He listened to my inspired rap as I went on and on about the wonders of a helping career. I could actually help make a difference in the world! Mr. Shaw looked back at me in disbelief. "You're not college material," he said clearly and deliberately. It felt like my heart stopped . . . frozen in the moment of those icy words.
That evening I broke the news to my parents. Seeing how distraught I was, and how sincere I was in really wanting to go to college, they offered to help. They found a small college that would take me if I could manage to get a C average out of the current semester. It was too late. I had goofed around too much, and even my best efforts
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could not bring up my grade-point average.
My parents were so wonderful and supportive. They found another small college whose financial status would permit anyone to attend. In other words, they would take anyone with a pulse. I felt like such a loser. Mr. Shaw's resounding words came back to me: "You're not college material." And I was beginning to believe it. So much so that I was flunking outeven at this college.
I gave up. I believed Mr. Shaw was right about me. After I left college, I moved home again and starting working part-time jobs. Maybe college wasn't for me. But deep down in my heart I knew that I truly wanted to be a teacher or social worker, and . . . that would require a college degree. No getting around it.
What would I do? I simply had to try again, I had to believe in myself even if no one else did. With all the courage I could muster, I enrolled in a community college nearby and took one course in their night school. I was shocked when I received my grade. I got an A. Maybe it was a mistake or some sort of fluke. I took another course and earned another A. Wow.
I made an appointment to see one of my professors. Things were turning around, and I needed guidance. Dr. Sarah Cohen, my professor in child psychology, told me to relax and enjoy my experience; I was doing very well by all standards. She also said that I was fun, bright and could do anything I put my mind to. Here was an educational expert with a different message. I felt empowered. I was on my way.
I graduated from that community college with honors and went on to earn my B.A. in psychology and my M.A. in psychology from New York University. The very same degree the illustrious Mr. Shaw holds. I felt vindicated.
I realized that choosing who you believe in can change your life. When I believed Mr. Shaw, my life fell apart and
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there was no way I would ever realize my dream. But when I believed in myself and persevered through seemingly insurmountable odds, I encountered more people who inspired and supported me the way Dr. Cohen had.
As Henry Ford once said, "If you think you can, or if you think you can't . . . you're right."
Carol Grace Anderson
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Homeboy Goes to Harvard
As I walked into the building, I heard whispering among them. Hidden behind dark glasses with a red bandanna wrapped around my head, I approached the front of the room. I wore a long, black coat, a blue shirt buttoned to the collar, baggy trousers and black patent leather shoes. I strutted across the stage and bellowed out the words, "How dare you! How dare you look at me as if I am a good-for-nothing low-life doomed to be dead!" I looked around again. Their eyes quickly shifted away as my eyes made contact. It was as if I had a disease.
They were educators who had come to hear a speaker talk about gang prevention and intervention, about the increase of violence in schools. They expected to meet Mr. Richard Santana, a Harvard graduate. Their eyes continued to shift.
"They call me Mr. Chocolate . . . and I'm here to talk to you about life."
I've always known my life was different. My mother died when I was three months old, and my father left before then. I, along with my two older sisters, was moved from foster home to foster home in Fresno, California. My parents were caught in the juvenile-justice system and the
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welfare system. I am a product of the system. I hated it.
I was introduced to gangs, drugs and violence at an early age. My uncle, a tall, strong man covered with tattoos, came into my life after serving a sentence in the state penitentiary. He was part of the largest institutionalized gang in the state of California. My uncle played an instrumental role in teaching me the rules of the barriothe school of survival. This, along with drugs and alcohol, gave me strength to deal with the shortcomings of my life.
I grew up fast, and I developed an inner strength that made the homeboys I ran with gravitate toward me, making me the leader of the gang. My homeboys' trust in my leadership gave me courage and a deep sense of comfort. I held them close. I was prepared to die for them.
I was proud of all this, yet I often wondered, Why can't others outside my gang see the strengths that my homeboys see in me? Lack of acceptance by adults around me fed my resentment. So I grew intolerant of anyone who denigrated or disrespected me.
Funny thing is that even while I was rooted in the street lifethe drugs, the violence, as well as the love and empowerment of being a gangster leaderpart of me was elsewhere. I lucidly saw everything my life was about, as though I were looking at my own life and the lives of those around me from a watchtower high upon a hill. This wasn't a single and sudden moment of lucidity; rather I always had this perspective.
