Barking to the Choir

Boyle opens this chapter with an anecdote about the time he appeared on the Dr. Phil show. During the theatrical segment, troubled young men with vaguely-defined gang ties were bidden to look at two expensive set pieces—a casket and a jail cell—in order to warn them of the consequences of their choices. To Boyle, this is wrong-headed. He told Dr. Phil, “[These young men] don’t need more information. They are not awaiting some new data. They know it will lead to death or to prison. They just don’t care that it will” (130). 

In Boyle’s experience, “no hopeful kid has ever joined a gang...No kid is seeking anything when he joins a gang, he’s always fleeing something. There are no exceptions” (131). He says gangs are the last resort for children who are fleeing the pain and anguish of their lives. “But in thirty years of walking with gang members, I’ve never met a bad guy. One would think that I would have by now,” he writes (131). 

In all 63 years of his life, Boyle never killed another person. While it may be easy to assume he has not done so because he has a strong morality or enough emotional intelligence to handle conflict in a way that does not lead to murder, Boyle disagrees with these conceptions. He feels he has been the recipient of three key privileges ensuring murder was never the answer to his troubles. Firstly, “by sheer dumb luck, [his] life has been almost completely devoid of despair” (131). Because the concept of his own future has always been a given, he has the capacity to extend compassion and care to the lives of others. Secondly, he never had to endure a great trauma “that would lead [him] to such a place of rage” (32). And thirdly, he never suffered from mental illness. He presents these facts in order to conclude every homie he has ever known who has killed someone “has carried a load one hundred times heavier than [he] has had to carry, weighed down by torture, violence, abuse, neglect, abandonment, or mental illness” (32). He says most people never had to bear so much. He calls this an undeniable truth—and one many people have difficulty accepting. This translates into a lack of compassion for and the dehumanization of the men with whom he works—some of whom have histories of unimaginable trauma and pain. 

Once, a homie reminded Boyle of something he once said: “Know your story. Remember your story. Tell your story. And always know, that at the end of your story, you are its hero” (134-35). In Boyle’s experience, many gang members believe themselves to be the villains of their own stories—and are abetted in this belief by society. Through his work with his homies, Boyle aims to dispel the myth that people are defined by their sins and can indeed reach a point of no return. Instead, he offers the following: 

There are no monsters, villains, or bad guys [...] There are only folks who carry unspeakable pain. There are among us the profoundly traumatized who deal in the currency of damage. And there are those whose minds are ill, whose sickness chases them every day. But there are no bad guys. Jesus seems to suggest that there are no exceptions to this. Yet it’s hard for us to believe him (136).

Boyle continues parsing the idea of the bad guy. He recounts a time a man called Homeboy Industries, politely asking for their address and inquiring about their work. At the end of the call, this man “unleashed a torrent of invective and racist obscenities so hateful that [Boyle] finally hung up” (137). Although Boyle used to think this was an encounter with evil, he has since become certain he was simply dealing with someone in a great deal of pain. He doesn’t see a use for the label of “evil,” as it oversimplifies the complexity of human life. 

The only time Boyle consents to testify as a gang expert is when he is asked to do so in death penalty cases. He is strongly opposed to the death penalty and hopes his testimony can help save lives. Every time he takes the stand, he endeavors to make the jury confront both the pain, dumb luck of circumstance, and the mental illness that, for Boyle, serve as the ultimate precipitators of lethal violence—not evil or simple choice. 

For Boyle, the moral outrage animating so much of the legal punishment and social ostracization faced by the men with whom he works “is the opposite of God; it only divides and separates what God wants for us, which is to be united in kinship” (141). For him, moral outrage takes people further away from a real solution, and from “moving forward toward a fuller, more compassionate response to members of our community who belong to us, no matter what they’ve done” (141). He feels if the individuals commonly viewed and discarded as criminals were viewed for who they are as mere human beings—with no exceptions—both the world and criminal justice would look entirely different.

Boyle also closely investigates the notion of choice. “Not all choices are created equal,” he states (143). Just as the mother of James Holmes, a mass shooter, once said “Schizophrenia chose [James]...And I still love him,” so Boyle sees that gang life chose many of his men prior to their even being born (143).  

A story about an inmate nicknamed Al Bundy expands Boyle’s stance on “good people” and “bad people.” Boyle calls Al Bundy one of his own teachers, and one of the gentlest people he has ever known. One day, when a correctional officer humiliated Al Bundy after he asked an innocuous question, and Al Bundy failed to respond to the harsh words in kind, the other inmates asked why he didn’t stand up for himself. “[The correctional officer] is going home to his kids,” Al Bundy replied. “What if I said something and got him mad? Maybe he’d go home and hit his wife or beat his kids. Naw,” he finishes (145). For Boyle, this story does not demonstrate Al Bundy’s endeavor to become good, but rather his efforts to “make his already-good love more perfect and real” (145). 

In order to more clearly demonstrate the humanity of the men with whom he works, Boyle offers an anecdote about Trayvon, a young African American man. Boyle fondly recalls the way that Trayvon “would walk the second floor of Homeboy’s headquarters, clap his hands, and yell, ‘Stay focused people’” (146-47). “Those occupying the cubicles would poke their heads up like meerkats and this giddy silliness would slay them every time,” Boyle writes (147). 

Boyle also remembers the way Trayvon excitedly fielded questions from a group of young women following an address to Teach for America Boyle gave in San Diego. Trayvon and another homie had come along for the journey. Trayvon delighted in telling this group of girls he had to leave in order to catch a flight—it made him feel important. Boyle reflects:

Who knows what happened when Trayvon was gunned down at a picnic a few months later? Too many guns. Too much despondent darkness. If only we could “stay focused, people.” In a packed funeral home in Inglewood, I told the mourners that Tray had a flight to catch (148).

He uses this anecdote to support his assertion there actually is no “other”—the “gang member” or “felon” beyond the fray. Instead, “we belong to each other, and to this spacious God of ours, who thinks there are no bad guys, just beloved children,” Boyle writes (149). 

A story about a homie named Nando, who attended Homeboy Industries’ alternative school, closes the chapter. Boyle remembers the way Nando became exuberant about a report card, which, in Boyle’s eyes, was riddled with bad marks for tardiness, talking in class, and attendance. But Nando was proudly showing the report card to everyone he encountered because he never received a comparably positive report card in his life. Although Boyle feels initially pulled to chastise Nando for the bad comments, he resists his instinct. Instead, he encourages Nando to continue showing the report card to everyone he meets: “No villain in sight. No bad guy but only heroic plenitude. This report card is the badge of honor reminding him that his life is workable, that tenderness is possible, and that somehow hope is revived in this surprising buoyancy” (151).