When I was in the sixth grade, I went to the public school in this neighborhood. I remember walking home with my classmates, having conversations similar to the one beneath my window. “Did you hear about Lisa’s baby? Is she gonna stay in school?” We didn’t always talk about kids we knew; rumors about friends of friends traveled through our group like rushing water.
By 11th grade, I had passed through several local school systems more affluent than West Oakland’s as part of my parents’ attempt to get me the best education possible. Getting older and hanging out with a new crowd gave me a different perspective than the one I’d had as a sixth grader. Kids’ getting shot was no longer some drama from which I could detach myself, or a joke to be shared with friends over sunflower seeds and Icees. It was real–hard deaths and stone poverty in my own community.
In five years, my block had changed. The boys from grade school were now men standing on the corner. Their eyes had grown increasingly red, their speech dense, their expressions more vacant. The forty-something women, mothers of girls my age, had become old and tired–secondhand mamas to their children’s children.
Closest to my heart were the neighborhood girls who looked like they’d lost hope of ever knowing a better life. Girls I’d gone to school with at the age of 11 had become women at 15. Their stomachs sagged, their hands were full with diaper bags or money to push into the palms of the men on the corner. These were girls who walked like me; some even talked like me. But it was never me. I had things to do. I was on my way somewhere.
Dance class, gymnastics and writing workshops were some of the activities that kept me busy. I looked at the other girls on my street and saw that they were just as smart, pretty and capable as I was. I knew that the fundamental difference between us was that I’d been nurtured to expect only the best of life.
Unlike them, I never worried about whether my parents would make rent each month. I didn’t wonder if I’d have to sell my flesh to feed my baby. I knew that the lights would be on when I sat down to write. Though money was, and still is, tight in my family, it’s not my sole responsibility to make sense of it. I don’t worry. Instead, I go to lectures at the University of California, Berkeley, or positive hip-hop concerts or workshops on body image and self-esteem.
Teachers, friends and family members have conspired to make sure that I know my potential. They have instilled in me a passion for living. Around here, the very fact that I recognize that I am special makes me special.
And I hate it. I shouldn’t be unique. There shouldn’t be a select few students who get to pursue happiness. West Oakland sits in the center of one of the most artistically and culturally diverse regions in the world, the San Francisco Bay Area. The neighborhood itself is teeming with history, art and music. What if the kids I saw walking home from school were encouraged to go and listen to bell hooks speak? What if a teacher or parent pressed a Toni Morrison book into their hands? What if they had a safe space to write? They’d thrive.
The junior-high kids don’t have the world at their fingertips simply because they’ve been taught, by circumstance, not to reach for it. As one of the fortunate few, I often feel like I don’t deserve the joy of success. I wonder what my accomplishments mean when so many of my peers aren’t achieving.
So that Friday, as I rushed to get out of the house, I couldn’t help but stop and watch the kids in the street. One of the girls in the group looked a little like me. I’d seen her passing by before, but I had always averted my eyes. I can’t stand the sight of a girl who doesn’t know her own worth. But on this day I saw her, really saw her. I know her story, because it could have been mine. On that average afternoon, I decided to write–for her, for myself and for the hope of change.
