A Thug is Just a Man

A Thug is Just a Man

Demetrice McCray

Copyright © 2019 Demetrice McCray

All rights reserved

First Edition

PAGE PUBLISHING, INC.

New York, NY

First originally published by Page Publishing, Inc. 2019

ISBN 978-1-64462-561-3 (Paperback)

ISBN 978-1-64462-560-6 (Digital)

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Introduction

A Thug Is Just a Man is a critique and commentary on the average young black male. My introduction is a letter to those same children that live in and run in the streets of the hoods and ghettos and also those children that have become the younger, fresher faces filling up prisons.

Chapter 1

Thugs Need Love Too

After the War

Ain't No Future in Frontin'

Ain't No Luv

Ain't Nuttin to Say

A Lil' Bit 'bout Myself

Am I Asking Too Much?

Are You Still Down?

A Thug's Sentiments

Back Then

B-cuz of You

Charades

Condemned

Did Me Bad

Didn't Ya?

Don't Miss Your Chance

Fool

Friend of Mine

Got Yourself Somethin'

Help Me Out

Homeboys

I Ain't Even Mad

I Have a Dream (That I'll Fall in Love)

Ineligible

I Understand

Let Love Grow

Let's Fly Away

Love to Hate

Mirror, Mirror (1)

My Inspiration

Neva WAS (Worried, Afraid, Sad)

No Big Deal

No Doubt about It

Pain's Love Song

Patiently Waiting

Perfect Gentleman

Played Yo'self

Promises, Promises

Real Love

Ride with Me

Shoulda Said Somethin'

Show Me Some Love

Some of Us

So Much Potential

Still a Virgin

Straight Up

Sucka for Love

Sweet Nothings

Where's the genuine sincerity that you knew upon the introduction?

Taboo

The Big Letdown

Thug Etiquette

Thugs Need Love Too

Thugged-Out Romeo

What's It Gonna Be?

Where's da Luv at Now?

Why Don't Nobody Love Me?

You'll Never Know

Your Favorite Nobody

Chapter 2

The Depths of Me

A Drop in the Bucket

A Living Soul

Answers

Answer to Yo Prayers

A Sight to See

A Thug's Last Will and Testament

Be

Being Used

Can't Fake It

Chasing the Truth

Destiny

Do You?

Faith

For the Life of Me

From the Beginning to the End

Heavenly Hell-Raisers

I Did That

I Find It Amazing

I Found God

Infinite Possibilities

In Hopes to Save My Soul

It Is What It Is

Just 'Cuz

Life

Looking with My Eyes Closed

Making a Way

Making Plans for Tomorrow

My Life

No Betta Than Me

Nobody but You

Oh Well

One Life to Live

Pray for Me

Read the Signs

Reason for Being

Secrets

See You When You Get There

So Hard to Smile

Someday It'll Matter

Suddenly I See

The Good Fight

The Lil' Things

THUGS (Thru Hell U Gain Salvation)

The Voice Within

The Way It Is

Time

What It Looks Like

What's Wrong with Me?

When I'm Gone

Where Do I Begin?

Where I Find My Peace

You Asked for It

Chapter 3

The Man in the Mirror

Above Average

Actin' the Fool

A Fool's Game

Ain't Got the Time

Ain't No Shame

Ain't Nothing Wrong with Me

A Moment with Myself

And the Winner Is

A Star Is Born

Behold

Better Things to Do

Better Than That

By Definition

Champion

Cuttin' da Fool

'Cuz They Said I Couldn't

Definition of a Thug

Don't Cross My Mind

Don't Get It Twisted

Everyone's Asleep

Fine Wit'outcha

Foreva Thuggin'

Found My Swag

Got to Be Me

Hardheaded

How I Feel

I Ain't Them

I've Been There

I Got a Story to Tell

Independence

It Ain't Over

It Works

It's Been an Honor

Let's Kick It

Let Me Be

Livin' the Dream

Love You for That

Love Her, Boy

Made This Way

Man Alive

Man, Please

Me and My Problems

Mind Made Up

Mirror, Mirror (2)

My Memoirs

Neva a Dull Moment

Neva Look Back

No Regretz

One Shot

Only Trying to School You

Pleasure Principle

Ready for Love

Ready for the World

Rest, Mama

The Best of Me

The Last Laugh

The Love of Money

The Way I See It

Those Rare Moments

Time to Be a Man

Unstoppable

Wasted Enuff Time

What Happened?

Without a Doubt

Wordz to My Brother

You Know Who You Are

You're Grown Now

About the Author

Introduction

A Thug Is Just a Man is a critique and commentary on the average young black male. My introduction is a letter to those same children that live in and run in the streets of the hoods and ghettos and also those children that have become the younger, fresher faces filling up prisons.

Those children whose steps were guided in misdirection by me and my contemporaries who learned the blown outta proportion, ghetto lore of thug life from our predecessors. Like you, I received the same instruction on how to be a thug and a man according to the fantasies and preconceptions of males unaware they were being clownish in their obsolete thinking.

