by Marquees Johnson
I remember sitting in San Francisco’s juvenile hall attending the Omega meetings listening to Jack throw knowledge into our minds I remember him telling us that only one or two of us would actually understand and take heed to the message and the others would learn and understand the message the hard way. At that time, I just knew that I was one of the two that was going to get the message that night.
Unfortunately, 14 15 years later I now understand that I had to learn the hard way. I’m now 28 old sitting inside a prison again! I didn’t take heed to the warnings and messages I was receiving when I was 14 and 15 years old and because of that I’m still going through the same downfalls, just in a bigger and older form. I went from juvenile hall cells to shady penitentiary cells, from YGC (juvenile) to CDC (prison), from the judge who gave me six or eight months to the judge who gave me 6 or 8 years.
I used to think being with the shhh was the thing to do. All of my friends and family was in that lifestyle so why not? I didn’t want to be some little nerd-ass ninja. I wanted to be like my big cousin’s, my big homies and whoever the most respected was.
Now fast-forwarding time, all those people I looked up to did one of three things. They either received football numbers or life sentences, got killed in the same streets they praised so much, or got lucky enough to change their life and move away. The question now though which one will be your outcome?