Marika

So my name's Marika Allen. AKA everybody calls me Lil Rere. I'm a rapper in Gainesville, Florida. I've been rapping since I was twelve years old. I have six kids. I'm a single mom. What I do now is I do shows and try to make money from that the best way I can. I grew up on the Northeast side of Gainesville. I've been here all my life. I was born and raised in Gainesville. I mostly always lived on the Northeast side of Gainesville, like in the ghetto areas, you know, so I've never really lived in like the big nice houses and all that extra stuff. But it's no biggie. I love where I come from.

Man, it kinda—you know how when you go somewhere, and it's a familiar place and a familiar feeling? I always get that feeling of, "I miss the old days." I miss what it was. I miss it being here. And sometimes I feel like when the City comes to knock down the places where we grew up at, I feel like they should put something there that's gonna help us and make it better. Instead of just knocking it down so we're not there, or knocking it down so it won't be a problem to them. It's just, I have strong feelings about when they do stuff like that because, like I said, Kennedy Homes has been knocked down for over twenty years and there's nothing there. Still. There's nothing there. So what was the purpose?

Sometimes I wake up on time, sometimes I don't. Being that I'm from the hood, we moved to the other side of town to get a better part of life. It's kinda crazy that it is that way. People feel like the Northeast side of town is rough. So in my mind, going to the West side of town was better for me, so we moved to the West side of town. Every day I have to get up and bring my kids back to the Northeast side of town because they don't feel comfortable in the schools on the West side of town. It's weird. So I get up, I have to come bring my kids about fifteen or twenty minutes away from our home, to bring them to school. I usually try to prepare our meals and everything while they're in school, so that I won't have to be bombarded with doing everything by myself. Cause like I said, being a single mom—it takes a lot. Especially when you got six kids, you know. It's already a hassle for a lot of people that only have one child. But for me to be twenty-eight years old, and to have six kids, it's like the pressure is on every day. Every day. Some days I can't really plan it out. I don't have a checklist for this. You know what I'm saying? Sometimes I just go with the flow and I do what needs to be done for my kids as far as getting their clothes done and making sure I can pick them up from school. Scraping up gas money to get there and pick them up and making sure that I have everything that I need for them. Some days we don't have everything. Sometimes I just feel like if I can just get through today, and get what I need, and be able to have everything that I need for my kids as far as feeding them and making sure that they're okay and the lights are on and there's food in the refrigerator—as long as I can do that, I feel like my day has been conquered.

Oh, wow. I've seen my kids pray for—we've been without lights. Me and my children—I've struggled. I have struggled. Many times. So I just remember, sometimes we done been in the house with no lights. We gotta have food and we in one little room with candles. And I tell my kids, "Pray. Things will get better." Pray. Things will get better. So they are so strong. They are very strong. And it's just a blessing to be able to teach that to them... My little emotions. My little emotions. These little conversations get a little deep. Yeah. It's okay, though. It's good though. It's good.

Thank you for going there.

Oh, yeah, it's fine! It's fine because one thing about it is I don't mind being real and being raw. Because that's what people need to see. They need to see what's real and what's reality because the TV is so fabricated. You know? Everything is so fabricated these days. We need what's real. You get way more out of reality. I don't mind.

Okay. Some of the things that I pray for—most of the time I pray for my kids. I pray for my family. I don't really pray for myself enough. I mostly pray for other people. And I pray for peace. I pray for a lot of the brothers in the world that's lost. A lot of the women in the world that's lost. Because we don't have enough help. We don't have enough people that's on the same energy, that's on the same vibe. It seem like the toxic energy is overpowering everything. So I ask God all the time to change the world and save our people before it's too late. Because so many people are lost. So many people are genuinely just lost in this world. They don't have the knowledge. They don't have anybody leading them. They're going off what they see. So I ask God to protect my kids from what's going on in the world all the time. I ask Him to protect their eyes and their mind and their brain from this toxic mess that's going on. I always pray for God to bless me to be able to help other people. Because I feel like if I help other people, that's gonna be the greatest reward of my life. That's the only way I wanna die, is knowing that I did something to help other people be greater than what it is now. That's what I pray for every day. And I pray every day that I can provide for my kids, and be able to feed them and clothe them, and give them the necessities of what they need in life. Not the things that they want. I just want what they need. That's it. I just pray for better. I pray for better. For everybody. [Laughter]

