From Thug to Scholar: An Odyssey to Unmask My True Potential

FROM THUG TO SCHOLAR

An Odyssey to Unmask My True Potential

Removing the Facets of Religion, Race, and

Other Ugly Categories

That Separate and Mask Us

DR. JAMES ARTHUR WILLIAMS

FROM THUG TO SCHOLAR

UNMASKYTP PUBLISHING

For information, please visit our website

www.unmaskytp.us2.authorhomepage.com or www.unmaskytp.com

From Thug to Scholar

by Dr. James Arthur Williams

Copyright © 2020 by Dr. James Arthur Williams

All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-7351063-3-5

ISBN: 978-1-7351063-6-6 (e-book)

PUBLISHERS NOTE

Without limiting the rights under the copyright reserved above, no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any manner whatsoever without prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

Contents

James's Conversion

Origins of a survivor

Humble beginnings of thug life

My ghetto E-Z pass to survive the game

The understanding behind my observations

Risking it all to fit in

Masked to the E.G.O.

You can never run from self

Owning my decisions

Unconditional love led me

Finding blessings in the simple things

Guided Odysseys lead to peace

Crazy belief

Some suggested readings

Contact the author

Endnotes

Praise for From Thug to Scholar

"From Thug to Scholar is the true account of James Williams’s journey in life, the process of losing the mask he wore to fit in with the crowd and becoming a role model for young people of all races. Read it and be inspired."

~ Linda Jacobs, Spur Finalist and WILLA Award-winning author of Jackson Hole Journey

James excelled in our doctoral program at ISU. He was the leader of our graduate students. We’re thrilled to see his career flourish, and I am sure the students at James Madison appreciate him. His life story is one that opens your eyes to the resilience of the human spirit. He is a role model for young men and women who find themselves searching for a direction.

~ Dr. Bob Bosselman, Chair-Department of Apparel, Events, and Hospitality Management at Iowa State University

Not only does Dr. James Williams present a compelling story about the struggles and triumphs of his life; but interwoven, amidst every page, are life-principles destined to positively impact every generation. This book should be in the hands of every person who has a dream . . . and is dogmatic enough to do what it takes, to make those dreams come true!

~ Savaslas A. Lofton, author of At a Mirror’s Glance

Dedication

LaToya Williams, you are my wife,

supporter, and better half. I love you, and

I appreciate all that you do. To my

beautiful kids, Tia, Jas, Jay, and Joce,

keep reaching for the stars no matter

what because greatness follows that feat.

To my parents, Jimmy and Dorothy

Williams, thank you for introducing me

to the alpha and omega and Christ’s

principles. To my brothers, Mack (Twin),

Deon, Torey, Tony, Amani, and Ajay, I

appreciate all of your love and

support…stay Kings. To my

mother-in-law, Alice Richardson, I

appreciate your love and amazing fried

fish.

To God, the Alpha and Omega, the

infinite source of all knowledge and

understanding. I am thankful for your

grace, mercy, and unconditional love. I

will continue to acknowledge you in all

that I do.

1

JAMES’S CONVERSION

Transformation means literally going beyond your form.

~ Wayne Dyer

Cold steel sitting in my hand, just waiting to change some lives and to alter my history and add me to the long list of black males in prison for murder. At 15, I was a wiry teenager with an undeveloped frame, but in this instance, I drew everyone to silence. All eyes were on me, and I felt like Tupac, standing at 5’7, but this .38 death chamber making me feel like 6’6. I held life and death in my right hand, and instantly had the power to be judge, jury, and executioner of anyone coming to me with an issue. I became a giant, and everyone seemed so small, like annoying ants.

I used my left hand to wipe some sweat from my brow, attempting to clear my vision, but it was not the sweat obstructing my sight; it was the noise of the overwhelming thumps of my heart beating inside my chest. I took a deep breath and assessed the situation, locking onto a sight as my target and to shoot. As I scanned the field, I noticed an adjacent golf course, reeking of opulence and restrictive elements to keep this black boy out. I grew angry and upset and decided to lay down the law and release my frustration.

I raised my right hand to align the sight with my right eye, telling myself to bust. Hearing my friends egg me on in the background: Bust that gun, J! I nodded my headed in agreement and squeezed the trigger to a thunderous sound that startled me and incited me to keep squeezing until all chambers were emptied. I was caught up in an evil sense of euphoria. I was no longer afraid of guns, and I did not care what those bullets hit. I was busy shaking hands and embracing the props I received from my peers.

I did not comprehend the seriousness of my actions. I only relished the love I received within my subculture because my actions granted me the privilege of claiming thug life. I was committed to the street game, and I loved the recognition of my wrongdoings. I was chasing the ghost of my biological father who didn’t bother to play a role in my life. I embraced thug life for the majority of my life, and I did not visualize any longevity or mainstream success (e.g., a professional or white-collar career).

I masked myself to peer acceptance and to limited potential. I carried this paradigm for 19 years of my life, living with limitations as a masked thug, but for the last 16 years I lived free of limitations as an unmasked being. Today, I write with a framed Ph.D. diploma on my wall and a career I adore as a University of Tennessee professor. I joined the less than one percent of blacks with a doctoral degree, rather than 37.1 percent of blacks who represent our nationwide prison population.

