Noah McQueen (NM) and Barack Obama (BO)
NM: Growing up, I didn’t have a stable household, so I believe I attended eight or nine middle schools throughout the course of, you know, two or three years.
BO: Did you know your dad?
NM: I do know my dad, but, you know, he’s down the street, but…
BO: You didn’t really have a relationship with him.
NM: No.
BO: Well, that’s one of the things we have in common. As I get older, I start reflecting on how that affected me. How do you think that affected you?
NM: You kinda learn right and wrong on your own terms. I got into fights. And fighting, or getting put out of school was, you know, normal. So that’s how really the trouble started for me being in the, um, the juvenile system. I was, uh, on the run. I believe…
BO: You were on the run, how so?
NM: From the law. [Laughs]
BO: Yeah, what had you done?
NM: (Laughs) I believe it was, what’s it called—
BO: What do you mean you believe?
NM: (Laughs)
BO: It was something. You know what it was.
NM: It was violation of, uh, house arrest.
BO: So you had gotten in repeated trouble. And what happened?
NM: (Laughs) I went to a Christian retreat.
BO: Did you say to yourself, “Man, I need to find something different and go to a Christian retreat”?
NM: Oh no sir, I didn’t want to go at all. My mom forced me, to uh…
BO: Ok, so mama intervened. “Lord…”
NM: [Laughs]
BO: “…please help me knucklehead son Noah straighten out.” Are you skeptical when you get there?
NM: It was hard, because our problems were totally different. Like, their problems were, a guy complaining about his mom not buying him the chips he want—
BO: [Laughs]
NM: … or, or different things like that. And then I’m talking about that my friend who was killed a week before, so…
BO: What happened that softened you up a little bit?
NM: It wasn’t until I decided to do better for myself, that, you know, I had to be held accountable for my actions. So I’m not the same person, I’m not the same creature…everything about me and my being is different.
BO: Obviously you’ve straightened yourself out, you’re sitting here in the White House, hanging out with the president. So when people are seeing you in this new light, did you feel pressure to revert back to the way you had acted before?
NM: Definitely, there’s always pressure, even now. I’m sure you can relate. I feel like as a black man, just me coming on the train over here. I know how we’re perceived, I know how people look at us. Every time we step into the room, we have to be on top of your game. People gonna say, ”You are the success story.” And it’s hard to always make the right decision and it’s hard to always be the leader.
BO: Well, look, listen, at the age of 18, I didn’t know what I was going to be doing with my life. And you shouldn’t feel like you can’t make mistakes at this point. Uh, you’re 18 years old, I promise you you’re going to make some more as you go along. But one of the things you’ve discovered is you’ve got this strength inside yourself. And if you stay true to that voice that clearly knows what’s right and what’s wrong, sometimes you’re going to mess up, but you can steer back and keep going. And, so when you think about 10 years, 15 years from now, what would you like to be doing?
NM: I just decided recently I want to do education, because I do want to work with kids. You know, to see the beginnings, and to see where I was, to see the exact same kid doing the exact same thing. And it’s like, we owe it to everyone and ourselves to come back and change that. And that’s like our civic duty, I believe.
BO: Yeah. Noah, I just want to say how proud I am of you, man. You know, it’s not an easy thing, to do what you’ve done. And I think you give others a lot of confidence and a sense of what’s possible for them. And that makes me real proud. I know you’re going to do great things.
NM: Thank you, I appreciate it.