It Took a Village. Rubin Scott
of violence in the neighborhood would happen, you would see entire families clash. Growing up in the projects everyone is so close knit to one another because all the families normally spend a lot time together living in such close quarters. Growing up in the neighborhood you learned to get along with others or you fought it out for who’s going to be boss. Normally, The winners of the altercations went to the biggest family of course. they would win by default because they would have more people to win by default, having more people to win the battle but then. It would also come down to who was just plan and simple the craziest.
Every summer as a child growing up in the projects of Oakland California, there would be more action and excitement outside than inside. So of course during this time, I had seen my first true glimpse of violence and action up close and personal. When I say action I mean, it was like something in a movie scene that my mother would want me to cover my eyes from. As soon as a problem would start in the neighborhood she would start yelling for us to come inside. I honestly believe we were able to see true reality TV First hand and personal.
One thing people are unaware of is that there was a lot of money in the projects believe it or not. There were all single moms living in low income housing. They all worked long hour’s daily and were all hard working upstanding citizens. Whatever bad things people would say about the people that lived in the area, the one thing people outside the area did not understand is that everyone living in the projects still would have to meet a certain standard to even be able to qualify to receive assistance for housing.
Growing up in an impoverished community there was no shame nor was it new to us because everybody’s family had a crack head or somebody committing crack head activities and, or a drunk Uncle. Eighty five percent of us growing up in the neighborhood had a father that never came around, so we were all being raised by single mothers. All you had was hard working women and young boys thinking that they were grown men. We had many young men running around thinking that they were already the closest thing to god himself: until they would get their hard headed stubborn self and family in a situation that would ignite quickly and touch you up close and personal. Normally it would come back around affecting one of your loved ones, not directly affecting the individual who started the situation.
As a young man I started searching for my own identity by looking into family, friends, and inside myself. My mother always taught us to live free even when confined, meaning “never let anyone break you down physically or mentally.” Since my living environment was so heavily impacted with violence and illegal activity I found myself adapting to social norms that later in my adult life would negatively affect me. For example, certain physical reactions that were acceptable, as a child would give you a reputation on the street as tough guy, don’t mess with him. The same mentality later in life, as a man would label you as a predator of some sort and a woman abuser. It was hard to understand the true value of a man, all his worth and everything he is capable of achieving. When you’re surrounded living and growing up in the environment where the pimps, hustlers, and con men that all may make more money than the men with trade jobs and have more of an appealing lifestyle for the short- term progress then hard working educated young men.
Let’s just speak financially. If you make ten thousand dollars fast by hustling, selling dope or robbing somebody and you were to get caught, which you’re more likely to get caught than get away, statistically proven your consequence is prison or county jail for a period of five to ten years. Now just do the math really quickly. If you take that ten thousand dollars and divide it up over five years, that means you only made Two thousand dollars a year for a five-year bid. this equates to a grand total of one hundred and sixty-seven dollars a month for five years. If you want to look at ten years, it’s one thousand dollars a year if you do a ten-year bid. which equates to eighty-six dollars a month for ten years.
Now let’s just say if you took the road less traveled because of inner city social rejection and became the young man that went to work for McDonald’s, you would be bringing home four hundred dollars a week. Or you could be the young girl that is going to school on a full scholarship, is getting her room and board paid for and receive Two thousand five hundred dollars each semester which is approximately every six months.
On the outside looking in it almost seems like a no brainer. But the problem seems to go way beyond whether or not you want to take the right track. Or is the right track for some, just not being presented and given the same opportunities as the next. If our young children weren’t plagued with poverty and /or homeless, desperately trying to survive in an economy where the industry jobs in which our nation was built upon are few and for between. and the jobs that provide financial freedom come with a back ground check. And where the minimum wage is way under the cost of living, maybe they would take the road less traveled instead and not be lured into the fast money. When those impoverished wake up in the morning and look into the mirror they don’t see a failed economy, they seen a failed individual. When they can’t get a job they don’t see the thousands who just got fired today in the news, they see their bills becoming overdue and their baby’s needs not being met.
Chapter 3: No Excuses
I believe I was in first grade when I was personally affected with my first experience of Evil on earth. My mother worked long hard hours everyday which meant my sisters and I had to go to the after school program until my mother was able to get off work and pick us up. The after school program was broken down into grade levels, which meant while in the program I wasn’t able to be in direct contact with my siblings, during that this age I believe I wasn’t quite emotionally and physically weaned off of my mother and siblings yet. As everyone would say, I was always very quiet and definitely very much of an Introvert. I was truly still searching for the affection and closeness of my family pack and now I was exposed to a vibrant social society.
My mother was strict and always ran our house with an iron fist. Lets just say she was a no non-sense type of a personality. When one person got in trouble, we all got in trouble. If one person got a whooping we all got a whooping. It didn’t matter if you didn’t do anything wrong that week or not. She had a good memory and my mother would remember something she owed you a whooping for. Without fail, the next day after receiving our punishment that would normally be the biggest conversation in the neighborhood. First question would usually be, “What did you do”? Second, “Did it hurt”? Then someone would utter out, “I heard you screaming, you were trying to get away for at least an hour”! Since my house was right next to the basketball courts, everyone in the neighborhood could hear so they would know what was going on. We were raised in a generation that if you were to go outside and get into trouble, you might get whooped two or three times before you even got home by all the play mothers in the neighborhood, who were granted permission by the parents to watch out for the children. In my culture growing up, it’s always stated that it takes a village to raise a child.
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