"Either they don't know, don't show, or don't care about what's going on in the hood."

My ex-boyfriend picking me up for our date at the "Skatin' Rank" and Wendy's

This morning, while booty popping in the mirror to the gangsta' rap Pandora station I created  mix tape I picked up from the trap, I began to reflect on my life growing up in a quiet residential district on the mean streets of Mississippi. My mama worked 2 jobs over the course of my childhood, not at the same time and my daddy was never home except after 6 and on weekends, so it's a wonder that I made it out the hood without 2 kids and 3 baby daddies.


I was what you might call a latchkey kid (by latchkey, I mean my mom gave me a key that I never had to use because someone was always home before me. If not, arrangements were made for me to go to my grandma's house until my mom picked me up after she got done running errands for the church trickin').

It was a hard life man. Everywhere I turned there was pain. All the brick houses and manicured lawns were just a facade. My next door neighbor's house was the junior high principal's home and tutoring spot by day, and a sex trade headquarters by night. And don't get me started on the black-on-black crime. I had girls hatin' on my ponytail and freckles...mad cause my mama gave me fruit rollups and Cheetos for snacks while they had sunflower seeds and salt & vinegar chips.

Things only got worse as I got older. In high school, I got caught up in a gang. We tried to keep a low-profile by wearing school colors but anyone could spot our ribbons, short skirts, and matching wind suits a mile away. We were so hard man... We even worked out a deal with the school administrators- perform a little song and dance at the school's athletic functions, and they would look the other way when we hustled candy bars,  and spirit ribbons and tattoos crack and mary jane in the hallways and locker rooms. One year it got so bad that we were even selling that shit door to door during our free period. And those were the good ol' days.   These days I hear that the pushers are now using! They got girls smuggling that smack to the games in their pompoms, shooting up during halftime. SMH... a damn shame.

I even got caught up with the school pimp. Everybody tried to warn me, but I didn't listen. I got caught up in that water, that game, that fast life of being showered with letterman jackets, championship rings and that extra serving of chicken nuggets on Fridays just because I was HIS girl. *deep sigh*  I made it though. I got out of Fair Eastside High school with only an unofficial suspension and no police record.

I did go to college and man, was it a different world?! Dear old Hillman... me and my boyfriend Dwayne had some good times there. Anyway, getting a job at The Pit, the popular hangout spot, helped pay tuition and keep me off the pole. By the time graduation rolled around, I was wearing dashikis and a natural, quoting Langston Hughes, and snacking on barley and hummus. I was an educated and informed black woman ready to take the world by storm with my recently learned Swahili rain dances and little known black history facts. I was sorely mistaken.

As Hillman faded in the distance, America glared at me from ahead. My little bubble of a historically black and make-believe institution had bamboozled me into thinking what I was experiencing was real life. Real life wasn't tea and crumpets with black, brown, and beige intellectuals from all walks of life. Real life was shucking and jiving for The Man, drawing straws to see whose turn it is to make the Starbucks run, and listening to 50 Cent's Many Men on your way there- which brings this tragic tale right back to the present.

As I get ready to push roll these papers and chop these budgets bricks, I realize that running from the neighborhood only led me right back to it. I did all that scratching and surviving just to end back up in the middle of ROTC drills gun shots and step shows gang initiations.

When will this vicious cycle end? When will my mama retire stop trickin' and my daddy get off that Krispy Kreme and steak crack diet? Will my sister ever find out if her lil boy RayQuann is by Craig or Day Day? Do Heaven got a ghetto?

These are the questions that keep me up at night.

Until someone can answer these for me, I'm just gon' stay on my grind. Stacking these dollars and slinging this product for the man... Hopefully someday, someone, somewhere will see my story and take action. I can't win this war by myself.

Are you there, Oprah? It's me, AG...