In this fourth episode of the "Unleashing the Best from the Worst" series, Yusef‑Andre Wiley shares a candid, first‑person account of his teenage years spent in gang activity. He describes how, as a junior‑high student, he sought safety and status by joining a gang, eventually carrying a firearm to high school and hiding it in an outdoor locker. When school security discovered the weapon, Wiley recounts the tense confrontation at school, the subsequent visit from the security guard to his home, and the moment his father was told that his son was a Blood gang member. Wiley reflects on the loss of parental authority during adolescence, the role of the juvenile justice system (probation, fingerprinting, documentation), and how these experiences shaped his development. He emphasizes that such pathways are not rites of passage but societal failures, urging parents, guardians, and community members to recognize early signs of gang influence and intervene before youths become entrenched. The episode ends with a call to reflect on relatives who may be at risk, a reminder of the cyclical nature of gang‑related violence, and an invitation to follow the series for further lessons.
Chapters
Peace, peace. Welcome to episode 4. Um, I appreciate you guys following this, uh, these lessons. These— and like I say, I like calling this a lesson, or these series lessons, because I'm hoping that in the future that folks that will stumble upon these series and learn something, but take something away that's going to benefit them long term. We're going to jump in, we're going to jump in. This is series, um, or episode 4, Unleashing the Best from the Worst. Now that I'm all the way in, I'm all the way involved in gang activity. Things have happened. I crossed that line. I crossed the line because that was the safest. It felt the safest. It felt the most empowering at the time that now I have a crew, that I have other people on my team that's going to help me fight. And this is just the nature of gangs, you know. You, you click up and you, you find something there that keeps you, that holds your attention. And that's happening to so many young people. And I want you to understand that when we're talking about the gangs of my era Don't get confused because this same energy, the same philosophy, the same, uh, influence is still there in today. And the today is even in some cases more extreme. So pay attention to the level of influence that someone else has on your children. Okay, so now here it is, I'm a young teenager and I'm getting involved in gang activity, I'm getting into fights, I'm barely making it through junior high school and getting to high school on a thread, just barely. And now I'm all the way in. At this point, I've been involved in several activities, gang-related activities, over the course of that summer of me being in junior high school at Enterprise Junior High School, through that summer into going into my first year in high school. And now I'm at a high school with older kids and I really have something to prove. I feel like, you know what, I'm coming in with a little bit of, mm, I did something. I have done something now that is going to give me the necessary recognition. That perhaps other gang members are going to pay attention to, and it's going to give me some type of credibility in the streets. So instead of me being focused as a young man where I could have been pursuing football— I've tried, I actually tried out for the football team at my high school, made the team, and didn't make one game, didn't barely made one game. Because I was already engaged in gang activity. I was doing my thing. And this is the time where— when the parents lose authority. This high school age is when the parents began to lose authority, and now the authority has shifted. And to the hood, to the homies, to those circle of friends and influences that are around us are the dominant influence. So even if we still have that fear, a type of fear, if you would, of a parent a single parent, two parents, father, whoever, it's not that strong. So you might do things to look good. You might even still go to church like I did. I continued to attend church services on Sunday, sung, sang in the choir, continued to go to choir rehearsal. I continued to show up on Sundays. For God, if you would, right? And then after church, after choir rehearsal, off to the streets, off to that mentality and attitude and behavior that's gonna run me into that brick wall. Now, what's so bad about this time, and for me, is that now I'm going to be coming in contact with law enforcement. And I knew it. There was a day where I took a weapon to school, and it was in my locker. And in the high schools, you know, the they have the lockers in the hall, in these hallways. So it really— in the type of school that I attended, it was, it was, the lockers was pretty much outdoors. It was like an outdoor environment. It wasn't like a closed-in hallway. It was, it was literally outside. So anybody can be walking up and down those hallways of the school and this locker is there and I had a backpack and I carried the gun to school and I put it in a locker and somebody noticed it. I think somebody noticed it and they alerted the, the school security. By the time I got back to my locker, the school security was meeting me there. I was trying to get to the locker to remove the weapon from the locker, and he met me there and grabbed me with the weapon and the bag and took me to the office. And when that happened, it happened so quickly that I didn't have a chance to respond. So it didn't— nothing took place on campus, so It was just me in limbo wondering what was going to happen the rest of that day or the rest of that week. So as the day went on, I got home later on that day. Nothing happened. No phone calls. I'm waiting. I'm, I'm walking around the house following my parents, waiting for the phone to ring. You know, we had landlines. It was all about landlines. There was no cell phones. So we waiting for the— I'm waiting for this phone to ring. This, uh, this phone to ring. And every time it rung, it was like, okay, that gotta be my school calling, it gotta be my school calling. And it wasn't. And then I'm like, okay, they're not gonna call, cool. So it was kind of late, and typically they're gonna call, they're