rjrcin I want to be living in Chicago by the end of June - Jan 29 add/view comments (0)

I'm not currently trying to impress anyone, so I will just lay it all out there.

I am a frustrated, angry, resentful 31-year-old. The reason why is because what was promised to happen for me as an adult as a result of the work I put in as a child has not come to pass. I was made to believe that if I did well in school, got good grades, followed directions, and stayed out of trouble, I would be rewarded for my efforts with a good job and a comfortable life. It is especially frustrating because of the harassment I had to endure as a young person for placing value on scholastic achievement over sports, fighting, wearing the right clothes, listening to the right music, etc. I was told I would get the last laugh because while I was working, the other kids were playing.

I was raised as the only child of a single mother who decided, among other things, that she would emphasize learning in raising me, she would de-emphasize things like sports and fighting. As I got older, around fourth grade, and started getting picked on more, I started realizing how different I was from my classmates. It was then that I wanted to be around kids like me who cared about school and listened to the teacher. My mother must not have known that you basically can't send a boy who wants to do well to school in the ghetto and expect everything to turn out fine. She didn't prepare me for how I would get treated for being myself, so I was blindsided when I basically found out that I was one of the only students at my school who cared about school. I realize there was no internet back then, and I realize that we didn't have a lot of money, but I wish she had done a better job of finding a school where the other kids got good grades too, and weren't going around acting up, so that I wouldn't stick out like a sore thumb and would have had a better chance of making friends. Instead, she sent me to the elementary school she went to in the neighborhood she grew up in. When I would ask her if I could go to another school, she said I had to wait until 7th grade, since the school I was at went up to 6th grade. She put all her eggs in the Walnut Hills basket. My guess is that she was assuming that everything would work itself out once I got to that school.

I basically found out when I got there that the psychological damage had been done. I had basically started getting what I now know is called social anxiety, the fear of being embarrassed in public, which makes sense since I had been laughed at for practically every school day for 3 straight years. It didn't help that I went into Walnut Hills thinking everyone there was going to be smart and well-behaved, only to find out that there were kids there who were just like the ones I thought I was leaving behind, and it seemed like I was always coming into contact with those kids instead of the ones I was hoping to meet when I got there. Not that it made a difference when I finally did meet people I thought I could relate to. Basically after spending so much time trying to stay to myself and hoping I would get left alone, once I was finally around people I actually wanted to talk to, I didn't know how.

I learned in my early adulthood that all of this matters because the way most people get jobs is by networking, through who they know. I am still trying to figure out how to predict the way people will react to my verbal and nonverbal self-presentation. I am still figuring out how to get to know professional people and move and interact in that environment so that I can get to know the "right" people so that I can network my way to a good job, since applying online is not getting me anywhere. I am basically finding out too late that you don't have to be smart to get into college or get a good job. Most of the people I was classmates with in college didn't seem that bright, and most jobs aren't that hard, and getting them doesn't have anything to do with getting good grades, it has everything to do with being in the right place at the right time, and being able to blow smoke up the interviewer's %#&@$!.

What sucks is that everything else in my life was not that bad. I wasn't abused or molested by adults, I have never been a victim of violent crime, I have never been a victim of police brutality, but I am basically still where I started even though I am a college graduate because of the fear of other people that started in elementary school.

It is too late for me but hopefully it is easier to be smart in the ghetto now than it was when I was a kid, especially if their parents can't afford to put them in a good school or move out of the neighborhood. It's kind of twisted when you catch hell from your own people for doing what grown-ups tell you is the right thing to do. I hope that single women in the ghetto who are raising boys and are teaching their sons how not to act like thugs are at least preparing them for having to deal with thugs so that they won't be surprised like I was.