Chapter 1

Life as a Young Buck1

Its summer 1991 and I’m sitting in a small one bedroom apartment with
the five other members of my family. Everybody else is out in the living room watching
TV except me. I am in the bathroom getting ready for war. Similar to a soldier in the
U.S Army preparing for war, except my war is against my own kind. Our crew is
planning to ambush another crew of young black males at the local pizza shop Angelo’s
on the Ave.
First we had a runner to get us a case of 40’s. After getting the beers, about seven of
us settled behind an old torn down middle school. As we started to feel it, we bragged
about crushing the other crew and before you know it we were walking three blocks to
the pizza shop. Man this walk to the pizza shop was crazy. We are all in a zombie like
state fueled with alcohol and the pain from each individuals lives. You see, we took the
pain from whatever we were going through out on other young black males like
ourselves. Caught up in a world wide genocide of black on black crime we had no idea
was happening, we stepped inside Angelo’s and saw the other crew at the end of the
shop. In a matter of seconds it was on. It was an all out free for all inside the pizza
shop, with a couple dudes taking hospital trips later that night. We were fifteen and
sixteen year old kids trying to kill each other. These were kids who a couple weeks
before were my friends. The hood was funny like that sometimes - one day your friend
the next day your enemy. Why though?
I was born on October 19, 1975. I am the oldest of five kids. I have two
brothers and two sisters. My youngest sister wasn’t born until later on in my life. The
earliest memories I have of my childhood starts at about five years old and the first thing
that comes to mind is church. When I was young my life was filled with church. It
seemed like we lived there because we were there so much. We attended “Church of
God and Saints of Christ” a seven day church and we weren’t your normal church. We
went Saturday and stayed all day from 10 am until sun down. Everyone in the church
wore uniform type garments. As I got older I started to understand that this church
went by the bible to the tee.
During service, like the proverbial shepherd leading his sheep with a staff, the choir
would march around the church and sing songs with the Deacons carrying the staff in
the front of the line. We would have a last supper type feast every Saturday in the
middle of the afternoon. During this hour, the church would share their food with each
other. This method of togetherness was influential to my upbringing. Seeing people
getting along for the most part, praising God left an impression of kinship that will stay
with me my whole life. The church was 90% black, and to see black folk loving and
helping each other is needed in the development of a young black male. My
grandmother Harriet Johnson, us kids called her Nina, helped to raise me. She
introduced my siblings and me to the church when we were young. Now as an adult I
hear a lot of people talk about this type of religion as a cult. Being on the inside of a

1
young buck- slang term used to describe a child or a young person
religion that had a week long event every year that every member from every church
attended didn’t allow me to view it the way others did. As a kid I just had seen
everybody getting together in a hotel in a different city each year loving and praising
God.
Nina was an angel. She was one of the few people in my life who was
pure and didn’t have a hidden agenda for why she wanted to be around me. Nina was a
good woman who didn’t drink a lot or get high. When my parents wouldn’t do their job
as parents, she did it. Nina was not appreciated for just the things she bought or gave us
but for the morals she taught us. She would beat in our head the fact that there is a God
and he is in control of everything. As a kid I didn’t understand but now I see that she
was preparing me for the attacks that evil would use to break me down.
I remember she told me when I was an early teen, “baby, the devil will attack you with
the things you like most and will come at you nonstop until he breaks you down.” I see
now that Nina was an angel placed on earth for a purpose and I firmly believe that it
was to open our eyes and introduce us to God. She did just that before she died of
cancer when I was just fifteen years old. Her death affected me greatly because I was the
oldest and even as a kid I could understand the difference between a good and a bad
parent. She had such a good soul and I miss her very much. Now as an adult I still
believe in most of the things she has taught me but also after learning our true African
history I realized that she taught me what she was taught. She believed she was doing
the right thing.
