Pride, Power and Prostitutes

What experiences in life helped you grow the most?

Growing up in a rough neighborhood, I had to mature faster than a kid should have to because I had to face things no kid should. However, due to pathetic adults, those were the cards I had to play with.

My Family’s Push for the Arts, Sciences, and Education Taught Me Critical Thinking

My family was awesome, but the people in the neighborhood weren’t. I was raised in a no-nonsense, 3-generation household and their push for discipline and education kept me on track for falling for stupid things when they weren’t around. My grandmother was an English, Math and Science teacher. My step-grandfather was a pastry chef. My mom was a pianist and was wise; she just seemed all-knowing about everything to me. I had four aunts, one graduated valedictorian, and the other three were vocalists, seamstresses and knitters. I had an uncle who was also a musician, who played the guitar and drums and played baseball. Along with my sister and I, all of us lived in the same 6-bedroom house, although one of my aunts had passed and the other moved out to marry by the time my baby sister was born. Everyone had gone to college and earned degrees at some point and I think growing up around all of that saved me from becoming a statistic unlike many of my peers. All-in-all, I grew up in a big loving household that was always full of action through either education or music and even to today, seeking knowledge is important to me and keeps me out of getting into stupid shenanigans that others around me fall for. It’s also why I have no interest in vapid things that offer no value in the end. I feel like everything, including people, have to end in purpose, substance, or have something to offer, or I won’t even be interested or engage.

Girl Scouts Taught Me To Be Kind & Self-Sufficient

Like many elementary school kids back in the 80s and 90s, I was in the Girl Scouts. I was a diehard Brownie proud to wear my Brownie uniform and sash everywhere I went. In the Girl Scouts, we learned how to be little McGuyvers tying knots, roughing it in the wilds, cooking, baking, arts and crafts and learning how to be good citizens in our communities. Later on I graduated to become a Junior, but I have to say the entire experience taught me not only to be kind and compassionate to others but also to do things on my own. It taught me how to think on my own and do this day, I will do everything on my own and only reach out to others unless it’s absolutely necessary. In a world driven by men who take advantage of and try to live off women, I feel it’s imperative that every woman learn to be self-sufficient. Although the Girl Scouts is a Christian organization, I urge everyone with young girls to enlist them no matter your faith. They’ll thank you for it when they’re older because men out here really be wishing for a dumb and ignorant woman to depend on them.

School Taught Me To Stay Away From Drugs and Alcohol

Growing up in the middle of the crack epidemic, watching my hood turn from sugar to shit, when I was around 11 years old, I suddenly found myself having to deal with what I call the “neighborhood roaches”; drug dealers, pedophiles, prostitutes and other do-nothings who destroyed the neighborhood. At the time, there was a program called D.A.R.E. which I was an active member of helping other kids avoid the pressure of adults and other kids pushing drugs and gangs on us. As a result, I had an absolute detest for drugs, alcohol and anyone who did them. The drug dealers would hang on my mom’s property regularly doing what roaches do, dealing drugs, and I would consistently everyday go outside and cuss out the drug dealers to make them move. “Get off my momma wall!” There’s nothing like watching drug dealers get up and move from a pre-teen screaming at them. Occasionally, there would be the one smartass who would tell me to shut the fuck up and that’s when I would call the cops. To this day, I still do not do drugs or drink alcohol and for some reason most people I know still find it weird. No, what’s weird is you voluntarily putting poison in your body to participate in your self-annihilation.

Rap Music Taught Me To Be Black and Proud

In about the 6th grade, I first learned about American history and the heinous things white people did to Black people and I was traumatized. At the age of 10, I couldn’t understand how people could be so cruel to others, who did nothing to them and I was filled with rage. It was at that time, I understood why even though I was raised in a Black neighborhood, that every time I left out of my neighborhood and had to venture into the world in contact with white people, it was a negative experience. It explained why when I went to my predominantly white elementary school, why one white girl called me a Zulu. Or the time when my mom was driving us home, we were ran off the road by a white truck full of white trashy-looking men screaming “NIGGERS!” at us. It was at the age of 10, that I developed my hatred for white people and although my mom always taught us that hate is a strong word and to never use it, I was certain I hated white people because I saw no reason for me to have respect for someone who had no respect for me. And when given the chance, would definitely harm me.

I do not remember how I came across rap because as far as I know, it was always there, but I listened to groups like Public Enemy, Sister Souljah, Professor Griff, KRS-One, and other Black conscious rappers. Most of the big rap groups back in the late 80s and 90s were political, which is why white people made it their duty to destroy it. And that is exactly what they did by the time 1995 rolled around. It was nothing like the fetid garbage rap like we have now. Through rap music, I learned not only more about the slave trade, but also staying away from drugs, the head-games that white people play and the system in place to make sure Black people stay in the bottom rungs of not just American society but humankind as a whole around the world. It was through rap music, that I learned about Pan-Africanism and was proud to be Black and to have style while being it. To this day, I am very pro-Black and I won’t allow anyone to tell me to be anything else but. I am Black first. I am for My People first. Every thing and everyone else falls to the wayside.

Moving To New York Taught Me Independence

Living in a neighborhood full of schmucks really does a number on how you perceive people in life. The only haven of real people were my family and those close to it, and it seemed that whenever I dealt with people outside my circle, they turned out to be losers in some way. Asking help from people who never came through, only fortified my reasoning of doing things on my own or asked my family for help who always found a way to come through. But as I got older, I wanted to do things on my own, like most teens, and didn’t want to keep asking my family for help. So when I was about 19 years old, in around 1996, I moved out of the full house and moved to New York.

I moved to Flatbush, Brooklyn with some friends (without telling my mom, but that’s a whole different blog post) and quickly learned the streets. Hanging out in clubs regularly taught me that guys were mostly self-absorbed predators, having two friends willing so show a new-comer the ropes of the streets without taking advantage of me, was priceless. I learned later that both of the girls who I remained friends with for quite a while were both strippers. A fact that they kept hidden from me, for obvious reasons. After all, who asks people where they work? They taught me to never hang in one spot too long, and above all, never go out alone. Later in life, I befriended a prostitute, again someone who didn’t let me know their profession until later, who taught me to never carry my valuables in my purse and to carry them on my body in case I get robbed for my purse. She also taught me to never live with a man unless I have an exit-strategy.

There are tons more things that helped me grow, but I’d say these are the most poignant that make me who I am today. I stand ten-toes-down on much of everything I do and I’m very consistent in my beliefs. I was always a serious kid and had zero tolerance for nonsense. The experiences that have helped me grow in life is my pride in my family’s self-discipline, the power in being Black through rap music and the strippers and prostitutes (or who my mom would call “women of the night”) who’s advice kept me from falling through the cracks and becoming prey to the streets and men.