Poor Doug! Some people just have really really beyond rough luck. But now that he's met us, his luck is gonna change all around. Even if he did get sick from Geri and feels like he's going to die. He's allllll girlfriendless after all and even if Laura claimed him, well nothing's stopped her from claiming a taken guy. I know, she's trying to claim MY Mike.

The topic of black-on-black crime upsets me to no end.
To think that for so many years we were oppressed by the white man and when equality is on the horizon,
our own race erupts in total chaos...
-Michelle G. (age 17) 1990

I was born in a big city, I’m not going to bother mentioning which one. The neighborhood wasn’t the best there is, it was pretty bad in fact. You hear those news stories about gangs and shoot ‘em ups? Well, they’re real. I know a lot about them. Luckily, I’m outta there now. I grew up with both my parents and one brother. Older brother. Had a lot of family nearby, too. Not a lot of people known to move far away from there once they grew up there. I actually had a decent life, happy family life for sure. I didn’t exactly like living in a place where you could get a bullet in the chest for not giving over a pair of shoes when someone asked for it, but you adapt. Going to school wasn’t easy, you always worried when you heard a car slowing behind you. But I managed to make it without dropping out or even missing too much school.

It’s funny, but all that time I worried going back and forth to school, and it was after I graduated that those worries came down on me. Hard. Was walking without any particular destination in mind with my best friend, Jamal. Talking about wanting to get out, maybe go to college. Then one of the only times ever, I didn’t pay attention to the car slowing down. I don’t know if it would’ve mattered if I had. You ever hear guns going off right near you? Ever hear the sound of bullets hitting flesh? You don’t want to, believe me. Time slows, even in the memories it’s real slow. Gun went off, bullets hit flesh, Jamal hit the ground. Then the car sped up and took off. I watched it with a sense of disbelief. Detached from what was going on, at least for that moment. It all hit me when I looked down. I never thought there was that much blood could come outta a couple of holes. Jamal was kinda lucky, though. Died right away. He wouldn’t have made it in any case and that way he didn’t really feel much. The whole memory kinda hangs there in my mind even when I’m writing this. And it was about 5 years ago. Changed my life.

I decided after I’d gotten through all the numb feelings and then the pain that I was gonna do the college thing. I needed to get outta there. It’s unreal the things that can happen sometimes. A young man dead for nothing. Jamal’s wrongdoing that got him the death warrant? He talked nice and lent an ear to the wrong girl. The wrong brother’s girlfriend. Crazy world. And the guy got off, too. Not enough evidence, even though I saw his face and knew the car. Cops too lazy, justice system too apathetic. One more black man killed by another black man. What’s the world coming to when you kill your own and then turn around and blame society for making you the way you are? It hurts to hear all the stereotypes about the group you happen to fall into and then get them reinforced by a minority who feels the need to stage their own personal revolution. But someday this race thing’s gonna stop and people are gonna look back on it like a bad dream. Let’s hope they learn from it. Oops, I guess I got preachy. I do that sometimes, but not very often.

To get on with things, I worked real hard to save up the money to go to college. Didn’t know where I wanted to go, just that I wanted someplace away, someplace different than where I was. So I worked harder than I’ve ever worked in my life for a couple of years. Between that and help from my family (plus a major sacrifice from my brother) I managed to get enough money to make a move. Then I started looking into where to go and I found a nice university up here in Washington State. I knew I wanted to write and they had a pretty good Creative Writing program. Funny that I ended up getting away from people with dark skin hating and killing each other to come live in an area that a certain group of people with light skin want to make their own little white corner of the world. But really, there hasn’t been much of that going down. But let me tell you, what a hell of a culture shock I got. Went from living in a mostly black neighborhood to a place that’s about 90% white. Now don’t think I’m being prejudiced here or anything, cause I’m not. I don’t give a damn what color someone’s skin is. But it’s a little humbling to all of a sudden be living someplace where you feel like the minority you are. Haven’t really had many problems though. And I got lucky and got the best roommate I could’ve asked for. Peter. Man, that guy. He’s unbelievable. I never met anyone before so blind to not only color but anything else that has to do with how someone looks. We’re talking about a guy who is no slouch in the looks department. Hell, he’s got girls volunteering to do things with him left and right since he ended up being hurt this past summer and came back with a broken leg. But he’d as soon sit down and have lunch with a woman that a lotta other men might balk at cause of her looks as he would with a hot woman. He just plain don’t seem to notice. That helped a lot in my getting used to things and fitting in. And he introduced me to this.....interesting bunch of people here. Just recently got involved in their RP, although I’ve roleplayed before. Not online, though. But he finally convinced me to give it a shot and so far I’m enjoying it. Sure am glad that what happened to him over the summer didn’t end up being more permanent. I was home with the folks when it happened, didn’t hear about it until he called me a couple of weeks after he got out of the hospital. I guess he’s probably my best friend now. I sure as hell don’t want to lose another of those. And the situation goes to show that there are people of all colors that’ll get stupid and violent for some really bogus reasons. But knowing these people like I do now, I’m sure that they’ll get the best of the situation. Wish I could do something, maybe I can sometime. Some things gotta be stopped.

In any case, I’m gonna keep plugging my way through school and maybe even get my degree. It’s hard to actually think of leaving someday, I’ve had some of my best times there. I hope I can make it as a writer someday. I started keeping journals and writing poems since the week Jamal was killed. It does help get things out. I wasn’t sure I was ready to write all this and then see it get put up for everyone to see, but here it is. Not my best piece of writing, but not my favorite subject either. So don’t expect a book on it someday, I prefer writing fiction to non-fiction anyway. And with good reason.

Forthwith this frame of mine was wrench’d
With a woful agony,
Which forced me to begin my tale,
And then it set me free.
Since then, at an uncertain hour,
That agony returns;
And till my ghastly tale is told
This heart within me burns.
-Samuel Taylor Coleridge

All the words that I utter,
And all the words that I write,
Must spread out their wings untiring,
And never rest in their flight,
Till they come where your sad, sad heart is,
And sing to you in the night,
Beyond where the waters are moving,
Storm-darken'd or starry bright.
-William Butler Yeats

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