My childhood was rough but not as rough as some others I must admit. Watching
my parents destroy their lives was a crazy experience. One weird thing about my
childhood was that my siblings and I weren’t allowed to visit our mom’s mother who
lived right across the street. We lived on Hunter Street most of the time and Hunter was
one of the roughest parts of town where crime was right up the block. At the time I
couldn’t understand why we weren’t allowed to visit my other grandma across the
street. I have heard stories from each side of the family but the truth has still escaped
me. One thing that sticks out about one of the stories that I’ve heard was that religion
played a major part in why my two grandmothers could not get along. My mom’s mom,
Emma, was a Baptist and my Nina was a Seven Day Adventist. They could not agree on
what church to raise us kids in. The fact that my dad was controlling also played a part
in it, because he never really liked my mom’s side of the family. He had fights with my
mom’s brothers over her from time to time. She had three brothers who love her to
death and I see now as an adult that it must have been hard for them to see their sister
act the way she did. My mother would go months without speaking to her mom. This
distance caused a direct effect on us kids because we never really got close to our
cousins because my mom didn’t have a good relationship with their dad. The truth
about what really happened I’ll probably never know.
Writing these things has brought tears to my eyes. My mother and father
got married when she was just seventeen and he was nineteen. As a child, seeing my
parents behave the way they did had a great psychological effect on me that caused a
great deal of pain throughout my life. As a kid, I was treated much differently than my
brothers and sisters because I was the oldest. For instance, I would get to stay out longer
or get extra money. My brothers and sister hated that. The oldest gets different perks in
a lot of families is the way I looked at it.
My great grandma, we called her Nana, was another person without whom, I wouldn’t
have made it this far. She was a very strong woman with a great personality. The type of
person that took over the whole room when she walked in. Nana did have some issues.
She was a heavy drinker, but no matter how much she drank, she always had time and
love for her kids. She was born in 1916 and was part of a big family. Throughout the
years, she taught me a lot about black people in Pittsburgh and in this country; she
would sit me down and a sort of history class. The one thing that always stuck out
about my Nana was when things got rough; she seemed to always stay positive and
strong. Everyone in my family loved her. As a kid I couldn’t understand that all the
females in my life were mentally stronger than the men. As I became an adult it became
clear that my family suffered from the Willie Lynch syndrome2 that millions of other
black families suffer from, where you switch the male and female role. Willie Lynch
syndrome was a psychological game that the white slave owners used to control their
black slaves. I will explain in great detail about this syndrome later. Another thing that
sticks out about the strength of the women in my family was that when there was a
major problem, they were the ones dealing with it. The men, most of the time played the
background. My granddad never went to church with us. He would drop us off and
leave and then come back to pick us up. For some reason he never got too deep into
Christianity and as a man I can understand how he could have fell in that kind of
mentality.
My brothers and sisters also suffer from the psychological abuse that was placed on
us as young kids in all different ways. For instance, my youngest brother fell into the
gangster or thug mentality at an early age because of the lack of guidance, discipline,
love, and lack of a role model, since my dad left when he was twelve and I left for
college when he was fourteen. My sister, unfortunately, in my opinion, fell into the
Willie Lynch syndrome like most of my siblings. She was a beautiful girl growing up but
was unconsciously taught to eat off the white mans plate, something I will explain later.
My parents loved to party. Since I was the oldest, I saw first hand how too much of
anything will destroy you. Along with the partying came the beatings. My dad used to
beat the hell out of my mom all the time for any and everything. I understand now that
cocaine had a lot to do with it. He had not only beaten my mom but us kids as well. He
used all types of things to beat us with like belts, wires, basically anything he could find.
As a kid, I disliked my dad. My dad rarely told me he loved me and showed little
kindness towards me until I became a sports player later on in my early to late teens. He
probably thought that I would make it to the pros or something. My dad was a broken
man until he got cleaned up after he left. For the most part he never came back to help
us kids. He made bullcrap excuses for his actions and why he left. He was very selfish

2
The Willie Lynch syndrome was a psychological game that the white slave owners used to
control their black slaves
and in a crazy way, some of his personality traits were passed on to each of his kids,
some good most bad. I say this, because now that I am an adult, I believe in discipline.