From this watchtower, I saw my homeboys' lives growing shorter each day. Whisper, a talented soccer player who was recruited for the U.S. junior team to compete internationally, gave up his dream when he got his girlfriend pregnant. Menso's ability to take pictures of life with his mind and create beautiful artwork through his hands was lost to his love affair with a syringe. I could name more. Despite how affirmed and familiar I felt with
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the street life, I knew I wanted another way to live.
One day while looking for a job, I dropped by the Chicano Youth Center (CYC), which offered after-school jobs regardless of my affiliation as a gang member. Through CYC, I went to Washington, D.C., for a student-leadership conference and gave a presentation on issues related to gang violence. This marked a turning point in my lifea point when I realized that I could make a positive contribution to society. As a result of this trip to D.C., I was recruited through the Educational Opportunity Program to attend California State University at Fresno.
In college, I learned about my heritage and the sacrifices made by my race. The protest for access to the university and the struggle for equality had a tremendous impact on my perception of life. I grew to appreciate my culture. Yet I was still heavily involved with the violent realities of the streets. I felt split between being a college student and a street thug.
While in my first year in college, I was approached by the campus police and frisked. When I asked why I was being searched, they informed me that they had received a phone call claiming that someone fitting my description had threatened to shoot a professor for not getting an A in the class. When the officers found nothing, I smarted off, "Well, you better get busy 'cause there's this dude looking just like me about to shoot a professor." Naturally, they didn't appreciate my humor.
If they would have checked my student status, they would have found that I was getting straight As. I knew at that moment that I would always be treated differently, dehumanized because of the way I looked. For this reason, I made a commitment to dedicate my work toward breaking down barriers that prevent other homeboys and homegirls just like myself from entering college.
I dress as a gang member, enter a room with an
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audience and speak to them on a variety of educational issues; I then take off a layer of clothing to reveal a shirt and tie. I make many people uncomfortable; I have caused many eyes to shift, many bodies to squirm. But by presenting my life story, I have been able to teach others ways in which they can put aside those biases and prejudices that push youth down.
Richard Santana
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From the Heart of a Blessed Temple
/> Black kids from the projects do not go to college
Nineteen hundred and sixty-five,
Was this really the year to come alive?
I asked my guidance counselor, ''Can I go?''
Her answer was an emphatic "No!
To college black kids do not go!"
I believed her.
She lied.
She said, "Black kids from the projects do not go to college."
So I didn't.
Thirty years later . . .
She'll never know.
To college I finally did go. (Bachelor of Science, Human Resources Management, Master's Degree in Ministerial Biblical Studies, Doctor of Divinity Degree in Life Concentration: Missions)
Why did she lie?
Why did I believe her?
God had a master plan.
That I truly did not understand.
The next time he or she says to you, "No way, man!"
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You tell them for me, and for you . . .
"Yes I can! Yes I can!! Yes I can!!!"
B. T. Thomas
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Second Kind of Mind
Thoughts don't have to be "real" or "true" to create failure or success in our lives. They just have to be believed.
My family members were great conversationalists around the dinner table. Certain subjects came up with regularity. One in particular was that some members of my family, yours truly included, were dumb in math. I always heard my name at the end of the family list of the mathematically impaired. After fourteen years of this, I began to accept it as an indisputable and unchangeable fact.
In high school, I failed algebra three times. Eventually, I passed and was accepted to a college in Wisconsin, where I applied for a psychology degree. One small problem stood between me and my degreestatistics. It was a four-hour lab that had to be taken in my junior year. After hearing all the horror stories circulating about statistics, I mentally went into the fetal position. The panic was overwhelming.
One day I was called into my professor's office. Professor Fine, a short, stout man with thinning hair and a perpetual smile, sat on the front of his desk with his feet dangling over the floor. He read my transcript and held up his hands over his head.
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"My son, this is your lucky day." I looked up. He repeated, "This is indeed your lucky day. This is where all of your tenacity pays off. You're going to be great in stats." He had a huge smile on his face.
"How's that, Doc?" I asked.
He shrugged. "You have the second kind of mind. Listen. First kind of minds are the kids who do well in algebra but don't get stats. They struggle like crazy in stats. It's a different kind of math that takes a different kind of mind. Second kind of mind is like yours." He held up my grades.
