Community columnist: Thank you, Nebraska. How rural Nebraska saved my life

!'m a Washington, D.C., native. I love D.C. I love the texture of the culture, past and present. The slang, our deep-rooted black voices. The history in the streets, the go-go music. The rhythm of the African American culture there. I was born into it. I lived it. I was almost swallowed whole by its raging crack cocaine and murder rate of the 1980s and ‘90s.

Washington, D.C., loved me and my family like a domestically violent relationship. It abused my family, took us for granted, shed our blood on the street, and tossed us around like an unnecessary living corpse. My parents almost succumbed to the dope-fiend lifestyle. The fast money, the homelessness, the rage. I was lucky to escape this volatile relationship in 1999. I left Washington, D.C., on my first flight ever to a place called Omaha, Nebraska.

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