Men are at the head of the household so naturally, negative energy attacks them
first. My dad was a good dude but was not good at conquering what I now call negative
energy, so most of his traits were bad. We have seen the conniving, the lying, the
stealing and doing whatever it takes to get over. This had a profound effect on each one
of his kids at some point in our lives. Children imitate adults who are in their life. They
soak up the good and the bad like a sponge. As an adult, I have been able to channel
that negative energy into positive energy for the most part, but I have had slips in my
life also. By slipping and doing some of the same stuff my dad did, I can also
understand why it was hard for my pops to deal with certain things and maybe at the
time he didn’t understand what effects his demons would have on his children.
My mom was a beautiful, kind person and a down woman. She was
there for my dad doing anything she could for him. I am not certain when the drugs
started in my household but I know one thing’s for certain, it had to go through my
pops. I understand that she put the crack pipe to her mouth but he introduced her to it.
Everyone I met who knew my mom before she started drugs said she was an angel.
Life was filled with drugs for blacks in the 70’s and damn near everyone was doing some
type of drug sometime near the early 80’s. Crack cocaine was a major drug during this
time and many people started using it. This was a major period in my life when my
parents got caught up in a world wide drug epidemic that for many reasons, first
showed up in the ghettos of Oakland, California and spread fast throughout the country.
Once one allows crack into his or her life, it will most likely destroy that life along with
their family. As a man, I understand the after effects of drugs. As a kid it was just chaos
which turned to pain and then into hate. My mom could have left my dad but she didn’t
see any way out and she put up with the bullcrap for many more years. This would
cause her a lot of pain and addiction. Pain that would take me years to understand. She
was a firm believer in God and again, she taught us what she was taught. Only God can
save her now. I must add that my dad did put food on the table most of the time,
whether working odd jobs or selling drugs. His nickname in the streets was High Ho…
go figure. At some point in my early teens, my pop got us a house and a car from
hustling3. It was gone as soon as we got it, and we were back to going from house to
house. I guess it’s because he started getting high on crack and couldn’t control it and
the money was spent on getting high and not the important things like rent. All these
hard times added to his children’s mental abuse. There are a lot of kids that don’t even
know their father and I must say that my dad could have left us earlier and who knows
how hard things would have been. But it also could have gotten better. As I sit here and
try to pick my mind for memories as a child, it’s very hard to remember good things
about my pops. He was the only child most of his life and I think this was something
that fueled his selfish ways. I know he loved his children, but he wasn’t the type that
expressed and showed his love. That personality trait along with the drug abuse

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Hustling-the slang term used to describe a way to get money
became a deadly mixture. I pray that one day we can mend our relationship. This
mending could only be possible with a true understanding of the problem.
As I mentioned my mom was very strong. She had to be until the
crack broke her down to the point where she couldn’t control herself. I remember on
birthdays and holidays when my mom wouldn’t have anything but she still made a way
doing whatever she had to do to at least get us food. She would beg, borrow, steal,
things she hated to do, but there was no other way because welfare just wasn’t enough.
Hand me down clothes were our presents for most of our childhood besides the things
that we got from Nina and Nana.
We were treated like charity cases from some of our family and for the most part
they gave us things out of pity. We have older cousins who gave us hand-me-down
pants and shirts, the things that us kids at the time thought were the greatest thing in the
world. I love my cousins Derrick and Shawn for everything they did. My youngest
brother and I would wear the same stuff every other day to school. He would wear a
shirt on Monday and I would wear it on Tuesday, it was crazy. All through my early
teens, we were teased and laughed at behind our backs from other kids, whether it was
about our clothes or about our parents who were known as crack heads. The only kids
who didn’t tease us were kids of other crack heads.
One friend I had we called D-hawk. D and I had identical lives up to this point
except for his dad wasn’t there at all. We bonded under the struggle. God gives you the
things you need and not the things you want and D-Hawk was what I needed, but
popularity was what I wanted. We could understand each others lives plus we both had
a love for basketball which was the only thing that seemed to make us happy. We would
hoop all day every day. We went through some of the lowest times of our lives together.
As I transferred to Perry High school, I started seeing him less and less but to this day I
still consider him a very good friend.