Well, what I wanna do is—I'm all for women empowerment. We don't have enough women teaching these girls that the things that they're accepting, they don't have to accept. I want to let these young girls know, you can wait to have children. Don't be so quick to be out there and be easy. Don't be easy. Because it damages your self-respect. And once you start to damage your self-respect, you kinda lose yourself. And I don't want these little girls to be lost. Because I was a lost little girl at one point. So that feeling that I had when I was lost—I wanna save as many little girls as I can from being lost like that. You know? I didn't like that feeling. I didn't enjoy that feeling. I didn't enjoy that feeling of running around, running away, being a rape victim, being a molested victim, being... you know. I don't want those little girls to have to feel that pain. And if they did, I want to be able to help them heal. I want to be able to teach these young women how to love one another, and how to love themselves. Because self-love is the best love. Once you love yourself, everything else will come into play. Because if you can't love yourself, and just love you for who you are, you're gonna be wearing a mask until you figure out who you are. It's kinda scary, because mostly everybody that we meet has on a mask. And you won't even realize it's a mask, most of the time. So it's kinda hard to work with damaged people. But I enjoy working with broken people. Because I was once broken. I was once hurt. I been through so much. Growing up on this side of town is where all my pain came from. This is where all my problems came from. You know? It's a lot. It's a lot and I just really want to help these little girls. That's why I want to volunteer, going to these schools, going to homeless shelters. I'm against bullying. It's a lot. And mostly, it's a lot of bullying going on over here. This is a bully zone. If you ain't tough, you might not make it over here. [Laughter]

Yeah? I mean, it's so much I can talk about. Growing up—as a little girl, like I say, we don't have any leadership over here. You kinda learn on your own. Being a young Black girl, I kinda had to mature faster than my age. I was a mature young lady over here once I was twelve years old. Matter fact, the MLK Center that we at right now, the Martin Luther King Center that we at—this is a spot that my mom used to send me to get us out the house. You know what I'm saying? This was just to get us round. And this where all the little Black kids used to come hang out during the summer time. They don't even got that no more. They used to let us come over here and they used to take us out and take us skating. And we used to go to the pool and all that stuff. That stuff ended when I was like fourteen. We don't even have that no more. So now I'm looking for more stuff to get into, you know? When I was fourteen, when I started round the age of fourteen, that's when I started running away from home. And running away from home wasn't much, cause everything is on the Northeast side of town. I'm going to Village Green, Duval, Gardenia; I'm in all the hoods. I'm in all the hoods. So I was very mature. Fighting. Everything on this side of town. Drugs. Everything over here. So it wasn't really too much that I didn't get into, growing up. And in my mind, I was surviving. I was surviving but as I was growing and surviving, I was actually scarring myself. And my mom—I didn't have a leader. I didn't have that. My mom loved me, but I was lost. I was lost. Because I wanna be with my people. This is where my people at. This is my people. The hoods is where my people at. That's where it's at. So I lost myself in a lot of that. Dealing with different people. Like I said, I grew up in a home—I've always been angry growing up. I grew up off anger. And one thing I've heard a man say to describe a Black woman, which I do not like—when you google a Black woman, they always have something that has to deal with anger. But... when I thought about it, we have so much to be angry about. It's tough. It is so tough growing up being a Black woman. Being a Black woman growing up in a Black African-American society. Because things are already made out for us. We have no choice. You know what I'm saying? We lucky to make it out, to make a better way. But it's like it's already written for us, and that's not fair. It's not fair. So growing up, my mom was angry, I was angry. We grew up in these Black African-American angry households. We pray and we try to stay happy and we try to love each other, but it's hard. Trying to survive when odds are up against us. It's up against us! We gotta work harder than everybody else! Like, why? It's like we can't—I don't know. I don't know what to say about it. It's kinda weird, man, but my life—I ain't have no easy life. It wasn't ever easy for me. I found happiness because I found happiness in myself. I learned how to survive. My children made me happy. My children made me go harder. My children made me find another way. Another way out. So, pretty much, if you ain't got kids and a good job on this side of town, you ain't really looking forward to nothing over here. You ain't looking forward to nothing over here! They ain't even got nothing for us to do. We gotta go on the West side of town to find something happy to do for our kids, or go way out of town. I just don't want my kids to grow up the way I grew up. I don't want my kids to see nothing that I saw. Because I lived a scary, unpleasant life. But it built me to be strong. And I love people. I didn't let that bitterness of life and this world and this society that I grew up in, I didn't let it make me an angry Black woman, as they named us and labeled us to be. I didn't let it make me angry. I took my anger and I turned my pain into something positive. I love people; I dish out love. I treat people the way I wanna be treated. Because that's the way of life. Everybody don't have that heart, to treat people the way they deserve to be treated. They look at your skin color, or where you come from, or what car you drive, or what school you went to and that's how they treat you. Based on who you are, what you got, and who you might be.

