Hey guys and gals, Its Malic. You’ve seen me around before, here and there on South St., Rittenhouse and UCity. I was the guy usually standing across the street shaking his head and mumbling “these dumb ass niggas”. I heard all about Mayor Nutter’s 9:30 weekend curfews…sucks. Growing up that was something I never had to worry about. The thing that sucks even more is that Nutter thinks thats what is going to keep you guys from doing shit like that, nah that just adds fuel to the fire. See he cant understand the driving forces behind the anarchy and violence. I do though, Im not that much older than all of you, I was doing shit like that by myself when ya’ll were just causing trouble in middle school. I understand completely though, I know they aren’t teaching you anything practical in school. I know they dont bother keeping your minds and imaginations captivated long enough to teach you more than your abc’s and some algebra problems. Fuck math. Then when you’re one of those artistic kids who spends most of his time doodling masterpieces in class, they tell you that the art you do is good but it will never make you enough money, so stick with cramming useless dates, facts, and numbers in your head. Quick! Whats the square root of 121?!?! Took too long bro! Fuck it just smoke that blunt and try again later.
Maybe you can get a job at McBurger’s making minimum wage, selling fry combo’s to people who make more money than you ever will at that shitty place. It’ll keep some cash in your pocket long enough to move out of mom’s house. But nah you got greedy and started skimming off the top of the register, now you got fired. Fuck that job…you hated that place anyway. But there’s always selling weed…oh that magical hustle! You saved up enough to get yourself a couple ounces to start off with. Business is going good, mostly because most of your customers are part of the same counter culture you belong to…Generation X. But there’s some squares in your circle and one of them niggas ratted so now you’re sitting in a cell in holding for POID charge, that’s Possesion with Intent to Distribute, an M-1 case that could turn into a felony offense depending on how you play your cards. The judge gave you 6 months probation and your only 16….shame? No. Your homies look at this like a merit badge for the streets, now your cool and you got street cred for that. So you and your homies decide to celebrate by getting a little drunk and going down South st. to see what the night has to offer. You run into a group of other niggas one of em’ was the dude who ratted on you in the first place, Its alway one of your crew to notice him too. He asks you what your gonna do about that, another one in the group says “If I were you, I’d fuck him up for snitching”…but he’s not you and deep down inside you’re afraid to do anything, but deeper down inside you are scared to disappoint your homies. After all they look up to you.
So you hit him, a simple fist fight turns into a riot because everybody called somebody else to join the chaos. Then the police who happen to be stationed on the same block as the free-for-all get involved. So you escaped trouble this time, one of your homies get booked and It’s 3 in the morning. You make it home and get in the bed to find that same empty feeling you always feel right before you fall asleep. I’m not saying I know it all, but at least some of what I described reaches out to a few peoples lives and thats all I want to do. Let me give you some advice coming from another brotha in the same struggle: The world is fucked up as it is, what does adding to the chaos do besides make it worse for those of us who choose not to? I suggest you take all that anger and turn it into passion. Instead of being angry about frivolous things, get angry about your school funding getting cut! Get angry about the shit teachers they find from God knows where! Get angry about the shit food they feed you at the cafeterias. Get angry about Politics in your city, the politics in your state, The fucking assbackwards politics in your country. Get angry and make a change, thats my definition of passion.
I suggest you all make a change and make a difference before its too late. Its only gonna get worse out here, so learn how to survive through the struggle. Adaptation is key, and knowledge is power. Nuff said.
Respect,
-Malic
