Outkast

Many times I feel like an outkast in life. No, not a member of the popular hip hop group that creates music that resonates with millions across this country and refers to themselves as Outkast. I feel more like the dictionary defined outcast: a person who is rejected or cast out, as from home or society. However, I do prefer the more popular outkast spelling.

As a kid, I grew up in very different environments. I used to think that it would benefit me as a person to know the experience of having grown up in the ghetto and having grown up in a senior citizens trailer park. However, I wonder if this helped to make me the outkast that I am today. Obviously, I didn’t feel like I fit in at a senior citizens trailer park because I was the only kid playing outside and people kept telling management about me. You would think that it would be much better in the ghetto, but it wasn’t. The ghetto is only appealing in rap videos or when you have embraced the idea of being ghetto. When you’re not “balling” or pretending to, you’re not a drug dealer, you’re not the complaining old man, and you’re not in a gang, you’re just the lame nigga in the ghetto.

In high school, I played sports, but I also appreciated education. I never got straight A’s, but I never failed a class. I enjoyed talking to and interacting with others, but I was shy too. I appreciated all girls black white and in between, but none of them appreciated me. I was always too short, too young, or not bad enough. I recall middle school when I got my 2 year crushes phone number right before she got kicked out of school. I called her and she asked if I smoked bud. When I said no, I got laughed off the phone. I’m sure that if I had gotten the nerd girls number she would have laughed me off the phone when I told her I didn’t know how to work with derivatives.

Luckily college came around. I chose to go to a historically black college. Naturally, I would fit in there. Unfortunately, a lot of the guys there were from middle class environments, but seemed to want to be ghetto superstars. I was in the ROTC program where I met lots of people and seemingly made friends. I keep in touch with one of those people. Then I did something I never thought I do. I joined a fraternity. There I found a close friend, the guy from ROTC. I still keep in touch with people; they just don’t keep in touch with me.

Sometimes I regret having gone to a historically black college because I feel like I didn’t have the networking skills to take advantage of my environment and I could have gotten a better education somewhere else. I’m sure I could have managed one friend from another college. I feel like two people in one. The guy nobody likes and the other guy nobody likes.

After college, I moved to New York and I was determined to be social. I talked to everybody. My friends would say there’s no way anyone would describe me as shy. Ask anyone that knows of me today, how they would describe me. Life just feels like The Story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears for me, except baby bear doesn’t exist and there’s no porridge that is just right.

Too cool for the nerds, too smart for the jocks, too black for the white groups and not black enough for the black groups. Too educated to be a janitor, not educated enough to be a doctor. Too rich for public housing, too poor for any other housing.