In the vanity of youth, your understanding is naïve, and your rebelliousness is reckless as you strive to live up to what you should be like and what you're supposed to do. Like us, before you who in our youth saw no need to be cautious and sensible always refusing to heed what we didn't want to hear, you're lured by the search for you don't know what. Also, like us, few of you will make it out of your teens lurking within the crowd of youngsters among the ruins of your communities as a fixture on the hood scene.

Young, untamed, uncouth, uneducated hotheads who drop outta school to become guns blazing, hell-raising drug dealers, or thugs, who go on to risk catching a case with a hefty prison sentence or be amongst those dying in droves. The dazzling image and living up to it keeps your days full of distraction and entertainment as you're unwilling to look or think beyond the moment of making yourself look important. The attention is relished, and even as you recognize that you're making choices that end nowhere, it's cooler to display the proper etiquette of our highly publicized ignorance.

Because of that ignorance, my words will go in one ear and out the other of many and will be rejected by most. Yet there are those few whom the need to fit in has become a burden, those who've felt isolated and ignored but used up wondering what you're doing wrong, those sick of getting roughed up by unnecessary situations they've placed themselves in through decisions based in other people's approval (props), those tired of finding themselves in handcuffs for participating in the insane recklessness that's meant to ensure that we're highly represented in the criminal justice system. In truth, we're overrepresented.

This book is written for those few who've critiqued the use of the word thug and found that they are above and beyond the buffoonery associated with it. I know that you're unaccustomed to having such words spoken aloud, but I want you to know there's no wrong nor need for shame in letting your tears spill. You deserved a lot better, and we of my generation failed to give it. In our defense, we too inherited the perception that casts a man as actually less than for being sensitive and humble. What won't be defended is those long past their prime unwilling to view our collective situation within the larger context and realize we have a duty to break the cycle.

Hear it from one who has literally been there and done that. As a onetime star pupil of the infamous yet illustrious school of hard for us or the street which is the hood equivalent of Harvard and a graduate of jail. I've attained degrees in both realization and manhood. I am not glorifying these as achievement by trying to make them sound cool. What I am doing is acknowledging both experiences as pieces of the process that made me the man that I am today. I know and understand the loneliness behind the image. So I'm 'bout to give y'all the game on what you out here doing 'cuz I'm more than qualified.

My penitentiary discourses come from an acquired insight into why it is the way it is with us. I've advanced and developed in my time of self-realization. Granted a moment of absolute clarity in my time in these schools, I knew that I was experiencing the difference between doing and being.

I've undergone a transformation that's quite radical according to conventions mold regarding a thug's life due to a different perspective. I now recognize and grasp the importance of individuality and self-worth emphasized to me by those I never wanted to hear or listen to. Trust that a time will come for all of you to have that unavoidable confrontation with self. For now, you continue to allow yourself to be caught up in the daze of your missteps. Also, I learned that there's no such thing as mistakes. Mistakes are for actors who are playing a role and the directors (not you) has yelled cut. So keep in mind, every time you say you've made a mistake, you are admitting you were acting for somebody.

What I got to tell y'all is that there's been a large omission of facts in our cool, hard, and real education. We've been so preoccupied with the various concepts and myths of being real and being a man that we have abandoned, buried, and destroyed what's really real ourselves. The concocted, adopted facades and personas to be accepted by those who are just as misled, misguided, and uneducated as you are what keeping you from living the life you're born for. Stand in the mirror and look into yourself (not at yourself). If you're real with yourself, then you'll make an honest assessment of yourself.

When self is under brutal scrutiny, all of your faults are found upon examination, and what becomes apparent is how uncharacteristic you feel. You look at those around you whom you make choices you don't really wanna make for, and for the first time, you wonder if those you're trying to please would do the same thing you did faced with your choice? You are unique, and there's a purpose to your uniqueness, but you first have to know you and what you want in order to have what's rightfully yours.

I've discovered that being real and being a thug are one in the same. A real thug is a man who can accept all that he is and all that he is not and live his life as only he will. How can you be real as a thug or man when someone else's perception of you is more defining than your own? For those you are acting for you keep certain expressions of yourself hidden so as not to look lame, weak, soft, stupid, etc. What's real about that? You can't be a thug or a man if you're afraid to be yourself. You first have to know you, identify your own needs and dreams as priority. As you become completely unraveled, take in every detail and learn all that's to be learned through your own observations regarding you and your life.

I ain't just saying I'm being serious when I say I am speaking personally. My critique of these terms (real, man, thug) will be offensive to the youth—those who merely look at the mirror and see the image, those who flaunt their imagined manhood operating in a scripted manner so as not to damage their standing and further contribute to their image. So intent on this, they're blind to the power within themselves to be acquired and used. They're ignorantly arrogant of the truth that they're grown now, but eventually, they'll figure it out. For