Okay. I'm from Highland Court area. Highland Court is the Northeast side of town. My mom has always been at Highland Court since I was about four. She moved from one side of Highland Court, and go to the other. Two years in one part of Highland Court and go to the other. She's never going to the other side of town. What's over here on the Northeast side of town? We got Walmart. [Laughter] We got the Martin Luther King Center. We got the thirty-three thirty-three. We got the police department right down the road. You know what I'm saying? We got GPD stationed right in the middle. They gonna make sure they got these police officers in the area. Cause they know what's going on. We got ASO right here. Alachua County Sheriff's Office. We got more police officers than we got anything else, to be honest. We got—oh, my goodness. It's like, I never sit and think about it but when I think about it and sit here and really think about it, man, it's messed up over here. When I really sit here and think about it, it's kinda crazy. Cause I didn't even really think about it like this. We got ASO right here. We got GPD over there, and then we got the Alachua County Jailhouse. And a homeless shelter! Right next to the jailhouse. God. And the hoods, the ghettos, are right surrounded by each and every last one of these police departments and policed areas. You know, we got Village Green. Village Green is a hood. Village Green has been known for domestic violence, killings, drugs, gangbangings. All of that. We got Highland Court. It's a house area, I mean, that's homes. Most of these people they may own their homes. They may, they might. But mostly you have renters. Even the housing areas are hoods. Then we got these raggedy apartments that's supposed to be luxury to us, that they don't even come and fix like they're supposed to, or maintenance. Which should be considered Section 8 homes or Section 8 apartments. Because you treat these people like they're Section 8 renters. Like Lewis Place. Lewis Place and Eden Park should be maintained better than they are being maintained. Then you got Gardenia. I'm from Gardenia. I'm from 8th Avenue. That's where I'm from. So many people have died over here. They don't really come do nothing over here in this area unless you shooting, and killing, and selling drugs. Posted up. You know. Looking like a thug. So many of these Black men probably not even doing nothing, but guess what they do? They get stopped. They get harassed. They get bothered. They're being provoked. It's so many of these Black men that are already labeled once they are seen. This is the area. This is the area! This is the area where the problem is. This area where we at, we are in the middle of it. We are dead center of where it is. Cross that road back there? That's Gardenia. That's 8th Ave. Gardenia and 8th Avenue, they just found a Black man. They still ain't figured out who killed this man. They found a Black man dead in a field. Less than a month ago. This man came here from, I wanna say, North Carolina. He came from North Carolina, and they found this man dead in a field. They don't know—they didn't even say how long he's been here or whatever. They just put him on a picture, just like they did Omar Gibson. They put him on a picture and they're looking for information. In these sides of towns, where this stuff happen at, they put him on a picture but they not really searching for who killed him. Or what really happened. They don't really care. Because, you know what, it happened on 8th Avenue. It happened by the hood. It happened in Gardenia. It happened where the Black people aren't really supposed to have anything anyway so why do they care?