The teasing and torment from other kids was very hard to deal
with because every kid wants to be cool and fit in. The torment along with a lazy
mentality caused all of my brothers and sisters to stop going to school and not get their
high school diploma. The teasing stopped as I became a star football and basketball
player at Wilkinsburg. People tend to treat athletes different in our society. This could
be a good thing but with no discipline and without the ability to stay humble you loose
focus. When arrogance goes to your head it ends up destroying a person’s career. So
naturally after I started doing things on the field or court, people tended to overlook or
at least hide the things or thoughts they had of me and my family. Now that I look back,
I see that people are fake all across the board; some people like to call it politics.
There were a few good times in my childhood like when we would get a couple of
dollars from a family member to go to the mall or something. Good times like Sunday
dinner at Nina’s. For the most part, my memories were filled with painful thoughts of
having the lights cut off and having to run an extension cord from the neighbors to have
light. Also having no heat and having to wear coats to bed to stay warm and having
damn near nothing to eat. You see I’d have to wash out my clothes the night before and
hang them up by the oven all night to dry for the next day when we did have heat.
Times got especially hard when my Nina passed away because she was the only one for
the most part that seemed to care. Not that my parents didn’t care, but they didn’t show
it because of their personal issues. Imagine growing up, and all of a sudden your life
just seems to be hell, this would affect anyone greatly. The only thing that can bring you
through is God and that is what he did. It just took me a while to figure that out.
In every ghetto or inner city in America there are cases like mine. Poverty and crime
are linked to each other like the transmission and engine in a car. I didn’t know as a kid
but this is a problem that is systematic and if not dealt with in early stages of life with
guidance, love, and Gods teaching, this can lead to a life long struggle which can lead
straight to hell. In my opinion, young black males are an endangered species. We are
put into these ghettos and expected to make it out with all the traps and temptations. I
say this because if you look at young black males, for the most part you see struggle. I
heard once that there is no progress without struggle and if that’s true, then that saying
is meant for young black males such as me and those who had similar childhoods all
over the world. In this “great country” that we live in, there is no other species that has
been attacked or broken down mentally like young black males. Because of what?
One time in the eighth grade I had seen this first hand. I started playing basketball
around that time and I was pretty decent. Every adult I knew would tell me that I have
to work hard so I can get into the NBA and become a star but I never heard “work hard
at math,” Isn’t that funny? As an early teen, I got a lesson on hidden agendas. This
lesson will stay with me up to this very day. I had a homie who used to crack jokes all
the time. When it came to me, this dude would joke about my parents or the type of
clothes I had. Throughout the years I had several fights with guys over this. These
altercations I credit for teaching me how to fight. After becoming a halfway popular
sports star in the community, this guy all of a sudden wanted to be my best friend. He
started buying me stuff at lunch, and he called himself watching my back, some people
call it the vapors. Most people have a hidden agenda to why they mess with you,
whether it’s because you’re popular or you have a lot of money.
Throughout my life I only met a few people who didn’t have a hidden agenda. As
an early teen, my friends for the most part were kids of other poverty stricken parents.
But as I became a sports star, everyone wanted to get close and speak to me. I have to
admit though that my judgment wasn’t always right. The one thing that used to bother
me as a teen was that there were kids who had food every night and decent parents but
they still wanted to be thugs. Why were these brothas selling themselves out like that?
It took me many years to understand why. For example, I met a guy whose mom was a
doctor and his dad was a construction worker. He lived in the suburbs and his parents
raised him with decent values. This guy would come to the ghetto and try to hang out
on the block because he was fascinated by the ghetto lifestyle. He ended up destroying
himself by getting caught up and eventually spent a long period of time in jail. This is
what I believe is self destruction.
Basketball saved my life. God gives us all an outlet and talent to get us
where he wants us. However, too many young black males don’t or can’t see what God
has given them and they don’t take advantage of it. Basketball gave me an outlet. It
gave me something to do while other young black males were on the block doing all
types of negative things. Basketball leads me to a man named Raj Simmons. I believe
this man was sent by God to guide me to become the best I could be. Raj was a short
stocky man who spoke in tones that made you listen. He would go through the
community and find girls and boys that he could help through playing hoops. He was a
summer league coach who won championships every year so everyone wanted to be
part of his future star team. Raj wasn’t just a coach, but a father figure as well. He just
seemed to know the right thing to say. He would always end his sentences with “boss”.
