
- When you live in the “projects” or “the hood” you either become it or break from it. – Mindy Nieves
Living in the hood has it’s certain ways of being. You don’t have to live the same way everyone else does. If one girl dresses a certain way and is popular then every other girl will dress the same style. If one boy joins a gang then every other boy joins a gang. Too many followers and not enough leaders.
One thing that’s for sure is there’s always a drug dealer and eventually someone will rat him out and play 2nd fiddle to the police and get the drug dealer locked up in hopes that they won’t have to do any kind of time for their crime which is inevitable. The sad part is that 9 times out of ten the drug dealer sold drugs cause he wasn’t taught any better by his family and was subjected to that lifestyle. Don’t get me wrong I’m not saying that goes for all drug dealers. Some families have the mom that sold drugs and went to prison, the dad, aunt, uncle, cousins, and practically a whole blood line. Then there’s prison time for him where he has to look over his shoulders everyday and subjected to fighting to establish he’s not a punk or weak. After prison he has to adjust back into society and some will go back to their old ways and some are looking to change. There’s only one problem with change and that’s society. Society makes it hard to get a job when you have a criminal record and so some get discouraged and return to drug dealing but very few stay persistent in changing. I’ve seen male friends of mine that can’t change habits from being institutionalized. I have a friend that has a criminal background and gets good jobs and somehow ends up fired because of fighting on the job. Since these males have been in the system so long they look at the world as a prison and get defensive about everything and think everyone is out to get them. At what point do these men say “enough is enough I need to change”?
Then you have those with drug and or alcohol addictions. I recall standing outside on a summer day enjoying the weather and hearing guys say “ay yo you got a dutch or a wrap” or “who got piff” and automatically I’m annoyed. I’m not judgmental I just dislike how people have to publicize that they smoke marijuana or drink beer. Listen if you have a habit and you do it behind closed doors and nobody knows then it’s whatever cause that’s your business and you’re keeping it as your business but when you have to make it known to people you smoke or drink and you do it out loud then it just shows that you want people to know and you are what I said in the beginning of this article “a follower”. If you want to call me judgmental then I don’t give a fuck because that tells me you’re apart of those “followers” and you’ve taken offense to it.
My thoughts are when will people grow up and when will they decide to have personal growth? Only you can break the patterns and break apart.