Greetings! Always a pleasure to share words of wisdom and updates with our faithful Beat readers! What can we say, the work has been non-stop. The writing is flooding in at all hours, from our workshop particpants to the submissions we receive via mail and email. We’re keeping up, but it’s truly a juggle at times. FYI, when we are not working on this one of a kind issue, we are constantly meeting new colleagues and allies, establishing new partnerships and workshop locations, while fund raising and doing our best with the various demands that require our attention to keep The Beat alive, healthy and well. Yes indeed, there are plenty of moving parts to keep us busy and we are grateful to be this one of a kind organization and outlet. Trust us, we certainly hope to not miss a letter, an email, a request, but if we do, please don’t hesitate to circle-back with another reminder letting us know. We always appreciate hearing from you. Thanks! We are very grateful for OT, who plays a significant role in the success of this magazine. We are forever grateful for his work, like this latest editorial note, as he too tackles some of our recent topics addressed in our magazine. Here is the latest from our partner and friend in Nicaragua, OT!
Good morning. Good afternoon or good evening ladies and gentlemen! This is OT reporting live to you from Managua, Nicaragua, the land that quakes and shakes and home of the Grand Lakes. I’m privileged again to address you wonderful people, all you brave souls that expose your truths and experiences so we could all learn from each other. This week, I’m going to touch on various subjects, so bear with me.
Money, money, money, sadly that’s what motivates us all and some more than others and some not as much. Who doesn’t want to have the luxuries of life, and eat when you want to, and do whatever you want to when you want to, without having a care in the world? If you ask me, I would, and don’t lie to me and tell me that you wouldn’t, because you’re only lying to yourself.
You are not lying to me because if you won the lotto today or if someone walked up to you and said, “Hey dude or dudette, do you want these 200 million dollars in this briefcase?” I know that none of you will say NO. I could be wrong and if I’m wrong and there’s a God in the heaven’s may lightning strike me right now. (I let a good thirty minutes pass by before I started writing this again because here in Managua, Nicaragua it’s raining, thundering and lightning is flashing and I haven’t got struck yet.)
God knows I ain’t lying. He knows I’m keeping it real and I’m not here to tell you that I’m REAL, and the realist, I don’t need to do that. One of you young participants this week said it best, “if you are real you don’t go around broadcasting it. Being real will reflect with your actions and deeds,” but that’s besides the point, because when I write and I give my lecture and before any of y’all feel offended, I’m writing this to first criticize myself first.
The toughest judge on OT(my nickname given to me by big D!) Let me repeat this again, the person who appraises ME and criticizes me the most is ME. Yeah, you heard me. I’m not gonna say my haters, even though that might be half true. The person who praises OT the most is OT. I don’t receive praise from no one, I have to praise myself when I feel like I do a good job on something. We’ve all done it, so don’t sit there thinking that I’m crazy.
I came from a household that even when I got an “A” on a test, nobody in my family cared. They told me that the “A” on my test didn’t mean anything unless it was an A on my report card. Mind you this came at a time where I was living with my Aunt, my mom had just divorced my sister’s Dad, and it was me my mom, my sister, my aunt her husband, her two kids, which are my cousins, that I consider brother and sister, two uncles, which were my mom’s two older brothers, and my grandma. That’s ten people in a small two-bedroom apartment, folks. I used to sleep on the floor on a mattress with my Uncle Miguel.
My family emigrated to the USA in 1989, I was four at the time. My country was in a CIVIL war during that time. My family is really old school, and were really old school then and since they come from a third world country they grew up with the mentality that education was everything.
When they told me that the “A” wasn’t good enough. I mean they didn’t know that I spent countless hours studying for that test. They didn’t see or appreciate the hard work I had to put in to get that grade. I’m not gonna lie, at eleven or twelve years old that criticism deflated my confidence and it wasn’t exactly what they said, it was because I WAS proud and felt proud. I knew that it was a math test and that was my weakest subject at the time. I FELT proud because I knew that was a test that I was destined to fail. I put in the work and I was just hoping to pass, but I aced it, which exceeded my expectations!
