Inside

Tread lightly..tiptoe…be careful…PC…Who cares if I offend anyone! “I’m color blind” I hear a lot, ha! Culturally this country is so tone deaf because for the longest time people weren’t made to care! Now we have all these incidents and social missteps because people aren’t used to thinking beyond themselves! Let’s talk prison for a sec. Prison is a system of hope dealing and hope killing while saying, get better or else, in the process. I have a cousin in here that me and our friend began to argue with because he was denied a chance to have his parole hearing moved up, yet people in his same program was granted that opportunity. I told him to write them again, and basically he said that he’s good, he’s not going to set himself up for that. That he knows himself and he’s not going to set himself up to get letdown again because he will take steps back in his mentality. So instead of getting ready to go home, to his lady and his kids, he’s staying in here for several more months longer than he should. I told him he doesn’t care about his freedom, and we argued, he couldn’t see our point, but then I noticed how tied in his emotions were to this rejection, that he was saying in every way but direct, that he isn’t strong enough to take more rejection, and he’s been through a lot. Now, there was no good reason given to why they didn’t hold up their end of the bargain once his programming is finished, except a check list of what not to do until they see him. This system kills hope. What is a human being without hope, that only knows rejection while being told to be docile and compliant. It’s not realized how this unexplained set backs and refusals to advance people is a hindrance to people and their family emotionally, and having hopes let down is so draining and it has the ability to make a person revert back to a sense of not caring, and then what…? People act as if there has always been help for incarcerated people. Most of these people have never been further than the prison they reside in. I don’t care how many white people you believe there is in prison, it’s NOT the same. When black people are arrested and booked, it’s an energy that almost says, I got you, you’re exactly where you belong. Also how we are treated comparatively, is like, “you’ll come back”. I don’t know why you care, as if we have nothing to come back to and no one that loves us. Even the outside treatment facilities were too far away from urban communities that black people would violate parole by not being able to make it to their treatment recommendations and parole meetings, and so it continued the steady influx and flow of us back into prison. And then these programs became largely in-patient to supposedly fix that problem, but underlying truth again was that it kept a certain segment of the population inside of prison LONGER, like my cousin…like ME. No one would build a church outside of the community that it’s supposed to cater to, how can it be affected and how would it have a congregation, it’d be a waste of money. For so long, outside organizations and programs weren’t plenty because no one wanted those organizations within urban communities, and if they were, they were largely black and lowly funded and barely recognized. So why build more, when the people that you are supposedly trying to help can’t make it to you. SO now all these organizations and such are helping with transportation, and it looks like this has been a thing always there, just not used. No, the states use their resources to continue building more prisons to address a problem, instead of building treatment to heal the disconnect and systemic problem. Even the crimes that are punished the worst are largely committed by black people. For the life of me, I don’t know how you tell a victim of sexual assault and molestation, that it isn’t a violent crime. So in my state, Nebraska, these crimes are largely helped with new legislation and ways to move in and out of the system quicker, while sentenced at a lower rate versus other I guess real violent crimes like assault, gun possession, robbery, domestic etc. We just had a senator on the floor that refused to vote for a bill involving the snap program because she says that she thinks drug dealers are worse than rapists! A woman said this! There are so many underlying tones that people don’t bother looking at for what they truly are, most black men aren’t convicted sex offenders or rapists, but they are for a large part, convicted drug dealers and violent offenders. SO simply, less help for the black community when it comes to government funding and assistance, so now, with no home or no food…and barely knowing of anything outside of the poverty you lay in day in and day out, and you have to survive, after all self preservation is a human trait, what would you do?! This system will take their foot off a black man’s neck for a moment only to shift and place it on his back. And who cares right? I mean who really gives a damn, it’s not you, we did it to ourselves right? We have the same advantages and opportunities as you do. Forget the fact that all these clinical churches I’ll call them, are built outside of the communities they need to serve, so one side of the population is getting their needs met and the resources offered, while another side can’t find a ride, let alone know their way around those parts of town. Yea, I get it, staying in prison sometimes just feels so much easier, even when you are dying inside and want to get out with everything in you, but after so much shit you’ve climbed through uphill, you just can’t take the slippery and shitty step of possible rejection, because who knows the person you may become once you fall all over again with more than you can handle and everyone can smell it, you can’t hide it…so you start feeling just how the world feels when they here of people like you…so the fuck what, I don’t have life, I’ll get out eventually. Being color blind is impossible, lie to yourself

Let me ask a question, why do so many things in this country go unquestioned with our supposed freedoms of speech? How do so many things go unchallenged and remain lop-sided within a system supposedly governed and legislated by checks and balances? We have so many “movements” that do the trick of keeping us excited and attentive within the moment, but grasping no understanding of what laid before and what’s to come beyond that moment. As if those questions or thoughts are too inconveniencing to get more involved in, so in a sense, we rather run around ignorant with as little information and as much outrage or empathy as possible. No wonder what we seek doesn’t last, because we have no staying power in our own convictions, especially if it doesn’t directly or immediately affect us.

