Content Warning: This section of the guide describes and analyzes the source text’s treatment of racism and also replicates a slur against Romani people that features in Street Love.

“Harlem is not an easy place

To grow old, and so the young

Are everywhere,

pouring from the buses, city dancing

To the rhythms of the street,

City dancing to the frantic spin of life

In the fast lane.”

Street Love’s setting of Harlem plays a prominent role, as the challenges of urban life—such as drugs, violence, and financial hardship—impact Junice daily. This quote establishes these hardships to foreshadow obstacles to her and Damien’s love.

“My folks are laying lines on me like

They’ve written out the part and all

I got to do is get to a place called Start

And follow the road to fame and glory—

A PhD in mucho buckology

Two point five kids and a quick apology

To the starving folks in East Ain’tGotNothingVille

While I look down from Sugar Hill and tell

Myself how phat my program is.”

Damien lives a life of privilege yet is frustrated that his parents planned his future for him. He also expresses guilt for this privilege, due to seeing the struggles of fellow Harlem residents firsthand.

“How could they know she had never possessed

Anything worth the while

Had never distributed anything except pieces of herself

Which she gave freely

To those in need, or to those who, like

Her, were broken, and needed a fix?”

Here, Junice uses wordplay to frame her mother Leslie’s selling of drugs as forgivable. Despite Leslie’s lack of money, she allegedly tried to help others.