ABSTRACT
Issues within the academy interrupted my time spent in the field. Upon my return months later, the group of African-American parents with whom I had shared a great deal of time no longer existed under the name MOMS but gathered under a new name-EMPTY-Endless Mothers’ Pain for Today’s Youth. Re-engaging with the group, I encountered Marvin, the local film producer to whom I had been introduced by Brother early on in my research. Approaching me with a great deal of skepticism, Marvin remarked, “We thought you were gone. Brother is gone. You may find that people aren’t going to trust you. You were too close to Brother. It’s a money matter.” Later that week I met over coffee with another member of EMPTY’s new board-she was a mother who had taken it upon herself to keep the group going. She along with other former MOMS members had committed themselves to maintaining a grief support group so that newly bereaved parents might still have a place to go to find comfort. Meeting me at a local café, she detailed the painful demise of MOMS as its members surmised that Brother had misappropriated financial donations to the group. She then asked if I had been in contact with Brother. Still in a state of disbelief, I explained that our weekly communications had been disrupted because of dramas brewing in my home department and that I literally had been out of touch with him for three or four months.1 As our conversation proceeded, details were supplied supporting claims of Brother’s possible embezzlement. The news was depressing. Fortunately, Marvin’s prediction that my close relationship with Brother would mark me with a courtesy stigma did not come to pass. My expressed desire to continue interviewing parents, listening to their stories, thoughts, and feelings, was met warmly by MOMS members now identifying themselves as “EMPTY.” Upon attending a couple of meetings of the newly reconstituted group, I quickly discovered that there were few members left to interview.2 The final event I attended was a community meeting attended by two members of Cincinnati’s city council.3 The aldermen
expressed their desire to rebuild community relations in the aftermath of rioting set off by the police shooting of Timothy Thomas, an unarmed Cincinnati teenager (Larson 2004).