It was funny the way he said it. From age 13 up to 18, Raj, in my eyes, was my dad. He
knew my family situation well and knew that I had talent so he took me on. There were
times when he probably wanted to give up on me but he didn’t and that was God giving
him the strength even though he didn’t know it.
Raj took on as many kids as he could and these kids became my friends all the way.
God, through Raj, helped save me as a kid because if you sit around crap all day you
become crap and by having people around me who Raj molded kept me out of the
streets. Some of these friends included Wayne, Newt, G-Walk, and D-Hawk. We,
through Raj, became friends for life. Even though we sometimes had differences, we still
had that common bond, Raj. Raj also helped me with one situation that changed my life
forever which was the birth of my first son Dominique. He was born on March 12, 1991.
I was only fifteen when he was born. I was terrified to tell my parents so I told Raj.
“Look, it’s not all your fault boss.” He would say to me. When he said those words, I felt
like I could breathe again.
Dominique’s mom was two years older than me and I barely even knew her when
we had sex. All I remember is going to her house and she helping me out my clothes. It
was crazy but meant to be. I was going through a lot at this time; poverty, family issues
like drug addiction and now being a dad but only God brought me through. When my
son’s mom told me she was pregnant, I damn near passed out. My first reaction was to
say “you’re crazy, that baby ain’t mine,” because of fear. Fear of my parents, fear of
teams not wanting me because I was a teenage dad and fear because I didn’t know what
to do. This denial continued up until I was seventeen and by then my baby’s mama
hated me because of it. This denial would cause me not to have a good relationship with
my son during the first few years of his life but to my defense I was only a kid myself.
My son’s birth caused me to look at life differently. It took me many years of growing up
to make things right with my son. I always said that when I have kids, I want to be a
better father than mine was but hey, life doesn’t always work the way you want it to.
Dom was a blessing in disguise. At the time, he was just so innocent and pure and
looking at him brought chills to my body. “Damn, I am a dad,” I would say to myself.
Looking back I am embarrassed at the way I acted but I have worked hard at showing
him that I was young and it’s important for him to know that I still loved him.
Around the summer of ‘92, one of my friends, Nelson Nicholson was murdered. He
was murdered because of mistaken identity. The guy who shot him was what kids
called a nerd. He was another young black male who wasn’t in the “in crowd” and who
used to get picked on all the time. Dudes would take his money and jump him. One
day he took his dads gun and headed out the door towards Penn Avenue, the main drag
in the hood. After walking a couple blocks he ran into my homies. Now I know for sure
that my homie Nelson and nobody in my crew ever jumped him, but for some reason
this faithful moment had to happen. As the shooter approaches my homie Nelson and
two other homies he starts busting his father gun towards the crowd. After about 15
shots my homie lay dead and another was shot in the leg. Man, Nelson was a great guy.
Everyone who had the pleasure of knowing him loved him. He was your typical stud
athlete, smart and all the ladies wanted him. I was grateful to have him as a friend. He
never judged me because of material things like the clothes I had on. He was real. He
used to give me shirts and pants to wear to school and food from his plate without
asking for anything back. I have never met another friend that even comes close to him.
Nelson’s death touched everyone in the community. Throughout my childhood I have
seen many murders but none hit home like Nelson’s.
We as young black males have been fooled to look at each other as the enemy and
we kill each other everyday because of that all over the world. Nelson’s death affected
me different than any other person. It made me cold at first but as I started to grow I
understood that God took him to tell us young black males to wake up and stop the
bloodshed. During the summer of 92, gangs like the cripz and bloodz, started to become
a huge problem in the city of Pittsburgh. Murders were at record numbers and young
black males felt the blunt of these murders. I will explain later in detail the gang
problem in PA.
