Love For The Hood

I spent the last 5 days in Chicagos most notorious hoods- walking the blocks, meeting the people, sitting with the men who grew up inside a world most Americans only know through headlines and rap lyrics.

What struck me first wasn’t the danger.

It was the honesty.

Everyone I met spoke with a clarity I rarely see in people who grew up comfortable. You don’t find the same self-deception here. There’s no veil, no performance, no soft padding around reality. Life is sharp, so people speak sharp.

If someone doesn’t like you, they say it. If they don’t trust you, they tell you. If they take you in, they protect you with the same intensity they protect their own.

In the hood, nothing is hidden.

The violence, the drugs, the prostitution, it’s all out in the open.

And because of that, people grow up knowing exactly what the world is.