the goal was found in the lives and work of de watkins aaron mabon and fidel a writer a painter and a poet all bore from streets that brought many asunder today hawk watchers we present to you their three stories in their own works so that hopefully through discovering how these three sons of baltimore found their beauty their artistry and their success we too can find our own beauty in the struggle as we start watching the hawks. good. with. the fox it's just. like you that i got. with. this. with it's.

time to get serious look at my calendar and see where i got to be the next day i was going to like some kind americans like my manager. take stuff off the issues it's like it's like just don't have to touch it you'll be fine and it's not i just don't touch it. the first time. my. name is aaron maybe a are and they why be guy and. girl. that's a. fake. and i like well like i like. i'm ok when i was in high school.

really when i was in college up at penn state like you just get opened up to this world that all these people lived in for their entire lives and you're just like so amazing that even. you had on the embers you know and that your norm but that's their goal as much as you can understand. what life is like for them they can't even begin to fathom what it's like growing up. i was a street guy and. trust street. i was was at a drug game and. i wanted out and i didn't really know what i wanted to do but i just kind of felt like you can you can make money doing anything if you got at it so while. i went to college and when i first bought a liquor store i bought a liquor store and i said so myself you know. you know you have your freedom.

you have been through all of these crazy things and you're fortunate enough to be here so you'll be a horrible person if you ever sold a drug again so i put the stuff right. you know because when you from the hurt you don't really have like. it's not really a lot of a lot of. different types of success that exist out there you know. what you're seeing in a you really see the art world like that you see in the business so what this liquor store cost baby and how to weigh all of our street from a young age art was always a mechanism myself you know i dealt with a lot of things in my life that really forced me to struggle with how to react to trauma it's a pain to a loss losing my mother to young age definitely affected me in a very traumatic way i was six years old when she passed away and you know that was

one of the first times that i really was in a position where i was reaching out just looking for something anything that would help me to fill that hole that was in my heart you know and art was always that that that catalyst for me it was always that vehicle by which i could escape whatever i was dealing with whether it was through you know drawing painting. once i was really able to start the grass literature and to formulate my own thoughts i started writing. and. in doing those things not even not only did i get. a measure of healing from a lot of those instances but i was able to tap into something that was much greater inside of me that you know that i was able to take. refuge in you know and that was the creative process itself i started to realize how much i loved it how much. i

had a passion for being able to express myself in different forms and to force people to kind of look at their lives and their relationships in a different way based on my own experiences i think that's a powerful element about art that. that allows you to really go deeper like within yourself so that process for me never stop and and that's always been something that continuously as an artist i go back to saying how am i making these. these emotions in the sports that i had a real visceral and. almost tangible for somebody else. i never really liked writing. growing up i just did it because it was a requirement for school but i got accepted to virginia state university in two thousand and eleven and. i was major in a sport management. and i was taking. english my freshman year first

semester and i had this professor named dr ana westbrook and he introduced me to. real black history you know in the literature were and i was reading a lot of maya angelou and likes to hear and then. you not realize that a lot of ass stuff was some of that sort of things that i was listening to. hip hop iraq so our re i started reading a lot of larry from j. cole jay z. makani a you know and i would say you know this is the same as the things that are marine in class. you know been there motor rap because that's where i grew up or enough fell in love with it in a deeper sense so i read their stuff and i would say to myself you know what like i can do this you know so i started writing i will share my poetry or my ras what i want carlo my cousin avon he was going to be doing at the time and

a couple more friends from back home and they. you know they found love with it but i didn't really believe them because i know that i'm their friend and i needed if i was bad i don't think it would be like you know conny just some straight trash right so i would type up stuff on a computer and i will make up a name you know a say it's from like some guy named james with a spoon or something like that and i was to make us and he liked it anyway and you know if your friends think something is bad or even tell you you know express it is there was somebody else so i started to believe them a little bit more you know so fast forward to two thousand and thirteen miles apart is mental organizational college and i was having a survey. and they had a dance organization that was supposed to perform for in a mission but they ended up backing out so we was on our board me and assign who was going. do find a mission are raise my hand and i say you know what i did in the mission and he was

