Comment of the Day: Do You Know Who Their Father Is?COMMENT
"At UCLA I was once introduced by my TA to his colleague as "[his] smart student who fucked up her high school career". He put that one me. Yes, I dropped out of high school. I had one parent, who was out of town all the time so I had my older sisters as legal guardians. They became meth addicts. I was 14 and had a 20 year old drug-dealer boyfriend (no parents to intervene), and no money for projects (the meth addicts used all the petty cash), and I lived in a horribly abusive household where I regularly helped my sisters through their torturous come-downs. I took the city bus to an overcrowded public high school where I was once beat up buy a guy in the halls (nobody helped me). I had very few options, and no support at home. Home was torture for me. This TA went to private schools his entire life, onto Stanford, then Yale, then Oxford. He blamed me for my situation. I was the one who "fucked up", and that's how he introduced me to people. He certainly thought he had done it all himself, and he wasn't alone in that. Most of the Ivy League educated grad students complained about the quality of the students, failing to realize that most of us didn't have the same opportunities. Nobody to read to us at night, single parents, abuse, neglect, poverty. It's not bullshit, even though it may not be you. It's fairly common to find that the people who argue for personal accountability and responsibility had plenty help along the way."
Ketel One "Street"Spread Your Love
Extreme Ways
Lauryn Hill: interview
"As musicians and artists, it's important we have an environment — and I guess when I say environment, I really mean the [music] industry, that really nurtures these gifts. Oftentimes, the machine can overlook the need to take care of the people who produce the sounds that have a lot to do with the health and well-being of society, or at least some aspect of society. And it's important that people be given the time that they need to go through, to grow, so that the consciousness level of the general public is properly affected. Oftentimes, I think people are forced to make decisions prematurely. And then that sound radiates."
Fancy Food Show 2010
