I Don't Wish Nobody to Have a Life like Mine: Children of Disappointment

In an interesting chapter about tattoo's while David Chura is learning about different tattoo's the corrections officers believe to be affiliated with gangs he writes "I felt sordid, as thought I was betraying a basic human code..." Tattoo's were something that inmates would always carry with them, basically the only thing that inmates were allowed to carry with them. One of Mr. Chura's students, Eddyberto, was an exceptional artist with a knack for creativity. Eddyberto would give inmates tattoo's inside of prisons, when this knowledge became available to the corrections officers, they informed Mr. Chura that Eddyberto was a threat to national security because of gang affiliations. Eddyberto was removed from the prison and handed to the feds. Chura writes "long after anyone would even remember his name, those men and boys he had tattooed would carry with them wherever they went, and for as long as they lived, the pictures and patterns that he, Pryo (Eddyberto), alchemist and artist, conjured up out of nothing, but smoke and shampoo" (114). Eddyberto was an inspired artist, who wanted to draw and to many gangs did not matter because it was a part of life in or out of jail. This child of disappointment had nothing to carry with him but the tattoos on his own back, that creativity from his own mind. His art was no disappointment to him, but to others it defined him, and he was left again with being a disappointment.
"These young guys were raised on disappointment: nobody ever did what they were supposed to do, nobody ever did what they promised they'd do" (96). Mr. Chura said this to his students after he gave them hope that he could make a suggestion box that would make their hardass corrections officer lighten up. At first when it did not help the boys began to get riled up and upset with each other. One boy in Mr. C's class turned to him and said "We coulda told you nothing ever changes" (96). These boys feel that life will never get better, promises will never be kept, and positive change will never occur because that is how they grew up. They grew up feeling constant disappointment in their family, friends, and community, as well as seeing others view them as constant disappointments. Parents are supposed to be these children's security, but when they fail the security is gone. These children of disappointment just went on to be children that disappoint. After being treated like garbage their whole life, many end up in county lockups, state prisons, or detention centers being treated like garbage once again with no rights and no respect for life. Now many criminals deserve this, but what about the seventeen or eighteen year old who grew up knowing nothing about lying, cheating, drugs, abuse, and disappointment? Did they deserve a life like this? Is it even fair to expect more out of them?