So for as long as I can remember, this notion of being a representative of something much larger than myself has been ingrained in my being for as long as I can remember.

And these dynamics of honor and shame have been present in my story ever since then.

It has helped me understand my place and my family and my community and in the world.

For example, growing up in Philly, let's go, sixes come on, we need that wind.

Us kids would run the streets in alleys all day long after we got home from school and everyone in the neighborhood lived in row homes.

So everybody saw and heard everything for better and for worse.

But when that's kids gotten to stuff that we shouldn't be doing, the elders would tell us, don't misrepresent your parents like that.

You ought to be ashamed of yourselves for talking like that.

Don't y'all know that you are the future of this community.

What they were teaching us was that what we did or said was a reflection of those that we come from.

When we were cutting up, we were dishonoring those who have helped shape us in mold us into who we were.

It would make people think that those who were raising us weren't doing a great job.

Are you with me?

So what we were doing when we were cutting up is bringing shame, dishonored to our family's names.

So another example, it's more on a lighter note, I was an athlete in high school and in college and when we would win the community with chance, I believe that we just won.

I was like, we, like I was one sweating and running.

But there was something about wearing the name of the community on our chest that brought honor to that community when we won a game.

And when we lost, say nobody want to talk about it because it was shameful.

So I'm like, oh y'all was with us when we won but when we was down in a bite, all right, whatever.

So we would feel a sense of shame and these examples are many among other things that some of you may be able to relate to.

And they're in a fashion and they display that our understandings of who we are and what we do represents the people that we are connected to.

And even though our culture is at larger, innocence, guilt, framework, there are still dynamics of honor and shame.

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