Andrew Sterling

I grew up in New York. We lived in a nice part of Harlem. When I was 12, I came home one day with some friends. We were talking loudly and using the slang we'd learned in the streets. My Father overheard us. He told my friends to leave. Then he marched me into the bathroom and washed my mouth out with soap. It was because he didn't want me sounding black. He was an educated man, my father. He had a college degree, just like his father. He was an accountant, just like his father. He worked for a big New York firm. There were only two black men in the whole building: my father, and the janitor. After 38 years, he retired a full partner. Less than a week later, he died. Not one person from that job came to his funeral. 38 years of his life, and not one white face. Only that broken down old janitor cared enough to show up. My father made it in the white man's world. He wanted his son to make in the white man's world, too. But don't you for one second think that I've forgotten who I am, or where I come from.

Gangsters? Outlaws? You're a nickel-and-dime criminal, a petty crook. And you to figure out very quickly where it is you think your going. Because let me tell you, white boy, you are definitely headed in the wrong direction. I've had enough of this. I'm going home.

What comes around, goes around.

It was supposed to be different. It was supposed to be the kind of place where you don't lock your doors at night, where you don't count your change at the grocery store, where a man in his own home doesn't have to worry about being shot at and nearly killed by the local police simple because he's black!