At some point in the summer I was playing in a pick up game when the
coach at a very prestigious high school was by the fence watching me. I didn’t know it at
the time but this day would change my life forever. You see, I was a star in football and
basketball at Wilkinsburg High School starting both sports in the 9th grade. Not many
people do that but we were a sad team winning a total of five games a year in both
sports in the years I was there. Wilkinsburg was at the bottom of the list for colleges to
come see, plus the education sucked. It seemed like most teachers didn’t care, they just
showed up to get their checks. I also couldn’t understand why there were only a few
black teachers in a 95% black school.
I had just came off a major hip injury from football in which I had to learn to walk
again and during the summer of 92 I grew 5 inches and by the time Coach Frank from
Perry High School saw me I was 6’5’’ and doing 360 degree slam dunks and I was only
16. When Coach Frank and Raj came to me with the idea of going to Perry to play I was
so excited. Not just to play for champions but to get the heck away from Wilkinsburg
where people were dropping like flies. We still had to convince my parents though.
Convincing them was easy because I think they seen something special in me. After
coach Frank and Roger came by our apartment to talk to my parents, I was on my way
to Perry.
Well making the transition to Perry wasn’t easy but then of course nothing in my life
was. I had to make major adjustments in my life and with the help of Raj and my mom,
I did it. The first obstacle was getting to school everyday. Perry was on the other side of
the city in the North Side. The only way I could get to school was using a transit bus.
That meant I had to wake up early and leave my house by 6:30 am to make it to school
by 7:20 for 1st period. This was very hard at first because my body was not use to getting
up that early. My family and I were also getting through rough times during this period.
We all lived in a one bedroom apartment, all seven of us. Plus, at this time on most
days, I had to get myself up and motivate myself to go to school.
On most days I left when it was dark and came home when it was dark. When I left
my family was asleep and when I returned they were asleep. Some nights I went to bed
hungry. Perry changed my life forever. It showed me a different side of life that I had
not yet seen. Some good decent people, not ghetto minded fake gangsters in
Wilkinsburg. I say fake because most people who joined gangs in Pittsburgh were
copycats. Not all were fake, but most were. Everyone wanted to be hard and not
themselves. It was very sad to see all these young brothas destroy their lives. I never
joined a gang but I would hang out with a lot of them. I hung out with them because
they were my friends before gangs hit but for some strange reason I saw that it would
only lead me to a path of destruction so I never started bangin.
Playing ball at Perry, I was treated like a star. The way teachers and students treated
me and others such as Wayne Copeland went to my head. Now at the age of 30, I
understand we weren’t all we thought we were, even though we won back to back
championships. We were just guys who could put a ball through a hoop. Most teachers
at Perry seemed to care more about your education. They would help you more with
tutoring and things like that. I remember my first math class at Perry. I was so lost, I felt
stupid. There were things I should have known but didn’t partly because it wasn’t
taught to me at my previous school, plus my laziness I must add. I went from winning
five games at Wilkinsburg to winning championships at Perry, huge difference.
It took a lot of hard work on my coaches’ part to break me out of that lazy mentality
I had incurred during my years at Wilkinsburg. It wasn’t easy and to this day I
appreciate their efforts to help me. Perry did teach me how to use the system to my
advantage which to this day has altered my view on society. I would have to take night
classes in 12th grade so I could graduate.
During my 12th grade year, my days consisted of getting up at 6am to go to school
then after school I would go to practice and after practice I’ll go to my night class until
9:30 pm. This period of time tested my will. It almost broke me down and did have an
effect on the beginning of the basketball season because my mind and body was so worn
out. My junior year, we were a good team. I started only half the season because Coach
Frank wanted me to work harder and earn what I got in life even though the guys who
started in front of me weren’t as good as me. As a youngster, I thought the coach was
hating on me, but now I see that he was only preparing me for life. My senior year at
Perry, our team was great. We lost only two games and I lead the team in scoring. We
beat the number one team in the country Shaler High that year by at least 15 points. I
had a great game, flying all through the air and dunking on them. Around that time,
colleges started to notice me. I received letters from schools all over. Most schools
weren’t willing to take a chance on me because of my G.P.A. Plus, Coach Frank wasn’t
the type to go the extra mile to get me there. I’m not saying that he didn’t help, but his
methods weren’t what they needed to be except for guys he liked.
