Brenda’s Got A Baby: The Tragic Forgotten Tale That Inspired Tupac’s Legendary Song
A Voice For The Voiceless
Those young women had every right to experience a normal life like any other youth. Unfortunately, they grew up in an area under conditions that had already decided their fate for them. The women had no say in how they could dictate their lives and would eventually fall prey to the toxic system that raised them.
Tupac’s song, “Brenda’s Got a Baby,” tells the story of a young girl that experienced the adverse effects of having a child at an early age. The music video shows us the life she would lead after the incident, while the song itself highlights how disconnected people are from the victims themselves.
A Swift Response
A police sergeant was the first on-scene to respond to a call from a couple of maintenance workers who tipped his department off about a baby’s cries coming from a compactor. It was 9:45 in the morning, and the officer didn’t expect to find himself spending his time diving through trash chutes.
Be that as it may, Brooklyn’s Philip Insardi decided to become a hero and made a dive for the infant, hoping to find it. At first, he was skeptical. He hadn’t heard any of the cries himself, so he wasn’t sure. Eventually, after some digging and shining a flashlight inside, the officer spotted little feet sticking out from the rest of the trash.
The Heroic Recovery
Insardi eventually dared to slide inside the chute, hoping to retrieve the baby before the machine would turn on. The newborn was lying there quietly and soon, upon retrieval, seemed to be relatively unharmed. It was a miracle, considering how steep the fall was from the opening.
The infant was lying there, abandoned on a pile of trash, ready to meet its grim fate, but the officer made sure that wouldn’t happen and luckily showed up right on time. It was cold, so the officer wrapped the child in his shirt. The little one was loaded onto an ambulance and sent to Brookdale Hospital for immediate treatment.
Finding The Guilty Party
The infant had no name, and authorities chose to keep it that way in their official statement. They treated them for hypothermia, and luckily the baby survived the ordeal. They examined the body for injuries but declared the six-pound, ten-ounce tot was officially unharmed. Somehow, the infant managed to land safely and was found lying under some newspapers.
The police decided it was time to approach the person who did this, and the investigators surveyed the locals. Eventually, they visited a six-story building on New Lots Avenue in East New York. On the fourth floor, they found someone claiming her 12-year-old daughter had recently given birth.
Suspicions Emerge
Gladys told the police that her daughter might be the one responsible for the newborn they found. Upon further probing, she shared information about her daughter’s whereabouts, and the police eventually came knocking at her classroom door. It was a typical day at Thelma J. Hamilton Junior High until a child was asked to exit the classroom for a line of extensive questioning.
She denied it at first, hoping not to face the repercussions of her actions but unfortunately for her, she was forced into going to Brookdale Hospital with them. After a medical examination, it was determined that she was related to the infant.
Forcing Out The Truth
That wasn’t all, she had recently given birth, and the doctors found out immediately. There was no use hiding it anymore; the girl started to confess. She shared that she was responsible for throwing the infant down the trash chute, but investigators wanted more. However, she wouldn’t share other details, claiming she had no idea who the father was.
She denied personal relationships with anyone, so there weren’t any leads at that point. The investigators shared with the public that she gave birth at around seven in the morning and went on to do what she did before going to school.
Who’s Accountable?
It was hard for the authorities to determine whether she should face any charges for her actions. They tried questioning the 12-year-old’s mother, Gladys, about her whereabouts. She shared that she had been out all day and usually wasn’t home for most of the night. At first, the investigators felt it was unclear whether Gladys was the pre-teen’s mother.
Gladys had three kids; two sons and one daughter. They lived in a rather beat-down part of town, Stone Avenue. The streets weren’t immaculate, the area had tons of empty lots, and the sidewalks were decaying. It wasn’t the best place to raise children.
A Child’s Suffering
The officers decided not to press charges against Gladys or the girl who had decided to abandon her child. The nurses at Brookdale shared with The New York Times that they chose a name for the infant and started calling him Trevor. Eventually, he would go on to live with a foster family after he recovered.
Trevor’s struggles aren’t anything new; many children all around the world suffer from being born under horrid conditions. His mother was a child herself who couldn’t be held accountable for what happened to both of them. Child and teenage pregnancies often lead to ruined lives.
New Details Emerge
On March 29, 1991, more details emerged regarding the case. It turned out that the 12-year-old New York City girl was not living with her mother. Her mom and dad had died from a fire when she was four, and she had to live with her aunt, Gladys, who the neighbors stated was visibly emotionally unstable.
They further added that the children weren’t strangers to illegal substances or alcohol; they saw those things in the house. Investigators arrested the girl’s cousin, Clarence Perry, a 21-year-old man who decided to attempt to take his own life but ultimately failed to do so.
Finally, A Culprit
After being interrogated, Clarence confessed to abusing a minor and was charged for it under the full extent of the law. He also admitted to being Trevor’s father and made a scene on the neighbor’s roof, claiming his family had abandoned him. The story was so horrid that Tupac was inspired to write a song about it.
The 12-year-old girl was a slow learner; she was only in the sixth grade when it all happened. She was confused and groomed by Clarence, her cousin, and adoptive brother. Nobody at her school could tell anything had happened to her, so the news was devastating.
A Hidden Accomplice
The girl told her friends and teachers at school that she wasn’t feeling well. The neighbors who noticed her going to school saw her clutching her stomach at the time. She seemed to be in pain and had some trouble walking. She told investigators that her friend Heidi was also aware of the infant’s birth.
Heidi was a good friend; they used to walk to school together every morning. The two lived in the same complex but had their own separate families and apartments. She was present during the delivery but didn’t show up the day after investigators questioned her friend.
