A Quote by Matthew Desmond
In college, when I was kind of confronted with facts and figures about inequality in America, a big impulse I had was to go hang out with homeless people around my university and hear them out and understand their situation from their perspective.
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When I was confronted with just the bare facts of poverty and inequality in America, it always disturbed and confused me.
When I went to college, I went to a junior college. I wanted to go to the University of Alabama but had to go to junior college first to get my GPA up. I did a half-year of junior college, then dropped out and had my daughter. College was always an opportunity to go back. But she, my daughter, was my support. I gave up everything for her.
I'm 26 years old, I'm not some 43-year-old who's just gonna watch TV all day. Of course I want to go out there, hang out with teammates, hang out with people I love, go to the beach, go hang out!
Facts are simple and facts are straight. Facts are lazy and facts are late. Facts all come with points of view. Facts don't do what I want them to. Facts just twist the truth around. Facts are living turned inside out.
It's about trying to step out of being patterned and closed off and reclusive, which I've always had a problem with. It's about attempting to be normal and just go out and be around other people and hang out. I have a tendency to sometimes be pretty closed off and not see people for long periods of time and not call anyone.
What is missing in a lot of urban music is perspective. You hear a lot of regurgitated perspective. It's a lot of: out at the club. Had drinks. Patrón. Big booties. It's this regurgitated idea of living in this, I don't know, one-night-stand moment that always starts at the club and Patrón. And so perspective, perspective, perspective is what I'm an advocate of.
Just to be in the locker room with the NHL players, go out to dinner with them, hang out with them. I feel like it was an invaluable experience and kind of like going to Harvard law school, I guess, because that's the best education you could get being around guys like that.
I hang out with a lot of the people I did when I was in high school, when I was in college, and I have a strong unit of people around me, whether it be friends or family, and if my head gets too big, they will definitely check me immediately.
Those type of people [in New Orleans] keep me happy and just smiling, you know? I just go hang out and talk with them and they tell me all types of old stories, and sometimes I might even pull my horn out in the middle of the block, and they're playing on beer bottles and different things, and we just do a little second line type thing, just us, four or five people, who are just having fun. That makes me day to be able to do that and go hang out with the people in the (Treme) neighborhood, and to do some shows around town, you know?
For players you don't hear about in the news, they enjoy the hell out of the offseason. They can travel and see things they never thought they'd see, or go back home to relax and see their kids and family that they haven't had a chance to hang out with in a few months.
My brother was a big marathoner. He was a great collegiate runner at Beloit College. He won his conference's races, and he did tons of marathons. I would go out and run with him every once in a while just to hang out with him.
Every citizen's vote should count in America, not just the votes of partisan insiders in the Electoral College. The Electoral College was necessary when communications were poor, literacy was low and voters lacked information about out-of-state figures, which is clearly no longer the case.
When you're spending eight to 10 hours out there, the homeless guy is no longer homeless; it's Dave. They become people to you. I think we're really good in this country about saying that they're homeless and, therefore, they don't exist.
I hear the headlines on the radio, see them on TV and read them in the paper. When I hear from the men out there, I sometimes don't believe they are talking about the same situation.
You can't have a university without having free speech, even though at times it makes us terribly uncomfortable. If students are not going to hear controversial ideas on college campuses, they're not going to hear them in America. I believe it's part of their education.
America is the student who defies the odds to become the first in a family to go to college - the citizen who defies the cynics and goes out there and votes - the young person who comes out of the shadows to demand the right to dream. That's what America is about.
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