What does it mean when you say "I'm From The Hood" (2563 hits)

I wanted to set the story straight regarding the statement "I'm From The Hood", because some people's thought process is that when you claim hood status, that it in someway relates to poverty and you are in some way celebrating living in poverty and this is my reply.
I've heard certain views and I will say ignorance is bliss, but I don’t think some of you get it or understand and I want people to understand and feel free to express their views if they don't agree.
When someone says they are from the hood, depending on whom you’re talking to, (some are just expressing their ghetto mentality which is a different subject all together), they by no means expect you to affiliate that with poverty. It’s simply where they hailed from. When slaves migrated from the south and escaped slavery to the north, some landed in Harlem, and guess what sista girls that was the hood and they were proud to live there. It was theirs and they didn’t have to answer to massa anymore.
Some people say when you say you are from the hood, you are celebrating poverty. Who said anything about celebrating poverty! Not everyone living in the hood is poor. Poor is what you make of it and a mindset as well as a state of being. Plenty of people live in the hood without a lot of money and are by no means poor.
Like I said before, I lived in the hood with a beauty salon, (5 barbers, 5 hairdressers), started with a SBA loan of 60,000, along with 20,000 out my pocket and by no means was that poor, but guess what I lived right down the street from my shop in the hood, so I think maybe people have things misconstrued.
Maybe some people should spend one day with a business owner or people period who live in the hood. Its not all that you see on tv. My customers, working in corporate America, still came home to the hood. Not everyone living there has a poverty mentality.
People saying that Biggie's mom should have justice for her son and that she's a grieving mother, (I feel her grief) and my heart goes out to her, but what about the other grieving mothers whose life he took. There’s 2 sides to every story. The truth we will never know, but when you live by the sword, you die by the sword. Something people will never understand about No Snitching, which I’ve already stated. If you snitch, do you think you can come home and feel safe in the environment in which you live. Who’s going to protect you, the dirty cop who only wants the information to make himself look good and clear some paperwork off his desk and close that file, not because he cares anything about you.
It called survival Sistas and Brothers and you have to agree with it

Its not the neighborhood that was bad, but the bad people who lived there. If they cleaned up those fools, took them off the street instead of siphoning their drugs back into the neighborhoods, the hood could all go back to being a comfortable place to live. When I grew up it was like one big family. If a neighbor caught you, it would be a heartbeat before your mother found out and all hell would break loose.

Like I said before, you have to live it to understand it and apparently a lot of people don’t. They believe all the hype they see on TV. Maybe this little note will shed some light. Blessings!
Note: I do feel the projects should have ever existed. Its like welfare, created to keep a certain people down and under control, but living it wasn't what everyone is making it out to be. Posted By: anita moore
Wednesday, February 23rd 2011 at 6:58PM
You can also click here to view all posts by this author...