by Derrick Rose
People don’t understand that living where I lived, there are a bunch of traps that you can get caught up in. This place traps a lot of people. People are locked up—more people are locked up than in slavery.
You look at the schools. Where do they close the schools? All over the South Side. And then they give money to help private schools for people who already have money. Look at the books we have, the labs, the prep for exams. It’s not like other places in Chicago. And then they say people don’t want to work, they just want free money. Fuck that. My mom worked two, three jobs, worked all the time. I’d ditch school sometimes, because she’d leave before me. But she was always calling to make sure I went. She’d get home after basketball practice, working all kinds of jobs, secretary, everything you could think of, but there still wasn’t enough money because of how little these jobs paid. But she was always trying to work.
Look at all the stuff the Daleys did when they ran Chicago. You think there’s no reason why the Dan Ryan Expressway was built where it was? They cut off the South Side neighborhoods to protect the Bridgeport area and the Daleys. The police were all over there protecting those streets in Bridgeport. Then the buildings come up—public housing, they called it—and it was like prison, high-rise buildings for people to live in like jails.
Don’t tell me about Chicago and it’s gangs with all the drugs. What was Chicago known for? Al Capone and Italian gangsters, right? Shooting up everything, what all the movies were about. You read about that 1893 World’s Fair? All those women going missing. Nobody talks about that and they try to act like Chicago got crazy all of a sudden. They try to act like it’s just blacks acting crazy. They try to act like it’s these crazy negroes. Hey, Mayor Daley’s family was doing the bootlegging. They had gangs back in the day going to neighborhoods beating up black guys. We’re the problem?
It is a crisis now, but don’t try to act like this suddenly just got here. Even in Chicago, how much opportunity do you have if you are African American? Chicago is low-key segregated. Here’s what I mean. You can have money in Chicago, but then try to get a building or get property in certain places if you’re African American. I’ve been turned down trying to buy property downtown. I tried to get a shop for my girl at the time to have a salon near Michigan Avenue. They turned me away. You know, I’ve got capital. They thought it was gonna be an “urban” crowd. You know what I mean? Coming down to their Michigan Avenue.
So not only are there not so many shops and companies in our neighborhood, and so not enough jobs, but then when you try to open something, they tell you no. And when they tell you no, somehow it’s our fault?
How are we supposed to grow as a community?
So people end up selling drugs. Nothing big, my brothers did that. It’s just for the family to live. This is no drug gang.
And how come with our drugs, we go to jail? Isn’t alcohol a drug? Tobacco? But too many white businesses make money on that, so that’s okay. So you think more people are getting killed driving with drugs or driving drunk? But it’s the African American community that’s the problem? That’s why I wore the “I Can’t Breathe” T-shirt after Eric Garner was killed in New York.
I know these kids and I know they really want to change. They want to have a chance at the same things everyone else does. That’s why I try to keep asking if there really is enough opportunity where I’m from. Because I have money there and I’m still having a hard time finding someone who’s gonna help my people prosper. It seems like we’re in a system where you get cut off every angle that you go.
First off, to even get the job, are you educated? Think about school. Why is it costing so much money to go to college? What kind of country is this when we’re not letting kids get educated because of where they’re from? Health care, too. People going broke just because they got sick. That’s fair? Isn’t this the kind of stuff the country is supposed to be doing so you have better and smarter and healthier people? That’s good for everyone, good for the country. The goal is for every generation to get smarter. So why charge somebody for that?
If the goal is to make sure that humanity and society are progressing, we need to pay for that, if you really care. We got enough billionaires in New York alone to take care of that.
It’s crazy. Why is there a price on education and health? It’s not something you think about when you’re a kid because you just don’t know. I’ve been really lucky to have basketball and everything me and my family got from it, but when you’re older and get out there and start to look back, you cry for the kids.
Look, most of us don’t even got our dads in the crib. So there goes the household basically for a lot of kids. I was lucky because my mom is so strong and I had my brothers and people close to us. But it affects a lot of kids. You feel hopeless.
That’s what I’m trying to do now. Lead by example. It’s kind of hard even to talk about it because, like I say, you would have to bring up everything that’s part of the system. I know those kids want to do well. I’m around them. I know a lot of them. But a lot of the time they just don’t have a chance. Don’t got the resources. There’s none of that. So it’s survival mode 24/7. Where it’s like, “What’s next? What’s going on? Alright, I can’t go over there to that block.”
There’s millions of kids out there who don’t have that same opportunity. That’s why I wished I had the billion dollars I used to talk about. Because I’d know I really have a chance to affect a lot of things that are going on in society. But I will someday. I will be there again.
One thing I can do now is, I find out about buildings in Englewood when they come on the market. I haven’t bought many yet because right now basketball still is my number one. I feel like you can’t love two things at once. So I’ve got to concentrate on this. But I’ve done stuff to try to help, always quiet, which is just how I do things.
I worked with Joakim Noah and his foundation and Father Michael Pfleger and the anti-violence campaign. Fixed the rims and the court at my old park, Murray Park, right around the corner from our place on Paulina. I was there all the time, shoveling off the snow to play back then. Did that so the kids could have the court to play on. Gave that million dollars to the After School Matters program.
