True Blue

By Christopher M. Spence

All his life Reggie had wanted people to look up to him. At last they had a legitimate reason. Now when he walks down the street, past the supermarket he robbed more than once and the ice cream stand where he worked until he was caught stealing, people stop to shake his hand and slap him on the back and wish him well.
Those passing in cars recognize him and honk their horns or wave to him out their windows. He is a symbol even amidst all that squalor. He made it, he's a success.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Jan 27, 2020
• ISBN: 9781532094149

Christopher M. Spence

Christopher M Spence is a renowned educator and dedicated community advocate. His leadership role in working with the broader educational community to manage issues, develop policy and promote causes that benefit youth and achieve measurable results has been widely recognized. The success of these initiatives were featured in a documentary about his life, "Person to Person" and in several articles including an article in Reader's Digest entitled "Man on a Mission." He is an articulate, knowledgeable and inspirational speaker and is a passionate champion of public outreach, and the important role education plays in the development of individuals and the prosperity of the nation. He is the author of several books the most recent include SnowBall Brothers4Life, Ice Cold and The Adventures of Bobby Allen. He has devoted his career to advancing innovation in education, providing national and international leadership through invited lectures and participation on national and international roundtable discussions. Throughout his career, Spence has been dedicated to improving the student experience, creating links to the community, and supporting innovation.He has won many awards for his outstanding contributions to education and the community, including outstanding alumni award from Simon Fraser University, Educational Leader of the Year, Niagara University’s College of Education, Phi Delta Kappa Outstanding Educator Award, a John C Holland Award for Professional Achievement, a Harry Jerome Award, a Dare Arts Award and a Harmony Leadership in Education Award. He also has several film credits to his name: "No J", Teammates, SkinGames, Football's Pioneering Duo, Silence the Violence, Making Waves, She Said: Silence the Violence and Jail or Yale: Young, Black and Out of Options?

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

42586.jpg

T he street corner of 52 nd Street and Howard Street was at the heart of the hood I grew up in. Like every other pair of streets in that slum, the concrete was dirty and stained, and the cracked walls were decorated with layer upon layer of fading graffiti; plastered with the names of a thousand different desperate youth looking for some way to put their mark on the world. A thousand different tags representing a thousand different lives; many of them taken early by gang warfare or thrown off track by the school to the prison pipeline. From that corner, you could just about see everything that the hood could cough up; like a podium where you could stand and watch the sorry world go by.

Across the street was the run down old liquor store where all the deadbeat moms and dads would gather to spend their cash after collecting their welfare. They’d go in with the money meant for their kids and come out with bottles barely disguised in familiar brown paper bags. Those brown paper bags were everywhere in the hood – you’d see them blowing across your path now and then, like tumbleweed; a reminder that you lived in a world fuelled by alcohol, drugs and lost hope.

You couldn’t blame the people who lived there for feeling hopeless. We all did. The school playgrounds were as dangerous as the jail yards, and the inmates just as tough; so most of us didn’t make it far. Living in the hood, it didn’t matter how hard you tried to stay on track – something would trip you up, whether it was getting involved with the wrong crowd, getting shot in a drive-by or just being swallowed up by the poverty that engulfed the whole damn community.

People in the hood never seemed to walk anywhere, but shuffled; like they either didn’t have the energy or the health to really put one foot in front of the other. And I guess most of them didn’t.

The hood sucked all the energy out of you like this huge, ravenous void that devoured all innocence and aspiration. You started out thinking you could beat it, but then just got sucked in and dragged down by it like everyone else. I think of all those parents who said ‘I’ll do better for my kids’, only to see their kids shot down or end up behind bars like all the others, and then there’s nothing to do but drink and smoke and shuffle along.

Except for the youth of the hood. Now here were people with bodies full of pent up frustration and resentment. Some of them would let out their hatred for the world in angry, rhythmic lyrics that spilled out in rap over the blare of heavy beats on loud speakers. Others took their rage a step further, and went out looking for blood.

One of the toughest gangs would gather on 52nd Street, and their rivals on Howard Street. A lot of the time they missed each other, but if the face of a member from one gang should appear on that corner whilst the other gang was out, all hell would break loose.

I’d seen it a hundred times growing up – fists pumping, teeth flying, blood spilling, mama’s crying and bodies dropping.

Sometimes when it rained, old blood would spill out of the gutters. Those gutters were filthy and overflowing with the dirt and debris of the hood – and probably a hundred thousand discarded paper bags, cigarette butts, condoms and syringes. The whole sickening mess would rise up and overflow from the gutters in bad weather, making those streets where the gangs came to make war even more treacherous.

A lot of the folk that lived in the hood were the sort of people you’d cross the street to get away from. They wore their troubles like backpacks weighing them down. They had hate in their eyes and scowls on their faces. They lived by the rules of ‘dog-eat-dog’ and looked out for number one, which made them dangerous people.

