Kevin R. Johnson, aka Kevin 6X, survived the evil streets of Compton, CA, without a single physical scar to show for the 15 years he lived there; but the emotional and mental scars overlap each other, hardly visible to the naked eye. Kevin followed his youngest uncle into the streets, walked in the footsteps of the ruthless Nutty Block Crip gang—selling crack, stealing cars, brutalizing people, and chasing girls. Ignoring the dictatorship of a Christian mother, Kevin set out to make a reputation for himself amongst his older peers as a fearless thief. By the age of 14, he had two serious felony charges, enough to keep him out of the U.S. military when attempting to enlist at 17. Worshipping material objects drove this child into crack sales in hopes to make a fortune. His father offered no words of wisdom to set him on a productive path; as Kevin says, “Our parents were too distracted by their own adult problems.”
During high school, Kevin accepted Black Nationalism as a political idea, only to use the brutal history between Black and White Americans as a justification to steal from and attack American citizens. Kevin broke the heart of his high school love by demanding her to abort their child. Kevin committed a 2nd degree armed robbery shortly before accepting Islam at 19; he was arrested 5 days after his 20th birthday to serve 6 years in prison, where he devoted most of his time studying Islam and Africentricity. He spent the remainder of his prison time fighting homosexuality. The prison life turned Kevin into a more callous-hearted person than ever before, although no woman has been able to detect this aspect of him while falling for him. After prison, believing that marriage would balance his life, Kevin dove in and out of two marriages.
Kevin fights brutal psychological battles with countless demons; during his most silent moments, women often wonder why he is so quiet; they want to know what he is thinking, but so does he! In fact, he wants to know before anyone else does, and often delays his responses for a moment to separate and analyze his thoughts to determine their origin. With all the study time Kevin invested in himself in prison, he had a thorough understanding of the right way to live and steps to overcome all of his obstacles, yet he chose to slip off the straight path to experience more of the hard life. Making mistake after mistake, Kevin realized he must have a psychological dilemma since he chose to take the backwards route to get ahead in most circumstances. Kevin joined the Nation of Islam in 2002, but his rebellious attitude and impatience has him popping in and out of the Mosque meetings, the same as his relationships with women.
In 2005, Kevin began to look at the correlation between his father’s behavior issues and his own. Seeing a resemblance, Kevin attempted to temporarily cut ties with his father so that he could fight the battles to win back his peace of mind. So far, his spiritual mind state hit its greatest peak in 1995, but like a bi-polar manic depressant, the peak moments do not last as long as the low ones. In Kevin’s mental battles to find peace, he realized that one of his most desperately needed victories is the strength to trust in Allah and live the way Allah expects him to. Kevin keeps trying to find success his own way as though he wants to be independent of Allah, his Creator. That is the central aspect of the war that is driving Kevin to insanity; how do you obtain righteousness and success without following the Supreme Guide? It seems as though Kevin has stumbled upon a maze of paths where most of them lead to more chaos. He can see the right path, but thinking that he can take other routes to his ultimate goal, leads him to more failure and frustration. However, suicide is no longer an option after two attempts in 1995 and 1998. Kevin’s life was saved by the efforts of two friends, Wakil and Mumit, both serving life sentences in California prisons. Their spiritual strength and discipline lifted Kevin from looking for death to achieving spiritual and scientific heights that he had never imagined.
Where many people who carry excessive bodily weight may look to a personal trainer to help get in shape, Kevin carries psychological weight and desperately needs the full time help of a therapist to win this war of the mind. In 2008 and 2009, the battlefronts have been primarily focused on career choices and financial downturns. Almost to the brink of homelessness and the consideration of death, Kevin turned to his ex-wife and daughter for refuge; finding a great opportunity to write about the battles he has fought in an effort to look back: to see if he can unscramble the mysteries that have caused his failures, to find a cure to end the strife. He believes that he must go back to the beginning of each battle in order to find elements of himself that he has lost.