Not many can break out with basketball like I did, so I’m so proud of my Rose Scholars scholarship program. Alberto Ortiz from Tennessee received $10,000 in November 2018 for his education at Middle Tennessee State. Madison Carmouche-Soward from Alabama earned a $20,000 scholarship. Gabriel Lee from Phoenix was the grand prize recipient from Rose Scholars for up to $200,000 for his kinesiology work at Michigan State.
I’m looking forward to their futures. I’m so grateful I can do these things for people. It’s really what I’m about. It’s the kids, and if you’re trying to add to society that’s where I feel you. I had this NBA destiny from when I was young, but that’s so rare. I was lucky and I had a path almost forced on me, though I wasn’t complaining. But you want to make a mark in the right places, do something, and it has to be with education. I can be more hands-on after basketball and it gives my kids something to look at and be proud of.
Growing up the way I did with all the cousins and kids in the family, the house, the neighborhood, you want to help the kids. I love the scholarships because you are not only helping someone, you are helping the community, making it a better place for everyone, and who knows what contributions to the community these kids will come back and make? It’s all about looking out for the youth.
I pay for funerals, stuff you don’t talk about. I try to help quietly. I understand what you’re going through. I know how much a funeral costs. I’ve been there. Lots of times. Where you try to bury somebody or someone you know is trying to and you don’t have enough money. You’re trying to scrape up money just to bury your loved one in a respectful way. How bad is that?
I’ve been there. I was the youngest one in the crib, so I was always around olde
r people hearing the conversations. Maybe I was around conversations I shouldn’t have been around. But in my neighborhood you heard about death a lot, and what to do, and it’s sad. And then people don’t even have money to do a proper respect? Somebody’s getting killed right now and they have to figure out where they’re gonna get the money from? Come on!
* * *
I don’t live in that area anymore, of course, but you’ve gotta know what’s going on in that area. So I have people who live there that I communicate with. They tell me what’s going on. I go back sometimes and ride through the area, seeing how I can buy properties and change the neighborhood. That’s got to be what I’ll be doing. I know now how to invest my money. I’ve got a great team, financial people, my agents, Arn Tellem before, and BJ Armstrong. Arn and BJ, I owe them everything. Looking back, the way they were looking out for me on everything, man, it means something. They made sure I didn’t miss out on anything. For me to be in that position, they could have easily taken advantage of me. They didn’t.
That’s why I feel my story is for the ones who understand that struggle. You can relate to it. Even now people don’t know about me like that. But I feel like they can feel what I’ve been through. I don’t entertain on social media. No type of Instagram posts to draw fans into me like everyone else. But I feel they can feel something about me. I think it comes from being authentic, no bullshit, which a lot of times the media made into something for no reason. It’s just being myself.
Like the “I Can’t Breathe” T-shirt I mentioned. I’m from that same kind of neighborhood where that man got killed. That looks like every storefront in my neighborhood. I easily could have seen that, been there. And what could I have done with the police? Like, “Whoa, whoa, you got him in a chokehold! You about to kill him!”
I saw it so I talked to my best friend, Randall. I told him to put the words on a plain shirt. It was like a plea to stop. That was December 2014, Bulls vs. Warriors. And when I put it on and walked out there, I knew that it was gonna be something, because all my teammates, they were just shook. It wasn’t about me, but you could tell they were thinking something different.
Would people be upset? Because I wasn’t someone who talked much, wasn’t someone always speaking up, I think that made it louder. But that’s what I mean. Stuff like that. Something simple. Something I cared about. And it’s helping others. That’s how I wanted to express it.
The craziest thing is, I never experienced any encounters with the police like that. I’m light-skinned, which matters in my neighborhood. If you’re light-skinned, they think you’re soft. I never fought in my neighborhood. I only fought with my friends. I just carry myself different. I had to walk around like that, like I was tough, like I could fight. “As long as you don’t try me, I’m not gonna try you.”
I did get locked up in high school once, but it was for shooting dice. And really because I was light-skinned. No bullshit. The cop picked me because I was the innocent-looking kid. It stayed on my record until I was 17 or 18. If you don’t have any violations after that they erase it. I was 15. I was in the back of the school, 20 or 30 kids out there shooting dice. But I’m on the court playing basketball. Somehow the officer snuck over there. The people who were shooting dice acted like they were involved in a basketball game. Starting to yell out, “I got next!” Then just walking around so the cop don’t get ’em.
I’m on the court dribbling the ball. He comes up to me, out of about 30 kids, and he picks me. Why? He saw some type of innocence, I think. He knows all the other kids are gonna run and I don’t wanna have a problem. You get shot running away. We’d seen that.
So they locked me up. I was in there for like six hours. My mom had to leave work. I thought she was gonna be more mad about having to leave work than picking me up from jail for getting arrested for playing dice, but she was cool. It had to come from my older brothers being in trouble. She knew this wasn’t that serious compared to what they were doing.
