“To be honest, it wasn’t really a man who taught me how to be a man. It was my older sister.”
“She was like my mom and my dad at the same time. And she taught me how to take care of people, how to treat women, how to be respectful at all times, and how to have manners. She was everything. She was basically the man in my life.
I grew up with my sister, my grandmother, my mom, my stepdad, and stepsister. It was complicated at first and we got into it a lot, especially me and my step dad. It may not have been all peachy, but he’s been there when I didn’t have nobody so I still gotta show him respect and love. When we would fuss and argue, I either went in my room, punished, or I’d go by my grandma house. Now there are certain things I understand where he’s coming from, so I guess it did kinda help me on the journey I’m going through now.
I feel like you should be able to just express yourself and feel safe around a man.
I feel in my heart that being a man is being a sort of protector and a leader. When a child can’t go talk to their mom, or if they don’t have a mom, and they just got a dad, I feel like you should still be able to express yourself and feel safe around a man. I feel like a man should also take responsibility for what they do, be respectful, and courteous of the things that they say, especially around females. What’s left out of the conversation that people should teach their children is…basically everything. Because these days in New Orleans, I feel like all that respect that men had at one point, it’s just gone. These days it’s just, it’s not giving and when I was growing up it wasn’t like this. Men were respectful and responsible, they were taught right from wrong. They would protect you out of love and joy. They were more willing to change. Parents should teach their children how to be a man and tell them right from wrong, like; don’t go out here, don’t go do this, don’t go shoot this place up, don’t go steal from this place, don’t go do all this extra stuff that didn’t need to be done in the first place. I feel like they should teach them how to be something in life. Cause I feel like a man is a leader and being a leader means going forward and being the one that doesn’t fit in with the crowd, the one who rocks and walks their own path and who just goes with the flow and enjoys life on their own terms.
You try to be yourself but being yourself gets you hated on, bullied, and picked on. People don’t like you for no reason at all, and can’t even tell you the reason when you ask them. That mindset messes up a lot, especially when the person that you’re with, or trying to be with, is easily influenced by others’ opinions and can’t think for themselves. Some people just think about their reputation and “oh cause I can’t do this…” Well…don’t. At the end of the day, I feel like if we were more comfortable with ourselves it would be a lot easier and so different.
What I really dislike about society is the stereotypes these days; it’s really showing hate more than love.
Men should be loving and caring and not show all of this animosity towards each other and especially towards children who aren’t fitting in their box. What society has been teaching lately is “Oh being gay is wrong,” and, “It’s not in the Bible,” and, “You’re going to hell for it.” They get so offensive to a point where they are killing people for no reason — just because of their sexual preference. I just can’t agree with that cause at the end of the day, just because I like other men don’t mean I like you. There shouldn’t be any animosity towards me, especially if you don’t even know me.
They often preach about “we love each other and we gotta stop the violence,” but we can’t even get along for one second. We can’t even have a conversation with everybody together cause one person gon’ be that one that’s gon’ show out “cause I don’t like him and I don’t like this blah blah blah.” Why are we killing each other anyway? What happened to sitting down and talking things out? What happened to having a reasonable conversation? Where did the hate come from? But, I hope it can change. Change is in the future cause we gotta do better. It’s getting to a point where you can’t even step out your door without catching a bullet. And the people who are doing the murders, they’re getting younger and younger. There are like 12 and 11 year olds out here shooting people, robbing people, and stealing cars. It’s not right. At 11 and 12, I was still in school tryna do my homework on time. The people in New Orleans are fearing them, and I feel like we should take a peaceful stance where we come to a truce, like try to sit down and talk to ‘em to let ‘em know this has to stop and to just to see where they’re coming from, cause most people don’t have a person to talk to. Once we get to a point where we could do that with each other then it’ll be so much better.
A lot of people give into the lifestyle and throw their lives away. They wanna go sit behind a jail cell cause they wanna be down and think that’s just the trend to be cool and they want to fit into everybody’s box and everybody’s point of view and they want to be accepted in today’s society. And I feel like the music could change if we really talk about it, but that’s a conversation that they don’t want to talk about, especially the rap music today. They don’t want to talk about it and will be quick to say, “Oh cause you soft and you just don’t know it.”
Why are you hiding yourself when you always been out of the box? You’ve been yourself. You ain’t never been scared to speak your opinion. So why you hiding yourself now?
Exploring my sexuality has been a long journey. At first I was confused and scared because I grew up in a religious and Christian household. I was always taught that “it’s wrong being gay” and, “It’s wrong, you gon’ go to hell, it’s not in the bible,” and, “You supposed to reproduce,” and things like that. So at first it was confusing because I still liked certain girls but then I liked boys, too. Then it was scary ‘cause it was like well I gotta keep this on the low cause if my family find out, I don’t know what they’re gon’ do. I don’t know if they going to accept me or turn me away. That’s when things were really at their worst. I was getting into it everyday with my stepfather and it came to a point where my mama even joined the arguments. It was like a yelling match almost everyday. In sixth grade I just stopped. I had a conversation with myself and I told myself to just stop. And after that long conversation — cause it was a long one — I changed. I started being more comfortable with myself. I started being free and expressing how I really feel. I wasn’t holding things back. I was being myself. And after a while of my mom being in denial, she just came to a point where now she’s more accepting, and I love her for that. I feel like she’s at that point where she’s just fully accepted it now and she never stopped showing me love. It was just certain things she had to get used to. Especially when I would bring friends over, she would always think that that was my boyfriend or something like that. I’d be like, “No, that’s just my friend!”
I really like my hair; that’s a big part of me. I’m gonna do me in the best way I find fit, and that’s my hair, and it’s always a different color and it’s always a vibrant color. It’s my statement, my out, my boldness. It’s where I show how I don’t care what ya’ll think. The colors I have now are purple, pink, blue, and like a orangish. I don’t like dull colors; I like colors that’s gonna pop like bright colors. Especially my blue, which I’m probably gonna do the next color again. I love my blue. That is my favorite color and that’s my favorite hairstyle. Especially when I be getting braids and I be having my twists in my hair – it be looking so cute. I first started doing this when I was in ninth grade. I had like a lil’ flat top and my first color was red, and it was just poppin’. You couldn’t tell me I wasn’t it. I was feeling myself, and if I’m honest, I still be feeling myself.
At the end of the day, you get one life and who you gon’ live it for? You? Or them?
I think it’s important to have these conversations about all the different ways someone can “be a man” because it is needed, but I feel like fear gets in the way of speaking out. Younger people, around my age, would understand it being discussed coming from another teenager’s point of view. They would see the stereotypes and know this is not ok. I really feel like this conversation has been needed, even before I was born, but nobody has ever been brave enough until now to really talk about it.
My advice is, stay a child as long as you can because once you grow up, the real world ain’t nothing nice and you still gon’ be going through it. At the end of the day, don’t rush it. It’s worth it but it’s not worth it at the same time. Just stay a child as long as you could. Have all the experiences and fun that you want. If it’s something that you really look forward to doing then go for it, and don’t give up on your dreams. Don’t stop because this person said “no, it’s not right,” or this person said, “Well, that’s wrong; you can’t do that.” Go on what you want to do, what makes you happy.”