Basically as far as help, I feel like they need to have more facilities that deal with assisting these younger individuals. Younger children coming up in this area. We need more Boys and Girls Club. Like we have Lil Afrika. That is something that's going to help. It's dead center in front of Gardenia, 8th Avenue. That place get the right thing, and the right amount of money coming there to help them, that is gonna be something that's gonna change lives. Because I see a vision going on right there that's gonna help so many kids. When they get out of school, they'll have something to do. Not just a building, but when you build something up to help kids, that's going to keep them out of trouble. That's gonna keep their mind focused. That's gonna keep their mind occupied. We don't have enough mentors. A lot of these kids are failing in the Black communities, in the Black schools. We don't have enough mentors. You know, volunteers. We don't have enough of that. We need more entertainment for these children. We need more jobs. We need more resources. Help us help our own people. We don't need them to come and take over and tell us that they're helping. Teach us! Or give us what we need to be assisting to our own people. Because, you know what, when you have other people that's just like you and have been through the same thing that you've been through, guess what. They're gonna be more willing, and they're gonna be more comfortable accepting that help. Because Black people—not even just saying Black people, because we've all been through something—but mostly, Black people have been through so much. We've been lied to, lied on. We've been promised this and promised that. And it still nothing. Still nothing! We need help over in this area. We need more homes. We need better apartment complexes that they're building up over here. Stop just building ghettos. Stop just building ghettos over here! The Northeast side of town should be no different than the Northwest side of town. It should be no different than Haile Plantation. Why we can't have a Haile Plantation on the Northeast side of town? Why we gotta go way over there and try to have to fill all these requirements to be able to own a big nice home like that? Why? Why? They make us segregated. The government, society, makes us segregated. We are segregated from the rest of the community, from the rest of the world. I feel like our people needs the same thing that anybody else has. You know what they say about Santa Fe? Most our Black people gonna go to Santa Fe Community College instead of going to University of Florida. You know why? Because the University of Florida is not gonna keep accepting these Black people. "These smart, educated, Black people are not finna be graduating and getting our money. They're not gonna conquer anything for the University of Florida. Not these Black people! Not these people coming from the ghetto!" We need the same opportunities that the rest of the world, the rest of the sides of town, each side has. It needs to be equal. They're building all these things on the other side of town; make Northeast look just as good as the Northwest side of town does. They've got all these shopping plazas. Skate station—they took our skate station! They took our skate station that I grew up on. I used to go to the skate station. I used to walk from Tree Trail Apartments when I was a little girl, and go to the skate station. Well, guess what? When they took that skate station away, guess what I was doing? I was hanging in the hood with the boys. With the n*****s! That's what I was doing! I was in the hoods, in the trap house, when they took away the skate station. You know what I'm saying? It's like they do this stuff to us on purpose and wonder why we're getting in trouble. Why are we doing this? Why are we doing that? Why is there so much crime over here? Because! What else are we supposed to do? What else are we supposed to do? You don't wanna give it to us. Guess what them boys thinking. We gonna take it.

