Name: 【TEDx】My path out of poverty| Lashon Amado | TEDxPennsylvaniaAvenue
Uploaded: 2016-09-14T00:00:59.000Z
Duration: 12 min 2 s
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Translator: Leonardo Silva Reviewer: Steven Li

Past simple

I was awaken at 5 am one morning to a loud bang.

That loud bang was federal agents kicking down my door,

who was a big-time drug dealer  at the time.

He wasn't there. It was just me, my Mom and my sister.

I can still remember the fear, the confusion,

and the traumatic impact that that event had on me.

They threatened to come to my school and take me away from my parents,

And lastly, it shaped my perception of police and law enforcement.

Like in many other low-income communities, growing up in the city of Boston

you had more liquor stores than grocery stores,

more drug dealers than college graduates,

Most will believe  that behavior is learned,

and I can honestly say that was the case for me.

I became what I saw every day. I became a product of my environment.

If you were to walk through a low-income community

and take a poll and ask individuals, or even go inside prisons and ask them,

\"When your were younger, what did you want to grow up and be?\"

I could guarantee you almost none of them would say,

\"I wanted to grow up and be a gangbanger,\"

It used to be, \"I want to be a superhero,\"

or \"a police officer,\" or \"a firefighter.\"

I believe the conditions of poverty helped create that shift.

\"Poverty is the parent of revolution and crime.\"

Being a student in middle school in Boston public school system

The school looked more like a prison than a school.

We had one book for every three students.

I remember spending most of my times in the hallways,

running around, not engaged in any type of material.

And then, I remember being at my middle school graduation and thinking,

\"How did I even get here? I don't deserve this. I didn't work for it.\"

\"They don't care about me. They're pushing me out.\"

So, as if matters couldn't get even worse,

it was in eighth grade when I lost my first friend to street violence.

shot in his head because he didn't want to give up his hat

to some of the local gangbangers in the neighborhood.

This happened just blocks away from my school.

So now, I wasn't being engaged, I didn't feel safe,

That led me on to getting suspended, missing days of school,

and eventually getting introduced to the juvenile justice system

That apathetic attitude poured over into high school,

and I eventually got kicked out of three different high schools,

And I remember I was on my last trial thinking,

They failed to provide caring adults to make me feel like a student,

and they failed to provide a childhood curriculum

So, as a direct result of being disengaged for roughly two or three years,

I felt like I had no other option at the time.

I didn't consider myself a criminal. I considered myself a survivor.

In that two-year period, I couldn't find a job,

so I started selling drugs, got arrested,

started getting into fights, getting jumped,

watching my friends get gunned down in the streets,

and I myself came face to face with death on three different occasions.

Within one day, there was a huge sweep in Brockton.

They arrested over twenty individuals for drugs in the city.

They were all my friends, and I thought, \"Shon, you're next.\"

On that very same day, I turned the corner of my street,

and there was a police cruiser right in front of my house with their lights on.

When I saw that, I immediately went back to being eight years old

and remembering those federal agents kicking down my door.

It was then that I said to myself, \"This is not about you anymore.

I couldn't put my sister and my mother through that again.

So, at that point, I said, \"You've got to make a change.\"

So, I went on to look for a second chance.

I found my second chance at an organization called YouthBuild.

for youth who have dropped out of high school and are unemployed.

they spend half of their time working towards their GED or high school diploma,

and the other half getting marketable job skills,

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【TEDx】My path out of poverty| Lashon Amado | TEDxPennsylvaniaAvenue

time

opportunity

eventually

engage