Our America: Part I

Don't look at ghetto kids as different.

Walking down the streets. See an abandoned building, graffiti on the wall.

There are twenty-eight kids in our homeroom class, and it’s pretty rowdy most of the time.

We talk about the President, what Bush is doing when the cameras aren’t around, how JFK got assassinated, what they did to Mike Tyson, and how William Kennedy Smith got off.

It’s difficult because of the publicity that surrounds our housing development and community. People set their minds, before they come here, to expect problems, and generally you get what you expect.

Now, are my eighth graders my most rambunctious group? Yes. You all keep me challenged every day, to say the least.

The ghetto kid’s going to be hostile and gangster-like. He’ll be more angry. He’ll get more frustrated.

I’d like to see if they have enough heart to come in the projects . . . And if somebody did come in the projects, I’m not racist or anything, but if he’s white I don’t got to touch you.

It’s a good day today. Good time to reminisce.

My grandmother has custody of me and my sisters because my mother has a mental illness.

My name is sentimental. I hold that dear to my name.

Baby Lee and his friend got in a argument, and his friend took the broken neck off of a beer bottle, and stabbed him in his leg. It hit the femoral artery and he bled to death.

And then peer pressure has a lot to do with what people do—their friends was doing it, so they felt that they would try it out too.

Well, when it first started they said she was a manic-depressive. Now they’ve changed it to bipolar.

I’m more or less recuperating from an illness. It’s a slow recuperation, but when I feel better the doctor says that I can look for a position back with the government.

Then if you live long enough you might make it to the Senate. You’re outspoken. You like to talk.

But I’m not gonna stereotype the whole white race just for a few bigots. I know all white people can’t be bad, ’cause God made us equal. We all of us human.

My sister is just like those “good” kids. She was in the spelling bee, she was in the Academic Olympics, she was the salutatorian of her class.

Then she started hanging with these girls—their house was filthy, they were filthy—and they just kept dragging her down and down and down.

How would your life be if your son wasn’t here?
I probably would still be going to school. But I’m not saying that I regret having him, because I’d do it all over again. He’s the most precious thing in my life.

My mother had lots of army men over there for me, and I would just sit playing all day. I had a setup: five squadrons, five men in front, five men in back, five men walking on the sides.

They did the autopsy and they said cirrhosis of the liver. My mother was only thirty-five.

He was in the hospital for some months after she passed, going in and out of comas, and they didn’t know if he was going to make it or not.

She’s the most beautiful woman I ever met. We were sober then. But once we started getting high, that memory is gone.

I showed you when you were a little small guy how to hustle on the street with me.

We are destroying ourselves. ’Cause it’s bad on these streets. It’s pitiful out here.

Lloyd: Would rather have a rubber nose or a plastic nose? I ain’t talking about the kind like Michael Jackson.. . .
LeAlan: A rubber nose. ’Cause if I have a fight and they hit me it’d just bounce right off and repel back at them and hit them in the
face.

Don’t look at us like we’re an alien or an android or an animal or something. We have a hard life, but we’re sensitive. Ghetto kids are not a different breed—we’re human.

These are my final words, but you’ll be hearing from me again, ’cause I’m an up-and-rising activist.

We must come together—no matter what you believe in, no matter how you look—and find some concrete solutions to the problems of the ghetto.