GOT MY OWN

foreign this seems like you know I needed something like I need some for doing drugs for five six years you know all the time having them in your body you know it's like a day-to-day thing you know well I'm I'm set now I'm face I'm I feel like I'm facing up to the problem see before I figured I could control the problem you know on my own I get out in the street and shoot drugs just when I wanted to but I realize now I can't shoot drugs when I want to because when I shoot when I shoot up once I'm gonna shoot up I'ma just keep on doing it and the Habit is bringing me down First Time Life identify myself as a Chicano and my upbringing as the word is used Mexican-American is is much different I've had many dealings that I'm sure some people have never dealt with and these things make me to be who I am and for me to communicate with another person that is not from the same background I think we're going to have problems in communicating you say take this in our community here for a white counselor to really counsel I mean not the you know not the slits from mother under dude you know tell the dude when he's playing a game tell the dude if he's if he's gaming man I don't want to hear that [ __ ] but see if I tell him that it would be one thing he could take it you see but then if a white counselor would tell him that he could put a whole lot of other things into the counselors Prejudice you know or he's not he doesn't know anything about being black okay let's deal with irritation [Applause] foreign [Applause] I just like to ask him uh is there any reason why you use the word colored blacks do refer to themselves as blacks the Air Force recognizing it and it's in your literatures now and so I was wondering if what is it uh you use color and it's like uh I think that's just cultural background I didn't uh I didn't even think about it I was taught to use the word color rather than black or negro and I used colored we do have particular problems that the counselor wouldn't possible wouldn't probably be hip to I know between me and my teenage son he says many times he said dad you don't understand me well it's not that I don't understand it's just that I don't know how to tell it [Applause] I can take more off of somebody else than I can off my own child because I could see you know like I spent a lot of time with him and all kind of different situations where we'd sit down just in the bathroom and talk or we'd sit down before we go to sleep and we talk and I'd relate my history to him I relate other people's history to them and tell them you know that you cannot you cannot use drugs and be successful in anything and then when he doesn't get that that gets me uptight and then when you get uptight you know I'm saying like he's not just somebody I know this is part of me and he's hurting himself so I can't keep my feelings out of it that you're going to be assigned to group therapy next have to come in and take urines job interviews personal counseling and whatnot and it's going to be a lot of times that you're not going to be feel like getting about the big or might be raining outside when they might not come with me I mean I feel like coming with you how you gonna deal with that uh it's basically I have to do a little rethinking but you don't seem to be that determined to you it's like well [ __ ] I cleaned up if I can if I can yeah that's another attempt you know another one of those temporary times where you just say well I think I'll clean up you know see um I don't know it may be the impression I'm giving you know that you know if I if I do if I don't you know you know if somebody was to ask you uh and all the cleanup you got to go downtown and stay on the Corner Garage Market Street and yell for a crowd and pee on the firehouse or something would you be willing to do that because then is that and that's how important it is for you to clean up I never even thought about it yet see that's what I'm trying to do man like if you think that cleaning up is going to be some haphazard thing that's going to just fall on it's probably gonna pull a bucket of cleanup on you that's where it goes down you have to be your life is that sick right let's look at it right your life you're dealing with your whole your life what's yours the only thing that you really have you know and if you look at it like well hey man I'm gonna clean up I'm gonna do something you ain't gonna do Mother's Day but stay right out there getting high you know you have to be serious I mean cold but it's serious like Kansas it's either you really want to stop you know or you want to get high if something happens to me to depress me you know or something went wrong real bad then I said um you know it just went out got me a little bit so I want to know how to deal with um the reality you know the reality you know the reality of my life you understand because that's one thing I never did was deal with reality face when you first came here did you come here with a wrap you know of what to tell tell the counselor since you had been here before yeah I think in my mind I might have uh decided to um you know paint a certain type of picture why you know well that's what I've always done um I mean that's what uh that's what I've done whatever I want you know whether or not any program how did you think that would help you well see like the way I figured is that um in any program any you know drug program see the people expect you to uh act in a certain type of manner they want to find out your attitude so what attitude do you present then you just ask that question you just you know go from there your whole life your whole total existence was involved around them drugs yes right now that was for what seven eight years six years or something like that and you've been involved like that there's a lot of things that we can do you dig it's a lot of things we can do we can't do nothing unless you're very determined foreign I thought it