Pent-up rage

Can rage be bottled up in the heart of a child? An adult? Yes. I recall an incident that happened to me when I was a substitute teacher in a seventh-grade public school classroom in Fayetteville. This happened about three years ago.

Near the end of that class period, we knew the bell would ring in a few minutes. The kids were putting away their work, chatting, getting ready to leave. One boy began playing a song on his iPhone loud enough so that I could hear it across the room. Everyone could hear it. The song had a filthy four-letter word repeated that began with an “f” and ended with a “k.”

I called to him across the room, “You can’t play that kind of music in here.”

“What kind of music?” the boy answered. “Vulgar music.” I replied. “What’s vulgar mean?” he asked.

“You know what vulgar is.”

He turned the music down. But a minute later he had the nasty song playing louder.

I called him by his name and said, “Is there anyone on this planet that you respect?”

“My mother!” he yelled angrily.

Suddenly he stood and charged across the room at me like a linebacker going for a tackle. He was only 11, but he was big for his age. I was a young 70-year-old man. He hit me hard at chest level and rocked me back on my heels. Then he backed up and charged me again. Fortunately, he didn’t swing his fists. Somehow, I was able to keep standing on my feet.

I had kept my hands down at my side as I was saying to him, “You can’t hurt me. You’re only going to hurt yourself.”

The bell rang. The class left. I stood there, a little bit in shock at what had just happened.

I found out later that another student had quickly pulled out his iPhone and videoed the whole encounter. I guess he had a good eye for breaking news. Minutes later he showed it to the assistant principal. The principal was soon in my class asking about the incident. An officer was in the hallway looking for the boy. They found him sitting on the floor against a hallway wall, tears running down his face.

He was like so many boys who have been abandoned by their father, living with their mother, having no man in their life to love them enough to give them affirmation or discipline. Boys that grow up without a father in their home often battle undiagnosed concealed anger. They are mad at the man who left them fatherless, with no male role model.

Rage becomes the main emotion they feel. Emotions motivate us to take action. Fights, gangs, drugs, thefts, poor grades, dropping out: these are symptoms. Resentment is the underlying personality trait. The root of the problem is poor parenting, despite mothers who try their best. Women make good mothers but poor fathers. It takes a man to teach a man how to be a man.

You can deny what I’m saying, refuse to believe it, get angry with the messenger, but these are the facts that exist. The mobs in the streets? The angry rioters? People who resist arrest? Fight with cops? Often getting cuffed or restrained or shot? Many times they are young men who were failed by their fathers. Abandoned, betrayed, deserted, they’re angry at authority figures. The person who should have represented authority in their life - their father - is hated and despised. Cops just happen to be there when their rage explodes.