There’s no mercy for me
No crying myself to sleep
No mercy for me
Nightmares have become my dreams
No mercy for me
Good morning reality
Will I wake we’ll never know
I’m late for my date with destiny
Let me go
Let me go
You’ve got to let me go
Right or wrong
Let me go
I’m on my path
Let me go

So the video for TI’s new song ‘No Mercy’ was just released. Here it is:

I have developed a fascination with T.I. ever since I read an article back in July where he talked about his recent incarceration experience. I knew of him before that but I didn’t really pay much attention. My recollection of first hearing about him is when he released his hit song Rubberband Man a few years ago. I don’t know the man personally of course but I have become fascinated by his plight as somewhat emblematic of the experiences of so-many other young black men in America.

Recently, Russell Simmons penned a blog at the Huffington Post titled “Black Male Multiple Choice: Unemployed, High School Drop Out or Incarcerated.” Unfortunately the essay is not hyperbole. He opens with this stark reality:

If a black boy is born in the US today, he will have a 33 percent chance of going to prison in his lifetime. Stated another way — one in three black boys born today will face prison time. It has become a sad normality, almost a backwards rite of passage, for black young men to enter the penal system and never return to our communities. And if we are “lucky” enough for them to return, they usually are much hardened criminals than they ever were before. Black men represent 8 percent of the population of the United States but comprise 3 percent of all college undergrads, 48 percent of inmates in prison and are five times more likely to die from HIV/AIDS than white men. 50 percent of black boys do not finish high school, 72 percent of black male dropouts in their 20s are unemployed and 60 percent of black male dropouts are eventually incarcerated.

It all feels overwhelming and deeply deeply intractable, doesn’t it? Ta-Nehesi Coates puts the crisis of black hyper-incarceration into even sharper focus by underscoring that fact that over 800,000 of the 2.3 million individuals in American jails and prisons are black men. The take-away point of his post is that:

African-Americans–males and females–make up .6 percent of the entire world’s population, but African-American males–alone–make up 8 percent of the entire world’s prison population.

It’s difficult to wrap one’s head around the magnitude of this injustice. This brings me back to a consideration of T.I.’s new song “No Mercy.” I find the title in and of itself to be thought-provoking. It  is true that we show “no mercy” for young black men in this country. Black children, in general, never have the privilege of inhabiting the identity of  “innocent.” In fact, their racial background immediately puts them in a position of being viewed and treated as “suspect” from birth.  This reality means that when young black children misbehave we are more likely to consider this as inherently part of their make-up.  As such, we are unwilling to chalk it up to being a mistake or to seeing the possibility for change.

More lyrics from NO MERCY

My mama loved me more than i do
She said you pap was jus like you
Trapped in a vicious circle
Jesus youngest disciple
Tell the judge if he throwed the book at me
Make it the bible
Start calling myself the king
For lack of a better title
Loyal beyond belief to my detriment
It’s so vital I change or blow opportunities
Like a choir recital
Now while I do not care who telling
Meanwhile selling powder puts food in the bellies
Well it’s unfortunate
The orphanage couldn’t keep up the mortgages
Kid go to school stupid they teachers ignoring it
Sorta just doomed, forced into being a goon, selling kush in a jar

There is so much in this verse. In just a few lines, we learn about his lack of self-esteem (his mother loving him more than he loves himself); his father who is trapped in a cycle of oppression; the judge who is focused on punishment rather than restoration; and the general struggle to survive in a culture that doesn’t want you to thrive.

Everybody’s standing and waiting an they’re hating
Gospels say they should forgive me
They’d rather hand me to satan
Blatant displays the day of hypocrisy
Boy you got to be kidding

Apparently this song was written after T.I. was released from prison last year where he was serving time for a weapons charge. He was planning for this new album to signal his re-birth and his redemption. Instead he is back in prison now for violating his parole by using an illegal substance. He embodies the cycle that so many young men experience. His success and money have not inoculated him. This is instructive. In the verse above, one gets the sense that T.I. is begging for compassion that he knows will not come. Our culture is so harsh and unforgiving. He knows that he will not find redemption since the culture fundamentally rejects the possibility for human transformation.

There is so much in this song. So much more to analyze and think about and discuss. What characterizes my experience in working with youth in conflict with the law is their deep sense of ambivalence about whether they want to change or to embrace a different reality. This sense of ambivalence permeates “No Mercy.”  The song pushes us to consider whether we will be facilitators of human transformation or obstacles to the possibility for change.