Exposure to brutal Michigan gangs yet exceptional academics. I lived here from the age of 11 to 15.
61. This is another episode in a series of my exposure growing up in various subcultures. This was a split between two bigger cultures. One, more individualistic and a realist outlook. The other, to me more communal and as I experienced it, of an outlook of magical realism. Michigan was extremely violent. I believe I developed not a comfort with it but a knowledge how to survive in it and a determination to not let it prevent me from seeing whatever in the world I wished to see. I then have survived quite a bit through civil wars, being held hostage, having knives pulled out on me multiple times, once shot at, a group of men waiting to combat me with swords, quite a number of fights, and having my life in danger many times. I don’t think I would have survived all of this had it not been for my training on how to handle extreme violence while growing up in Michigan. I will do other videos on what I faced growing up there.
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