university would give me a degree
for.
When I first went into Alex, I
was drawn by the electricity and the
excitement of it, but more
important, I was accepted there,
more so than I’d been in high
school or anywhere else. When I
first showed up, a couple of people
raised an eyebrow. “Who’s this
colored kid?” But the hood doesn’t
judge. If you want to be there, you
can be there. Because I didn’t live in
the hood I was technically an
outsider in the hood, but for the
first time in my life I didn’t feel like
one.