Carry On: A Story of Resilience, Redemption, and an Unlikely Family

by Lisa Fenn

As a child on the white side of town, I grew up believing that with willpower, one could overcome any circumstance. This is America, where people succeed or fail based on individual effort. And yet as I sat on Leroy’s front porch, and as I met Dartanyon’s extended family, I was struck by how hardship engulfed multiple generations of families. Nearly everyone I met was some combination of uneducated, unemployed, poor, tired, and drug-addicted.

Though I told myself that I was not fearful of this side of town, I was at the very least skittish. I was uncomfortable with their lifestyles, their decisions, and, as our social worker Erin had put it, the craziness of it all. Why couldn’t they just stay in school, get jobs, pay the bills, and say no to drugs? My white privilege taught me that these were simple, universal choices equally afforded to all Americans. But as I pieced together the tenuous details of their personal stories, one fact grew clear: few had chosen poverty, any more than I chose my advantages. Families like the Suttons and Crocketts were born into sets of disadvantaged conditions that cascaded into subsequent negative outcomes.

As my guard relaxed, their grace extended. I found that the key to producing a story on a friendship is to become a part of it, just as the key to understanding a community is to sit within it.