was about time that we all got together and sent out and ramped about when the guy comes in here that has a drug problem we've got probably one of the most difficult roles here on the base that is counseling people that are hooked uh users experimenters or whatever you're on drugs you and I can sit down and maybe answer some of the questions they got we've talked about people who are taking the hard drugs but we haven't looked at the fact that we are using our medicine cabinet as a storehouse of drugs every day we're advertising on TV if you got a headache take this you got something else take this the whole society American society has been hooked on drugs for a long time nobody really wants to admit it and we understand that the younger people coming in are living a different Society than we are and I think we've fought the biggest part of the battle Yeah the young people you know the why why this and why that and many of us come from the old school don't ask me no questions I don't have the time you just do it just do it when we have a group of students that are together hopefully we can let them see or feel the other person's feelings or how the other person sees things which sometimes is very difficult to do with a person that is in fact different what I mean by different is different background uh different feelings inside the cultural ethnic or even race oh these are feelings that that are embedded in someone because of his environment and upbringing that you are not going to know my beings because you weren't raised the way I was raised and for you and I to communicate there's got to be something else there we're gonna have to get to know each other better young Airman comes in and uh he says look thought I'd like to rat with you and because of the lack of communication this Sergeant or whoever he's talking to get one of the defensive uh you're not being respectful these kinds of things or the individual may be trying to express himself and constantly get louder and uh he has been in trouble he's a he's a militant he's uh he's not acting right on my job you see me so fast every time I come with him like we'd be talking you know he'll tell you what he got to say and that's it man you'll never get to say nothing like every time before I get off on it good man he'll end up you know all in a row you know well if I was you ready this is what I would do and say look just let me rap to you for a minute I want to tell you how I feel about some things that are going on here and a problem I think that we may be having and understand each other so this time this cat has got to give you this time because he doesn't then you can come to me or to someone else and we can go to this cat and say why won't you give this man a chance to explain himself if that guy figured you can't he'll be able to cut himself open and open up to you and let you know exactly where he's coming from and until you find that there's no way that we're going to be able to win him over on our side that's right if you might have a you might have a guy to come in and it might take five visits yeah before you really uh get to the place where he's comfortable with you and you're comfortable with him yeah but if we give him the idea that he's just another figure of a person coming in we don't really care then you've lost we get anything on him or not then no matter how many visits we have we're going to Maxwell forget it I really want it I think this is the most important what the sergeant said I think it's really important as long as things signed me about truthful and sincere is you have to cover space in other words just because someone comes into my office to see me I'm not going to be able to solve all of his problems and if I can he's going over why I can't maybe there's regulations maybe there's quality maybe he's wrong doesn't necessarily when he comes in to see me I don't have a magic wand say all your troubles are going young man why did you get promoted I'll tell you why you've got to lay it on the line make them believe it make him show it to them because the coke was was pretty good what are you doing the way you're talking like I don't know I want to dig this I think this on one hand on one hand you're telling me hey man there's no way that's new actually there's no good for me you understand I want to back up from it but then the other hand you tell me how good you like to get high how many times right so what is this one more time like that just one more I don't know I hope it's not but I can't be sure why can't you man what happens it was six foot back here I wasn't gonna walk down the street knock you down and jump in your bed no but I done said it so many times you understand I figure this is my last time [ __ ] who controls it though bro you have to realize that if you keep thinking that it's up in the air that you don't have no control over it I don't think I'm up in the air but I know I need you know I know I know I need some type of help now a white counselor here we've tried before we've had a few but the where we're located and who we're dealing with we need identification you see we need uh the same priorities you know you have to have the same priority that I have and if you're white you can't have the same priority I have can you help white addicts then to a degree can you help them clean up uh I think I think that we might be part it might be possible for me to help them clean up who I am just an average guy goes to work you're gonna have this guy you can see yourself an average guy no not an average guy well explain to me now I consider myself a dopamine all right what's the dude what you want me to say I want you to say what's the truth what's the dope friend you she's dope you can't control himself you know what do you expect us to do for you you said you can't control yourself what do you expect us this year help me in what way stop shooting though so why don't you try to find how can we help