Interview with Stephen: From drug dealing to fighting for the people
"I just said this is enough"
May 19, 2014 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
A national strategy meeting was held in New York City in April to plan for the October Month of Resistance to Mass Incarceration. Revolution/revcom.us talked with participants at the meeting, including families of those in prison, parents of those who have been killed by the police, and others active in the struggle against mass incarceration. The following is one of those interviews. Stephen [not his real name] is a youth who has been involved in the struggle around the murders of Trayvon Martin and Jordan Davis and the fight to free Marissa Alexander.
Tell me a little bit about yourself.
I came to the United States when I was eight years old from [another country]. This church sponsored us to come to the United States and from there my daddy worked at the church, my mom worked at the church. I have two brothers and three sisters, a big family. I'm the second oldest. When I first got here in 2000, my daddy worked for the church for five years and then he died of cancer. Him working five years, social security couldn't really take care of us for that long and then funeral arrangements and all the expenses from the death. While he was sick he couldn't get the best treatment, he got the lowest he could get. Every month they told us, your daddy is not going to live this month. But my daddy kept fighting. Finally he left this world and when he left I kind of lost this sense of what life is, guidance, because this was my father, he was my best friend. I was 14 years old, first year in high school. It's critical at that age. You need your father at that point. Every man or woman needs their father at that age, you need guidance, a lot of things are going on. But he just passed away and it was really, really rough for my family.
We had good people in [the city where we lived] and we were able to get connected with and get support. It has just been a fight. My momma lost her job and was not working for about five years. She was working as a housekeeper. But when the economy crashed she lost her job. My father was trained as an architect. But when he came here he lost all that, all his greatness meant nothing coming to America. So he had to start at the bottom. So he was working as a custodian at a church, cleaning and painting. So he worked through that and he did whatever to take care of our family and he raised me and my brothers and my sisters right.
Now, when he passed, we went all different ways and that's when the streets grabbed me by my neck, no guidance. So I got involved with some street stuff and once I got into that street stuff it really opened up my eyes up to what life is like in America and how does it feel to be Black in America. When I first came here, at 12 years old was my first profiling. I had never been profiled a day in my life for being Black. I was riding a bicycle and a police officer stopped me, I was right outside my porch. I stayed outside this area which is lower-income housing, mainly Black. There is a lot of drugs, a lot of violence going on in that community. The officer stopped me and asked me why I ain't got no helmet on and the only thing I could say is my father don't know English, my mother don't know no English—I'm the closest thing they could translate to my parents what's going on. So my daddy comes out here and is like, what the police doing out here? I told my daddy, like, I don't know why they came here. They say I don't have no helmet, they say I have to have a helmet to ride a bicycle. I'm like, I didn't know that, he's saying they're going to write me a ticket and take me to jail and all that intimidation from an officer. So that was my first profiling and ever since then, it's just been flat-out racism. I never, never experienced racism until I got to America. Just being stopped all the time. After that it just went on. At the age of 14 and 15, it was like every time I walked down the block it's a cop saying he's going to arrest me, would stop me. And I was like, why you searching me, going through my pockets searching for drugs. I understand I'm in a drug area, but I'm fresh out of school. But I'm Black.
After my daddy passed, we all kind of went our different paths and my mom working, then losing her job. So I fell a victim to the street. The street grabbed me and I almost lost my life twice. I got shot, been incarcerated for about a year. The first time I was ever charged was when I was 14.... I felt wrong for what I did [but I got charged for something that I didn't do]... I went through that process, got out and got shot—something that was going on in the community that I had nothing to do with...
Then after that, man, it didn't stop, it just kept going. Every time I'm in the street I kept getting pulled over by the cops. I was still in the street life, but it didn't matter. After I got shot, I just lost my mind, full throttle. I didn't care any more, I lost who I am. I just didn't care no more, whatever happened to me happened. Fortunately I had people, good people who tried to help me with unconditional love, and I was able to break out of that slowly but surely to try and help my family.
Now you're no longer in the street life. So what's the relationship between getting out of that and getting involved in different struggles, like what you've been doing in the community and around Trayvon Martin?
All this stuff was going on, all this injustice, we had the police who got the transportation authority to come take away the bus stops so we can't be chilling at the bus stops no more. They got rid of the chairs, the benches, so we can't sit there no more. They got rid of the benches and they got rid of the few bus stops in our little radius and only left two...
Then later I got shot and went back into the streets and caught a drug charge and went to a juvenile detention center for a year. There I was right next to the [adult] jail and prison—literally I was being prepared to go to the adult prison. I could also see what's next for me and ever since that, somehow I sat myself down in my cell and started hearing voices, all these things that were going on with me, that I needed to step up and do something. Like I kept hearing from my friend about how a police sent a dog out on him, how the police shot my other friend four times in the leg—all this. And I started educating myself, I became like a juvenile representative, letting others know about their cases. I'm a listener. Once you're in court you sitting there with people charged with felonies and you better listen, you never know what's next for you. I went down to the juvenile prison and started educating other folks. And I said, you know when I get out of here, I'm not coming back cause guess what I learned? The statistic that 88 percent of all juvenile offenders re-offend in less than a year. I cried when I heard that, it hurt to my heart. And I said that's not going to be me. But reality shows that the statistic is real. Guess what, my friend, my brother, my neighbors, all of them, I kept seeing them re-offend in less than a year. And I just got tired of it.
