I read this book years ago and forget what I thought about it back then, but this time it was just sad as hell. His whole life is sad, and the girls are even sadder.

It’s crazy that he (and other pimps he talks to) can see the racial politics at play–in terms of the black male experience and the sexual relationship between white men and black/white women, all dating back to American slavery–and yet he doesn’t see women as deserving the exact dignity that he so badly wants.

One thing that stuck with me was how once he got a taste of the street life, it was too late for his mother or anyone else to try to keep him away. It really is like that.