James has his reasons for not wanting a girlfriend in high school. “You know, ya’ll don’t have time for relationships in high school. Really. You don’t. I understand at your age, you’re curious about stuff, but don’t get a boy-friend in high school, cause that nigga is gonna get you distracted for real. For real.” James, a student from a charter school in Detroit, explained not only the draw backs of having a girlfriend (or boyfriend) in high school, but also why you shouldn’t talk at school. Like, at all. “I swear to God, my girl-friend went to school with me and all she did was talk. And I’d be like ‘Shut up and sit in that corner. Shut up!’”

When asked what it’s like to go to school and not talk to anyone, James just shrugs. “Now you have friends, you talk all the time. You can’t focus on doing your work, cause they be too busy talking about this, that and the other, and then you gotta comment on what they say. Then if you stop talking, they gonna ask why ain’t you talking to them no more? That’s why they ain’t getting their grades right. I see girls sit in class all day and talk. Talk, talk, talk.” He adds “I don’t say nothing to nobody. I sit in the classroom and look at the teacher, like I’m supposed.”

His cousin, LaShanna, agrees. “That’s why I hang by myself; me and my three sisters. I don’t talk to nobody I don’t know. I just hang with my sisters, I don’t talk to nobody else.” Both of them agree that there is no point in talking to people at school. If you’re talking, then you aren’t paying attention. And if you aren’t paying attention, what’s the point of coming to school?

The two also explained a second, but by no means less important reason for not talking at school. “As soon as you say something, then they take it the wrong way and they be ready to fight. So it’s better to say nothing than say something at all.” James says. “In the locker room…anything that cost over two hundred fifty dollars, expect to get it taken. Really. I don’t care if it’s a phone, your shoes, your pants.” But James also says that nothing is going to happen if you keep your mouth shut about the stuff you have. “If you, if you run your mouth. But the point is that though, none that happen to you unless you run your mouth. You know, go say something to someone that you not supposed to be saying.” More or less, just use the common sense you were born with.

Despite the fact that both agree it’s better just to keep your mouth shut than to speak and that if you bring something nice or expensive to school, then it’s going to get stolen, James and LaShanna also stress how not dangerous their schools are. “It’s like a fight every blue moon, it ain’t a fight every day.” James explains. “Ain’t no mug every day. People, okay, you wear fifteen hundred pair of glasses, expect to get mugged by somebody. Come on now. Who gonna wear a pair of fifteen hundred dollar glasses on their face and not expect to get mugged?” Goes back to the whole common sense thing. “School…it ain’t dangerous.” He says. “I’m in school, doing my work. It depends on the people that’s in school with you. It’s not the school that makes the people, it’s the people that make people. Other people make killers, other people make people mug each other. We all against each other, ain’t nobody trying to make peace. So that’s why there’s so much mayhem and chaos in the world; it ain’t just Detroit, it’s everywhere. Everywhere in Michigan, Ohio, all that down there, they got the same thing going on down there that we got going down up here.”

In fact, there’s a lot of common sense involved when they talk about living in Detroit. LaShanna talks about the one time she got robbed. “Only thing that happen to me was I was down here, going down to a club with a couple of my friends, and…I got robbed cause I went to the car myself. It was right here, round the corner of St. Andrew. I went to the car by myself, and then…it was a girl, a big girl too, snatched the glasses and snatched my purse. But it wasn’t nothing. I mean-” When she was interrupted to be asked if the robber had a gun, LaShanna shook her head. “Nuh uh. But, I brought that upon myself; I went to the car by myself.”

Again, LaShanna and James both agree that’s it’s not the city that is dangerous; it’s the people and how those people were raised. “Ya’ll stay away from the wrong neighborhoods. It ain’t so much that you gonna come up here in the neighborhood and you just get robbed. It depends on what kinda neighborhood you in, what kinda environment you in.” James says, and then later adds “But the people in my neighborhood, my neighborhood, where I live at, my mother’s house. I mean, stuff do happen over there, but it’s not shooting over there all the time, it’s not fighting over there all the time. It’s quiet, it’s real quiet. It’s not like…okay, now back behind my neighborhood, like once you cross Outer Dr. over there…don’t go down there. If you know what’s good for you, you will not go down there.” You have to be smart when you come to Detroit. Smart enough to stay away from the places you know are bad.

But no matter what the topic, James always makes the point that it’s not just Detroit where there are “bad people”; it’s everywhere. “There bad people in California, Texas, Florida, all that. Everywhere you go, there is gonna be a bad crowd somewhere, cause they trying to be like someone else, instead of being themselves.”

James explains that he isn’t one of those “bad people” because he’s busy doing other things, like helping his dad fix cars and doing his school work. “I feel like everybody can change.” James says, talking about people who steal things, and goof off in school, instead of paying attention. “You know? I change. I went from wanting to do stuff like that, I never did it before. Never wanted to. Too busy doing school work, fixing cars. “ James explains that not only does he work with his dad to keep himself busy, but also to get money. He hates being broke. “Like I may say that I’m broke, that I ain’t got no money, but I’m never broke. Never. I can’t stand being broke. I hate it, more than anything. I can’t stand reaching into my pocket and not having at least twenty dollars in my pocket. I can’t stand being broke, so I stay working, I stay doing something.”

LaShanna, who also has been working since a young age, says she likes working because she wants to be independent. “You gotta learn how to grow up on your own. You can’t expect people to help you, can’t go round asking your mama for money. You gotta learn how to do your own thing. I do hair. I’ve been doing hair since I was nine years old. And like, I do hair or whatever, so I don’t keep asking my mama for money.”

Neither James or LaShanna seem very bitter about Ann Arbor, however, James does make a point of saying that people in Ann Arbor are lucky. “Ya’ll, it’s like, okay, I’m not gonna say nothing bad about Ann Arbor, but Ann Arbor, it’s like uppity, tight place. Ya’ll don’t have security guards at every door. Ya’ll don’t have to walk through the metal decetor. You don’t go off and they still pat you down. You don’t have to worry about your boy walking into school with a gun, and it’s boot or it’s shoot. You don’t have to worry about your family going to a school where they getting robbed or mugged or shot by somebody cause they want their glasses on their face. I bet you guys can walk down there with real nice stuff on, and you don’t get it taken, do you?”

But LaShanna points out that stuff is going to be stolen no matter where you go. “You can go to New York, and they still steal your stuff there.”

James adds that “They steal it all in a different kind of way. In Ann Arbor, you take it off, they gonna take it.” Which is true. In Ann Arbor, you don’t have to worry about someone shoving you up against the wall for your sunglasses, but you do have to worry about someone taking them out of your purse.

“Is…is different people. It depends on how you raised, depend on how you turn out. So tell them in Ann Arbor, they ain’t gotta be scared to come up to Detroit while I’m here. Tell them that.” James says. “Yeah…look for James. Ain’t nothing gonna happen to them in Detroit less they run their mouth off doing something stupid.”