Everyone has a dream. Some are small; some are more ambitious than others. Truthfully, it's not the dream but the pursuit of it that tells the true determination of an individual. In society, we're taught to go to school, get an education, go to college and get a degree. Then, wah-lah! Enter the real world with our dream job and live happily ever after.
If life were a fairy tale, this scenario would be true 100 out of 100 times, but this is real life. It's a little more complicated than that.
What about the kid who comes from meager beginnings? All he or she knows is poverty and strife. Time and time again, they've been told they're nobody, and they'll never succeed. Now, they're relegated to thriving off things that are conducive to their environment. They aspire to change their circumstances with drugs AMERICA flooded into our neighborhoods.
Trust me. No kid’s first dream is to be a drug dealer.
Let’s not get it confused. In no form or fashion am I condoning or praising the selling of drugs. I'm just smart enough to know that circumstances change situations. As a kid, most of us dreamed of being lawyers, doctors, actors, ball players, rappers, or just successful, period.
What do you do when your rent is due, you have no food, your lights are about to be disconnected, and the schools you want to attend-- you don't even have decent clothes to wear to them?
Are drug dealers looked down upon? Most are perceived to be Black from low income neighborhoods where opportunity is low but life expectancy is lower. They use illegal measures for financial gain, and in turn become entrepreneurs making themselves businessmen in the process. They learn how to manage supply and demand, balancing budgets, marketing and franchising-- everything that a Fortune 500 company has the bandwidth to do.
Is there violence and destruction in the drug trade? Of course, but America was built off violence. The enslaving and killing of African and Native Americans to build this country with free labor.
The Kennedy fortune is rumored to come from bootlegging liquor during prohibition. Pharmacies, tobacco companies and every hospital in America sells drugs on every corner, nationwide. Same hustle. Just a different product. Yet, they're never ridiculed or punished.
Tylenol, aspirin or any opioid is killing people daily. With the gradual legalization of marijuana, the government is profiting off the same drug that has countless young Black men incarcerated. So, is it okay for our government to sell drugs? I guess so.
A drug dealer's dream is to change their life.
Their goals are to get out of the streets while turning themselves into successful businessmen owning stores, barbershops, real-estate and other investments. A drug dealer's dream is to become Jay-Z. Going from Marcy to Hollywood. Young Jeezy. From the slums of the Chatt and the streets of Decatur to Corporate Thugging (C.T.E.). A large majority have dreams and aspirations of 50 Cent, to simply get rich or die trying. All these men come from the bottom, the streets and the slums of the ghetto.
They are businessmen, moguls, multi millionaires and billionaires, but most importantly, they are pillars in the same communities they were once accused of destroying. Selling drugs may have been the start for them, but it was never the end game. Most Americans, especially Black ones, aren't born with the luxury of money. Opportunity has to be made and sometimes, it's through extreme measures.
A drug dealer's dream is simply the American dream. To go from nothing to something; from rags to riches.
When life gives you lemons make lemonade… nah! Make Ciroc or Dolce and always remember to drink responsibly.
Blessed are those who bless others.
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