PERCEPTION IS REALITY

🔵 By Albert Brinkley. Photo by lauragrafie.

Growing up I always heard people saying that “Perception is Reality”, and I never really understood that statement up until recently. And now that I understand that statement, I couldn’t disagree with it more. Now first thing first, let us dissect the meaning of this statement. When we say that perception is reality, what we are basically saying is, how we, individually perceive things and people are the reality of it and the reality of them. So if we really sit back and think about it, we will realize how untrue that statement is. And the quickest way to come to that conclusion is to understand the fact that just because we perceive something or someone the way we perceive it and perceive them, does not make it reality of the situation or person. The one thing that we have to realize, is the fact that every person in this world had deficient intellect, so we all need proper assistance on the way we think! For example, I grew up in West Philadelphia in a Public Housing Project called “The West Park Housing Projects” and it’s on the 46^th and market. When I was growing up I was raised by my grandmother, because my father was killed two months before I was born. And my mother was knee deep into the street life, so she was in and out of jail up until I was about 13 years old. So although my grandmother and aunt did a great job at raising me, my environment played a major role in my decision making. Now I’m not saying that’s the reason I indulged in criminal activities is because of my environment, because I take full accountability for my actions. I’m just trying to give people a better understanding of why I choose to make a lot of the decision I made as a kid and some decisions I still make as an adult.

Although I come from a poverty stricken area, my grandmother and aunts and a uncle made sure our family was straight and didn’t have to do what most people did where I come from, just to make a couple bucks. The family motto was, go to school and do good and you won’t want too much of anything. This was my uncle’s biggest thing because he was the bread winner of the family. And although everything he told us sounded good, he was not one who led by example, because he is telling me, my brothers, sisters and lil cousins this, but at the same time he was one of the biggest drug dealers in the city. So that’s where the confusion came in at, because he is telling us one thing, but he is doing the total opposite. Yes we had our grandmother and aunt who led by example and said plus did all the right things, and that might have been the reason most of the females in my family didn’t get involved in the street life. But as far all of the males in my family that my uncle helped raise, we all got into the streets the first chance we got. And the reason I believe that to be true is because my grandmother and aunt was not none of our role model, we didn’t want to be like them, although we loved and respected them dearly. We all wanted to be like my uncle, he was our role model, because he was the provider, he had all the new cars, clothes, beautiful houses, boat loads of money, plus he had the respect of everybody that knew him. So as I was growing up as a child, I was a very handsome kid, plus I had nice clothes and shoes, so I always felt I had the most to prove. Plus I didn’t want to be in my father and uncle shadows my whole life, so instead of trying to accumulate boat loads of money and provide for my loved ones like they did, I prided myself on using any and all means to protect the people I loved. So my soul purpose growing up was to out Gangsta everybody on the planet and never give anyone a reason to lowercase my G!

Anybody that know me will tell you that I was a very bad kid growing up. I was the kid your parents told you to stay away from. But the difference from me and most people, I never was a bully, I was the person that exposed the bullies for the chumps they really were. But growing up in the hood, we are taught that all the wrong things are the decent things, such as, selling drugs, shooting, robbing, sleeping with a bunch of women, being arrogant, and being prideful are what gives you status and earns you respect where I come from. And just like we are taught that all the wrong things are right things, we are also taught that all the right things, such as having a job, being respectful, having manners, getting married and being faithful are all the wrong things because people like that were looked down upon.

So from my experience of life, it proved to me that everything is a learned behavior. Now let’s get back on topic, but my fixed notion and learned behavior was detrimental to myself and others because I felt as tho “Perception is Reality”, because I gave y’all a brief breakdown of where I come from no matter the country, you will be able to understand a little better the way we think. When I was growing up we looked at the person that worked at Burger King for $ 7.50 an hour, we perceived him as an idiot because we were of the mindset, why sweat over some funky hamburger for 40 hours a week and only make no more than $ 300 a week when I can make that in one day. But now that I have a better understanding of life, he was never the idiot, he was the smart one, I was the idiot and that shows me that Perception isn’t Reality because, just because me and the people I was around perceived hi as an idiot, in reality he was not an idiot. He wasn’t risking his life and freedom for no amount of money and that shows character and strength. Because no matter what our perception of him was, our perception of how he made his livelihood, that don’t make it reality.

Imma give one more example, the detectives on my case perception of me was, I don’t care if you committed this crime or not, you are going to jail for it and Imma make sure of that by giving you some witnesses. So the prosecution had seven witnesses testify on me at trial, they all so called gave statements to these detectives, Phillip Nordo, Omar Jenkins, Gregory Singleton and Nathan Williams, but when all seven witnesses came to testify, all seven of them told the Jury that me or my co-defendant never did anything and that the police tried to make them say we did it. So now the Jury perception was that we did it because although the witnesses said they never said we did anything, the police lied on them and said that they did say that, because most people will believe detectives over anyone that was raised in the Projects. So we both got found guilty and ten years later it finally comes out that them same detectives I named was corrupt. So last year my co-defendant received a new rial because former detective Phillip Nordo tried to force him to do a gay porno with him. But they are denying me justice. My next topic will be no how corrupt the American Judical System is.