October 2022
Coolio the writer and rapper of the song, “Gangsters in Paradise,” passed away a few days ago. It has me thinking about my childhood in Columbus, Ohio & my 20+ years teaching in Columbus public schools…Damn how the gangster life has just grown and or how the idea of it has flourished.
Instead of it stopping, or slowing like I thought it would back when Coolio first rapped this song along with LV who so beautifully sang.
It is chilling.
Ain’t that the damn truth…. there ain’t no gangsters living in paradise !
The inner city looks like a living hell to me, like a zombie apocalypse as real as ever to my eyes.
I survived these streets. I got out, barely.
I drive these streets, I see them, someone’s child out here chasing something or running.
They’ll survive, like me or will they die?
But they’ll never forget because these streets define you…
This gangster paradise will cause trauma; trauma that you got to overcome.
Many leave and never look back. Some have so much anger that they blame the ones still in it, the ones playing the game?
They become afraid to return and paint them worse than what they once were.
They have recovered & rebuilt, but they forget how one falls into that paradise illusion.
I became an educator.
I watched young people, over and over keep stumbling into this gangsters paradise.
Thinking they can do it better than those before, or thinking that they are gonna die anyways so why not chase it.
It’s a hard lesson to learn.
With young adults not having a developed prefrontal cortex, how can we stop the risky gangsta paradise try out period that some gotta try?
I don’t see an end in sight, the Gangsters Paradise lures some in and then spits them out.
One thing is clear as Coolio’s song, “There ain't no gangsters living in paradise.”
What do you think?
-Mrs Mc
