Oneal P. 09/15/05

My name Oneal. I'm trying to tell about how I'm here by myself right now. You know the shit I used to do when I'm in New Orleans? I'm 29. I had a whole fuckin' life, me. I used to shoot dope, shoot drugs. Now's I'm telling you about how now I've been clean, for like a year or so.

I come now with my cousins and my friend and them. You know, I had a few pennies in my pocket. They wanted to pay my way to Houston, Texas, but I ain't wanna go. I rather stay with my mommy. I'm in here by myself. I'm not being put out. I'm on my own. I promise you I won't be standing in no Salvation Army. I'm here. So I gotta do what the fuck I gotta do. You know what I'm saying? 'Cause guess what? I'm too real to go in any damn Salvation Army. Where there's a will, there's a way. And that's all.

The Austin Convention Center, I had to come here. I got me a fuckin' jump start.

And guess what? I'm running with it. It gave me a jump start. I'm running with it, I'm going to be paying my bills. Well a couple of months, and guess what? I'm going to get me a job today, and I'm stacking my chips. I don't care what kind of job it is, just as long as its working. And guess what? I'm going to be stacking that money, my working. And when I do get back home…if I go back to that funky motherfucker, you know what I'm saying? It fucked me over.

I got out of New Orleans in a chopper. It took like 5 days to get out of that damn Convention Center. I'm a gangsta. You running for me, I got you all the way. Believe that. There wasn't the time for that. I’m protecting my family, if any motherfucker comes near I’m killing all them. I'm gonna get real with you right now.

I'm from Desire. Desire Project, baby. You know about that D? That dirty D, eh? Now I'm gonna tell you, I'm about to get real with you, I'm about to lay it down. The Convention Center, there ain't no water there. I ain't gonna lie.

You asked me a question: how did I survive? I made it out like a joke, but I was very serious. I made it a joke, I made out laughing, but I was very, very serious. You asked me how I survive. I told you I was a gangster. No man, no woman, no child, do me or my family nothing Whatever it take to protect me and my family, I was gonna do it, and it's just like, and I ain't give a damn what the police said, damn National Guard, I don’t give a damn what the damn president say.

The woulda had to take me to jail: I'm not letting nobody hurt my family. My mom and them. You crazy, I'd rather go to jail, I'd die for my momma right now. You know what I'm saying? It's like, for a while in the Convention Center, there were guns, and they were robbing people, sexual predators in there. Motherfuckin' kidnapping children. Raping them. Splitting their throat. And the motherfucking Convention Center freezer, like they're the fucking undertaker. You know what I'm saying? That's how it was and the police all there. I went, I ain't no rat or nothing, but when I see shit like that going on, shit that was going on, I would tell the police, Hey! Then let them tell you something about “they can't do nothing about it. “

Man, they had the police standing out there with people laying on the street, dead. Like, me and you standing right here? They got a two dead right here. Shot in the head. They got a old white man sitting in the chair on a neutral ground, he dead. They got like 30 bodies in the freezer, and it's at the Convention Center, now, dead. You know, everybody get killed, they old folks in there who needed their medicine, wasn't getting no medical attention, they just was dying. People was dropping in that place. The Convention Center wasn't nothing nice.

For whoever listening to this, the president, or whoever, I'm here to let you know, too, and I'm telling you, I won't give a damn who you is. One of them mother-fuckers can run up on me and my family and be giving me light, giving me the electric chair, lethal injection or something, 'cause I wasn't gonna let it happen to them. Whether or not they had to go together, and they had to take me to jail, if they got me I was gonna....

I protected my people, Yeah! And I did me some looting, too. Did me some looting, too. Cause guess what? I wasn't gonna let nobody starve me. That's when they seen the young black brothers up in the store they put it like it's, it was, oh, we just looting. You know what I'm saying? We doing what we had to do to survive. And that store was open, like the store was open and I say look, give me 10 gallons of this water. That store was closed. And they talk like it was under martial law. Federal government and police like 4, 5 days later, supposed to drag some water out those damn helicopters, or some food. They had thousands of people out there! Know what I'm saying?
 

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