you stop shooting though okay I'm helping myself and somebody else is helping me man maybe I can do it you know you've been through that before right yeah they got to keep trying man let me keep trying that's [ __ ] what are you trying to do what are you trying to do just stop what are you trying to do what do you mean by try what are you trying I'm gonna try and do a methadone I don't understand how you look at it I can clean up this all your own show you know it's up to you make up your mind you even mad at my mind you mean you're trying to make up your mind no Your Mind Is Made Up you're not gonna be no you're clean right now you're an ex-atic right right so that's it you ain't got no more power do you think you can help them Valerie um wow to be honest because I really didn't know you know like uh there was a lot of things you know like in what he said you know the way he said things um it just wasn't sincerity he wanted to get high the dope don't jump on no ship and come here and find you out and jump in your arm you seek out the door so ain't no Drive you understand what I'm saying you understand what I'm saying I know what you're saying right now you're not you're past 21 right right you're not a kid and whatnot you're a grown man you have control over your actions your muscles and [ __ ] so it's not a point of trying it's a point of determining nature and motivation we know a lot about white people you know we've been we've seen them on television and if you sit home during the day you'll know about at least 1500 white families if you go to those soap operas you dig we read about them in school from ever since kindergarten when we first learned how to read we learn about white people their values that whole thing and using that that hip to us how about honky well I kind of like red foxes definition of a honky but I won't put that on film I I guess I agree with with Sergeant Briggs and it's it's the white half of the the whole dead horse that we're beating here anybody that's anti whatever happens to be going at that time in this particular case the white Community that's anti everything else black power I think is just abandoned together the people trying to get to all of the black people to uh get together and get leadership and just like anybody else I mean I I can see that point of view and I believe anybody could if they just stop looking in many cases it becomes a irritant to a lot of people because they are feel threatened by what the Black Power movement is doing and this threatens their security so as a result there is quite a bit of uh what should we say animosity towards the black Power Group for this reason George how do you think white teachers to see you are going to react to you do you threatened by you no they shouldn't be it shouldn't be because all I'm all I'm saying is that we need black values and having black values don't mean hating white people it just means loving more black people or loving or being conscious of black more than anything else it doesn't uh alienate anybody you dig it's just putting the importance on who you are you know I'm saying that it's important for me to feel the same way uh toward another black person as I feel toward myself it's like you know getting up and going to work it's what it was for me doing drugs smoking grass popping pills shooting dope anything How You Gonna deal with that well I'm gonna get on them to get the methadone clean up you know come to the meetings here talk about it see what I can do to help myself let's forget about the Mequon this is an accident program nothing I was going for today but like in the initial interview with him I spoke to him out here prior to going in there and he kept talking about methadone he wasn't really interested in cleaning up here you know but we've all been through here we've all sat there and we know the things that cause a person to stay clean and like regard for someone else is not going to do it there's got to be regard for oneself you know you got to believe that you can do it well I know I can do it you know how do you know you never did it yeah I did it before well why are you hitting there are you clean already boy hey you quickly you didn't want me for them cleaned up you wait wait did you clean up or did you just didn't shoot dope for a little while all right let's clean up for five and a half months so you didn't clean up that was you under control I found tall lady how much is hers to have a baby I don't know how much so I mean if I can get a drug addict can I get him with another drug addict that has made it has got a Nova really gotten help and getting these guys to wrap him well along with me then I can really get to this guy that he knows what's what you're saying because this guy can look at me and say well look you've never tried this um how are you going to tell me what marijuana is going to be are you going to tell me what hair is going to do the thing is you know they're playing us black addicts and X addicts cheap because our concept has never really been tried uh what we have to do is detox from drugs and Blacken them right away you know as soon as he got his mind then you got to put black black uh black uh values you see you got to look at it like the the same thing or hurt you or hurt me [Music] [Music] his fifth school job these are things you're trying to change your old lifestyle right [Music] so if you're going to really be a counselor you have to be dedicated it it you have to understand why say our kids do this you know [Music] inside [Music] I believe that it's a drive to um get colored leadership and and places of importance I further think that it's it's a a drive to ban [Applause] the colored section of the community together and here again we we try to [Applause] well we vote on what we're doing and together we survive divided we fall this kind of thing [Music] on me [Music] [Music] you're something kind of funny now the man take your money [Music]