We have so many organizations working to advocate for the human condition and other disadvantages, but they barely gain traction or get enough recognition because they don’t come together and acknowledge each other, offering resources. They stay with ideological differences that serve more to prolong their wanted impact, as if it’ll only get done under their umbrella their way. There is more talk of unity than there is collective work for inclusivity in all forms of it. I mean inclusivity of culture, color, and creed, believing that you share a common goal and outcome. A government works together to work, so shouldn’t humanitarian organizations? I read this quote that I’ll butcher in this book called “The Theory Of Everything”, that said if we merely stay at the stage of celebrating diversity, then all we’ll continue to do is passively endorse a culture of separation.” This went on to mean that tribalism, racism, xenophobia, classism etc are more enforced when we speak so much more of our differences than speaking of and searching for our similarities.

We do that by accepting one another, by being inclusive, by diving in for more than a dip, but a swim…back stroke, breaststroke, butterfly, and all that stuff. I can’t swim, but I rather drown in our similarities and inclusivity than in the shallowness of differences. I hate always having to speak of how my life was much different or tougher than yours and how we differ, I’ve been this black sheep, black swan, black man and whatever other black mythological creature than person. I rather you remember that I am just like you, a person, because then if maybe you begin to see me as you, maybe you’ll care more. Even if unconsciously, I’ll take that, we don’t all have to be woke, being woke takes real empathy, that isn’t easy. You know I saw on TV that what was trending was videos of throwing cheese at your baby’s face. It seemed cute and funny, but I feel like that baby at times. This little unknowing social experiment, powerless, but still someone’s entertainment, unable to do anything but be observed, directed, judged, and laughed at yet made to believe that those around me care and want the best for me. Being a baby is a prison of its own, there’s no independence, with a lot of shock, confusion, and fear almost at every moment with seconds of joy that you’d go mad if you didn’t experience it.

Which has more value, a person or a prison??? Privilege or punishment??? Pain is the most remembered and forgotten part of life. We remember ours so quickly, regardless of what joy comes before or after it, yet just as quickly forget the possibilities of someone else’s pain. So how can we start creating a real wave of change, instead of just responding for pop culture or outrage as our compass? Easy, ask. Just ask. To ask, is to care, to care is to get involved. Getting involved at any level is better than commenting as if it doesn’t involve us, yet it involves us enough to involve our opinion. If we can speak about something, than we should be about something even more. Law of the jungle, don’t tell me, show me, anyone can roar, but in here, I’ve heard every type of roar from inside and out, claiming so much while doing so little. That type of work gets no play in prison in terms of respect, just like it doesn’t in terms of politics, and yet, people are re-elected! Maybe that’s what it is, we vote for what actions resemble our own…damn.

After we ask, and then get involved, the last thing to do is to include others. It takes a village. Yea, there’s a lot of issues going on right now, but if we keep addressing the symptoms and not the root, then, well shit you know, that’s nursing 101. Don’t just accept things and turn a blind eye. Ask a question. Get involved. Include others aka BYOF-bring your own friend, then energy is created, energy creates a wave, a wave becomes a movement and a movement becomes a party, and then we get drunk off change! What we believe matters a lot when we decide to get involved, we can have fun doing hard things, it’s not all doom and gloom, relationships are formed, other aspects of life and ourselves get discovered, because there’s always Good in the Bad! ProseOfACon!

We have to live like life isn’t just aimless practice everyday with no purpose to it, no, the thing about life is, that everyday we get to practice our purpose, the difference is if you practice on purpose versus without purpose. We find true value and purpose by doing for others, not ourselves. There’s a lot of hidden gems in prison, just like you yourself hold hidden gems within you, there’s no difference besides the fact of us being in prison. Struggles highlight the greatness to come if we embrace it, pressure emboldens the diamond at our core to shine outwardly so everyone else can see. But sometimes these pressures get the best of us, the only thing that can ail that is people getting involved. Care reflects and projects value…Prison is just full of people that lost or forget their value, so I’m asking for help in getting that value re-established. Help me, so I can help others, or help others so they can help me…it takes a village and an idea, not an ideology…Just ask