i sleep on the floor and it's because there's no he has this american dream was not made for people who look like me my identity that i'm educated unmotivated and barbaric and that it will be better for you and everyone around me if you will lock me up and throw away the key for the simplistic ideologies of what i'm supposed to be and now the while i'm expected to remain silent well i would no longer say i leave as my life and destiny i dictated for i would no longer ga banner statistic instead i will create my own i would be the first person in my family to graduate from college leaving the past my little brother to know that he can be more than was society cla all my own business and provide for my family and be the gaffer individual this world never thought i could be from this day forward i will control my destiny the time for me to ask and laugh proving to myself and everyone around me that i will be something great i will cast out these nightmares and keep america dreaming and so i claim they have my reality for me and my most money gangster told drug dealers crack slinging gang banger i think i'm a killer not because i have a weapon in my hand they see me this way as a young black man we face the temptation threats that attack separate water fountains or schools because it was black rays that dr king would a dream in his heart he helped lead a movement to give us a new start people get what they black man i'm proud to be me i was made in god's image aboard to be free born to be free born to be free thanks anybody really understand i wonder sometimes when i was younger i started smoking marijuana because i was around other brothers or sisters who was i never been in a situation like this before scare million questions and these tests they were supposed to help me write the says is there was supposed to help me right and the court room they just say they were sending me to a place called y loosely located in wisconsin i was about sixteen years old i never been this far away from home like th right there if l real us saw was cornfields everywhere is light the more we drove the more my stomach was hard and i was already missing home i had to have not me hank of yet when i got to the treatment facility they say there was no help me and i wanted to get help because i wanted to get back home  with get started i want to help saw start interacting with other kids there but even though i still say it i'm a focus on myself and when i need help with c the problem was the staff they now know how to cope with me up here they did not know how to cope with me and i dropped to the ground when he was done and i just h had i know what to do i was too far away from i just want to my mom so they would get in trouble about twenty eight days one by after that a believe i was getting ready to leave was like two days le know i wasn't the only one i wanted my freedom and give them a second chance to understand and i'm a good person day he can quote me in a different way excited given the chance so that's why i asked to go back to the time  hit the wall my and it was a heavy set caucasian man but the day they kept me there longer was a while back i had a phone call from our mom and that's the only thing i heard for freedom was her voice that already have my freedom i just had to be patient and i really really really wanted to help model brothers and sisters i would've got tortured again so i had to fake like i didn't see it and then i was going oh i did but that's when i first started though i've been through so much pain still is right now trying to tell my story but the pain is the flashback that place is a little bit better than what it was before i left because unmanned was he and he and my memory and it hurts even though i felt like nobody were paying attention he was there for me any always been there for me as still lives right now right here to tell my story and wake the world so they can be there for the kids that is really really needing help but i know sunday change life stuff never will we hear their labs the law has been cut in half all a bad choices they make all our hearts they break all the people they affect in our lives they wreck did just for a little respect the air force one and jordan you're both salty and the do re and wearing this wearing just made me feel inferior it made me feel this way because i was see someone who was you know dress whereas i i was selling away for money you know i always want to be a legit businessman in my heart i always have been a businessman you know i felt  ashamed for being in a gang because no one in my family was in again and if they found out that i was in one would have been very disappointed in me so i kept this a secret from my family even to day a step back on a bus mentality to back out a bus mentality death something that i made up and let me break down the back of a bus mentality for ya back on a bus mentality is sort of that mentality where you feel inferior as a result you hold yourself to a lower standard because you don't realize you deserve better instead of following your dream you settle for less looking back i didn't tell my friends about my dreams because they probably would have told me things to make it seem like my drink was unattainable the something so i start to feel like a part of me  to be my own person because man that was people in the same gang it's me they were fighting between each other i felt like there was no unity and when i first got into the gang it was for protection but when i came up here i didn't i'm like nobody you have ever met you go home tonight with my story in your brain a month forgettable i'm different and i'm going to make it and i deserve it other family members they were drug dealers and same time we lived in good care everybody in the family my dad my mom both came from big families lots of hardships emotionally and physically  started making bad decisions but our that was what she had to do to provide for me and my little sister and it cost her her freedom when she was incarcerated me and my little sister moved out so minnesota i had a lot of anger and hatred in my heart to get out a lot of people most of all myself i came to st paul in two thousand seven mother got arrested in georgia sends to prison all the way down to florida stealing identities drugs drug game money fast money quick she was awesome i know there's a lot going on when i was younger and she left october fifteenth we came up here it was different feel new school new people loved even the air felt different it was colder up here i never seen snow before my sister and i were excited we loved it till everything changed in the coldest winter ever my uncle got killed december a week before christmas for us to set in he had a fight over in st paul some bar do shot him in the heart that was it he was gone in order to react so i started acting up started getting depressed start wearing only black i was suicide by jumping off a bridge i couldn't do it i walked around the city st paul all night i couldn't do it  i cried i went to the mental hospital hospital they kept taking me there they kept me on medicine i knew i had a d h d before but medicine they put me on and made me sleep i was more depressed than ever i started feeling suicidal again i slept everywhere i'd wake up on a saturday i'd be tired i felt like my body has been a slow motion again a lot of weight i complained didn't feel right it didn't feel like me winning care eventually they took me out a river east and took me to school over east and i got good grace a's and b s my teachers like me i was proud of myself things were finally good to my mom came over prison that summer when she got back everything changed i jumped him beat him up house baseball that i chased him up the hill into the us he ran security or it didn't matter because i was breaking the window ben ben ben breaking glass breaking the window breaking the glass court the next week on a tuesday i got off gave me a p o came back home and things still weren't right i went back to look for the do the same