What I've learned from listening to hip hop and from Tyra banks is... that we don't really understand what is going on in the ghettos and slums. We don't know what we think we know about prostitution and gangs, and the other things that people in these places face everyday. These songs and music videos make us believe in something glamorous, though dirty, and make white middle class Americans feel like they're so gangsta on Friday nights at the club. But it's not glamorous.

I complain about my situation, when things could be a hundred times worse. I could be poor(er). I could be in Haiti. I could be a sex slave in a foreign country. I could be trying to support 4 kids on minimum wage.

Heart check.