(ThyBlackMan.com) I recently read an article about the reformation of Riker’s Island, an infamous jail located in NYC. And, I’m thinking, I guess they’re going to make it a bit more comfortable, a bit more inviting, a bit more spacious; and a lot more durable for future generations. They’ll claim they’re doing it to keep the felonious outlaws mentally stable.
Money would be better spent with Black psychologists and Black sociologists who can snatch the chains off the brains of the mostly Black prison populace. For starters, many inmates emerge from the inner city housing projects and other impoverished neighborhoods.
The projects, despite their name, are actually open air insane asylums. And, so are the prisons. For example, in the 1990’s, when I was an inmate on Riker’s Island, the phones were racially segregated. There was a Black phone for the Black inmates. There was a Hispanic phone for the Hispanic inmates. Unfortunately, there was no white phone for the white inmates. If a white inmate wanted to use the phone, he would have to get permission from a Black or Hispanic prisoner.
This is one of the reasons that I no longer misconstrue Unbridled
Ignorance with Benign Neglect. If a person doesn’t know something; s/he simply does not know it. I’m a Black man. When I went to Riker’s Island, I used the Black phone. There were a few white folks in there. I wasn’t a racist. However, similar to most Americans, I was apathetically selfish. My life was already hell; so, why would I compound the pain by caring if a white crook could use the phone? I didn’t even care if other Black crooks were able to use the phone or not. And, I’m sure feelings were mutual throughout the prison. I showed my gratitude to the veteran crooks who allowed Me access to the phone. My limited thinking restricted and prohibited any action that was not beneficial to I, Me, or Mine.
But, wait! It gets worse. After Riker’s Island, I ended up in Lewisburg Federal Penitentiary. Back then, I didn’t know that Lewisburg’s prison population (1400) was actually tantamount to 25% of the entire population of the town of Lewisburg (5610). Looking back I realized that if every inmate in Lewisburg was the breadwinner of a family of four who abided in the town of Lewisburg then the small town would probably implode.
So while We were slave laboring on the inside, We were also employing those who lived on the outside. We were co-dependent upon one another. Ain’t that something: Slaving and paying our captors! Nevertheless, in Lewisburg prison, the Movie Theater was segregated. No, not by race; but, by geographical location. And, once again, Black inmates were at the helm of this nonsense. Californians sat on the West Coast of the movie theater; the Atlanta and Miami Boys were seated near the Bottom. Virginia and D.C. brothers congregated on the East side. And, you know New Yorkers: they always have to be on top; so, our section was far rearward, yet clearly within earshot of hundreds of rude, loud, disrespectful, talkative patrons; therefore, we couldn’t even HEAR the damn movies.
I honestly wanted to sit up front; I Wanted to HEAR the movie. However, I knew that it would’ve been safer for me had I sat in the White section of a Mississippi movie theatre, sandwiched between two newly married, blonde haired, blue eyed white women the very same night President Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation.
In the end, I think America would save a lot more money if She dealt with the fragile mentality prior to crime and punishment. Sadly, We, the people, who are congested in the projects, WILL ourselves to grow up faster because history, and the evening news, has informed Us that Life is nothing more than a series of incarcerations; therefore, one must live for the moment.
As an unintended consequence, We fly from the nest with premature wings. A crash landing is probable. Many mistakes are made. A Judicial gentrification displaces Black boys from the projects into American prisons. A jail stint is Our Rites of Passage. We laugh about it. We joke about it! We tease about it. That is, until twenty years later, and that’s when We whine and cry about it!
However, in the interim, We find ourselves traveling back and forth from the guns, drugs, and violence of the projects to the knives, drugs and violence in the jails which, after a while, both appear to be one and the same. I guess since the majority of Us will never be able raise enough money to Bail/Bond ourselves out of the projects or the prisons, then it really is one and the same. The cure for crime is like the cure for any other disease; you have to catch it, Early! You don’t go to the jails and beautify the landscape. You go to the schools and change the curriculum to mirror the personalities of the men/women whom you can’t seem to control.
How did We end up in prison? They taught Us inconsequential things like George Washington was a revolutionary who never told a lie. He is the father of Our country. A score or so later, I’m caged inside a prison cell and I find out that this dude was a Revolutionary Rich Slave Master. Why make him my hero? My people were slaves. He sounds to me like a human slave trafficker who ain’t trying to give no kickback to the British; nor does he desire to pay any taxes; so, he decides to go out in a Blaze of Glory. In the end, 70,000 soldiers dead, and in the name of Liberty, he Fathers a Free country that allows him to sit on a plantation, sipping lemonade, with 300 Black folks doing all of his dirty work.
In short, We are Bored of this Education. And when children are bored, they go astray. Perhaps have intelligent and insightful Black people dictating and determining what goes into the minds of Black children. Perhaps have disciplined and successful Black parents like Mr. and Mrs. Adrian Peterson have some say-so in what to do with Black children. I mean, Trump exposed the sentiments of at least 50 million whites; which, by the way, topples the total Black American population. What else do We need to see? If it wasn’t for Trump, WE would still tell our sons to BE Ben Carson. But, by endorsing Trump, Ben, instantaneously, reminded Me of the Miseducation of the Nig-gros who used to argue with Malcolm X.
And, it was Malcolm who said, “NY white youth were killing victims; that was a sociological problem. But when Black youth killed somebody, the power structure was looking to hang somebody.”
Staff Writer; Saint Solomon
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