All That You Know/An Exploration

What is it that I really want to say in this post? And how on earth do I express it in a clear, concise way that will be understood?

The sad truth is, I know, it won't be understood by those who simply don't want to understand it. This is not a self-congratulatory article. It's an exploration, using various, personal life experiences to help illustrate a point.

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These thoughts have been rolling around in my head for some time and were recently refreshed when a guy I went to High School with recently posted this gem as his Facebook status, one of his more mildly phrased status updates, actually:

"I'm from the V-A-Double-L-E-J-O H-I-Double-L SIDE Tho! Spittin straight game is all a nikka know and ahh, (They be like, there they go to the liquer sto!)"

Reading things like that genuinely makes me sad for the people who are proud to be part of a failing society. Spelling and grammar aside, what kind of a life is that? To "Spit game and go to a liquor store"? What does that even mean? Apparently it's an entire lifestyle unto itself, being from Vallejo and "having game" and partying. And WHAT ELSE? Doesn't that seem a bit vapid? Empty? Vacuous? Self-defeating? Anyone else want to add another synonym?

Yes. I am from Vallejo too. 

Vallejo, California. (Have I mentioned that it's the city in California that went Bankrupt a couple of years ago?)

I lived there until the age of seventeen. I didn't know until after my family had moved from that blessed city, that it has a reputation for being one of the roughest, most "ghetto" cities in the US, akin to Richmond and Oakland in Northern California. Maybe you haven't heard of Vallejo... yet. Disney hasn't made a kid-beats-the-odds-and-soars-out-of-danger/poverty/crime/makes it big film about a kid from Vallejo yet. YET. 

Now that I have a bit of perspective about the place, having lived out of it's confines for longer than the number of years within, let me tell you about my experience growing up in Vallejo.

My family were considered somewhat upper-crust in Vallejo, being comfortably middle-class. My father was a visible and respected member of society. I grew up as a part of a minority: I was a white girl in a city where white people were scarce. 

Vallejo is a very diverse city: Filipino and Asians of all backgrounds, Mexicans and African Americans all outnumber Caucasians, which mostly wasn't an issue unless someone made it an issue. In fact, I enjoyed being surrounded by such diversity. I lived in one of the better 'hoods in Vallejo, and even then, most kids in my neighborhood simply didn't play outside. There were too many kidnappings, shootings, assaults and too much terror and danger in general. It drove parents to wrangle their children into the confines of the living room/TV/NES. I lived for the summers when my Mother would pack me, my brother and sister up and take us to our Grandmother's farm in Virginia, where we could run around barefoot and play in the woods and have mud fights and be kids.

I worked hard in school. And I had parents that worked hard for me. I was given great opportunities and excelled in school system that was, at the time, on par for California, but today is considered a high-risk district with a drop-out rate of more than 50%. 

For all but one year in Vallejo, I went to Public School. I never felt unsafe walking among classmates who were dealing drugs openly; who showed me the guns they had concealed in their over-sized jackets and pants. I made it a point to get along with everyone. That all changed one day in Middle School when I was walking with two friends to catch a ride the rest of the way home, across town. One of the two boys was walking a few steps behind me and he was accosted by some kids from our school: punched and then stabbed with a needle. For months, he went into the hospital for tests and blood work to make sure that he hadn't contracted AIDS or other STDs from the attack. 

That was "the last straw" for my parents, the next year I was enrolled into a private Baptist school where I faced a different type of hostility: religious. I only went there a year, finding it somewhat ridiculous to be paying to go to a High School taught by "Christians" who screamed at me during classes that I would be going to hell because I was a member of a "Cult," and others who broke ties with me after hanging out with me for MONTHS when they found out I was Mormon. I went back to Public school the next year because, having my druthers, I'd rather face an open, random beating than a private, psychological attack by a pack of hypocrites who ought to have been friends. (To be fair, not everyone was horrid, I still talk to a few friends I made during that year.)

Now as I look back I can see how much the people around me affected me. I listened to Rap and Hip Hop and liked it. I wore baggy clothing and dark lipstick. Later it was all replaced with punk, corduroys, v-neck sweaters and a wallet-on-a-chain when I began hanging out with a skateboarding crowd.

Months before my senior year began, my family moved to North Idaho. I didn't graduate from High School with the kids I grew up with. And to be honest, though I benefited immensely in one regard (beginning my international travel career because of switching schools), I can't say it was a great year. I traded a culturally diverse (if not cultured) school for one that was 99.9% Caucasian. I traded being surrounded by "thugs" to being surrounded by preppy, rifle-toting future back-woods wife-beaters whose parents threw them bonfired-keggers in the sticks. Was it better? Jury's out. I'm on the fence. 

It was different. 

And maybe that's all it needed to be. Neither of those worlds are ones I'd choose to return to. To each their own.

These days I drive around my comfortably upper-middle class, culturally diverse yuppie town listening mostly to Classical or Country music. My clothing is conservative and casual. I love walking around the town I live in. It is full of walking trails and sparkly twinkle lights and high-end shopping and friendly people who aren't afraid to smile and say hello to a stranger because they don't have to be.

I'm not trying to imply that money is the difference in these worlds. There was more money in Northern Idaho than in Vallejo and I wasn't comfortable there. Money doesn't automatically mean good things, but it can mean more opportunity. Perhaps the difference is a cultivated, carefully preserved society that cares and volunteers and works to keep their environment up to their standards of living. Sure, there also happens to be a lot of money in the area I live in. And many, many, many very well-educated people. So maybe the real key here is education. And heart. And money well-spent on the "right" things. (I leave it to you to figure out what those things are.)

What's the point of all of this?

No matter where you are, there will always be people who are willfully stagnant; who revel in plateauing and wallow in the misery caused by the oppressive hand of ignorance.

It may be just dumb luck, or perhaps the hard work and sacrifice and persistence of my parents and others, or maybe it was inspired. But I now know a life and environs completely opposite to those that I was raised in.  I now know that just because I don't know about something or somewhere doesn't make it the only thing immediately available to me, ie: "Spittin straight game is all a nikka know".

And most importantly, I know that giving into my fears is the only thing that can really, truly keep me down, or keep me from leaving the mentality represented, for me, by a place like Vallejo–where crime and hate and gross ignorance run most of the streets. 

For me, as much as I would never choose to live again in that city, Vallejo brings to mind some wonderful times, places and people. There are still WONDERFUL people there who are active citizens and are doing amazing things with their lives. But there are enough people who choose live in the poverty and violence and fear and filth there, that those things are what has given that city it's reputation. Your world is what you make of it. Vallejo shaped and molded me as a youth and made me compassionate, curious, culturally aware, strong and unyielding. Mostly, being from Vallejo gave me the gift of wanting something better for the life ahead of me. And that's a fairly major gift.

Break free of the fear that would hold you back and push you down. All that you know doesn't have to be.