"My name is Dillon and I am a mixed Black young man who grew up in a family of an immigrant mother from Belize and a black father who was raised in Jamaica from 3-9. I grew up in Freeport my whole life and I am now at college at Howard University. Overall, Freeport is a fairly safe town, despite its reputation, but crime is definitely centered around the lowest income areas.
I grew up in a mostly Hispanic and Black community, but I mostly played soccer with only Hispanic guys. We would play against white towns where the Black and Hispanic players on our team would be targeted and discriminated against. Our team was disadvantaged because of skin color because the refs are extremely biased and know they can get away with it. Freeport is very underprivileged as a school district in general. We only have one high school field for every sport, despite our school being typically pretty good at sports, which is uncommon for a school with such a large population. Some white towns have middle schools as big as our high school, and our high school population was over two thousand kids, which is big in general, but also comparatively large compared to some other schools in the area.
There is not much interaction with white people in Freeport schools, because a lot of the white people who are there are mostly in private school, but the white people from Freeport that I have encountered are beautiful, amazing people. Ironically, my best friend from Freeport is white, and my interactions with white teachers at school, or white customers at work have been mostly pleasant. I have relationships with white people, I do not have problems interacting with them, my main problems really were just in soccer.
It is common for non-black Hispanic people to use the n-word in Freeport, which makes me very uncomfortable. Growing up around a lot of Hispanic people made me kind of oblivious to the Black experience, and I did not understand some things until getting to Howard. I was originally planning to go to a PWI, but I truly believe Howard is the best place for me to be. Going to an HBCU really opened my eyes.
Being at Howard is different from Freeport because Black people at Howard are more driven, whereas in Freeport I feel like people are more stuck with the hand that life has given them. They do not know how to get out.
The only other thing I think is really important to talk about is Khaseen's story. Khaseen Morris, who was Black, went to school with us and grew up in Freeport. Right at the beginning of the 2019 school year, his family moved to Oceanside and he changed schools. Shortly after that, he went to a party and walked a girl home as a nice gesture, but that made white Long Beach resident Tyler Flach jealous, and they arranged a fight. Flach brought a knife to the fight and ended up stabbing Khaseen to death. It is obvious that Khaseen was targeted by this guy, but what was especially a shame was how long it took for the man who killed him to be put away. I think it all lasted for about three years. All the evidence was there too, but they took so long to indict him. The story is such a tragedy but unfortunately not uncommon, shows how people have false inclinations about other people. Khaseen was looked at as a bad person because of his hair, they saw him as just another Black kid. During the investigation, they tried to plant him as a gang member because of how he looked, which is so crazy. Everyone who knew him would tell you how caring and gentle he was."
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