I am originally from Brooklyn, New York. A section known as Brownsville. If you know of Brownsville or know anyone from there, you will learn how dangerous an area it can be.

Back when I was growing up. I have witnessed seeing such sites as dead bodies and actual shoot outs take place. So common were these events to me that at the age of 9 years old I remember walking down the street with my father from the grocery store on Atlantic ave and seeing a guy hanging from a tree (noose around neck) and just sighed. At age 12 I recall playing wrestlemania in the park on Halsey st in Bushwick area of Brooklyn and wondering what was the zipping noise passing my right only to turn around and witness someone being shot in the middle of the in broad day light by a group of guys. I’ve been held at gun point at the intersection of Rockaway ave & East New York by the old police precinct at lunch time and robbed of my watch, rings, and chains on the way to Con Edison to pay utilities for my mother. They didn’t get the money so I continued on towards my destination and paid the bill then told my mother I was robbed. My friend Mike knew the guys who robbed me and helped recover most of my items. At age 14 I’ve stood approximately 7 feet from the same friend who helped me recover my stolen goods on Rockaway ave at the intersection of Dean st after school and watch him get gunned down. I’ve sat on a stomp after winning a rap competition (yes back in the day I rapped) with my cousins and some members of the group Black Moon and was shot at during a drive by. Age 16 while visiting a donut shop in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn (at that time known of the most racist section of the borough) after seeing the movie New Jersey drive with Taj, Jed and Ishmael. Some cops started calling my friend Ishael names aside from his birth name and threatened to beat him. I told them they weren’t beating anyone cause no one did anything illegal and I ended up being beaten by them. Until leaving Brooklyn to go to college I’ve been in approximately 40 fights (in school and in the streets).

In Ohio. Upon visiting my sister at Central State and staying with a group of men from Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity, inc I woke to them running out of the dorm room to chase a group of KKK members who left a burning cross in front of the dorm. While working a summer job at Taco Bell prior to going to college. I was run off the street on Billinglsey rd, off of Hard rd. in Dublin by a group of guys in a red pick up truck with KKK stickers on who yelled out nigger as they knocked me into several mailboxes. While working working at Old Time Pottery in Dublin, Ohio a lady was trying to put stuff in the shopping cart that that I didn’t ring up and when I addressed the matter shouted to the top of her lungs “you no good nigger!” (no I didn’t choke her out but came close). While in college I wrote a term paper that was supposedly one of the best written in theology class ever and was given an D- due to my professors belief and I quote that “it is impossible for someone with my background to have written such a paper.”

So it does more for me than you could ever imagine when I look around in class and see people from various walks of life, race, creeds, socio-economic situations come together and interact and get in shape and to have fun and to come together for great causes. Definitely has restored my faith in humanity. Thank you guys much. This has been a rambling message by yours truly.