One million, un millón, un million.
No matter what language I try to beautify this number, it still carries a heavy
immovable burden on my heart,
as I process the six zeros in the number of no high-school diploma feet walking all over this particular pavement called education.
A pavement so gum-tatted and worn down in broken neighborhoods,
but polished well in green dollar ones,
gets me agitated, frustrated, and sad that life is reality.
As an 18, female, black Guyanese American, college student, I sit back in the comfort of my home and dwell on the notion that I made it.
Made it through a battlefield: taking in swords from opponents name calling me Oreo.
Bleeding at the sides as I get pass standardized tests, SATs, college applications, and unplanned pregnancies common at my age.
Running, listening to red drops fall of gang violence, drugs, scamming, drop outs on the back of my white shirt, as I do this all just to avoid
being a statistic.
Why do I have to "make it" in America that's suppose to be my freedom,
my pursuit of happiness,
but yet many of its young Black and Latino population is in prison.
No matter what language I try to beautify this number, it still carries a heavy
immovable burden on my heart,
as I process the six zeros in the number of no high-school diploma feet walking all over this particular pavement called education.
A pavement so gum-tatted and worn down in broken neighborhoods,
but polished well in green dollar ones,
gets me agitated, frustrated, and sad that life is reality.
As an 18, female, black Guyanese American, college student, I sit back in the comfort of my home and dwell on the notion that I made it.
Made it through a battlefield: taking in swords from opponents name calling me Oreo.
Bleeding at the sides as I get pass standardized tests, SATs, college applications, and unplanned pregnancies common at my age.
Running, listening to red drops fall of gang violence, drugs, scamming, drop outs on the back of my white shirt, as I do this all just to avoid
being a statistic.
Why do I have to "make it" in America that's suppose to be my freedom,
my pursuit of happiness,
but yet many of its young Black and Latino population is in prison.
I am reminded that young people are not taught their rights in four walls, desks, and chairs but a controversial holiday, thanksgiving --another demeanor of education.
In America that's suppose to be everyone's land of support but did I mention almost 1 million are dropping out every year.
It's imperative I mention that my in-college success story at Wesleyan University didn't stem from roots of luck and chance.
But from trunks of parents who sacrificed their own roots for me.
Phase 1: I am a triplet.
One brother, one sister and I
Hands clasped at 14, our feet carried us to the boarding dock
As new passengers arriving in suburbian states for that
precious gift.
We didn't understand why we had to rock back and forth, and endure thunderstorms, when Brooklyn land was comfortable, cheaper, home to the rest of our adolescent friends.
But like the forbidden fruit though, it isn't until we sink our teeth into it, tasting the acid, when we realize how poisonous a life without education can be,
especially for the high school dropout.
14 a delicate age of figuring out self-worth that if not treated with nutrients and water, one plant would have the chemical imbalance of
mentorship, opportunity, skill, passion to develop those stalks of talent and ability.
14 and we were away from inner city life to suburb stars at night,
as my parents scrubbed the edge of each bank account,
the circles of their feet so we could touch each year, the doorknob of supportive teachers, rigorous classes, sports, and of course Mr. Ignorance.
My experience away does not compare to that inner city dove at 14,
but I empathize with stories of teachers violated, students skipping school.
I only a few years older look at high schoolers as I stand across the street from a nearby school in Brooklyn, seeing eyes of hungry students ready to leave a building like it's prison.
Now in college, education is stuffing my stomach with issues of race, politics, and economic equity
until my insides could no longer digest the society I come from.
I stuff and stuff until I become sick and feel powerless in an unjust system of greed.
Until I pity the same system that's feeding my mind with knowledge and the ability to use my educated voice.
I read the words of my black ancestors on fighting, lynching, discrimination just to compute 2+2 and spell ones' own name, to the current reality that almost 1 million youth dropout every year.
To me it's an epidemic if just one drops out,
A vital need for a cure,
These youth are our 22nd century.
I sit in the comfort of my home trying to understand youth.
Youth the prime of being, smooth and cool adjectives that pleases no one else but ourselves.
Youth that is defiant, loud, expressive, quick to act while riding their own bandwagon of "I do what I want" and "live young forever."
Are our elders listening or sucking their teeth?
Are they patient with us?
Are they granting us access to dreams and opportunities or rolling their eyes and barring their lips shut?
Parents, teachers, God are you who we turn to in need of guidance?
Feeling as though we are in a complicated, one-sided civil union than a nurturing relationship where both hearts benefit;
We drop like flies after being swatted with the promise of quick money in a hostile environment.
We drop after teachers tell us we would never succeed.
We drop after peers laugh when you want to study.