Yeah, I grew up around dangerous people – not that everyone in the hood was a criminal, a pimp or a dealer. Some were just ordinary folk that were down on their luck. Some were born in the hood, and others drifted there one way or another. Nobody chose to be there, that’s for sure.

These were the folk who kept their heads down and kept themselves to themselves. They never got involved in the violence, but never stood up to it either. They just tried to live their lives as best they could in the squalor and depravity, and counted their blessings if they made it home from some crappy minimum wage job alive.

Most people in the hood fell into one of these two groups – the criminal or the down and out. But, there was a third type of person who came by now and then. These people were rare and rarely did well in the hood, because they represented something that was so out of reach for many – hope.

These people were those that came to the hood or stayed in the hood by choice, because they wanted to make it better. They were those who somehow didn’t get drawn down into the madness, and they didn’t run from it either.

They were the social workers, and the volunteers; the teachers that tried to inspire and instil self-belief in students who had been raised not to believe in much. They were the foster parents that didn’t do it for the money, but that did it because they knew that too many kids were raised without love and without role models; thrown aside by the system and left to get swept up by the undercurrent and washed away into those filthy gutters of the hood.

They were the community workers, who tried to raise money for basketball courts and apprenticeships, so that kids had the choice of better ways to spend their time than fighting and stealing. They were the doctors and nurses that gave their time voluntarily in the free clinic to help the homeless pregnant and crack heads, just because nobody else would.

They were the few honest cops who weren’t out to get anybody, but just wanted to make the world a safer place.

Yeah, there were good people in the hood, and transformative places like Family Matters. It took someone tough and loyal to the streets to be a hero there. You had to be in it for more than glory and more than some half-hearted notion about morals and dreams. The hood had to be in your blood if you wanted to make a change; otherwise it would sense you didn’t belong there, and spit you back out.

CHAPTER TWO

42594.jpg

H arold Washington High School was where I went to school as a kid, and in the fifteen years since I’d left it, it hadn’t changed a bit. It still stood tall and concrete, looking more like a prison than a place of learning, with its grass trodden down by the shoes of countless schoolkids and back buildings covered in graffiti.

Sitting on the steps outside the building were a whole bunch of kids who were there simply because they had no place better to be. They didn’t come to learn – because what could an education do for them? – but came to meet up with others like them, to try and find a sense of belonging, even if they couldn’t find a sense of achievement or success.

I remembered it well; what it was like to be a student at HWHS. I used to roll up half an hour late every day and still spend an hour chilling with my boys, smoking and shooting the breeze, before finally dragging myself indoors, and only then to compete with my mates over who could cause the young, hopeless teacher to burst into tears first.

Looking back, my attitude seems pretty shocking, and maybe even a little cruel against those few teachers that really tried, but what did I care back then? Nobody I knew had an education, and nobody I knew that survived in the hood would waste their time with one. I knew that no book was going to save me from a bullet if I got on the wrong side of a gang fight one day. What I needed was street smarts and loyal friends – and I had both in spades.

Not much had changed with the kids today, it seemed. I could feel their hostility rising off their skins as I approached – a stranger in their midst. They wore the faces of bored and frustrated young people with a lot on their minds; and they only scowled when I gave a friendly smile, but I hadn’t expected more than that. I knew the hood well enough to know that only do-gooders and backstabbers smiled at you – and you didn’t want to associate with either. If you stuck with the do-gooders, then people would think you were soft, and you’d end up with a target on your back. If you stuck with a backstabber, then it wouldn’t be long before you were the next in line for their betrayal.

The only way to survive was through a fierce loyalty to the few that you could call friends and a determination to keep your distance from everyone else. So, here, on this drizzly Wednesday morning, I didn’t expect a smile from anyone, because I was a stranger and a do-gooder; a cop, here to tell these hopeless kids that they could do better.

I finished staring at the face of the building and took my first few steps inside. Not much had changed in here either. Geez, I’m pretty sure that some of those fading, peeling posters were on the walls when I went here. Graffiti everywhere. Litter. Noise. The smell of weed.

Kids were fighting in the corridors. Girls were wagging their fingers and yelling at one another by the lockers. Music was playing. Skateboards were flying, basketballs were bouncing. Even the younger kids had their hoods pulled up and suspicious looks on their faces. Some of them were far too young to look that jaded.

I headed straight to the Principal’s office and Mr Branch welcomed me in. He was a balding blonde, watery-eyed white man who always looked anxious and worn-out. I’m pretty sure that I’d turned a few of those blonde hairs grey in my time due to my antics when I’d been a student here, but me and Mr Branch were cool now. I was one of his only success stories, and he was so relieved that I’d agreed to come. He held out a clammy hand and greeted me with a big, thankful grin.

Reggie! It’s so good to see you again. How have you been?

