Tracy Morgan - I Am the New Black

T here are many reasons why you might be reading this sentence. Youre obviously curious about me, or you wouldnt even be holding this book. Thats cool with me, Im happy about that, Mr. or Mrs. Whoever You Are. If theres one thing Ive learned in my life, its that curiosity might kill cats, but it doesnt kill people. Unless youre curious about doing things like bungee jumping high on crack to see if you really need that harness, curiosity will not kill you! I tell you what will kill youpeople will. Weve got a long way to go to change that around, but I hope we do. For now, I can say this and I know its true: Curiosity makes you smarter. Dont fight it! Learn to learn, learn to ask questions. Clearly, youve got questions about me. In this book youll find some answers.

I have a pretty diverse audience, and that makes me happylaughter is universal, and I dont differentiate between people at all. Why should I? People are people. Theres no reason why one person cant relate to any other person on this planet in some way or another. Thats something I didnt have to be taughtI believed that as a kid, and leading the crazy life Ive led has done nothing but prove me right to myself. I have friends who are black, white, purple, gay, straight, Martian, yellow, old, and young. I have friends who are animals and a few who I believe to be robots. All of them are people to me. In my mind its not about what you look like or what you do, its about who you are inside.

I hope whoever you are inside likes surprises, because Ive got a few in store for you here. Im not a child star, but you could say that Ive grown up on TV. I went from being an unknown, down-and-out comic from Brooklyn and the Bronx to being a regular character on a major network comedy called Martin. From there I went on to become the most notable black comic on Saturday Night Live since Eddie Murphy. Then I had my own show, The Tracy Morgan Show, and now Im on 30 Rock. I definitely went from a boy to a man on TV, all on NBCwhat up, Lorne Michaels! But heres what you dont know: I was already a man of the streets. I had to be to survive my upbringing.

The version of me you see on TV now and in my feature films is a pretty happy guy, isnt he? Finally, in my personal life, that much is true tooor its getting there. Happiness, contentment, securitythats all new for me. Ive reached my forties and I can finally say that no one except me can take my house away from me. No one but me can put me on the street. But it wasnt always like that. My life growing up was a twisted Bronx version of The Color Purple. It had a much different soundtrack and no trees, but that desperation was the same. At this point in my life I plan for the future. Back then I planned how to get through one day at a time.

Let me make one thing clear right now: Im not writing this for your sympathy, and I dont feel like any kind of hero. Im not Gods gift, but my life wasnt dumb luck either. As youll see, I made a series of choicessome bad, most goodthat led me here. I dont want your praise, but I do want to be an example. Not the kind of example the principal suspends for throwing food at the teacher or the cops arrest in front of his friends for spray painting EAT MY ASS on the school. I want to be an example of a guy who made something of himself out of nothing. A guy who overcame the odds of a tough childhood, who worked hard, who didnt let his surroundings get the best of him and lead him to jail or the graveyard. Where I ended upbeing a comedian, a TV star, and a movie actormight be unique but my story is not. When a child is born, its born with a heart of gold, but the way of this world can turn that heart cold. Im still a good person and I thank God for thatHes working with me on it.

In many ways, all of you reading this who are like me, who come from what I came fromwe are the last of the Mohicans. Ive seen so many of the black males I grew up with end up dead or in prison. My closest friends from school who are still living work with me or for me, and Im not exaggerating when I say that we are all thats left from our old crew. I keep them close because theyre the only people I trust.

We grew up in the inner city, New York, in the late seventies and early eighties. We saw the birth of hip-hop right on our front stoop. Those were the good times; we were poor, but for a while there was harmony in our community. And those of us whose homes werent what they should have been found what we needed in the neighborhood, because back then there were role models to be had. Hanging out on corners wasnt always dangerousthey werent always just places to sell drugs. Back in my day, generations of families would meet on the street just to be together. Kids like me, from broken homes, used to be able to find family just outside their door, among a network of neighbors. We were all brothers of other mothers back when I was young. But not for long.

As we became teenagers, all of that slipped away. The city turned its back on the Bronx and let the neighborhoods become hoods, fueled by drugs. My backyard became the citys market for crack and heroin, and our people were right there to participate in every wayas dealers, as addicts, and as statistics day after day. Throughout the eighties and into the nineties, my high school friends and cousins were taken down by drug-related violence. My own family was no different. We were torn apart by drugs and AIDS. I lost a lot of role models to that terrible twosome: dirty needles and a disease society didnt understand. Like a lot of the young men in my neighborhood, I ended up on the streets dealing just to get by. We dropped like dominoes, pushed over by the end of a gun or the tip of a needle.

If you think about it, I really shouldnt be here at all. If youre the kind of person who likes numbers and statistics, Im the long shot, the lotto Powerball winner. Im the mutation in the DNA that makes evolution a reality. I am the new black. Once you know a little bit more of my story, youll probably agree that the odds were against me sitting in a luxury apartment in Manhattan starring in an Emmy-winning series with an Emmy nomination myself, alongside people like Tina Fey and Alec Baldwin on a network like NBC. Given the facts of my life, those of you who like to spend time at the OTB would have put your money on finding me, at my age, curled up in a ball in a corner of the ghetto ready to die if I wasnt dead already. The Emmy nod surprised me: I thought theyd wait a few years to give this black man his trophy. I figured Id just keep rocking the Golden Globes. I love you, Europe!

Im not going to lie: I know Ive got a natural talent that has seen me through my trials and tribulations. Being funny has been my bulletproof vest. This mouth of mine and my goofy face have kept me from getting shot many times, particularly that one time when I stole a drug dealers girl. Being funny wasnt a career choice growing up, it was my way out of situations, a way to survive another day. In the end, it also freed me from my environment. It was my passport to a larger world that I had no idea existed, even though it was just a few miles south in Manhattan. That world was in the same city, in the same country, a world so many people took for granted, but it was foreign to a guy like me. When I finally moved to a nice community in Riverdale from a run-down apartment next to Yankee Stadium in the Bronx, it was like Id landed on Mars. I had no idea that other people lived without garbage all over their streets. Its crazy to me how in America different people can live just a few miles away from each other but entire worlds apart.