"Didn't have a clue about algebra, but you'll probably get an A in stats. Kids who get algebra don't get stats. Kids who don't get algebra understand statistics with no problem. If you failed algebra once, I'd guess you'd get an A or a B in stats. Think about it, son. You flunked three times. You're gonna be a genius." He raised his hands over his head again. Eureka!
"Really?" I asked, confused.
He jumped to the floor and held my face with his free hand and looked me square in the eyes. "Really, and I'm happy for you. You never gave up, and now it's going to pay off."
I was ecstatic with the news. He tossed my transcript on the floor near the trash can, shook my hand and slapped my back with great enthusiasm.
As I left the old ivy-covered brick building and started across the campus, I looked up to the second-floor window. Professor Fine was smiling, holding up two fingers for "second kind of mind." I smiled back and held up three fingers for "flunked three times." This scene was repeated a thousand times until I reached my junior year. Each and every time, there was a smile of approval on his face, a firm and enthusiastic handshake, perhaps an introduction to another professor during which glowing expectations were repeated.
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Eventually, I began to tell my friends how well I expected to do in statistics. This singular change in attitude affected all my grades. With the awareness of my new "second kind of mind," I received the best grades of my life in college. I never believed I would do that well and probably wouldn't have if it had not been for Professor Fine's intercession.
For two years, I looked forward to taking statistics. When the time finally arrived, I did something that I had never done in any other math classfought for a front-row seat. I asked so many questions I was often called a pest. My statistics book was never very far from me that semester. Also, there was little time for friends and hanging out. I set priorities and stuck to them.
Despite what the professor had said, it was hard work and took concentration and an occasional tutor. It paid off. I received one of only a handful of As that year. Shortly after, I ran into one of the professor's former aides, who said, "Congratulations. Professor Fine tells his really slow students that 'second kind of mind' story." And then he looked at me and said, "You'd be surprised how often it works. The mind is amazing, isn't it?"
JeVon Thompson
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Work for Your Supper
My freshman year of college, I worked in the cafeteria. It wasn't my idea; my dad talked me into it. I was attending a small private college, and they had a program that allowed you to eat free if you worked a certain number of hours for the school. My dad caught wind of this and decided it was a wonderful idea. Dad has always been a work-for-your-supper kind of guy.
I balked at the idea. Dad sweetened the deal by telling me that he would send me fifty bucks a month if I agreed to it. Doesn't sound like much now, I know, but then it seemed like a fortune to me.
After the first month, I was ready to renege on the deal. No one had informed me that my duties would include doing enough dishes to fill my dorm room. I didn't know about deep fryers that left you so coated with grease that, no matter how thoroughly you showered later, you were guaranteed at least one really stunning zit. No one told me how bent out of shape the other students got if you forgot they were a vegetarian and gave them a dead animal to eat. They neglected to put a lot of pertinent information in that work-for-your-food flyer.
Without much enthusiasm, I wandered into the school's
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kitchen to fulfill my obligation one Thursday afternoon. I looked at the menu for the meal and groaned. Not just french fries, but the much-loved apple cobbler that was baked in trays that weighed about one hundred pounds. I knew I was going home covered in grease and with arms that felt like limp noodles that day.
I was kind of surprised to see the head cook there. Wasn't her shift.
"Why are you here?" I asked over the clanking of the industrial-sized dishwashers.
"Oh, Esther and Rose are both sick, so I'm filling in. I called my daughter, and she's going to come help out, too."
That made me feel a little better. Cook and her daughter were the most genetically joyous people I'd ever met. Working around them made even doing the dishes fun. Almost.
There was a new guy in the cafeteria. I sized him up. Beautiful. This might not be such a bad night after all. He was tall and lean with coffee skin and the deepest brown almond-shaped eyes. I smiled at him.
"Hey, I'm Arlene," I sad. "Welcome to the greasepit. You have a name?"
He flashed me a brilliant smile but didn't answer. I looked inquiringly at Cook.
"Exchange student," she told me. "From an African country."
Well, this posed a problem. In a flash of noninspiration, I did a Tarzan impression. "Arlene," I said emphatically while thumping myself on the chest. I then pointed at him. He got it.