I’ll never forget sitting next to my first girlfriend during vacation Bible school where a boy clearly from the inner city dared to put his foot on her chair... and kept it there.
Her eyes glanced at me with the words “... you're going to do something right?” written all over them.
Indeed I was. It was an obvious micro-aggression, as he had been staring at her ever since we sat down. I noticed and being petty, decided to share as much PDA as possible, within the super sanctified setting we were in. Keeping that same energy, I moved her and her chair, so that his legs would no longer reach it. He countered this by moving his chair up and began tapping his foot on her chair to raise the stakes.
“He must think I’m scared of him because he's hood,” I thought to myself.
At 15 years old, I hadn't encountered a time or place to punch someone, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t prepared to... or afraid to. As we eyed each other while everyone was supposed to be praying, he said something that caught me off guard.
“You’re not better than me.”
Fast forward to college. I’m seriously bougie and everyone knows it. My friends and I were known for going to the ratchetest clubs in the most ratchet parts of town, flashing our refund checks around local girls who knew our tuition was way out of their ex-boyfriend's budget. If my actions didn’t say it, I had no problem letting the words "this is what net-worth looks like" flow from my mouth. I sold the dream of status and most importantly a future quite freely, and any girl who didn't want that was simply too dumb to appreciate it.
The only thing was, some very gorgeous and very smart women were very much unimpressed with suburban stability and access. In fact, it wasn’t uncommon for some of the most astute and most attractive women in our class to be seen getting cozy with some of the most notorious in the city. Am I saying that women are the reason why so many men are trying so hard to develop mob ties? I wouldn’t go that far, but their presence often exposes moments where men feel the need to define their masculinity and unfortunately showcase their immaturity.
From a very young age, my father made it a point to let me know there was no point in pretending to be where he was from because he left there for a reason. However, I didn’t realize until much later that I subtly thought I was better than those who came from modest means. It wasn't long before I was hit with a sobering reality. There were colleagues from debilitatingly discouraging backgrounds that were in the very same classes, the very same organizations, but got better grades, better jobs, and eventually higher incomes than me. I had every leg up a suburban black kid could have, yet I personally knew some with dramatically less thriving on a whole other level than I was.
Was I soft? Had my two parents, two-story house, and goodie-goodie two-shoes education coddled me all my life? If I was born in the projects in a single-parent home in a low-performing school would I be strong enough to get where they got or even where I am today?
I don't know... I hope so.
These are hard questions to grapple with as a man when a large part of your self-confidence is rooted in your abilities, accomplishments, and positioning compared to other men. Though I never wanted to "be hood" I listened to Thug Motivation 101 almost religiously, relating it to my world, where the bad cops were still the bad cops (trying to kill me) but instead of cooking coca-ina, to get by I was “hustling” in class or finessing at part-time jobs. On everything I love, I knew and still know every word to Trap Star, but a new sense of lameness and fraudulence surfaced when I found myself parroting the lyrics around people who’ve actually lived through similar tales. That was the moment when I felt what some wypipo people experience when their obliviousness to the ignorance that they perpetuate is understood for the first time. I was embarrassed, but I honestly didn't know who to say I'm sorry to. Even worse, I didn't know what the alternative was or how to proceed.
As a black man, the vast majority of rich black men that I saw in the media were either from the hood, pretended like they were from the hood, or continually associated themselves with prominent hood leaders. Even if I looked at my dad, he had street smarts that I would never get, and my mom definitely chose him over the suburban boys she grew up with. Nothing says success like getting it from the mud, but when you get it from the curb or the silver spoon that success just hits differently, especially in successful hood company. That's why so many do the ut-most to come off a little... gully.
I would love to say it's not a competition, but for men, few things in life aren't, so I will say be a congratulator (not a hater) instead. That's all you can do. When you're focused on that and doing the best with what you've been given, you won't feel uncomfortable around someone more or less street than you. I know plenty who've been dealt with better and worse, but there's no sense in being insecure about it either way. Some go to the other extreme with elaborate campaigns apologizing for the advantages they have when they really could use that effort to help others. Many times all that bowing and scraping only adds insult to injury because it's actually patronizing.
I still cringe when I think back at the way I acted, but I'm happy that I've been allowed to build bridges since then. I can only hope that younger generations recognize the stupidity in allowing social status to create rifts between us when our experiences and talents can impact so much more together.