“I should’ve put Judge Greg Mathis on the board,” Greg Mathis remarked as the final minutes dissipated and the few students that showed up to his presentation shuffled in. Mathis is a father, a son, a former defensive back drafted in the 1974 draft by the Oakland Raiders, a man who lived on a reservation, but most importantly, he is a man on a mission.
Mathis’s T.R.I.B.E. group is looking to solve the problem of today’s youth of the “Me” generation. The problem and need first came to Mathis as he became a father at the age of 39. Citing the typical mentality that most have of bringing a child into their life, his perception was much different, as he realized that he was bringing a child into the world. The world in which his child lives is not the ideal.
The problem outlined by Mathis is that today’s youth live in the realm of “dis.” That is disbelief, disrespect, dispelled. The foundation for this generation is negativity and when negativity is reinforced within its own community, it grows at an exponential rate. What contributes to this theory are the figures given by Mathis. Three percent of people are a social problem, 13 percent of our population is incarcerated, and 33 percent of the population lives in poverty. Collectively, this adds up to 49 percent of the population in some sort of bad situation who are raising a child. When that child is in need of some sort of response to their dilemmas growing up, this 49 percent cannot be positive role models, or available for the child. This leads to 49 percent of adolescents seeking the counsel of people who are not as reputable, such as drug dealers and gangs who are willing to take them in. This also leads to a never-ending cycle of negativity.
Mathis’s program looks to get the youth speaking to their peers and building upon each other. As one mentor listens to another, Mathis believes that the mentor can live in the world of the mentee and share the experience. To make the situation better, Mathis has begun to introduce the idea of entrepreneurship to the youth. By distributing positive message clothing and individually tailored stories in handmade wooden books, written by creative writing students, entrepreneurial dollars will begin to circulate in problem areas and will begin a snowball effect of improving the living condition of the youth in these trouble areas.