like do what and i said i'm going to form a life for when i write some poetry is i ok because i will got nothing to lose you know right so i make a last osho fast for the february two thousand and thirteen. i got on stage for the first time ever to speak in front of a crowd perform in front of a crowd and i perform this poem and i had got a standing ovation in front of like two hundred people and i said to myself you know you're not the smartest man in the world but if this your first time and you know you can spy all of these people and get them to stand up for me and clap you know day in you can only get better so tonight as day i went to ghana and i'm way changed my major from sports management to english habits as two thousand and thirteen had just been performing a write in and then i will call for foot of attorneys in the sororities on canvas a different groups organization and then that spread to like a rich man and. you know. did i was right again i mean i've been an

artist my whole life you know i was creating before i was actually able to form words and speak. you know at the age of eleven and you know i did my first commission job for the. state of maryland city of baltimore it was like a forty fifty foot mural or north avenue in st paul street you know i was mentor by guys like larry poncho brown charles big you know. i've come into contact with you know the family of ernie barnes and you know they've they've they've been a great resource for me and you know navigating my way as a professional artist so that's always been a part of who i am and and and in a big element to you know my life but. after playing after majoring in art in school and leaving for the n.f.l. and playing there for five years benchley i made the decision to retire and to pursue my art and commune. engagement full time the only stuff our ass think about

it for me personally was. the fight of being not just accepted but respected as a professional artist and. and really being able to let people know not just how seriously i take my craft but how this is not just something that i've decided to do one day this is been a lifetime pursuit for me. you know so my parents you know it was tough for them obviously when i say you know what my intentions were because they obviously didn't see that as the best decision to make at the time you know why not keep playing why not but they understood me as a person and they understood what was important to me and when you talk about you know the community engagement the art and everything that i'm doing right now i was still doing that as an athlete but it was a problem that you know my my priorities were in the right place or i should be you know using my time more efficiently as athlete but this is always been something

that was just as important to me if not more so important to me than the game because growing up idolized guys who who who were bigger than their respective sports you know guys like muhammad ali you know guys like jim brown guys like kareem abdul-jabbar jack johnson you know even younger guys that were influencing the younger generations like allen iverson you know these people to me. they were bigger than their professions because of the stances they took because of them being being unafraid and being unapologetically themselves them staying true to where they came from and staying true to what was important to them i always wanted to be that type of figure that type of athlete and when i reach that point of actually being there being a first round draft pick and making millions of dollars and you know saying all right i'm an n.f.l. player. when i was exposed. bureaucracy of. the fact that it's a corporation now so whatever the corporate interests of your teen your own or the

organization that pays your bills and signs your checks that's what's supposed to be important that is what you're allowed to care about and invest your time i just always was answer that system. as we go to break don't forget to let us know what you're going to topics to cover the facebook and twitter sphere full souls or three dot com coming up we continue our look at the lives and experiences of baltimore's old three sons era may have been a bloody rebel in the walk and as we discover the beauty and the strength and continue to watch. see the good capitalist american and and men danish consumers for gun owners don't

be such a shy communist loving bootlicking stock insurance company c.e.o. just taken money willy nilly from a can people heroin addicts do something constructive impose got insurance and stop the bloodshed. pay everybody i'm stephen both on the task hollywood guy you'll suspect every proud american first of all i'm just george washington and r.v.'s to say this is my buddy max famous financial guru and we're just a little bit different i'm honest one can find no no no one knows up with all the drama happening in our country i'm shooting the brood have some fun meet everyday americans. and hopefully start to bridge the gap this is the great american people.

three. years ago i traveled across the united states exploring america's deadly love affair with . the bad guy trying to get to one of my family members he would have better. prepare and hurting my babies my book was published in the year two thousand more than the hall for a million americans have been killed by falls in the us where how does thought i did this is a middle school we go through drills and we put ourselves some real scenarios it was interesting to see. him. to return to the subject to track down who i'd met and photographed those years ago i don't know that but we are not.

