Community, Identity, and Belonging Theme Analysis

My father had entered seeking help. But his face was unshaven, his clothing disheveled, his name unfamiliar, his address not in a wealthy area. The hospital staff looked at him suspiciously, questioned whether his illness was even real, and basically told him to deal with it himself. Now my mother had to plan his funeral.

We were all enclosed by the same fence, bumping into one another, fighting, celebrating. Showing one another our best and worst, revealing ourselves—even our cruelty and crimes—as if that fence had created a circle of trust. A brotherhood.

It was like being double agents or superheros—we had another identity off that campus. It was stressful. I felt like a chameleon. Justin did, too. If we wanted to fit in with our crew, we had to act a certain way. If we wanted to fit in with the kids at school, we had to act another way. And we wanted to fit in with both—very different—groups. But we wanted to do it on our own terms, by being “ourselves.” I was having a difficult time understanding what that meant, and I also felt the burden of representing something bigger than myself. There was this increasing need to wear the mask wherever I went, and the mask seemed to change based on the audience.

All the players retreated to their separate corners, to their separate worlds. All except me, still caught in the middle.

She thought of me as the bad apple in the class. One day, she flatly told me that it didn’t matter to her if I showed up because the class ran more smoothly when I wasn’t there. From that moment, I understood that [my teacher] and I had an unspoken agreement, a “don’t ask, don’t tell” pact that worked for both of us. She didn’t want me there disrupting, and I didn’t want to be there.

But even more than that, I found in hip-hop the sound of my generation talking to itself, working through the fears and anxieties and dreams—of wealth or power or revolution or success—we all shared. Music was a way to broadcast what was going on in our world to the rest of the world. It made us feel less alone in the madness of the era, less pushed to the margins.

Once I felt the coast was clear, I began to draw, starting with the connected Ks and finishing with a wide circle around them, in my custom style. Seven seconds and done. I had added my mark to Laconia Avenue, a testament to the world that Wes Moore lived—or at least Kid Kupid did. Nobody could ever deny I was there.

The kids in my crew loved one another, but how long would we mourn if any one of us disappeared? I’d seen it happen already, kids leaving the hood in one way or another—killed, imprisoned, shipped off to distant relatives down south. The older kids would pour out a little liquor or leave a shrine on a corner under a graffiti mural, or they’d reminisce about the ones who were locked up. But then life went on. The struggle went on. Who really cared? Besides my mother, who would truly miss me if I went to jail?

Our birth names were irrelevant. Our past lives and our past accomplishments and failures didn’t matter. We were the same now. We were nothing. In fact, we were less than nothing. We were plebes.

These people made it clear that they cared about whether I succeeded. Eventually, their caring made me care, too. Having people around me who believed that I could succeed made me want to succeed.

I had spent so much of my childhood feeling out of place. I’d allowed other people to dictate my expectations of myself. I was finally realizing that I could do better than that. I didn’t need to have different versions of myself for different people.

It made sense that Mayor Schmoke wanted me to learn the history of the scholarship: he wanted me to know that we can change the world that Rhodes and people like him had left for us.

Hard work is essential, but you also need people around you who believe you can make it. Otherwise, if you don’t think you can succeed, what would you bother working for?

Wes had his operation organized with the precision of a military unit or a division of a Fortune 500 company. He liked the feeling of holding down a corner with his boys. It was the place he felt the most in his element. An unbreakable bond united the crew—for many members, it was the only support system they had. It was family.

Back in his old hood, the streets seemed the same as when he’d left them seven months earlier. The check-cashing stores instead of banks; the rows of beauty salons, liquor stores, Laundromats, and funeral homes; and the graffitied walls were right where he’d left them. The hood was the hood, no matter how much time passed.
He’d changed, though.

“If they expect us to graduate,” he went on, “we will graduate. If they expect us to get a job, we will get a job. If they expect us to go to jail, then that’s where we will end up.” He gestured around himself with an ironic smile. “At some point you lose control, no matter how much you learn.”