(1/12) “There wasn’t no plan really. I’m walking down the street with my best frie
(1/12) “There wasn’t no plan really. I’m walking down the street with my best friend Koreh, and we see this house. And Koreh’s like: ‘Yo. Let’s break in.’ And I’m a stupid eighth grader, so I agreed. We climbed in a window and started grabbing whatever we could. The police were waiting for us when we came out. It wasn’t like the movies. They were respectful, but it was a lot of pressure. They put us in two different rooms. They’re like: ‘Koreh is telling us everything.’ My grandmother shows up, and she’s like: ‘Tell them what they want to hear.’ I didn’t know what to do. But eventually the detectives come in, and they’re like: ‘You can go. Your friend said you didn’t do nothing.’ Koreh got sent upstate to juvenile detention, and I went off to high school. Frederick Douglas Academy was known as the school you wanted to go to if you were a black boy. It was on 148th Street in Harlem, and it was run by this legendary principal named Dr. Hodge. On the first day of class he sat me down in his office, and said: ‘I know about your friend Koreh. And I know you’ve been in the system. So I want you to choose an after-school activity, and I’m going to follow you around until you do.’ For the first few weeks I just wandered the halls. The only choices were things like robotics, or math club. All of it looked boring to me. But I kept running into Dr. Hodge, and he’d be like: ‘You gotta choose something.’ So one day I wandered into the debate room, and sat down in the back. The coach was this white lady, at least she was a lady at that time. Her name was Ms. DiColandrea, but everyone called her Ms. DiCo. She was very young. She still looked like a kid. But every time she opened her mouth, it was power. She kept asking these deep questions, like: ‘What is a good person?’ I started coming back day after day, but I never participated. I just sat in the back and listened. But one day they were discussing drug addiction, which is a topic I know a lot about. So I stood up and shared my story. Afterward Ms. DiCo asked me to stay behind. Mainly she just wanted to make sure I was OK. She was like: ‘Do you need anything?’ But after that, she was like: ‘You should join debate.’” -- source link
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