At the time I was too young to realize that the criticism they gave me was supposed to motivate me to actually ace my class, not just my test. So I’m hitting on a few things here:
I’m not gonna say that was my turning point, but my family even before I started getting into gangs, guns and drugs, they have always been the scolding type. It’s not a bad thing, but what my family failed to realize is that I was too emotionally weak to take that criticism. Family or not I was never supposed to let anyone change my thoughts and opinions about myself or undermine my accomplishments.
I felt proud of my accomplishment, until I was told otherwise. That was my actual feeling. But their comments that I should do better sounded negative to me at the time and honestly I don’t think they were wrong for saying that. I love my family. My family is still by my side here today, years later – from juvenile hall stints, county jail stints and penitentiary stints. And today, my family is still here, not physically by my side because they live in California and I live in Nicaragua, but they are still rooting for me and even though you can classify me as a “screw-up” for getting deported, they are proud of the person that I have become.
I did four years in federal prison and all that time allowed me to think and realize, all that tough talk my family used to give me that I was so sensitive about, finally made sense. I had time to think and realized why my grandma yelled at me and cussed me out, because I was her favorite grandson, she didn’t want me messing up.
I mean think about it ladies and gentlemen. For all of you that speak about your parents or your guardians, because I do read a lot about that, think about how much your parents, your uncle, your grandma and grandpa, and not just your family, it might be somebody from the community, a counselor, or a teacher or a pastor, etc. Think how they feel. How are they suppose to handle it? And what are they supposed to say?
If it were you? How would you talk to someone (your son, your daughter, your nephew niece, or cousin or best friend), how do you address someone you love so much and tell them, “You’re messing up, you’re tripping, or get it together!?”
Now I’m gonna hit on the third topic losing control. How do you tell them while you are trying to keep your emotions in check? Sometimes you don’t and you can’t right? Sometimes you yell, sometimes you cuss and say things you don’t mean, and sometimes you don’t say anything at all ‘cause you don’t know what to say.
Right or wrong? We expect parents, we expect adults or people in authority including cops, judges and lawyers to be perfect and not make mistakes, because let’s face it when you catch a case, the first thing you do is make the aforementioned people your enemy. You talk about how crooked the cops are, how the DA is just trying to get a promotion to go run for political office. Everybody gets criticized by you, because trust me I’ve done it. I’ve sat in the bull pens talking smack about the prosecutors and judges. We fail to realize that behind that uniform, or behind that suit and tie, there is an actual human, a human who also is fighting their own demons and still learning about life.
But when was the last time you EVER openly admitted some of the crooked things YOU did? When was the last time YOU were your own worst critic? Because now that I’m grown I know how to identify where I’m failing and what I can improve on, all on my own. Listen, you can’t be a gangster forever. You can’t be on the run forever. You can’t KEEP missing out on holidays, birthdays. The time ticks forward not backwards, and we are all getting older. At some point you have to value your freedom, and principles and have morals.
As much as we all LOVE money, I don’t think none of you “real ones” would compromise your morals and principles for money. You wouldn’t harm your mom or dad for money. You are not going to abandon your loved ones for money right? That would make you and me a sellout, and since we are already having a hard time identifying what our values are in this world, I challenge you to value the love you have inside of you. Learn to love yourself so you can love others.
Like our Good friend and latest BWO writer Jaguaryeh said, “Wear your values and your principles like a valuable necklace.” It’s your choice how you want to live your life. Being happy is YOUR choice. Being positive is YOUR choice. Realizing what counts the most in life is how you feel about yourself, and spending time with those you love. At this point in life for many of you whether locked up or not, I believe nobody holds control of that except YOU!
One love to everybody going through some type of struggle. Stay positive, stay strong, and stay upbeat. Believe in yourself because I do. One love! And The Beat keeps going and going…