My brothers got in some trouble, but mostly minor things. I think everybody except me and my oldest brother sold drugs when they were younger. They weren’t kingpins or anything like that, where the reputation is, “Don’t touch him.” They weren’t a distraction to the neighborhood. They didn’t cause any ruckus. None of that. But you just knew if you messed with one of us, we were not gonna back down. It’s not like we were coming to intimidate anybody. I just carried myself in a different way. The vibe is different. I’m not coming in with an ego. I’m not walking around telling you what to do or how to be, that was never me. When I was around people, it was more like, just let me be.
My brothers went to Hubbard High. They all played ball. Wayne ended up going to Amherst College for a little bit. Reggie went to a juco and then to Idaho U. Allan, he was supposed to go to Robert Morris in Pennsylvania to play ball. But Allan didn’t go. I remember my brother Reggie pulls up on me in his car one day and he’s like, “Where’s your brother at?” He pulls off fast, so I knew something was up.
I went back home and by that time Reggie was beating up Allan because he said he wasn’t going to college. So I’m seeing this and thinking, “He’s doing that because he said he ain’t going to college?” Well, I’m going to college after I see him whoop Allan like that.
Allan had a scholarship and everything, was the best player of the other brothers, but he got caught up in the hood. He became a big example for me, though, of what not to do. I saw how it changed my big bro. Not doing the drugs, but selling. Not in a gang, but just trying to make some money to survive, help the family. That’s mostly what all those drug sales were about. They won’t let you go downtown where you can open a business to give people jobs. You see stores closing in our areas, like those Target stores closing at the end of 2018. Then they open them in better neighborhoods. There go more jobs. I never sold drugs, never was into that. Saw my brother go through all that and I told myself I’d never go that route.
Allan is one of the biggest assholes I know. Aggravates everybody. He used to push me around when I was younger. He used to do it in a crazy way. I usually did pretty good at school. I only got one F in all of high school. But I got a D on my report card once; Allan would say, “They put D for dummy.” Little shit like that. But he was smart, so I couldn’t say shit back. One night he was bagging out these drugs and I was in the room with him. He never gave me a compliment. That’s how I knew this was different.
He was like, “Don’t ever do this shit what I do.” I was just in his room chillin’, just to be around. Then he says it again, “Don’t ever do this shit.”
I was like, “You don’t gotta worry about that.”
“Shorty,” he said, “you cold.”
That means you’re really good—he meant really good at hoopin’. To hear him say that, I was like, “Damn, he knows I can hoop.” My mom didn’t. Nobody really knew I hooped like that when I was in grade school. But from word of mouth, people were telling him, “Yo, your little brother was up there.”
He was the first to really know I could play, and I felt like I could play a little bit, too, so he warned me. He wanted to make sure I didn’t pick his way.
In that sort of way, the neighborhood also takes care of its own. I saw it a lot. I think a lot of people didn’t pick on me because it was like, “What’s the point of picking on him? You don’t get any points for picking on Derrick. He’s quiet. He stays in his own lane. And he can hoop his ass off.”
In my neighborhood, it kind of got to the point where everybody knew I was gonna make it. Imagine that as a kid. I’m seeing a crackhead every day, danger every day, but nobody in my neighborhood really tried to harm me or touch me because everybody knew I had a dream. I was getting through, getting out. It wasn’t ever said to me, it was more like it was understood—just a weird feeling.
I’ll tell you a story. I never sold drugs, but I gambled. Dice and basketball. Those were my games. The guy that I’m
telling you about, Deion, he’s dead now. But when I was younger I kind of looked up to him. He went to Bogan High School, played ball, dressed fly. I started getting good in the neighborhood, so Deion felt I was trying to take his spot. I’m the youngest guy, in sixth grade then. He’s in high school.
One day, there’s a bunch of kids and I hear footsteps on my porch. There’s banging on the door. “Where’s Pooh? Tell him to come outside.” They’re like, “Deion’s out there talking shit.”
I’m like, “What you mean?” So I go upstairs to get my cousin’s new Jordans, squeeze my feet into her shoes, lace them up, and sneak out the house.
When I get to the park it’s his older friends and they’re like, “Yeah, get him out here.” It’s like, “I’m gonna kick yo ass!” One on one in front of the neighborhood.
But Little Pooh ends up winning. I loved it. Those are the moments you remember even if it wasn’t some big game or tournament. I was so happy, bro, sixth grade, big day for me. But that’s also when you start to know something is different, when others in the neighborhood start talking. I’m the only kid playing with the adults. That’s also when I first knew there was something else out there besides where I lived.
Sixth grade was when I went somewhere for the first time. I’d started playing AAU and we went to Minnesota. First time ever out of the state. I knew then that things could change. You look on TV, magazines, and you know people are living other lives, but it doesn’t seem real. Going to Minnesota and seeing it made it real for the first time. But what can I do? I’m a kid.
Sixth grade also was the first time I went to downtown Chicago, even out of my neighborhood. I played in a championship game at Crane. We got lost driving there and I ended up seeing the skyscrapers up close for the first time.