Good, good, I replied. Wow. It’s crazy to be back.

How long has it been now, Reggie?

Oh, some fifteen years. Yep. A long time.

It’s not often any of our students finds our way back here after they graduate – unless it’s to well, you know. It was good of you to come.

How could I say no? This kind of thing was the reason I became a cop. I wanted to be an example for the next generation of kids growing up here. Now’s my chance.

I’m praying that you’ll make an impact on at least one or two of them, Mr Branch said desperately. God knows they need some inspiration in their lives – although most don’t want to hear it. They’re tired of false promises.

I let out a little scornful laugh and smiled wryly. I remember. I used to be one of them.

But something got through to you though, Reggie. You turned your life around. What was it?

My smile faded and I felt a tug of grief deep in my stomach. A lot more than a gym hall speech.

42144.png

There they were. The faces of eight-hundred kids who’d heard it all before and didn’t want to hear it again. They were bickering and fighting, and sneering and messing around with each other when backs were turned. Most of the faces were black. It made me sad to see, because those were the faces of kids who weren’t engaged in their learning. They were the faces of kids who’d lost hope and forgotten how to have big dreams. It hurt to see them. Their faces showed anger, but I knew that those scowls and jeers were just the result of a deep and burning desire to just experience something more.

In front of me was an old microphone with a fraying wire that hissed and popped even before I started speaking into it. Those little static pops went off like gunfire from the wire mouthpiece, but the rabble of the school kids drowned it out. The rabble continued even after I started to speak.

Good morning, students!

No response. Maybe a couple of raised eyebrows and sets of rolling eyes, but hardly more than a sideways glance from most. I tried again.

"Uh-hmm –, – I cleared my throat loudly into the mic, - I said good morning."

Nothing. Time for a different tactic.

"Listen up!"

Shouting into the mic caused a few more faces to turn my way. I kept my tone of voice assertive and took the mic from its stand, beginning to pace up and down for effect, and speaking as loudly as I could until my voice echoed around the hall like the mighty Wizard of Oz.

I’m here to talk to you. I said seriously. You know why? Because kids like you get shot and stabbed and put away in jail everyday, and it’s not uncommon, and it’s not ‘bad luck’ – it’s life in the hood and you could be next.

The rabble began to quiet down. Now I was talking a language that these kids could understand. The language of the streets – it wasn’t pretty, and it wasn’t calm and it wasn’t politically correct. It was brutal and real and honest.

Now, most of you want to roll your eyes. You’re wondering what right someone like me has to come in here and tell someone like you how to live your life. Well, let me tell you something. Fifteen years ago, I was sitting where you’re sitting now, listening to some do-gooder just like me, coming in here and trying to tell me how green the grass is on the other side. And like you, I sat there thinking: ‘What other side?’

Like you, I didn’t listen to him. I rolled my eyes and I chuckled and I’d had enough of hearing it. I’d had enough of people coming and telling me that I could do whatever I wanted and be whoever I wanted, because that’s not real life, right? Real life is happening here in the hood, and it’s not college degrees and new houses and fancy cars. It’s living meal to meal, and doing what you can to get by. It’s alcohol and drugs on street corners, and wondering which one of you will be the next to get shot, or even die out there. It’s trying to earn respect, because what else have you got?

Yeah, I was like you. You know what changed it for me? Learning that a friend of mine got shot and died out on those streets, trying to get by, trying to look hard, just like you do. And where was I? On the inside. Yeah, you’re not there to have anybody’s back when you’re in the slammer.

It’s easy to listen to a guy like me and think ‘I’ve had enough of hearing that’, but you know what I’d really had enough of at your age? I’d had enough of working my ass off to get by and looking over my shoulder all the time. I’d had enough of watching my mom work three jobs to get by. I’d had enough of the violence and the poverty. Yes, it’s difficult to listen to a guy like me come in and tell you it can be better, but what you should really feel sick of is what’s right around you – the real life that’s happening.

I’m here to tell you that things can change. You can do whatever you want to do. You can be whoever you want to be. You can leave the hood and live that life you think is out of your reach. Or, like me, you can come back and try your hardest to make that place better, so that one day, the ‘hood’ won’t be here anymore.

So yeah, you’re wondering what right someone like me has to come in here and tell someone like you how to live your life. Well, you know what? I’m not going to tell you what to do, because I’m not the person to do that. But I am going to tell you one thing: If you get caught breaking the law, you’re going to end up in a juvey, just like I did.

"Now, I turned it around after that, and I got to where I am – but I got lucky. Just because I got a second chance, don’t expect it to happen to you. One wrong move, and it could be game over for you. Take the chance to change your life while it’s there; and, if you really want to do something real, take the chance to change others’ lives too. Make something of yourself and pull someone else up with you. That’s what real loyalty looks like – not picking up a gun to settle someone