WWhen I was 16, my friends and I used to hang out at the Estate Youth Club. We didn't come from bad backgrounds, we were good kids. We rapped about the lifestyle on the road, and the youth workers were like, “You're trying to be something you're not.” He was right. Most of our parents were the same, we went to a Koranic school, and we had good grades. But we would go as a group to abandoned apartments where the police wouldn't come and smoke weed. The idea of having trouble with this guy, robbing this guy, carrying a knife is something that crosses our minds. It was my introduction to the hood lifestyle. If you walk around and think you're cool, it's slowly going to take a turn for the worse.
I started dealing in cannabis. The lowest class drug dealers. There were no real problems like friends dying, drug addiction, or going to jail. But it was happening to people older than us. We were dealing with friends and people from school, but we were also dealing with other people in the area that other people were dealing with. That competition is where the beef begins.
Some of my friends started getting assaulted everywhere they went, and I started thinking, “Oh, I can't let this happen, I have to do something.'' It was paranoia. Something is going to happen to me, and I'm going to have to do something before someone else does something to me.
Just before my 17th birthday, the knife came in. People from other regions began to flock to our area. They were brothers of a girl whose friend was having relationship problems. They jumped over him and hit him. My friend stood up with a knife and stabbed one of them in the chest, three centimeters from his heart. he survived. But other gangs started coming into the area with knives and at one point guns, so I thought this was something serious. They started saying, “We're going to kill you, we're looking for you.”
People's homes were being targeted. That's when I realized there was no hope in sorting through this beef. The only way is to protect yourself. Even the police don't seem to understand that. People don't carry knives to kill others, they carry them to protect themselves. they are scared That was the case with me. My life was under attack. I felt like if I met these people, I would die any second.
I picked up my mother's knife, slipped it into my waistband, and started walking. I didn't have a case, so just the blade hurt. I couldn't run fast. It was very large – 8 or 9 inches. If you have to use it, it can cause a lot of damage.
There was also pressure from my own community to carry a knife. The pressure is on to grab them and stab them as soon as you see them. You start seeing different sides of people and it hurts you.
I never brought a knife to college in 6th grade. I left it in the bushes in the park next to the school. One day, the police were doing a drug raid and they found my knife. In fact, they found 17 or 18.
I went to get something else from the kitchen and my family started noticing and asking what the hell was going on. They said: “If you're in the sixth form, you'll be fine.'' But they didn't understand.
So a group of us went to a store that sold Rambo knives and toothed zombie knives. The lads and I went to get some knives and I grabbed a 17-inch Rambo. The beef had become tough and was now much larger. I thought: Who is going to try me now? I felt more than safe. My body was calm. There were no more butterflies.
I brought it out several times when people attacked us and tried to get us. One day, two men on scooters came right next to my house. I was walking with a friend. He had a big knife. He had a machete. They stared. They stopped and said, “Are you guys from this area?'' As soon as they said that, we pulled out knives and got into a standoff.
In the meantime, my neighbors came out into the street and it was an embarrassing moment for me. They were shocked and confused as to why I was carrying a knife.
Most people have them for self-defense, but in every region there are groups that attack people. They make up names like “assassin” and “killer.” We had one too. I wasn't part of it, but I remember one time walking 45 minutes with them to an area where there was a problem. There were also baseball bats and knives. They had been notified that we were nearby so nothing happened.
When I was 19, a 17-year-old friend was stabbed to death. He thought this guy thought he was a Muppet, so he went to the scene to set the record straight on him, but the guy didn't get it. As it was going back and forth, he took out a knife and swung it straight at my friend's chest. It was a fatal blow. It was terrible.
At his funeral, the Imam was talking about this lifestyle and the need to avoid it. That night, while I was in the chicken shop, men ran up to me, hit me over the head with a bottle, and stabbed me once in the thigh. I took him to the hospital even though he lost consciousness. I thought I was going to die. I thought my artery was torn and I was losing a lot of blood.
After the nurses stitched me up, we had a heart-to-heart conversation about how to move forward from this situation. People who are stung need help, but many do not receive it and are more likely to die if they are stung a second or third time. It was great to get so much help from the community.
