Wrong Place, Wrong Time

Trauma and Violence in the Lives of Young Black Men

John A. Rich

• Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
• Year: 2009
• eBook ISBN: 9780801896231
• Edition: 0
• Topic: Medicine
• Subtopic: African American History

Named One of the Top 20 Books of 2009 by Cleveland Plain Dealer

Medical school taught John Rich how to deal with physical trauma in a big city hospital but not with the disturbing fact that young black men were daily shot, stabbed, and beaten. This is Rich's account of his personal search to find sense in the juxtaposition of his life and theirs.

Young black men in cities are overwhelmingly the victims—and perpetrators—of violent crime in the United States. Troubled by this tragedy—and by his medical colleagues' apparent numbness in the face of it—Rich, a black man who grew up in relative safety and comfort, reached out to many of these young crime victims to learn why they lived in a seemingly endless cycle of violence and how it affected them. The stories they told him are unsettling—and revealing about the reality of life in American cities.

Mixing his own perspective with their seldom-heard voices, Rich relates the stories of young black men whose lives were violently disrupted—and of their struggles to heal and remain safe in an environment that both denied their trauma and blamed them for their injuries. He tells us of people such as Roy, a former drug dealer who fought to turn his life around and found himself torn between the ease of returning to the familiarity of life on the violent streets of Boston and the tenuous promise of accepting a new, less dangerous one.

Rich's poignant portrait humanizes young black men and illustrates the complexity of a situation that defies easy answers and solutions.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Halftitle Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface
• Introduction
• Chapter 1. Kari in Pain
• Chapter 2. Roy in Prerelease
• Chapter 3. Jimmy in the Hospital
• Chapter 4. Jimmy in the Street
• Chapter 5. In the Wrong Place
• Chapter 6. A Stone in the Heart
• Chapter 7. Roy in D.C.
• Chapter 8. Kari in the Clinic
• Chapter 9. Mark in the Neighborhood
• Chapter 10. Kari in his Grandmother’s House
• Chapter 11. Jimmy in Jail
• Chapter 12. Roy in the Pizzeria
• Chapter 13. Roy Back in Touch
• Chapter 14. Roy Settles in
• Conclusion
• Epilogue
• Acknowledgments
• Note on Sources