This is where I’d start.

I think a lot about how our choices reflect where we come from, and how sometimes they don’t. When I was 17, fresh out of high school and starting at St. John’s University, I decided to wear a red du rag for my Storm Card picture. Looking back, that moment feels small, but it wasn’t. It showed how easily judgment can get tested when you’re young and trying to understand what it really means to represent something bigger than yourself.

My mom was mad about it, and I understood why right away. She never really had to say much. I just knew. And that matters, still.

Years later, I’m a parent with a teenage son of my own, and I find myself in the same position, trying to reinforce the same values I was taught. Because even when you’re raised right, you still need reminders. You still need guidance. Otherwise, one decision, one reaction, can shift everything. And becoming “you” can change everything for you.

Four years after that photo, I was arrested under false pretenses, seventeen days before graduation. I was released the next day, but I wasn’t the same person. But, yeah…..the arrest was insane. It wasn’t about my guilt. It was about my attitude. Now it’s about how the system justifies oppression through emotion. I had to deal with the consequences, and that experience changed my perspective on everything.

So I exist to fill in the gaps. We talk a lot about what’s not being taught in schools, but we don’t always take responsibility for teaching ourselves and each other. That’s what this space is about. It’s not some far out idea. It’s like opening a garden in a food desert, creating something that should have always been there, something that feeds people in more ways than one.

This site is a resource and a reminder. It’s about community, culture, and education without grades. It’s about creating systems that actually work for us, helping people navigate the world better, and ultimately strengthening where we come from.

Because “making it out” has always been a strange goal. Leaving one neighborhood to live under the same system somewhere else isn’t progress. Real progress is when the place that raised you becomes the place that sustains you.

Christopher Teel, A.B.D