We drop after our own parents prioritize our ability to be students below being child workers.
We drop the most when music, honey drops to our ears can best communicate with us.
Instilling endless ideas of riches, cars, clothes, sex, as the life we want.
Without education, we are foreign to seeing ourselves as the successful entrepreneurs and business owners.
Phase 2: my parents hauled our triplet behinds to college.
First American-born to go.
My ability to feel this way is primarily because of the gift of graduating those sweet steps of high school and enrolling into the iron doors of college.
But even in college, a new battlefield has begun: already with pains in my back as I struggle to carry my books, listen to ignorant students in a predominately white institution.
As I watch my parents scrub the bank account to learn each semester.
High school doves value education by always reading and asking questions.
1 million are no longer seen as innocent but juvenile.
We are like Davids fighting against the Goliath of poverty, violence, drugs, discrimination, greed.
I support youth in finishing.
I am a listener.
Graduate.
Education is not the enemy, it is your victory.
-Arnelle W.
In America that's suppose to be everyone's land of support but did I mention almost 1 million are dropping out every year.
It's imperative I mention that my in-college success story at Wesleyan University didn't stem from roots of luck and chance.
But from trunks of parents who sacrificed their own roots for me.
Phase 1: I am a triplet.
One brother, one sister and I
Hands clasped at 14, our feet carried us to the boarding dock
As new passengers arriving in suburbian states for that
precious gift.
We didn't understand why we had to rock back and forth, and endure thunderstorms, when Brooklyn land was comfortable, cheaper, home to the rest of our adolescent friends.
But like the forbidden fruit though, it isn't until we sink our teeth into it, tasting the acid, when we realize how poisonous a life without education can be,
especially for the high school dropout.
14 a delicate age of figuring out self-worth that if not treated with nutrients and water, one plant would have the chemical imbalance of
mentorship, opportunity, skill, passion to develop those stalks of talent and ability.
14 and we were away from inner city life to suburb stars at night,
as my parents scrubbed the edge of each bank account,
the circles of their feet so we could touch each year, the doorknob of supportive teachers, rigorous classes, sports, and of course Mr. Ignorance.
My experience away does not compare to that inner city dove at 14,
but I empathize with stories of teachers violated, students skipping school.
I only a few years older look at high schoolers as I stand across the street from a nearby school in Brooklyn, seeing eyes of hungry students ready to leave a building like it's prison.
Now in college, education is stuffing my stomach with issues of race, politics, and economic equity
until my insides could no longer digest the society I come from.
I stuff and stuff until I become sick and feel powerless in an unjust system of greed.
Until I pity the same system that's feeding my mind with knowledge and the ability to use my educated voice.
I read the words of my black ancestors on fighting, lynching, discrimination just to compute 2+2 and spell ones' own name, to the current reality that almost 1 million youth dropout every year.
To me it's an epidemic if just one drops out,
A vital need for a cure,
These youth are our 22nd century.
I sit in the comfort of my home trying to understand youth.
Youth the prime of being, smooth and cool adjectives that pleases no one else but ourselves.
Youth that is defiant, loud, expressive, quick to act while riding their own bandwagon of "I do what I want" and "live young forever."
Are our elders listening or sucking their teeth?
Are they patient with us?
Are they granting us access to dreams and opportunities or rolling their eyes and barring their lips shut?
Parents, teachers, God are you who we turn to in need of guidance?
Feeling as though we are in a complicated, one-sided civil union than a nurturing relationship where both hearts benefit;
We drop like flies after being swatted with the promise of quick money in a hostile environment.
We drop after teachers tell us we would never succeed.
We drop after peers laugh when you want to study.
We drop after our own parents prioritize our ability to be students below being child workers.
We drop the most when music, honey drops to our ears can best communicate with us.
Instilling endless ideas of riches, cars, clothes, sex, as the life we want.
Without education, we are foreign to seeing ourselves as the successful entrepreneurs and business owners.
Phase 2: my parents hauled our triplet behinds to college.
First American-born to go.
My ability to feel this way is primarily because of the gift of graduating those sweet steps of high school and enrolling into the iron doors of college.
But even in college, a new battlefield has begun: already with pains in my back as I struggle to carry my books, listen to ignorant students in a predominately white institution.
As I watch my parents scrub the bank account to learn each semester.
High school doves value education by always reading and asking questions.
1 million are no longer seen as innocent but juvenile.
We are like Davids fighting against the Goliath of poverty, violence, drugs, discrimination, greed.
I support youth in finishing.
I am a listener.
Graduate.
Education is not the enemy, it is your victory.
-Arnelle W.
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