True You by Janet Jackson Read Free Book Online Page B

twelve I would have wound back the clock to the time when I had school with my siblings in hotel suites. But those times were gone.
    I would have to go to school and be normal. I would have to somehow fit in.
    The first day in this new school put me in a guarded and negative mood. Yet within minutes, my mood magically changed. Something happened that I hadn’t dreamed possible. Busloads of black and Latin kids were arriving from south-central Los Angeles to attend this school in the Valley.
    These kids would change my outlook on life.
    It wasn’t that I had anything against the white kids. I had grown up in a white environment and when I was in school, my classmates and teachers were white. Those kids were (and some remain) very close friends.
    But something happened inside my heart when I saw black and Latin kids my age stepping off that bus. I was excited to see them.
    That good feeling spread during lunchtime. There, outside in the yard, the black kids congregated in one area around a boom box blasting Funkadelic’s “One Nation Under a Groove.” When they started dancing, the sight of them moving with such smooth style and funky grace thrilled me.
    A girl named La Nette, who lived in the Crenshaw district of Los Angeles, a world away from the Valley, became my best friend.
    She knew I was a Jackson—everyone did—and said she had seen me on
Good Times,
but she wasn’t starstruck in the least. She treated me the same way she treated her other friends, with natural ease and friendliness. When she invited me to her house one weekend, I asked Mother if she’d drive me over.
    “Of course, baby,” she said.
    And she did.
    As Mother navigated the freeways to Crenshaw, I was excited by a new friendship in a new part of the city where normal black folks lived. Mother turned up the volume on her favorite Kenny Rogers tape. Mother was a country music fan. The music made the long trip seem short.
    When I arrived at La Nette’s house, we hung out and she played me her favorites—George Clinton & Parliament’s “Knee Deep,” Foxy’s “Get Off,” and Teena Marie and Rick James’s “Fire & Desire.” It was a beautiful exchange, the songs that she loved and the ones I loved. It was even more beautiful to be part of the real world. To fit in. To be all right not just with these kids but with myself.
    My first day at school was different from everyone else’s, because of the
Good Times
schedule. There were moments when my presence was distracting to the entire class because of the work I was doing in TV, and because of my family. I can remember being sent to the principal’s office just to have a quiet place to do my schoolwork when things got crazy. Growing up, I’d seen others in similar situations, but I didn’t realize how strange it was until I was an adult. It was a lesson in being different.
    In this world, I wasn’t a Jackson. I was just Janet. And that was enough.
    Being in the real world taught me that when it comes to relationships, it’s all about sincerity, not class, or race, or economic status. I found that I was comfortable with straightforward, genuine people. I could relate to them and they could relate to me. I found myself comfortable in any world whose people had open hearts.
    That was a valuable lesson I’ll carry for the rest of my life. Sincerity sees you through any situation.
    Another extracurricular lesson these kids taught me was humility. Seeing how I was privileged—and how many of my new friends were not—humbled me. Their firsthand stories of life in the inner city were powerful and moving. They experienced great joy and great pain. I loved these kids. We were one, and we were together. We were never against the other students at school, yet we formed a special bond among ourselves.
    By my final months at school, though, there was racial tension. Later in my life, this awakening would reemerge in the sounds and stories of
Rhythm Nation
.
     
    Perhaps my own lack
of self-respect