Marcia Muller Quotes

Philly ain't a good environment for you when you headed in a different direction. Bad things happen left and right. You might walk up the street, make a wrong turn, and your whole life could flip.

Me, myself, I was a part of gang bangin', you know what I'm sayin'?

I live in a neighborhood so bad that you can get shot while getting shot.

I'd heard it was dangerous to walk around Miami.

My parents were overprotective because you could get kidnapped and bombs were exploding in the streets.

It was a very intense and stressful situation. There was playing in the Johnny-pump (an opened fire hydrant) and the ice-cream man coming around and all of these games that we'd play, and suddenly it would turn just violent and there would be shootings at 12 in the afternoon on any given day.

Being from Oakland, you see a lot of thing. You see friends turn on friends all the time. You see family turn on family.

In the city, a lot of crime happens, a lot of violence happens from time to time.

Many areas of Los Angeles have gang problems.

I remember Detroit feeling really unsafe, feeling scared a lot. Our house was broken into, our car was stolen, we had to get a watchdog, we would get beat up in the street, I had my bike stolen. There was just a lot of real anarchy on the streets and sidewalks.

I lived in a bad neighborhood. I knew so many things a boy shouldn't know. I did so many things a boy shouldn't do.

I won't forget the hood. I won't forget the days of catching a bullet on the way to the mailbox or bricks with death threats that somehow made their way through the window.

No wonder we have a lot of violence in Rio: the corrupt and violent policemen meet the violent criminals in the streets. What else is going to happen?

New York was scarier than Baltimore ever was. It was terrible in the '70s. I'm glad they cleaned it up. I got mugged; I had to go to the hospital. Every time you went out, you got robbed. It was horrible. You can't imagine.

Living in Rio is dangerous sometimes.

I started out on photography accidentally. A policeman came to a stop at the end of my street, and a guy knifed him at the end of my street. That's how I became a photographer. I photographed the gangs that I went to school with.

And Alpo ordered guys to slaughter guys, and the whole Harlem was in tears when Rich Porter died.

You know, the streets are filled with vipers Who've lost all ray of hope You know, it ain't even safe no more In the palace of the Pope

I grew up in somewhat of a war zone in West Philadelphia in 1985, '86. It wasn't as extreme as someone coming in the classroom and just unloading on a class, but I knew to take the scenic route to go to the grocery store to avoid certain elements.

In New York we have streets exploding and innocent Buddhist girls being stabbed in the neck and cabdrivers refusing to help her. If we happen into a nightclub by mistake, when we leave the doorman will be lying in the street surrounded by police.

I represent where them killers at 145th and Broadway you get your head cracked

It takes a lot of weapons to do good works (as Richard the Lionhearted could have told us). And this is not just a Somali problem. We have poverty and deprivation in our own country. Try standing unarmed on a street corner in Compton handing out twenty-dollar bills and see how long you last.

I'm high off the indo creepin' with the quickness to the cut, bust one to his head while he munches on that donut.