From what I heard coach had a favorite player each season. In my senior year that
guy was Wayne Copeland, not like he needed help. Wayne was one of the best players I
have ever seen. He was better on defense than on offense and had 8 steals a game every
year. Wayne continues to play till this day. He didn’t have any children and he kept a
hunger for the game so now he is in the ABA, a semi-professional basketball team in his
hometown. I feel very proud to have played with this guy. Things we had to do as a
child to survive, we will take to the grave. He understands my struggle and I
understand his.
Perry also had a great selection of girls which at the time was my weakness. Being
half way decent looking and a hoop star, I had my pick. After running through a couple,
I settled on a girl named Leslie. She was tall, smart, beautiful, and from a good family.
Until her, I thought of girls just for sex but with her it was different. She had a very
good soul and wasn’t corrupted like most girls from Wilkinsburg or with girls I have
met throughout my life with a few exceptions. Some names that come to mind is a girl
named Li Li from my hood, Ameris, a Puerto Rican, Dana, a friend from high school,
and a girl named Heidi from the country who is in my life to this day and one of the best
people I’ve ever met.
Back then, Leslie and I were inseparable. If you saw her, I was somewhere close by.
Our relationship lasted until my second year of college. I dumped her because of
arrogance, from all the attention I was getting from groupies plus the distance between
us. Graduation day at Perry, up till college, was the best time of my life. Prom I got to
ride in a limo partied all night and felt on top of the world. I came back to reality the
next day when I had to return home to the pain. I graduated by the skin of my teeth,
barely making it out with a 1.8 GPA, not because I wasn’t smart but because the lack of
drive in the classroom. At Wilkinsburg, my grades were terrible being that you only had
to have a 1.5 to play ball. What kind of stuff is that? Telling a kid that all they need to
do is get D’s and C’s to play ball.
Most inner city young black males don’t have anyone punishing them so when one
tells them that all they need is D’s and C’s to play, it doesn’t help them to get better
grades. One major thing that stuck out about inner cities was, at that time, there were no
after school programs. See, a lot of inner city parents are messed up on drugs, or in jail.
There needs to be after school programs that can grab our kids’ attention. We did have
the boys and girls club though which I totally support because it kept some kids out of
the streets. In my opinion, the boys and girls club mostly concentrated on sports. Kids
need activities that can teach them their history, good study habits, drug awareness, etc.
The fact that the boys and girls club mostly concentrated on sports was another
psychological method to keep inner city kids focused on making it in the pros and not
making it as a doctor, teacher, or lawyer. You see, children who are without, like I was,
need guidance bad. We starve for it and if we don’t get it, 8 out of 10 times we turn to
what I call the dark side of the life of self pity which leads to crime, death, or jail. My
youngest brother is a perfect example of this. He, unlike me, grew up without a role
model. My dad left when he was young and by the time he turned 14, I was leaving for
college. He was left with no one to look up to so he hit the block and started hustling.
See he was a soldier, from the beginning he was always quiet until you messed with him
and then came the beast. His life is a direct reaction of my father’s failure, more so than
any of his other kids.
When you are so young and see so much pain, you can’t help but become cold and I
think that’s what got the ball rolling for him to be living “the thug life” 4, jail time, gun
shot wounds and near death experiences. Only I knew the real him. I knew why he
acted the way he did but couldn’t reach him to help him because it was too late by the
time I got old enough to understand the problem. No one can get him to see he is
destroying other people’s lives with the poisonous lifestyle. Anyone who isn’t like him
that he doesn’t respect he calls them lame or square. He’s stuck in a psychological state
that if not changed will destroy him totally. I pray one day he sees the light.
My younger sister was the only girl of the family at that time. She is a beautiful girl
and was very over protected by her brothers. She has seen first hand how a man can
ruin a woman’s life at an early age. She, like my brothers, gave up on school around
ninth grade for the same reasons, lack of motivation, discipline, and the lazy mentality.