welcome to the wonderful world of blood donation the out come here every three weeks to get my transfusion to be specific i receive immunoglobulin that my body gets and some bodies that i cannot produce that south around the world giving blood is seen as a symbol of generosity knowing does this because it helps people it's just that one of the side effects is that it has this surprise more or burn they put their money on your car immediately you don't have all plasma based drugs today come from

private companies and are produced from paid plans might as well come from you know a motor car will give you what are the risks of a donation. then it is true that the frequency of the song is much higher in paid donations. to sado if i was lying when i see my tattoos over two years old he was. in the money using the drug and who runs the blood business. off and when one tries to do the right thing the system of oppression addiction and greed follows him anyway and it is this struggle that the voices of baltimore call out more importantly when one is faced with the opportunity to take the easy way

out and simply remove themselves from a community that has caused so much trauma they refused the fight for places like baltimore isn't going to happen in the halls of justice but in the hearts minds and deeds of those who call it home and that's half of the getting in the struggle to walk and starts by talking about how he went from dealing drugs to owning a legitimate business but what he found is that the problem isn't what we push for take it's how and why we need it in the first place the problem is the pay more from author and educator d watkins on discovering the depths of the cycle that keeps so many in his community and others from raising their brazen faces to the sun. i was at the store right down the street from you know the corner and there was another one right up the street i had greatly commented about i felt like i could do this you know so two three months go by and i'm not making any

money and this is like blowing my mind if i want to pay if i will if i'm paying like fifty give you an example if i'm paying fifteen dollars for a bottle i'm trying to sell if i like sixteen there was a curious shop up the street who was passed i've seen dollars for about a because we had the same distributors so there was a band fifteen honestly about it but there was someone there for like fifteen ten and i'm like you know how you would how are you doing this like i did you know and i was frustrated my bar was small right the lounge area was small and there was three big plug poker machines in it i say you know take them out and i'm just going to you know connect with a promoter and we're going to have more parties and more drink specials and things like that so i called the number on a machine got it i'm going to machine and i said look. you know my name's dee you know his ability to know his business to old people or gun you should come pick you machines up i want to throw him away so i said this guy is tight and it's like for people start real tight suits is a real so fashion forward guy he slides in with

a tight suit on and he's saying you know like like you know like what you did with the place you made some changes you clean it up it looks good to him and i'm like oh my god i just wait for your approval we get these machines out a key move these machines in a little suit. studies machines and stores my whole life and i knew people played them but i never play close enough attention to understand if they actually paid out so. he said you know give you give you ten thousand out as if you keep it you know. we split the money fifty fifty we did great business together if you don't like it you know at this a couple of months take him out i said cool. so he left and came back with a check and it was like. no then he left again to came out with cash and i speak this language very well so. now the machines are going to make him i mean this is great like it was actually like a great thing so one night there was

a woman who played the machine has a lot and we were in a bar alone and i was moving some boxes around and i was you know taking inventory and saying what was going on and i walked out and i saw her sitting next to a machine and she was like slumped over she looked really really sad so i'm like pat was wrong with you and she still had it working for more than everything i said what's wrong with you she said the machine beat the hell out of me so i just got a match it was a hundred dollars i put the whole thing in there i don't have anything to weeks so i was like you know this is horrible and i felt you know like. bad so i want to back it up what i had three four hundred dollars i had like a little stash in the back and i came out as you know what. hey you take that and you don't even got to pay a bet unless you feel like it you know because hold on today and she was like you sure you know you can be a lot of time like i can't care you know starving you know so i go back into the. room you know finished what i was doing or came back out she put the money in the

machine i said this is going to do this no more next day i put it on the market and i sold it when i first started it wasn't about a spiral it was just about being nice and like good you know because when i listen to music i like music. that you know make me want to rewind to be like oh my god what did he just say like let me money back that's what i wanted to be but then i realized how important my messages could be right and i would share these poems and people kind of be like you know what i mean you know what i mean me think about my father when the poem was about my little brother you know or this poem a spy in me you know and i have a. heard these type of things about me and life by server was all i got to know to head that much of an impact so. i started to take heed to that and utilize the in a vise strategic way because i sort of recommend it was stand of a feet and i came a spy of people who did i say you know that's what i need to keep door you know so

of myself to start learning more history because i hated history not because i'm just not on the start of the who cares about what happened back then right we need to focus on it now but in our realize how important history. research and more learning more and becoming more in tune with black history you know and i'm right it's a lot of people and it's not going to re you know so i have to be that right that middle man and that i had has got something want to me is like yo want to you might be the only babu that people really. take the things that i learn and i put it to our party because i don't people listen to me and if i had his influence i don't want to be telling them to do you know because just how you know if you was in a good way i could be a force in a bad way so you know it's already a lot of negative stuff on the outside i want to just be you know other person just you know making people go along the way when i have the potential to make them go to the right way i didn't believe that. the best way for me to serve my community

was just to you know do the typical n.f.l. thing you know go find you know some sick kids in the hospital and you know give them a bunch of jerseys and you know try to convince them that they're going to be ok and all that kind of stuff you know but really just making a commercial for the n.f.l. you know or you know been saying you know you want to change your community go find a vacant lot you know and invite a whole bunch of poor kids from the projects and bring them down and have them drinking gator aid and running around and do want to whole bunch of tricks and give them a whole bunch of jerseys and you know film and make a commercial for the n.f.l. i wasn't like i saw. my involvement in the community being much more intimate. my life pursuit being something that in my mind really impact the lives of the people that. i was most concerned with helping and influence and so that's what i'm doing. and i really think books were for me you know.

