Harlem Story

I wake up at 5:00 AM every morning in my mother's twin size mattress from 1987, covered in cold sweat from the dreams i have nightly of cops killing me & my family. But some nights I'm lucky to get woken out of my sleep from gunshots ringing against the barely standing project building my mother, 2 sisters, 1 brother & I reside in. I rush to the shower, praying I have hot water, and that the neighbors didn't use all of it. I try my best not to fall asleep in the shower, on account of only 3 hours of asleep from the dogs across the street barking endlessly into the ungodly hours of the morning. Harlem is a melting pot of beauty & disaster. Some of the greatest people to ever grace this Earth have walked the sidewalks I run every morning to catch the bus. To think that I am walking across pavement that a young man has looked death in the face and took his last breath over a glare, only to ascend to either the gates of heaven or hell, is beyond me. Harlem has bread poets, philosophers, and revolutionists! It has tested people beyond their limits. It has taken the worst the Earth has to offer & shoved it down 5 year old's throats! It's a jungle, and only the strong survive! The late & great Malcom X once said "Stealing runs rampant in Harlem. Gambling runs rampant in Harlem . All types of evils and vices that tear apart our community run rampant in Harlem." That was years ago & the problems that coat every sidewalk crack, building stoop and dope house haven't been solved . He says the white man brought drugs into Harlem . Well, the black man hasn't done much to stop it from infecting his brothers and sisters. I am so sick of my people, black people, blaming their problems on the white man. Every time a black person shouts those words because they didn't get exactly what they want, that's one more example the white community has against us! One more example of us blacks being lazy, and blaming our problems on the white man. My people are just reinforcing the stereotypes that have been embedded into the fair skinned minds! Most of my brothers and sisters who use that excuse don't even know who the white man is! He is not the white face you see as the manager at Burger King. He is not the president of our nation. He is not the principal of their junior and high schools. He is the oppression, the struggle,the blood, sweat & tears that fell into the plantation fields of Savannah, Georgia. He is the whippings, rape and genocide of a million slaves. He is the light skinned child that was bore from a dark skinned woman from a seed that came out of a white man's penis that was forced into Mother Africa's gift without her consent. He is not racist police officers. He is not what our ancestor's suffered through 400 years for us. He is a mentality. Many people don't agree with some of my views. I believe that the black man in America is looked as less of a person than the next. However, I do not believe that every white man, women, child, person has it in for the black community. I believe that the human race has progressed, and the mentality of the whites has come very far from when it was "kill every shade of black that I see". I believe that they're are still many, many, many white people out there who think like they're ancestors. I believe that they're are many, many, many blacks, and Asians, and Indians, and Hispanics, who have a racist attitude and mentality towards whites, like they're ancestors from one hundred years ago. It would be asinine to say that there are no racist people in the world. Racism is well & alive, and will never go away. No philosopher, no great poet, no revolutionist, no anyone can say anything or do anything that will make me do something I don't want to do. Or think a way I don't want to think. Or talk a way I don't want to talk. Or act. Or dress. Or anything! I am Tyshae Holmes, resident of Harlem, New York and proud! My skin is brown & my hair is kinky! I don't walk with grace, I walk with soul. I am not a lady; I speak how I feel with a fist in the air & a crack in my voice ! I will not sit idly by & let my people go down any further! I won't have it I wlll not let ignorance and racism flood this great Earth! These streets of Harlem are tough. I always have to walk out on my stoop with my game face down & fists clenched. I've seen so many lives taken, so many brothers shook, I won't allow myself to be in a casket by these streets, and I won't be played out as a punk. No way, now how. I see myself going down the wrong path every time I step out of my house. My future is all around me. You got the brothers on the corner sipping liquor & selling dope, proud of themselves. Proud that they're getting more & more addicted. & Then there are those who hate it. They hate selling crack to pregnant women and young boys, introducing them to the never ending game they once didn't know. But they have to. It's their way of surviving. Every move they make is controlled by a green piece of paper with a dead president on it. & then you got the bums on the corner. The crackheads. The prostitutes. All examples of lost souls, the worst of what Harlem can do to one.