Me being the oldest, I should have tried harder to push my younger siblings but to my
defense I was only a kid myself. She to would carry this mentality with her all the way
into adulthood which caused her enormous amounts of pain and hard times. My sister
would end up losing the motivation to get herself out of the welfare mentality. A lot of
young black women across America suffer from the same thing, where you sit on your
butt and collect a free check while being attracted to thugs and dope dealers. These
types of dudes, for the most part, have sex and leave and she learned this the hard way.
I believe one day she’ll understand that the type of mentality the guy has is important
when choosing a mate. She is very street smart and for the most part is a good mother.
She just has to say to herself enough is enough and she will change her negative ways. I
firmly believe she can make it if she tries.
My younger brother was the second born and is a very intelligent dude.
He would always get good grades and would help fix things that were broken around
the house. Imagine a 12 year old kid taking a broke TV apart and putting it back
together. He was in my eyes a genius. With the right guidance, he could have become a
rocket scientist or something. But again, being in the situation we were born into caused
him to give up hope and drop out of school. He also had the gift of gab. He could talk
his way out of most situations. He was never into sports and my dad used to call him
soft because of that. What kind of stuff is that when a kid as smart as him was told he
was soft just because he didn’t run and chase a ball all day? For awhile I started to call
him soft too but to this day I am sorry for it. I believe now that these things played a
huge role in my brother’s mentality. This consists of isolation from his family for the
most part.

4
Thug Life-slang term used to describe the life or mentality of an individual who lives the life of
a thug, full of crime and without regards to law
 I can’t stress enough how important it is to pay close attention to your kids. Being
that a lot of my generation of young black male parents are so caught up on drugs, it’s
almost impossible to make it out of the ghetto without God.
Restriction, racism, and hate have all played a role in the destruction of young black
males. We call ourselves Nigga, a word that was used to degrade us. I read once that a
white mayor of a small town in Texas tried to ban the word Nigga. People white and
black came out and protested against banning the word. White people were asking
“why ban that word and not other words like white cracker?” The blacks in the crowd
were saying, “We use the word and we don’t want it banned.” Look, I don’t care what
excuse we use, it’s all wrong. I know the slaves are spinning in their graves. I have tried
hard to erase the word from my vocabulary but it slips out every now and then. It’s a
struggle because I used the word for 20 years. We as young black males have tried to
take the power away from those who use the word negatively and use it as a greeting
but we must stop because no matter what, it’s wrong.
Another huge part of my childhood was fake friends. These people who I met
throughout my life have come in all shapes and forms, women and men. Smile in my
face and then tear me apart behind my back. They would try and be my friend and turn
around and sell my parents crack, or tell my girl that I was cheating so they could get
with her. It was sad. To this very day I have only met a few people with good, pure
hearts. I think that’s why it’s been so hard to get close to people now that I am an adult.
Some of those good people include Ty Smith and John Thomas. Ty was one of the few
real dudes I have ever met. He and I met during middle school and we have remained
friends to this day. As an adult we rarely see each other because we both had to find our
way in life. Ty was a street dude not a thug or a fake gangsta.
We came up through the same struggle and I guess that’s the reason why we clicked
for the most part. John and I met while I was in college. He was from Brooklyn, New
York but we lost contact shortly after school let out in my sophomore year. John was
different. He had been through the struggle as well but he was from Brooklyn so he
showed me a different view on how blacks lived and communicated. Blacks in New
York sort of have a code. For instance, they call each other sun because they believe that
they shine like one. Other than that, most of the people I came in contact with were fake
so I was fake to them. Like I said before, my judgment of others was not always right
but 90% of the time I was. I had the ability to listen to someone and know right away if
they were real or fake.
Growing up for young black males such as me was rough. If you don’t
have the right guidance and a God fearing mentality then you are most likely to end up
in self destruction. “The ghetto is a nigga trap, take the cheese, as soon as you do, here
come the police. Admitted and designed for us to fail, brothas gonna end up dead or in
jail.” These words are so true they are blinding. Ice cube5 hit the nail with this verse.

5
Ice Cube- Legendary west coast rapper/actor, one of the originators of gangsta rap. This verse is
from his 2006 c.d