a friend as well a neighborhood he's bought a more and. saw any and everything that you don't want to child to see. cross the street to the school. and it's like huckleberry finn and it's like tom sawyer and it's like you know they get to be followed by like a slave to like i want to paint gates or something and i'm in this world where like my friends were going to run with thousands of dollars worth of jewelry ride dirt bikes we you know we live in we live in movies every day everything was fun and exciting and just driving colorful and beautiful and that work was so at that particular time of my life it was really flat to me and. i don't think reading was a think so when i got to college and you know and i came across books like the sister soldier the coldest want to ever change my life i didn't know you could write like that and that kind of like. a little spark and you know it just it lit a spark it was a spark that it's a like a blazing fire because from there i started reading to be poets and i started

reading you know to feed the dusky esky and you know i've read any and everything you know tony morrison of even you know even if you sign a receipt at a denny's i've read that so you know it turned into like and it was turned into a journey for me and that journey i discovered that a lot of people had the luxury of telling black stories and this is black and white people. and probably asians too but they have the luxury of telling black stories but they don't know any black people like how you write about what's going on in history bottom line you never walked the room how you write about poverty and never was hungry like how are you telling the story and i'm not saying that you know the research you know you can't research these things and get sources developed understand it but i'm saying you make him bold claims that you're not even get another kind of walk around you just you reporting from a drone you know and i don't really think that's fair and i saw a big lane for me and i didn't take it lightly like i want to got an m.f.a.

and you know and i didn't go to you know to go to school for journalism but i study you know types of journalists. and try to develop my own style in my own voice and i just knew like going to be ok in this industry because there's no one there who is willing to go to places i want to go so a lot of people talk about it all fake it but i'm actually going to go there so that's kind of how i got my start. late reader curious became a spy like all of the missing elements of stories that were out there and i figured i could fill in some of those gaps if you're a black person who's like a young journalist now times out of ten you come from some type of family when i was absent or you come from some type of privilege where it was something that seemed like it was doable i've never ever ever met a journalist until i became one like you know it's people from my neighborhood people from my neighborhood who. you know i'm the only journalist that they know

that they have read or met. while i was their interest you know the introduction and you know reading some articles and things like that because you know i put it down for them and i went to see what was you know what was out there kind of like was just a soldier defend me so you know. if nobody from these neighborhoods are telling the story being told no a story will be told to be told by a person who doesn't have proximity to those issues and i think that's dangerous gives they give society the space to kill us this is lab person like there i was thinking i have a twenty second interaction with mike brown killer. and that is our show for you today remember everyone in this world we are told we are. tell you all i love you i roll back in time to have a wallace keep on watching the hawks and have a great day and night. she'll

be a game. that didn't have ten miles from the independent and that's when the tears of that day with. the counselors the placenta i went up at a sauna we were meeting there. i was the set of my lemon who speculate him to me or the now with jamie as a hunk on the move. now at the bad day but the council i got money but that never i see let him to make the rhodium it worthy of me measure how comforting closer he got big of me as he said. i know when i lived.

in america a college degree requires a great deal. paying a decade's long debt. studying so hard it requires. going through humiliation to enter society. and partying to death sometimes quite literally. wants other true colors of universities in the

u.s. . headline news with islamic state essentially driven out of syria the leaders of iran turkey and russia move to help reconcile the remaining sides and bring an end to the six years civil war. reversal of lebanon's political crisis sees the country's prime minister u. turn on his resignation surprise decision to step down came almost three weeks ago with regional uncertainty and heightened tensions. also this hour google admits tracking on droid smartphones even when users have switched off their location settings. and there's a media backlash over a new children's book in sweden about a whole new claims to be a dog it's good reaction over identifying as transgender and its legal status and we gauge reaction to the controversial issue. about trying to.