I always had a voice but I could never really connect with the right people. But then I started seeing what's going on, then years later got back in school, forced myself to graduate from high school. Then I just promised myself, after school, I'm just going to push this thing, this positive vibe and this positive way of living to any other youth that's been in my place, in my shoes, that's walking in my same predicament, like don't have a safe home to go to, that they were forced to live on the street, to live a street life to provide for their family.
If my mom had a good job working, if my dad was still alive, I don't think I would have been forced to go on the street and sell drugs. I had to go sell drugs to provide for my family. I couldn't stay in the house with no lights in my house, no water in my house, you know. And my mom struggling to take care of six kids by herself. It hurt me to my heart at 14, 15, what could I do. What could I really do? The only option I had was to commit crime. And the only crime that I committed was selling drugs. So the older I got I started learning how I was affecting my community. All that time, all that year of being incarcerated. I really sat down with myself and I just started talking to myself and what should I do, what could I do to start making a change with myself. I made a change within me and after that I started talking and letting my friends know. I got with some friends in college. The Trayvon Martin struggle was the first thing I got involved with....
I could have been Trayvon, you know. Trayvon Martin happened and I just got so frustrated and tired of all the things that had been going on with the police brutality, with the racial profiling, with the white folks just mistreating me. I just got so tired of that. Trayvon Martin just gave me a line—that this is enough. I felt that Trayvon Martin—I just said this is enough. I need to take that step. And ever since then I sat down myself and I took that step. I took that step and I continuing and I try to keep it pushing. And even the people that disapprove of that message, I told them, I know you don't believe in why I'm doing this. But my heart is telling me, somebody is telling me to do this. And I had to do it, it's just like, oh man this is the point—if it wasn't for that point I will either end up being locked up in prison for a very long time or be killed up in the street. I would be shot up in the street somehow on the block.
The step that I made with this, that first night—cause I took the initiative to take it and make the step to—cause I kind of took it on myself to pay back on the corrupt that I did to the community where I infected my community, cause I was selling crack cocaine. And selling crack cocaine, man, it speeds your life. I'm 14 years old but I'm living a 30-, 40-year-old man life. I was living too fast. I kind of felt like I owed this to the community and I need to do something to give it back. So I started getting involved with activists, started getting linked up with groups doing positive things. And I've been inspired by everything from gay rights to the rights of workers, to the fight around Trayvon Martin, Jordan Davis and Marissa Alexander...
Let me ask you this, I know you've met Carl Dix and other revolutionaries. The Revolution Club has a t-shirt that says, "This system has no future for the youth, but the revolution does." What do you think about this?
Just like, to go back to what I was saying. I always had a voice to say something, but I never went to the right people to say it, especially the people who had the same voice who I could fight along with. I just couldn't see those people. The only thing I was seeing was drug dealers and prostitution and drug users, that was all I was seeing. I wasn't seeing the people who was trying to really change this. Until I started meeting up with [activists in my city] and I got involved with that... Ever since I was young I always had this in my mind, this is not right how we're being treated and something got to happen. Cause I can't keep running. I ran from [my country] to the United States, where I'm gonna go after the United States? I can't keep running no more. I have to stop here. Right here is enough. There's no more running. It's death or freedom. And I made that decision on myself and I told myself either death or freedom. And I met Carl Dix and ever since then—I first heard him talk and he was letting us know about this movement that was going on and the organization and this is what I've been called for. This is the people that I needed to be linked up with because I always had that passion to go out there in the street but I didn't have the proper people for support. The people who were supporting me didn't want to support me in the things that I love. I love people, I love justice, I believe in justice.
I guess I just heard that from my family, my father was that way, my uncle, a lot of my family is that way. And boom, I ended up meeting Carl Dix after the Jordan Davis trial and when we was down there [in Jacksonville] and it was just something about that guy, everything he was talking about. It was kinda like pointing a finger at me, this is what I needed to be listening to, to be really proud of, not no drug dealer down the block that's telling me to be moving these drugs out on the street. I don't need to be listening to him. Now I'm listening to something that's really trying to help me, not just help me but help my little brothers and my kid's kids or whatever and I just take that step. It's been a rough road cause just like I was saying the people who love me don't support that kind of movement. And it hurt me—like if you love me don't you see that I love doing this...
Everything about your story reminds me about this slogan we have in the movement for revolution, "Fight the power, and transform the people, for revolution." Bob Avakian talks about how those who have been oppressed and ground down by this system, including the youth, need to be and can be part of the backbone for this revolution. But also how they need to be and can be transformed through fighting the system as part of building a movement for revolution.
I guess that's who I am. I don't know, there's just something that keeps pushing me. It's just something. Every time I get out in the street protesting, there's this massive energy in me to go against these kinds of things. I don't know where it comes from. I just get this energy just to keep going.
Do you think it's going to take revolution—nothing less? A lot of people think you can reform this system, that this idea of revolution is too radical.
It's the only way. It will take revolution. Because if we're just going to sit here and turn the other cheek around, guess what, it's ok for the police to do what they do. The people that are saying that [you can reform things] are the people who are happy with what's going on. That's the truth. These are the people who are happy with their own people being incarcerated, their own people living in poverty. They are happy with that. They want to turn around the other cheek. I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to turn the other cheek. And this kind of stuff is very, very near. And that's why I pushed myself to come to this event because I feel like I need, it's a voice for me to speak out. Even if I don't reach 500 kids, even if there are two kids that I could give another road. I'm young but I learned a lot and I also want to present anybody else that's coming up the same way I was coming up, [they] can change that. This kind of movement is very much needed for the young...
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