The Chip On My Shoulder...

So...anyone that knows me, knows that I've pretty much gone through my life with a serious chip on my shoulder.

I've always felt like I had to be smarter, stronger, and tougher than the next man. I always tried to be simply more...

There have been times that I've felt that it was Me Against the World...

I'm sure this isn't unusual for a lot of men like me...but I came to the conclusion that I was simply confused as to the way certain things work...

I never understood how I could be smarter than certain people around me, more hard working than certain cats around me and somehow I end up on the wrong end of a success story.

Its weird...

I'm not sure exactly where I fit in with the rest of the world most of the time.

I'll explain that after the break...













So...I didn't grow up with the whole silver spoon and big house bit...

I didn't grow up dirt poor either. My parents made enough money for me to have what I needed and some of what I wanted.

I always went to school with white people. From elementary school on up. I was always told by my parents that I had to be better than average at everything I do. So I let that permeate every aspect of my life. I'm somewhat of a perfectionist at things. (Except schoolwork...that wasn't really my focus. LOL)

I would take a 30 minute car ride or bus ride to these nice protected, primarily white environments and be in a sheltered, almost myopic, learning environment then go back home to sirens, arguments, and gunshots through the night. I loved it though...it felt like home. It was home.

All the way up until high school, I was a stone's throw from dope boys, robbers, and fiends...the citizens of a subterranean city of abject poverty and Reaganomics.

As a byproduct of such a life...I always had a little fight in me.

Throughout high school and some of college, I was always in beef. I found myself in fights that weren't mine and only a few that were...

Even to this day, I'm always looking for the next battle...the next war...

I guess that's why being in the Army comes so easy to me...I was a soldier before hand anyway.

I've always been confrontational to a degree I guess...

The way I came up was like the best of both worlds but it put me in a strange situation...

Like Phonte says in the song, "Black folk saying that I'm too intelligent/and white folks sayin' I'm a little too niggerish/it got me in a strange predicament..."

It really is tough...

I guess its all taught me that I have to make my own way...

More after the break...














I'm not saying that things haven't been easier for me than they have my parents...

I'm also not saying that the bulk of the issues I've had have come from my skin tone...

What I AM saying is that I can no longer afford to sit back and expect someone to tell the stories I want to tell and put me in the position I want to be in...

I've been busting my ass for YEARS now. DAMN NEAR a decade trying to be a better writer...a better journalist...

I've had more doors slammed in my face than I care to remember...

Been on more job interviews than I can remember where I've been told, "You're an excellent writer...but we want someone with more structured experience"

I'm tired of people looking at my resume and seeing my collegiate activism as a negative as opposed to a positive...

Its like people hear that my minor was African American Studies and automatically get nervous.

NO! I AM NOT GOING TO SET YOUR PLACE ON FIRE WHILE WEARING A T-SHIRT THAT SAYS "DEATH TO THE ESTABLISHMENT" WHILE SINGING "BURN BABY BURN"

I just want to be free to tell the stories that matter...for people who can't do it otherwise...

Is that wrong?

I know now that the chip on my shoulder is there for a reason...Its there to make me bold enough to step out on faith and just go...

Well, here goes nothing...

I'll be sure to bring y'all along for the ride...

Y'all take it easy now...

-Bleek G.