Days of Horror
Investigators soon found out the minor fell victim to constant attempts at assault at the very hands of her cousin Clarence. Practically twice, every time her aunt Gladys was away from home. The neighbors shared how the girl barely had any interaction with the outside world beyond attending her school.
Sadly, she didn’t have any healthy role models to look up to either. Gladys was unstable and had been notorious for a prior nervous breakdown; the girl grew up surrounded by narcotics and illegal substances. The area she lived in was infamous for its decay, gang violence, and feuding dealers.
A Deadbeat’s End
Clarence was not an upstanding citizen; his neighbors claimed he stood at the complex’s gate as if he were a guard or someone looking to sell something on the street. His family chose to go against him, and he felt hopeless after that, deciding to end his life. However, he was apprehended and charged.
Be that as it may, the 12-year-old girl was found not to have been capable of disposing of the baby in the trash chute herself. She was deemed too weak to be responsible for such an act, even sharing that she had not parted with the infant until dawn.
Things Can’t Be Normal Again
The 12-year-old asked for her newborn back, but unfortunately, they had to give Trevor away to be taken care of by a foster family. They argued that someone in her position would not be ready for the hardships that come along with parenthood.
Authorities speculated Clarence or some other family member helped dispose of the tot, but by the end of it, they found out even he was unaware of the girl’s pregnancy. Even Gladys was astonished by the news. She didn’t actually expect the girl to give birth. The authorities concluded the investigation soon after the culprit was arrested.
An Endless Cycle
Living in the ghettos was hard, and the institutional segregation of Black people confined them to reside in places that were far from savory. Several African-American communities faced prejudice and circumstances that limited them from growing and reaching their potential. The system didn’t work for them, opportunities were limited, and people were angsty and fed up. Violence and pain were common fixtures; poverty made people do horrible things.
Tupac saw all of that. He felt the pain, lived through the struggle, and chose to shine a light on these issues. Makaveli, as he was also known, wasn’t afraid of speaking his truth; he wanted to bring a fundamental change to his community.
Living Life Handicapped
How this situation was handled showed that young women growing up in the ghettos were at risk of falling prey to child and teenage pregnancies. According to the World Health Organization, an estimated 21 million girls aged 15 to 19 years in developing regions go through this yearly, and about 12 million give birth.
Tupac wrote a song about this incident to highlight how these young women faced odds that limited them, like a low chance of finishing their education or participating in the workforce. The economic stress from living under dire conditions would only be exacerbated after adding a newborn into the mix.
A Voice For The Voiceless
Those young women had every right to experience a normal life like any other youth. Unfortunately, they grew up in an area under conditions that had already decided their fate for them. The women had no say in how they could dictate their lives and would eventually fall prey to the toxic system that raised them.
Tupac’s song, “Brenda’s Got a Baby,” tells the story of a young girl that experienced the adverse effects of having a child at an early age. The music video shows us the life she would lead after the incident, while the song itself highlights how disconnected people are from the victims themselves.
Criticizing Taboos
People living in the ghettos and the projects weren’t very happy with their living conditions. As such, their apathy for each other had splintered the bond and civility needed to uphold a functioning community. Families were part of a broken system, and those values had decayed over time.
A lack of empathy and knowledge held people back, and Tupac sensed that he needed to latch onto the 12-year-old girl’s story after reading it in a newspaper to spread some much-needed awareness. “Brenda’s Got A Baby” had its music video released in 1992, and the actress Ethel Love played the girl who fell under such tragic circumstances.
Spreading Awareness
The opening lyrics to “Brenda’s Got A Baby” paint a clear picture of people mocking a child they don’t even know for simply being at the mercy of her environment. Brenda wasn’t strong enough to change things around her, she even had difficulty picking up certain learning cues, but instead of helping her, she found the community mocking her for falling prey to her surroundings.
Community participation and support are essential for any individual, especially a child who’s gone through an ordeal like child-birth. But sadly, instead of being empowered and picked up, she faced undeserved belittlement and alienation.
The Sign of The Times
Even in the ’90s, things weren’t easy for people of color. Tupac saw the grime and dirt and used his lyrical talent to put a spotlight on the neglect people were put through. The lack of social welfare allotted to struggling young mothers living in the ghettos was barely enough for them to scrape by because of their financial situation.
The song featured Brenda, who was barely a teenager going through life confused and scared. Her community struggled with poverty and lacked the necessary education and tools to help her. As per a 2022 report released by Census, Black people had the highest poverty rate (19.5 percent), with no significant change from 2019.
It Gets Worse
The song gets darker as we’re introduced to another character who comes into Brenda’s life, her cousin. Groomed and used by someone from her own family, the girl thought he would be standing by her through the ordeal, but he abandoned their relationship without remorse.
As defined by NSPCC from the United Kingdom, grooming is when an individual builds an emotional connection and trusting relationship with a child or young person in order to manipulate, exploit, traffic, and/or abuse them. What’s even more frightening is the fact that anyone can be a groomer, no matter their age, gender, or race.
A Worthy Cause
“Brenda’s Got A Baby,” Tupac’s tenth song featured on the album, became his first single. At this time, no male rapper had ever recounted the problems young women were confronting in poverty-stricken neighborhoods. It made the song such a powerful political statement.
We bet the Brooklyn-born artist would have something to say about the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade if he were alive in 2022. The New York Times has been tracking the states where abortion has been banned due to the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. As of July 2022, ten states are included in their list.
You must be logged in to post a comment Login