Dear Young "Real Nigga"

Dear young "real nigga"

I see you "thugging" now. I however remember when you wore light up cartoon shoes, but I guess you had to grow up.

When I look at you, at age 16, I see a spitting image of me. We are both from the hood, but at this point we are still not from the hood. Due to the circumstances of us being at the poverty line, having a single mother, and having no direction where we want our life to begin, let alone end, society has given us stereotypical right to be criminals; absent fathers, single black mothers, and many circumstances that trouble our environments.

Being a teenager that has no idea what he wants to do in life, but is surrounded by people either dying or going to jail is the welcome gate to hell. I understand blacks are always in competition with each other about something, no ones wants to be "dusty." I can't lie 5.25 (minimum wage was 5.15 when I was 17) couldn't put Jordans on my feet. I don't want you to be a man who sells his soul or compromises what is right over a pair of sneakers. Their was a point in my reality where I thought either you did drugs or sold them.

My uncles told me about a time where the hood was just financially poor, but now our mental mind frames are in poor states. I'm not hear to force you to be something, I just want you to understand that your options do include gang banging and/or drug dealing, I just don't want you to be ignorant to the fact that college is an option, trade school, hell even an average job is possible. I understand "hoes" come when your chasing dollars. These other "real niggaz" are only selling you a dream, yea they are sexing many chicks, but do you honestly think they settle down. No, like one of my uncles, they grow to be men with matching shirt/short fits, a backwards hat talking about what they used to do and the hoes they used to screw. You should want more than that. Find someone you can marry. If you feel having a slew of hoes promotes masculinity then you are just another male that's plain clueless. As a man you will know that pussy is pussy, and you should never fall in love with it, but fall in love with the intangibles that she possesses. How much pussy you obtained doesn't make you real, being real comes from your mind frame.

Being real means consistently standing up for what you believe in, instead of what's popular. Being a criminal just gives police a reason to arrest you, and judges merit to sentence you. But being a man who stands up for what his right but using intellect and intelligence makes you dangerous to the opposition. Not only are you bringing attention to issues, but you are probably motivating others to open their blind eyes to see what's really going on.

You need to realize our people, I'm talking before the transatlantic slave trade were kings and queens and we were raped of our heritage and force to to conform to what whites wanted. Our men were beaten, and forced to work miserable lives. If you won't do it for yourself st least do it for those men whose freedom was suspended, because that slave blood is running through you. You owe to those ancestors to make something your self than just another number in a prison or another dead man that a preacher has to lie about at a funeral.

I'm not preaching to you like I'm a saint because it took me to the age of 20 before I knew better, but its my moral obligation to motivate you to do better because besides the money, women, attention thugging isn't you, "you know you don't want to be involved With the underworld dealers, carriers and mac-miller's
East-coast bodiers, west-coast cap peelers
Little monkey niggas turn gorilla's"

So how about you calm down, yea you'll lose a lot of women, the quantity will fall, but the quality will make up for it. Money won't come as quickly, but the efficiency it comes in will make up for it. Most important the respect you will receive will last for generations. Remember it's cool to be smart because at the end of the day thugs don't retire well.