Okay. Voting, lord. So, voting is so important to our people. We don't have enough people voting due to the fact that our people do not trust the government. Our people do not trust the government at all. We do not trust that political anything. We have to learn how to trust whoever's dealing with politics. The heads, the commissioner, the City. They have to build that trust with our people. They have to build that trust with us and let us know, your vote actually does count. Your vote will count. Our felons—it's not enough people that our felons that know that they are able to vote. You know? We need people letting these people know, "Listen. You can vote now! You a felon, you went to prison five, ten years ago. You ain't need papers no more. Guess what. You can go vote." You don't want this man in office anymore or you don't want this man to be your president anymore? You don't want this going on in the world? Guess what? You can vote. You can make a change. I think that if we actually get down and tell these people what will happen if they vote, what will happen if we get enough people to vote, that they will actually vote. If they know what differences will come, or what the outcome will be, or what things will change with it, they will feel more comfortable. But, when you saying, "Go out and vote and your vote will make a difference." That don't really matter. We don't really care about that. Tell us what's gonna happen if we vote. Tell us what difference it's gonna make if we vote. Who you gonna put in office? What are they gonna do for our city? What are they gonna do for our people? You know what I'm saying? How do you know they care? Cause they put Trump in office and look at us! Look what happened! All the signs was there that he didn't even care about our people. It was there. And they still put him there. So guess what they did. It was so many people that voted, and they felt like they vote didn't even count. Because look who y'all still put in the office. So I think once they start to build up the trust for whoever's in office and who's running and who's being elected, I think once they build up the trust and tell these people—look. They need to come to the hoods. They need to come to the neighborhoods! Don't just stand on the corners—these nice areas, 43rd and 53rd and Newberry Road! Come over here in these areas and tell our young Black people, kings and queens, what can happen for us if we go vote. What changes will happen for us? Actually, these mothers and fathers—society's so messed up. These mothers and fathers not in their houses telling their seventeen- and eighteen-year-olds what can happen. "You can go register to vote. Go register to vote." They not telling these kids that! They telling them to get a job. They telling them to get a job to help pay bills. They're not telling them to vote. Nobody's actually seeing the bigger picture of what voting actually does. So once we get down to it and talk about the changes, and what will happen... and the government actually sticks to their word and does what they say they're gonna do. The City sticks to the word and say that they're gonna do what they say they're gonna do. Because I seen the City say they're gonna do so much, and guess what? It still look the same. Everything still look the same! You know, it's getting worser and worser and worser and... how can you expect people to even want to vote if there are no changes being made. And it's so crazy because when you look at the news and you look back at history, and you watch how history repeat itself, and you look back on a lot of our Black leaders like Larry Hoover? Although he was involved with a drug ring, this man also did do great things. They created this man out to be a monster. This man actually did do things to get our people to vote. The people were comfortable with him because he was a strong Black man. He was a leader. So, when this man started the 21st Century, which was to get our people to vote. The 21st Century VOTE. Guess what they did? They sent him away for over 235 years! Basically life. So, you're out here doing wrong, and plus you're trying to get these Black people to vote. You know what I'm saying? We gotta get you out of here! So it's scary. People are actually scared to do what they're supposed—people are scared to grab our people and tell our people, "It's okay. Let's do what we gotta do to make a difference. Let's get our people to vote. Let's make a change." You know why they're scared to leave? People are afraid to leave because they're scared of what the people might do! They're scared. You know how many Black people get killed for trying to be leaders and trying to get our people? Look at Martin Luther King. Go back to history. Malcolm X. Look at our people! The people that tried to make a change, and the people that tried to gather us up and try to make the world better, and make us equal—anybody that ever tried to make it equal, life was hard for them or either they were deceased! It's like they want our Black people to be oppressed. They want us to live in oppression. And it's not fair because we should all be able to feel great. Live great. You know, if you work hard for it, you should be rewarded for your hard work. Don't punish us for being smart! Don't punish us because we want stake too. Don't punish us! It is so many strong Black men that are afraid to lead and help us rise because—you know why? They're afraid that they're gonna be assassinated. They're afraid that they're gonna go to prison. They will assassinate your character and break you down. And they won't even mention all the good that you did. And all the good that you brought, and all the good that you can do. Because you're strong and you’re Black and you're trying to make a way for your people! Yeah. It's not okay. Me being a single Black woman is not the problem. Being a single Black woman that feels like my only choices are in the hood, that's the problem. My only choice, my first choice, is to think the hood way. That's the problem. That's always the option, and I don't want my kids to think that that has to be their option. But that's the way history repeats itself.

Like I said, the only people that have ever really been—that I have knowledge of, was Rodney Long and Ty. [Laughter] I've never had knowledge of anybody other than Rodney Long and Ty. You know why? Because those are the Black people that go in office and they still deal with the Black people. They still come to the hoods. They still go to the broken areas. They still try to help these people. They don't get money, or they don't try to get fame off of trying to help their people. They really want to help. They really want a change for our people. They know the pain of this side. They know—they've been on both ends. So, those are the only people that I've ever known in office, as far as Black African-Americans. And I don't know what happened with Ty. [Laughter] But I know a hella lot of us Blacks did vote for her. Yeah, it's quite frustrating. Because you expect the change and you do what you supposed to do to get the change, and they tell us kiss they ass. And they got the power.