with the night police came looking for me  cop cars pulled up suddenly back to the hospital i started freaking out throwing chairs the security guards whatever they secluded me and put me to sleep i don't remember much after that but i remember i got another charge another one the only thing i could think of was how angry i was that my mom and my dad still i stayed locked up for a they set and wash me i mean me so damn mad when i try to sleep they did the so wake me up everything was loud actually was november twelfth my sixteenth birthday i started acting out again gang bang and fighting i was furious all the time but the thing is when i want to i loose and i had a real breakdown everything in my life came to just so that i mean all these medicines i was tired of getting poked by needles then they put me on scariest medicine will now start seeing things i stayed up for days that changed it all the time it messed me up so badly it was already bad enough being bipolar but this was killing i was tired of trying tired of foster care tired of my dad tripping on my mom in and out of my life my mom to pla time the system tell me i can't lie i got back on track i could have been ten by ten cell with no books no money made me reflect on my life homie control my anger how to slow down think things through expand my mind and now i realized i'm not just smart i'm brilliant my potential is limitless i'm on my hustle illegal and five years from now  to be with my own family my own house back in the cell georgia my own land good job successful nothing average in my future now when you've walked the walk that i have i've been to hell and back time and time again when most men were just given up but i'm not most men i'm christian remember my story remember my name because like i told you i will money more or less man i was all about getting money i thought i knew it and i thought i was untouchable all that change when i got locked up as you might expect i was dreading having to start my sentence but as i look at the lessons i learned and experience again how to value i can even begin to measure yet i grew up in a neighborhood where drugs violence and hardships are popular i was family moved from s so i became one that kept away from the house for fear my mom my mom she knew about the things that was going on in the neighborhood but she tried her best to keep us away from it she used to always tell me things nephew starting with the guys over the drugs but mostly because i felt disrespected a couple seconds later i looked over my nephew has been up on one of the guys and they all start jumping on their feet so i put on my g sirens so i ran to the gun under the dumpster it kept running i felt got back up and kept running i got tired so i hid behind a trash can like five through i want to serve as a positive role model to the young people that's coming up in our community i know it's hard to listen to somebody who doesn't know life on your side of town or hasn't been to what you've been through since i have i want to be there to relate i want to work with young people dear son your life hasn't even begun and you are reading public enemy number one and by the age of eight you'll be an enemy of the state and by the tender age of thirteen you will be portrayed as a little  who's cruel and me and by the time you're twenty five you'll be projected to not be alive a victim of black on black how mister just another alleged gangster that died but who are they to tell you and me your destiny the day i gave birth to you won't be a mistake or the ground will swell and the earth will break from the of love i have for you seven pounds eleven ounces your sweet cocoa brown skin your brown puffy cheeks your father's nose your mother's lips and i can't even speak majesty and the glory that will be in your first smile the first time you roll over and when you stand up for a while the first time you say mama and the first time you lose a tooth but as you grow and grow i won't be able to hide my baby boy from the truth son the truth is that think you're stupid they'll be surprised that we spend hours at home working on your reading instead of watching reality t v and they'll be perplexed when the little brown boy knows how to spell the toughest word in the spelling bee and when you give a speech they'll be shocked that you don't trip on your words and properly place your verbs doesn't letters home to your mama sighing and malakai is surprisingly eloquent did he write that himself are you sure he didn't copy it he didn't have any and now right back damn straight my son's been writing sonnets since the age of eight if you need him to teach you how i'm sure that be great because some of them would rather see you shrapnel berettas and bullets think carrying classical chinese philosophy because you're supposed to be in route to prison at least there's there that's their plan but there's no bars that can lock on the spirit of an educated black man they're more afraid of your ambition more deterred by your dreams more suffocated by your success because it can't be ripped at the seams you're supposed to be time you walk into a store hungry pairs of eyes will follow you searching for more so keep your hands in your pockets keep your fingers to yourself if you want sure you're going to buy that then leave it on the shelf because they love to arrest and detain you try and arrange you lock you up throw away the key abuse and maim you but it's not their fault they'll say we've had incidents of deaths for a while he's innocent arbat he fit the profile honey due diligence isn't always owed to you you have to understand that to some people always will be nothing more than just three fifth's of a man like when you're driving down the hall down the highway in your all black vans leaving a graduation party at midnight with your friends when the red and blues turn on in the cherry tops pull you over and you remember your dad warning you this would happen when you got older hands above head spread your legs don't look them in the eyes tell the truth about everything it's not time to dabble in lies even though your humanity feels broken as are shackled on the ground and cars full of hungry eyes dry by judgement all around though your dignity may feel damned and your hurt has nowhere to hide son hold fast to your potential hold fast to your pride son the truth is they help think you aren't worth a damn they'll see you as a blight on society just another big black man in jeans and a hoodie a potential killer a probable doughboy a possible crook a waste of space  basic bum now worth another look i can explain why they project these images onto you at seven pounds eleven ounces you were my son and you are my son my moner my stars my night sky my heart and as much as i'd love to lie and you will be all right this is a society will tear you apart because i need you to be a vicious savage but you never even were from the start the system doesn't work if the black man isn't the media's toy but you aren't to steer your type or gimmick you're my baby boy and dream until the desperate cries of my only son fade away into a silent scream isn't ok anymore and i will speak the gospel on how little boys like you have targets on their backs since the age of two but we turn a blind eye because we don't want to see that our little boys are shakin and singing  unchained melody but i will protection to the ends of this earth to ensure that my son is free you will be nothing that they claim you are you will be the opposite of what they expect you to be you'll be a motivated man with the mission you'll be a success story for all to see you will change this world and make it beautiful you are the difference and you will manifest your own destiny thank you to say as a young african american woman to see you all in a totally different capacity share your story is so so even more inspiring for the work that i young men and young girls that they'll see a light and you and that will be enough for them to do which are doing because it's easier said than done