Inner City Youth Quotes

I grew up with Chief Keef and Lil Reese. We all lived in the same environment, I went to school with them and everything.

The draconian spirit that seeks to enhance penalties and to lower the age at which juveniles will be tries as adults, is part of the 'whole cloth' of three strikes. Our failure to address the depair of our inner-city youth is only delayed by our over-confidence in a stance that is 'tougher than thou.'

Crack offered a lot of money to the inner-city youth who didn't go to college. Which enabled them to become businessmen. I know about maybe five people in the entertainment industry who did their peak work as a result of crack usage.

When I was young, I thought it was normal to go to sleep to the sounds of sirens. People on my block were in the biggest gang in the city. They were my close friends - they showed me the ropes, who to watch out for.

I did an HBO movie called Undefeated that I directed. It was too hard.

My peers at the time: you know, young black kids from off the streets of Harlem, having these conversations with me in my small, dirty little studio up in Harlem.

I'm just a normal kid, really, from an inner-city background.

Reaching out to any fellow ghetto kids is an act he puts in the same category as doing drugs: the initial rush of warmth and euphoria puts you on a path to ruin.

We were talking about urban youth. And by urban I mean lives in a city not urban as in black like white people use it.

A film like Hoop Dreams is what the movies are for. It takes us, shakes us, and makes us think in new ways about the world around us. It gives us the impression of having touched life itself.

I was a medium-level juvenile delinquent from Newark who always dreamed about doing a movie.

For thugs from the ghetto, violence is a way of life - it's what helps you survive.

I grew up in East Flatbush, Brooklyn. At the time I was growing up with my father - before it was gentrified - it was a very rough neighborhood. He felt that if I got into or started embracing the rap culture, I would be one step closer to being on the streets.

I love this sport, and I want people to have the opportunities that I have. I want the kid in the inner city to know that she can be a bobsledder one day, and I want the kid in the middle of Africa to know that she can be a bobsledder one day. So the more that we can go out there and grow the sport, the better.

I grew up playing basketball in the inner city of Seattle, and by the time I was a senior, I earned a full scholarship to the University of Denver.