Redblooded Fighter

I grew up in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. Cushy? Spoiled? Privileged? Right?

It wasn't quite that way. From the age of about 7 or 8 until about 13, I fought every other day.

I was an intelligent, young black male in an all-white school system living in an all-white neighborhood (except for my street). My neighborhood was an anomoly in Bloomfield Hills, almost 95% of the black people who lived in my neighborhood, lived on my street. I never understood why that was. I don't know if we were freely allowed to purchase or build homes on other streets, but it sure was hard NOT to notice the stark contrast.

My entire street was black except for two white families and one mexican family. So, we were pretty close knit. But, we lived one street over from Pontiac - Alice St. Not to offend anyone, but Alice street was the pits when we were growing up. And the next street over was Charles Lane.

Well, every day for years in the Bloomfield Hills schools, I was called names, picked out, picked on for being black, small, smart, different - you name it. Then, most other days when I came back home to my neighborhood, we would have altercations with the residents of Charles Lane who would come over to my street and be like, "what are you doing living in this white neighborhood? Why you goin' to these white schools?" and BAM! It was on!

This happened just about every other day!

It wasn't until I got to high school and the word had spread around school and around town that I didn't play. People stopped picking fights with me because they realized it wasn't worth it. I used to fight hard and serious for years and by high school, most of that ended.

I credit one person and one person alone to curing me of the desire to fight at the drop of a hat ... Malik (my best friend from Morehouse College). He taught to respect myself and others and began to teach me self-defense and martial arts.