Free Put on Your Crown by Queen Latifah Page A

stuff.
     It’s just stuff, and like I learned when I lost my gold tooth in two days, you can’t afford to get too attached to material
     objects. They don’t define you. If you take away my cars and my houses, I will still be the same person. My dogs, Isis and
     Sing Sing, will still love me. I will still have my closest friends and family. And I will still be able to enjoy a beautiful
     sunset or a walk by the sea and so many other things that you can’t put a price tag on. Mom and Dad taught me well.
    I know it’s been tough for many of you. Maybe you’re a single mom who’s facing foreclosure. Maybe you lost your job and you
     don’t know what to do next. Maybe you can’t go to the college you were hoping for because a parent lost a job and the collegefund has to go toward paying the bills. Maybe you have a child who’s sick and you’ve run out of health insurance. These days,
     everyone in America has either been touched by the recession or knows someone who’s going through some kind of hardship. You’re
     not alone.
    All I can tell you from my own experience is that valleys don’t last forever. They really don’t. Life has its peaks, its valleys,
     and its plains, too. And none of them is going to last forever. It’s all about persevering through that time and how you handle
     yourself through those valleys. That’s why you need a connection with something higher and deeper than a dollar. Money alone
     won’t sustain you. Have faith that things
will
get better. Look out for yourself, but also know that God is going to look out for you. He has your back, and somehow, some
     way, He will provide.

CHAPTER 4

Love
    Even when you don’t think you have it, it’s there.
    —R ITA B RAY O WENS
    E verything was neatly and conveniently packed in boxes. We were planning to move from our housing project in Newark, New Jersey.
     While my brother and I were in school and my mother was at work, a truck pulled up to the door of our unit and everything
     we had was loaded up. There was just one problem: These weren’t movers. Some lowlifes from the neighborhood knew we were leaving,
     and they helped themselves. They took everything we owned—all the belongings that my mother worked so hard to buy for us so
     we would have a comfortable home. All our toys, books, electronics, artwork—gone. It was broad daylight, people were watching
     what was going on, and nobody did a damn thing about it. It was like someone had stamped and sealed one final insult to alife we were leaving behind for good. Now we were really starting fresh.
Not of the Projects
    My mother protected my brother and me from a lot of what was going on in Hyatt Court. I was eight when we moved there, but
     Mom kept telling us, “You may live in the projects, but you’re not
of
the projects.” We were clear about the fact that the situation was temporary. For my family and me, Hyatt Court wasn’t a
     place to settle down; it was a place you strove to get out of! My mother was determined that we wouldn’t get locked in that
     ghetto mentality that infects so many inner-city children when they feel their situation is hopeless. When school was out,
     she’d take us down to Virginia to spend the summer with her family, so we would see there was a life outside our immediate
     environment. She took us to museums, encouraged us to read, and worked three jobs to send us to private Catholic school, where
     it was safe and the academic standards were high.
    But other people in the projects
hated
her for doing this. They thought we thought we were too good for everybody else. They saw my mother send us to school every
     day in our little uniforms, with ourwhite shirts all crisp and freshly pressed, and said to themselves, “Who does this woman
     think she is? Does she think she’s better than us?” To her face, they called her a “snooty yellow bitch.” Not the immediate
     neighbors, because they got to know my mom somewhat, but the ones who saw her