gonna call at a reasonable time, it's not gonna be too late. So I stretch, yawn, and all right, y'all, goes to my bedroom. I think I was in my bedroom perhaps 15, 10, 15 minutes, and I hear the doorbell ring. Ding dong! And my antennas went up when I heard the door bell, but it was late. I look at the clock and I'm like, hmm, who could that be? And then I heard the voice. Guess who that was? The school security coming to my house, maybe 8 o'clock at night. It had to be at least 8 o'clock at night. And he was invited in by my parents. My father answered the door. And he shared who he was, his identity, said he worked at the school security. So of course my dad is like, he's— his antennas is up, like, what's going on here? He said at the end of the one table in our dining area, and my dad said at the other end, I'm so nervous and on the edge, I'm not sitting down, I'm just standing there. Waiting for the first words that's going to come out his mouth, wondering what they're going to be. And the first thing that he asked my dad was, sir, Mr. Wiley, um, are you familiar with the gangs, or with gangs? That was interesting question that he asked. So my father, you know, he Rushed his shoulders like, gangs? What do you mean? Cuz and blood? And he didn't really know. My dad didn't really— he heard people say things, but he didn't really understand. So he went on to say, the security guard, he said, well, you know, Mr. Wiley, there's these gangs, you know. That's, uh, they're, they're in these communities, they're in the neighborhoods here, they're at the schools. And you know, you have your Crips who wears blue, and you have your Bloods who wear red. Father's sitting there attentively listening as he speak those words, and then he goes on to say Well, Mr. Wiley, in case you was not aware, I just want to make you aware that your son is a gang member. He's a Blood. Oh, my heart sunk, and you know, it was like, wow, okay, the cat is out the bag. And you know, The sadness that I saw in my, in my, in my parents, my dad first and foremost, you know, it was, it was, it was tremendous. Before it became anger, it was sadness when you sat there and heard those words. And he went on to say, I know your son is involved in gangs. He hangs out with them at the school. He wears the colors. And just today I caught him, I bust him with a weapon that he had in his locker, in his backpack. Now in today's time, obviously that would like, woo, that'll make the evening news, right? Back then it didn't. It didn't make the news. And it, in fact, it didn't really raise much alarm other than telling me that I couldn't return to school for a while and that I would have to do some things in order to get back in school. Now, realizing what is happening, think about it. A young man, these stages of development that I'm going through, and these things are happening, which is affecting my growth as a human being, as a young man. And how does somebody recover from that? How do that man, that young man decide at that moment that, you know what, it's time to go back to school and take this stuff serious. It's time to get my education together, go put that first. How do you get there? Because now these things are starting to happen. Now you starting to become a part of a system, and they're going to place you in the system because Now that has to be reported. Back then, if you're a juvenile and that type of scenario, they take the weapon, um, they may arrest you, they may not. They may, um, document and just simply, um, put you in the system, and it might be probation. It might be probation. But you're in the system. You're in the system. And, and oftentimes you get fingerprinted at that time. And even as a juvenile, uh, it's a process. And that process affect your growth and your development. It affect how you're going to continue to move in life. It's going to affect all of those things. All of those choices, even if you think you can still do it, that you can pull yourself away from that, you feel though that it's a little too late. It's a little bit too late for that now. Um, you know, obviously I, at some point I changed, you know, I'm here at my humble abode, my home. That I own, and I live the good life now. But these lessons are important because no young child should have to experience what I went through. That shouldn't be their process. That's not a rite of passage. We don't want to call what I'm discussing with you a rites of passage. It's not. It's, it's something that's terribly wrong. It exists now in our society, in our communities, and many of our elders and our, our, our parents, our guardians, they don't know how to deal with our young people. They, they don't understand them, number one. And of course they're different than I was. But some key elements are present, as they were present in me as a young person, and that's what I'm trying to get us to look at. And this is the key to solving the problems of our young people, is we have to tap into it. And as I continue in this series, you're going to learn more and more about what it takes and some of the things that I did that come out of that trance of influence by street, uh, code and gangs and things of that sort. But I'ma just leave you to reflect that right now you might have a niece, a nephew, a little brother, a son, a little cousin that's going through something right now where they're very, very close to making that choice, that choice that's going to move them away from the influence of you as the adult, as the parent, as the guardian, as the big bro, as the uncle. As the auntie somewhere around you, whether it's in your family or next door. It's happening all the time, and that's the reason you continue to see this cycle. You can turn on the news and see a group of kids storming a, a convenience store or liquor store or CVS, destroying it and taking what they want because they've crossed over. They've crossed over to where doing that is a part of where they are right now in their thinking and their influence. It's a crisis that we have to address. Let's talk some more about it in the next, uh, episode. So if you haven't, go back and look at the previous episodes. Subscribe to my YouTube channel and continue to follow me on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. Yusef-Andre Wiley. Peace.
