When Oniovo Oghenekevhe (not his real name), a 13-year old son of Nigerian immigrants based in Cincinnati, Ohio, surprised his parents one day he wanted to change his hairstyle to rasta and that he needed gangster-style bandana to wear on it, little did he know that it would land him in Sapele, Nigeria. Knowing the implications of the request, the parents of Oniovo denied both demands fearing that their son, who attended a public school, was about to be initiated into a gang.

There was little surprise when Ms. X, the younger sister of Oniovo, confessed to their parents that their son was about to be initiated into the Bloods gang, and that Oniovo, has been receiving soliciting e-mail from his female class mates, asking him to come to their house as their father was in jail and their mother was always high, so there is no parental supervision to disturb them.

According to family sources, when Oniovo was confronted, he confessed to the pressure to join the gang and that he reported his parents, (who refused to buy him gangster outfits) to the gang. Fearing a repercussion, Oniovo’s parents moved their child to Nigeria rather than having him lost to the gangs.

For Mr. and Mrs. Don Tutu, a Ghanaian-American couple in New York, it was a case of a nightmare that almost came true. Their son, 15-year-old Aggrey (also not real name), complained to his public school that his father had punished him and molested him at home. As with such allegations, the Administration for Children Services came and took Aggrey and his two sisters from the care of the Tutus and placed them in a foster home, while Mr. Tutu was arrested and detained on charges of child endangerment. After an investigation, African Abroad USA gathers, the charges were found to be baseless.

According to investigators, Aggrey made up the story after his parents refused to let him bring his girlfriend to the family home, citing his young age. Soon after this near disaster, the Tutus shipped their son to Kumasi, Ghana to continue his education, before he brought disaster to the family. Family sources say that Aggrey was given a thorough beating by his father when they got to Ghana for the suffering he caused his father in detention.

In the case of the family of B. Joseph (not real name), a Liberian immigrant family in St Paul, Minnesota, it brought vivid reminders of the famous Murphy’s law, which states that “anything that can go wrong will surely do.” The Josephs, who emigrated to the United States during the civil war in Liberia, began to live a daily nightmare as they lost control of their 16-year-old son (whom we shall call Tony), soon after he turned 16.

According to the source, Tony, who also attended a public school, joined a gang in metropolitan St. Paul to counter the pressure of his school mates who called him “dumb African.” After his induction into the gang, family sources say that Tony began to hang out on street corners with gang members. He sported tattoos of the gang, wore a bandana, and generally behaved in a way that alarmed his middle-class parents. Before long, the mother could not sanction Tony anymore because “she feared for her life” and waited for the father’s return to talk sense into him.

A source reported to African Abroad-USA that Tony was arrested for robbery along with two other members of his gang. The three were sentenced to six months as first-time offenders. The news of Tony’s arrest and conviction devastated his mother. The family blamed itself for not having the funds to put him in a private school, away from the social pressure of peers from single and broken homes that dominates public school. If the Josephs thought that their nightmare was over, after Tony completed his sentence they were in for a big surprise. On the day that Tony was to be released, sources say, both parents dutifully drove to the juvenile correctional facility where he was held, a three-hour drive to receive him back. The source said that as the Josephs waited, their hearts warmed up as Tony walked out from the big house. Then the unexpected happened. As Tony made to hug his mother, he was prevented from doing so by three heavily armed policemen. They told the shocked parents that they were from a neighboring jurisdiction and that their son’s fingerprints had turned up in another robbery in their jurisdiction; he had to be taken in again to face those fresh charges. The sources said that Mrs. Joseph fainted and had to be revived. Tony got another 12 months conviction on the new charge.

African Abroad-USA investigations show that these cases cited are the tip of the iceberg of the silent pains of many African immigrants who have lost their children to the criminal correction system, foster homes and permanent criminal records. While many parents are reluctant to talk about it, this newspaper gathers that the problem of rearing black children has crept into the African family in America.

African Abroad-USA also found that because of poor parental supervision and misguided notion of “black inferiority,” many black youths in America feel that education will not get them out of the projects of poverty and despair, and are misled by the idea pf becoming a hip-hop star as the quickest way to get out of welfare and grinding penury and the fatalistic attitude of believing in “get rich or die trying!”