Don’t believe the hype!
by Demond A. Jackson
Hey… Young World, I know your tired of your parents and school teachers always running up on you with the “Do the right thing” speech, drilling in your head that education is the key and the only place crime will lead you is either in prison or a early grave. Yet the media is showing you example of people who look like you, think like you, who wants and likes the same things as you. Living the life of luxury and the majority of these people aren’t college graduates. Kim Kardashian, Little Wayne and Jay Z made something out of nothing. If they can do it why can’t you?
If your growing up in the concrete jungle were drugs and gang affiliation is the norm… all one has to do is watch the block for a while and you’ll see your local hood star, rolling down the street on 22′, beat pounding, having all the things a ghetto child could desire…”Money, Power and Respect.” If he or she can do it why can’t you?
Let’s not forget about the “Urban Robinhood”, who steals from the weak and prey’s on the poor. He’s a gangster and as long as there’s a buster on the block he will never go hungry. Surely your not scared… so if he can do it why can’t you?
There’s nothing new under the sun and the reality is… you can do anything any one else can do, but do you really want to deal with the truth that comes along with these individuals live’s? Kim, Wayne and Jay-Z lives’ are the equivalent of playing a Lotto ticket, and chances are a million to one that you will acquire success in the same manner they did.
While you pay top dollar to hear and view their live’s from the comfort of your home… best believe the price they have paid and all they have sacrificed to stay where they are… is more than a headache. If they told you the real about their circumstances, chances are they would say “I’m not sure all the success in the world is worth the problem that come with it.” Is money and fame worth finding out your friends aren’t your friends, your mistakes come with the world judging you and privacy is no longer a luxury?
Trust me I’ve lived the ghetto fabulous life of a hoodstar. I’ve had money to burn, owned my own record label, had the power and respect. Yet the wins never out weighed the losses. I’ve spent more years in prison then I have in the free world, all the friends I had when I was home are no longer around, the same people who respected me dishonored me and all the money in the world can’t buy me freedom.
Is money, power and respect worth spending the rest of your life in prison? Is it worth forgetting what it feels like to hug your Momma, kiss the one you love and spend time with your family? Is doing the things rappers rap about worth wondering if you have to kill or be killed everyday, looking over your shoulder and wondering if karma is coming back to bite you in the ass!
Young World “Don’t believe the hype!!!” The bottle poppers, and hood money getters are just a number when the cops come knocking… The man you once knew most likely is a shell of the man he was on the streets behind these walls. His hair most likely has fallen out he’s constantly stressing about his girl, his kids and all the people who use to be his friends.
Don’t believe the hype the hood Don you want to be like, is paying a prison Parana rent to keep some of his commissary, Your gangster ass boyfriend now has a boyfriend…. The good life isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be. Therefore I want you to know Young world… Don’t believe the hype. Because freedom and peace of mind is a commodity to the hood dude in prison that’s worth way more than gold. So listen to your family and the people in the world who telling you to do right… and Don’t believe the hype!!!!
I'm the son of an African American queen, born and raised in Los Angeles California, where I was groomed in its infectious gang culture. For the past decade and half, the federal Bureau of Prison has been a institution of self-education, self-evaluation and the reason I now possess knowledge of self. That being so, I now strive to expose the solution to the problems that our plaguing our communities, America's youth and this country as a whole. There's a saying: "There's nothing new up under the sun." Simply put, if there's one thing in this universe existence, that has seen all thing that mankind has done or not done, it is the sun. That means the moral dissension that taking place currently is nothing new. Historian have written about times where the moral fabric of a nation was so tattered where the only solution for change was war a destruction. This country was built and establish to be the nation it is today. By the disenfranchised, those who were being oppressed by the Queen and her fellow Aristocrats. Therefore if this country is to change once again for the better. It will begin and must begin with the actions and the voice of the disenfranchised i.e, America's minorities, poor and it's third class citizen the American Ex-felon. That being said I'm committed to "WRITING MY WRONGS..." and sewing seed of knowledge and truth that will blossom into peace, prosperity and positive change
Writing Contact:
DEMOND JACKSON #05934-088
FCI Victorville Medium II
FEDERAL CORRECTIONAL INSTITUTION
PO BOX 3850
ADELANTO, CA 92301