I was born in Haiti where my education process began at La Jardiniere kindergarten located in Port-of-Prince, Haiti. I started attending school when I was 3 years old. According to my mother, one of the books we learned from was called "Le Petit Chaperon Rouge". Which means "The Little Red Headdress or Hat". I was also taught my other subjects in the French language as well.
I was now living in America attending Willowhaven kindergarten in Brooklyn, NY where I was first introduced to books by Dr. Suess such as "The Cat in the Hat" and "Green Eggs and Ham". I recall these books vividly due to the way my professor use to read them to us. Our teacher had a unique way of teaching us words, vocabulary, and sentence structure by taking on the personality of each of the characters in these books. He would change his voice to represent each character which made learning fun. This also helped me quickly understand and get acclimated to the English language.
My formal education in America began to take shape as I entered Public School 192. I started reading Math, English, Social Studies, History and Science textbooks. I excelled in school and made it to the honors program in junior high school.
I developed a passion for comic books in my pre-teen years. I loved the X-Men and Superman comics with Spiderman a close third. I also enjoyed Captain America, Thor and the Silver Surfer comics. As a collector, I had original copies of these comics filled in shoe boxes. I ended up throwing all of them away as I got older and lost interest in them. Knowing what those comic books are worth today, I regret that act deeply!
I learned to rap and learned how to read and write rap music. My friends and I formed a rap group, competed, performed in junior high school and became very popular amongst our peers. My rapper name was "Deuce". We would devour rap magazines such "Fresh" and "Source". These periodicals gave you insight into all the major happenings surrounding the rap culture. In high school I branched off with other rappers and came very close to signing a rap deal with a minor label.
During my junior high school years and all throughout high school and first year of college, questions surrounding God began to spring up in my heart. This was prompted by my encounters and studies with Jehovah’s Witnesses. I regularly read their publications, the Watchtower and Awake magazines in conjunction with the Bible. These materials shaped my worldview and my relationship with God. I never became a member but later learned that they were a “Christian cult” after receiving Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior in the fall of 1999.
I learned to read sheet music in junior high school and play it on the flute and piano. My music class helped me develop an appreciation for the arts.
I started reading more about black history through my English and Social Studies classes. We read about Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Harriet Tubman, Booker T. Washington, and other prominent black figures. I developed a sense of pride knowing that my ancestry was filled with accomplished black people.
I learned to read and write graffiti. Both my rapper and graffiti artist name was Deuce. I used to write graffiti in books and walls and graduated to the surface of the "D" train in Brooklyn, NY until I got a summons on my first attempt. That put the fear of God in me and there went my career as a graffiti artist.
At fifteen years of age I got my first job as a counselor working for SYEP (Summer Youth Employment Program). I learned how to read a paycheck and was introduced to taxes and the meaning behind the withholdings
I continued to learn a lot about Black culture and Black history. I began associating with Black Muslims (Ansaruuh) and reading their literature. I became militant in my thinking and my worldview. I began to see the world through the prism of black and white, oppressed versus the oppressor, inequality versus equality, poverty versus prosperity and it made me angry. I had a cultural awakening and my anger was directed towards the proverbial “white man”, whoever that was. In contrast, I had no anger towards the white people I knew personally including my next door neighbors. I later learned to appreciate my culture, and discovered that I did not have to “hate” anyone in the process of loving myself. I soon fell away from my Muslim compatriots.
William E. Grady was the vocational-technical high school I attended. Although I was zoned for a much better school academically, I chose this high school because it was far from home and that appealed to me at the time. This is where I learned to read circuit boards and electrical symbols. This was probably a pre cursor to my career in technology.
While at Grady high school I also learned and studied pre calculus due to the honors program I continued to be in. This training also shaped my mind to think computationally. Looking back on my career, electronics and math plaid a great role in preparing me for the field I now enjoy working in.
My English professor introduced us to “critical thinking” as a goal of reading, listening and watching. He would assign us to read the New York Times. This opened my mind to a new way of thinking with respect to the world around me and my view of the world forever changed. Everything I read, heard and saw was questioned and critiqued from that point on. When the New York Times became “simple” for me, I later developed an appreciation and appetite for the Wall Street Journal, especially in my college years and beyond.
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