“If I told you that a flower bloomed in a dark room would you trust it?”

Every human carries a story with them, sometimes it’s a dark one, other times it’s a light one. I honestly don’t like to make things about race but it’s very important. Black men have been given a bad rep for YEARS. Either we’re too aggressive, anti-social, disconnected, lack ambition and a whole bunch of other played out adjectives.

Many of us were forced to grow up quicker than a young kid should, made to face the demons of life before we should’ve even known what demons were. Honestly a lot of black males were made to be child soldiers, with their childhood slipping away from them, without even knowing it.

What is it that people in New York say “if you can make it here, you can make it anywhere”. I’m a black man who has grown up in London and I feel that quote on a deeper level. For a lot of us our environment has played a large role in how we’ve developed as men.

If you don’t know, I grew up In South London which certainly wasn’t the easiest thing but I’m thankful for it and wouldn’t change a thing (actually maybe one or two things).

Exams Weren’t the Only Test at School

School was a big test. I don’t know about everyone but my school was a place that really divided the sheep from the wolves. I had real life murderers and gang members in my school, to the point where I’m looking at drill videos or the news and saying “oh yeah I remember him”. A lot of times you would walk around school and say “let me not look at him”, “don’t bump into him”, “don’t step on his shoes” and the funniest “if he asks for a chicken wing give it to him”

How many people of other demographics can say this?

Reputation at school was everything and the best way for boys to gain rep was always at the expense of someone else. Either through bullying, cussing or fighting. This has long standing affects… you either start being a bully which is easy or you unfortunately become the victim.

I can’t lie I was on the receiving end of bullying and as a result of toxic masculinity, many times I almost acted out of character and allowed others to dictate how I should respond to things that I actually didn’t care about. However others would be different and can start becoming the bully and be bad forever, which just feeds the stereotype and shitty narrative of black men even more.

People in my school heavily pushed a narrative that the black boys shouldn’t be smart or well-behaved, all the popular guys were the ones who were bullies and misbehaving so as a black boy what are you going to start wanting to do?

I’m sure in other types of environment things weren’t like that.

What Ends You From?

This is a normal question for most people right? But everyone that grew up in certain areas like me knows what this means or “what phone do you have?” and “come round the corner”.

I’ve been asked this more times than I can count and each time I’ve had to think carefully before I answer as it could’ve been the last time I answered a question again. Having the answer to a simple question be life or death isn’t the lifestyle anyone should have to live. PTSD is real people, it’s not only ex-military that go through this, I can’t walk the street in certain places and tell the truth about where I’m from, when I’m out and about if I get asked where am I from, naturally I get defensive and think “ahh here we go”. Life shouldn’t be this way but we’ve been conditioned by our environment.

This may be stupid but when I would visit friends in different areas and I see kids riding their bikes I see that as such a privilege because where I was from if someone saw you riding a bike they could ask you “ah let me ride it down there then I’ll come back” a lot times some people never saw their bike again.

Question?

How you are as a person has that been impacted more by your parents or where you’ve lived growing up?

You Can Control Your Destiny

From a very young age I developed an individualist mentality meaning I wasn’t someone who did things that others did nor did I do things simply because people around me were doing it. I’ve always tried to live by this ideology “it’s easy to follow a crowd but harder to stand alone”. For me it would’ve been easy to start bullying and fall into bad social habits but my parents drilled into me that the infamous “they” want me to be that typical black man, they want me to not reach my potential and fail in life.

I’m not someone that finds fun in ridicule, abuse or violence… knowledge is what drives me and the endless benefits that knowing things can bring. Growing up in places like where a lot of us have lived positive role models are essential because without them you can start absorbing guidance from the wrong sources and making that your life. A key for me was absorbing information from black males who all grew up in rough environments but rose above it and made themselves great like Jay-Z, Barrack Obama, P. Diddy, LeBron James, Stormzy and Nipsey Hussle.

No matter how others can choose to look at us as black men, we know how great we are and what we’re capable of. We know they’re mad because we’re not in jail, fighting the stereotypes and not going down without a fight. If they thought we would quit then they got us all wrong, they clearly don’t know we have it in our blood!

The number one thing that motivates me to stay on the right path was to prove people wrong about black men and be everything they think we can’t be!