Success or Failure, It's 50/50 Right?

Growing up in Buffalo, NY, with my mother, God rest her soul, and my six other brothers and sisters were hard. I mean, we had a hard life. We grow up poor with lights and heat being shut off at different times throughout the years, sometimes without adequate food to ensure we were always fed and filled, and the food we ate most of the time was nowhere near healthy. To top that off, my beautiful mother, whom I miss so much, had a substance abuse problem that further worsens my (our) childhoods successful outlook while growing up. Later, my mother did get off drugs, changed her life, and found the Lord. But, we already had been shaped by our home, life, and ecological environment. Our environment as children growing up in the ghetto/hood (whatever you want to call it) already impacted our lives in different ways. The consequences of what we learned from adults around us, the environment we adapted to for survival, and the hardships we had to endure and overcome had already marked us. Because of that childhood, my brothers, sisters, and I were already labeled, and expectations for us were already low. What would and could shape us later, would be now only be defined by how strong our grit, determination, and mentality was to overcome the adversity we had faced. I believe one of the things that we all had growing up despite all the hardship, as we always felt loved. My grandmother was the cornerstone of that love, without it, who knows where seven of my mother kids would have grown-up to do or be.

For me, as the eldest son and firstborn of seven, I obviously had the opportunity to see, remember, and share aspects of life from what I understood at the time things occurred. And, one thing I never recalled my mother or father talking to me about while growing up was college, universities, or further education. I mean there may have been times that such conversations were had with other siblings I didn't know about, which could have happened, but I highly doubt it. I do recall my mother being big on grades and school for my two sisters, but she never had the same expectation for school with me as she did with them. I do remember having to take care of my younger brothers and sisters when my mother would be gone for days. I do remember failing 3rd and 4th grade, one grade due to attendance issues, and the other due to lack of understanding the material I was being taught; failing both grades came back to bite me in the butt later in life when my father dropped me from high school in the 9th grade. During that time, I was 16 years old, I was supposed to be in the 11th grade, but due to those previous grades failed, I was behind, and there I was, a high school drop-out (not my choice), but now in Job Corps in New York State (Job Corps, is a facility that young adults attend to obtain their GED and learn a trade so that they can become a productive member of society. Many of the young men and women there are high school drop-outs and come from very impoverished and difficult lives) trying to figure out how to survive and start a life, yes at 16 years old! I don’t want to get too far off course here, but what I’m getting too as a whole, as you could probably understand by now was life could either go good or bad for me at this point, literally, it could have gone 50/50.

The reason I discussed education and school earlier in this post is that I lacked both growing-up. I didn't learn about college or getting a degree and how it could be leveraged to help me in building a better life. Don't get it twisted, school is not the answer for every single person out there, but let's not fool ourselves and act like college isn't a good thing. Without being too academic mode here, there is statistical research that proves that attaining a degree is the best and safest way to mitigate falling into poverty in one's lifetime. This means, by obtaining a degree, you reduce the chances of growing up in poverty. Additionally, you increase the chances of creating generational wealth for you and your family. Anyway, as I shared earlier, I did not learn about any of this, because my mother didn't learn about it, and my grandmother possibly did not teach her about it, the same goes for my father's side of the family. When this happens, a cycle can start, which is brought down from generation to generation. Yes, there may be an exception(s), here and there a family member breaks the cycle, gets a degree, and makes a better life for themselves. Even so, those numbers especially for black families need to increase dramatically and change from the exception to the expectation.

By now, you may be asking yourself what the hell is this guy getting too.

What I am getting at, is the fact that life is hard and education is a tool to be leveraged for all to break the cycle of poverty. For me, I did not get the lessons learned about the importance of education. Instead, I was told, ‘Lorenzo, if you work at McDonald’s you could become a manager one day, you just got to put your time in,’ that was the expectation for me growing up especially as a young black male. When I was dropped from high school, told I was going to Job Corps, and it was time for me to be a man, at 16 years old, somehow, God had his hand on me and I survived and literally went from being a teenager to a MAN in weeks in order to survive. After getting to Job Corps, I heard about college, universities, and further education. Was I scared when one of the counselors in Job Corp first mentioned college to me? Damn right I was scared, I haven’t learned about this in the streets of Buffalo or when living with my mother or father. I learned about this from people who have already done it, already went to college and was sharing what they know. My first instant when hearing all this college stuff was to stay, “man, that college Sh@t ain’t for me.” The counselor at Job Corps asked me why college wasn’t for me, and I said, “I ain’t smart like that, I ain’t smart like you.” Think about the power of the words I just used and spoke to this white Job Corps counselor who was talking to me about college- I already gave up on myself and sounded defeated. The truth was, I was never sat down and spoken to about college as an option, but I was told about being an athlete and I tried and thought (in my own mind) I could be a rapper; the two images that I grew up seeing and learning about as the definition for black success in America.

As our conversation continued, I wondered why I thought I wasn’t smart enough, was it because teachers told me that before or I barely had the chance to see black college-educated people where I was from. I mean, the only black success I was used to seeing was TLC singing 'Waterfalls," DMX, or Lil Wayne rapping about money and girls, or seeing us on the hit TV show Cops running from the police, as I yelled in the excitement in support of the black guy running and jumping fences away from them (I was young). When I finally realized that I could go to college, that I can get a degree, that I can be something else, and still be successful outside of being an athlete or rapper, I shut my mouth and asked the counselor to tell me how I can get into college. Although there is much in between this story and how I actually was finally accepted into college, I want those who this may be their first blog of mine being read to know, I currently hold a Bachelor's degree in Homeland Security, a Master Degree in Public Administration, and I am currently a Ph.D. Candidate for my Doctoral degree in Public Policy & Administration with emphasis on Terrorism, Mediation, and Peace. I say this as a tool for hope and motivation for those who may have a story similar to or worse than my own. Again, this shoe does not fit everyone, and there is a slew of other deeper issues we didn't discuss that play a role into whether an individual has the mentality to do some of the things I shared in this post, but still, if we really think about it, I’m sure this shoe fits a lot more people than would like to admit.

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