Human Nature
I was thinking about my life and why I am the way I am. I realized I'm the way I am because of a period of four years during my childhood. My great-grandmother scrapped up her dimes and pennies from her waitressing on her feet all day, to send me to boarding school in New Jersey. She was trying to save me from the ghetto.
I was there from age ten to fourteen. Even though I think her actions did save me from the ghetto, it didn't save me from the despicable acts of human nature.
While at the school, that used to be an orphanage, I had fights with the other kids, of all races, weekly. I'd been called Nigger so many times it was a nickname. Some fights I lost and some fights I won. Children can be the meanest and the cruelest, especially between the ages of ten and fifteen. To add to that, the Head Nun hated my guts and treated me like shit.
What I learned in those four years was that it doesn't matter if you're in the ghetto or not, people's human nature is to pick on the weak. They've been doing it since the beginning of time. Even the perception of weakness invites a test.
Sometimes my kindness has been perceived as weakness but I learned something that has proven very valuable and complex in it's simplicity. There are only two kinds of people, good and bad. The problem is that you can't tell that from the outside of a person. It's in their nature.
My advice to all the good people is that when a bad person is detected stay away from them whenever possible, even if it's a family member. They'll do nothing but bring the bad out of you. A bad person cannot be changed. Their behavior may be altered but the badness is in their heart. When left to their own devices, they do bad things, especially if they think it won't get discovered.
Now I know why I'm the way that I am. I'm not weak, I'm just a good person.
Read more: Ghetto Bastard: A Memoir (Volume 1)
and Ghetto Bastard 2 (Volume 2)
by Russell Vann.
I was there from age ten to fourteen. Even though I think her actions did save me from the ghetto, it didn't save me from the despicable acts of human nature.
While at the school, that used to be an orphanage, I had fights with the other kids, of all races, weekly. I'd been called Nigger so many times it was a nickname. Some fights I lost and some fights I won. Children can be the meanest and the cruelest, especially between the ages of ten and fifteen. To add to that, the Head Nun hated my guts and treated me like shit.
What I learned in those four years was that it doesn't matter if you're in the ghetto or not, people's human nature is to pick on the weak. They've been doing it since the beginning of time. Even the perception of weakness invites a test.
Sometimes my kindness has been perceived as weakness but I learned something that has proven very valuable and complex in it's simplicity. There are only two kinds of people, good and bad. The problem is that you can't tell that from the outside of a person. It's in their nature.
My advice to all the good people is that when a bad person is detected stay away from them whenever possible, even if it's a family member. They'll do nothing but bring the bad out of you. A bad person cannot be changed. Their behavior may be altered but the badness is in their heart. When left to their own devices, they do bad things, especially if they think it won't get discovered.
Now I know why I'm the way that I am. I'm not weak, I'm just a good person.
Read more: Ghetto Bastard: A Memoir (Volume 1)
and Ghetto Bastard 2 (Volume 2)
by Russell Vann.
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