a story like this I see that connection as only for the good.