During those days, I masked myself to hopelessness and to failures. I was controlled by darkness and despair, so my only hope was for the temporary joys of a given day—sex, weed, alcohol, money, and other hood bullshit. I dreamed ghetto dreams…going pro in football or in basketball and making plenty of dollars to stunt and to look rich. My subculture rejected the norms and successes of mainstream society, so I did not aspire to those ideals. Ironically, those ideals are the pursuit of many masked individuals. I sought a transformation that led me to recognize and to understand my true self, and that self-guided me to something greater and something untapped. My odyssey will make you feel free and safe to unmask to your true potential. Greatness, solitude, health, wealth, and happiness await all of you.

ORIGINS OF A SURVIVOR

Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated

~ Confucius

Many factors played meaningful roles in my life as a masked adolescent: environments, friends, parents, religion, confidence, and acceptance, to name a few. An imbalance of time and effort led me to don a mask that sought to appease others. It is impossible to pinpoint the moment I decided to don the mask that embodied my definition of thug life, or to begin the actions and behaviors that would lead me to future criminal-minded activities and gang-related decisions that negatively impacted my existence.

My life was an up-and-down process of wins and losses, and I would love to say I experienced a lot of joy; but it was mostly pain and disappointment as a youth. At the age of five, I learned hardship: poverty, psychological pain, and physical violence. By this time, I survived the psychological pain of an absent father, and my new family trek from Wilson, North Carolina to Fall River, Massachusetts. At this time, my biological father (Richard) exited my life, and my dad (Jimmy) entered it. Jimmy joined the Navy and received orders to Rhode Island, prompting us to relocate to Fall River. A place where I would learn to explore girls, violence, and systematic hood negativity.

Mental warfare started in Fall River. I quietly questioned my existence and relevance. I struggled with the subtlety of never mentioning Richard and replacing him with Jimmy, even though I was happy to view Jimmy as my father. Something within me felt unsettled and confused, and that restlessness cried out for peace and acceptance. But I could never seem to find a sense of tranquility; instead, I moved unconsciously with no purpose, no direction, and no hope. I was not thriving, I was merely surviving. I was challenged to find a way to align with my parents’ Christian values and teachings while making sure my school behavior meshed well with my peers. My mother Dorothy taught me to turn the other cheek and to treat my enemies kindly, but I viewed her as weak.

My environment repudiated my mother’s perspective, urging me to raise my hands and fight, so I did, reluctantly at first. Truth be told, the weak got beat and were labeled as soft in my world. There was no room to be soft or to turn the other cheek because I had to feel safe in the school yard, school bathrooms, school lunchrooms, school classrooms, and neighborhood playground. Classmates were prone to fight in any one of those settings. The subtle quietness and clustering of students gave way to the menacing individuals about to square off for combat. My mom and dad attempted to inspire me with text from the Bible and spiritual rhetoric, but they were not privy to Malcolm Gladwell’s book, David and Goliath, indicating that kids are more likely to succeed when they come from a great environment, when compared to a great home life and bad environment.

Being young and uninformed, my parents thought they could pray away bad situations. Their prayer could not make me capitulate to their demands because survival triumphed being righteous. Rebellion began at the dinner table as my parents tried to make me eat some canned spaghetti. For whatever reason, I was not in the mood to eat this dish, and I refused to eat, making up excuses and leaving the table in an attempt to use the restroom and buy me some time away. I was hoping that they would forget about the food and let me go to bed, but they did not fall for my deceptive tactics. This forced me to wait it out, as one hour turned to eight hours. I would not budge, and my strong-willed nature won out. This nature forced me down a wayward path, rejecting righteous teaching and anything that threatened my chances of survival.

My brothers had a strong influence on me - my twin (Mack), and my older brother (Deon). Mack and I were inseparable, but Deon was my inspiration. Deon had the girls, the respect, and the status of big brother. Ultimately, we were all inspired by our braggadocious hood culture. Conversations focused on who could fight best, run the fastest, date the prettiest girl, and have the best toys or clothes. I entered kindergarten with this prefatory knowledge about life, so I was determined to set my tone early. I was determined to let my peers know what I was capable of because my height and size gave me a psychological and physical disadvantage. I made sure they knew I had hands, and I was quick to use them. The smallest issue incited me to fight. If someone stepped on my shoes, they met my fist; if they cut me in the lunch line, I fought them in the bathroom; and if they set in my seat, I kicked them at the playground. I had to let them know I was about that life.

I fought so much I became numb to it. I traded anxiety for excitement, becoming a part of my masked identity and a key to my impoverished survival. I was poor and did not realize I was poor until many years later. I thought my inclusive environment of Irish, African Americans, Cambodians, and others was normal. None of us had much, we only had our name, pride, and individual way of surviving and making every day worth something. My parents did the best they could with their meager earnings and proverbial faith. At that time, we survived on my dad’s modest Navy income as my mother pursued an associate’s degree. They were in survival mode as well, embarking on life with no formal education and no financial literacy. They had faith