Not a "product", but a "quotient"

As a child, I chose to live by some wise words which my mother gave to me: “Instead of being a product of the hood, live to be the quotient.” I didn’t know what that initially meant, but it didn’t take long for me to realize that being a division of the neighborhood would allow me to stick out and make my own identity. 

I grew up in Inglewood, California, which was once a rather nice place to live. I was born one year before Los Angeles really went into a pit of crime, drugs, and violence. By the time I turned five years old, Inglewood was nothing more than a part of an epidemic. My neighbors, luckily, were very nice people. I got along with all the kids on the block, and was fortunate enough to be the last generation of children to be able to play outside without parents worrying about anything that could go wrong in the process, other than some scraped knees and broken toys.

Inglewood has a handful of sections, some worse than others.  I often visited 93^rd, and Hindry, which was somewhat close to LAX Airport.  This part of Inglewood wasn’t like my block.  I often heard gunshots and yelling from abroad.  My brother even had a traumatic experience when he was in middle school. He actually ran into a dead body one night while taking out the trash.  I was really young, so I didn’t find out about this until I got older myself.  I’ve gone outside to play with friends and noticed blood streaked across the cement, most likely from the night before. These are things that become normality to many who live in these environments.

I am who I am despite of the neighborhood I live in. It’s because my mother trained me in a certain way that I dedicated my future to being the type of person I choose to be, and not what society wrapped around my eye.  Some kids at school made fun of me because I was more “proper” than they were.  This was satisfying, because it reminded me that I was moving in the right direction.