ABSTRACT
I'm standing on a corner in West Oakland. One of my students is telling me the story of a 16-year-old boy who was shot and murdered one block from her house. The week before another young black man was killed in the house behind her backyard. Raymond glides over on his bicycle. Raymond is a thirty something-year-old African-American male. Long and sturdy, he stands six- foot-two with dreadlocks covered in cowrie shells. Raymond is also what Elijah Anderson (1990, p. 69) refers to as an old head—a person who believes it is his job to “teach, support, encourage, and in effect, socialize young men to meet their responsibilities with regard to the work ethic, family life, the law, and decency.” 1
