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AMERICA, LOOK WHAT YOU'VE DONE!


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What I am about to hip you to is perhaps one of the greatest secrets ever kept, and I humbly advise that you pay attention. Now, I will be the first to admit that I don’t know if  there exists, anywhere in the world, any concrete, empirical evidence that suggests that regimentation causes  a sort of emotional astigmatism where the control group empathizes more fully. However, observation and experience has demonstrated, (at least to me) that regimentation and routine induce a spiritual catharsis where the oppressed slowly begin to identify with each other, slowly breaking down the walls erected to divide them. And during this formative identification stage, a bond will emerge, tentative at first, but with plenty of room for expansion and growth.

 

Now, let me explain what I just said. When you got motherfuckas locked up for very long periods of time, they suddenly realize just how much they have in common. When this happens, the walls of race, geography, religion, or gang-affiliation will become less dominant. What will then conclude is the consensus that since “we’re all in this boat together”   that it would be infinitely more better for all of them if they worked together to save themselves.

 

Once convicts began to more fully identify with each other, then one group will no longer sit back and idly watch as another group gets punished, During this initial period of the identification process, convicts will be able to discern the truth that “if it can happens to them, it can happen to us.” The bonds will grow stronger.

I remember that on every bid I’ve done, there was a number of times during each bid where the guards would perform some act that was so atrocious that the entire “yard’ (population) banded together to protest it. At such times, race didn’t matter, and neither did geography or religion because all that mattered was that “WE ALL WEAR THE SAME CLOTHES!” Nothing in prison is more unifying than that realization. We All Wear The Same Clothes is so very immensely powerful that even now, on the outside, I tremble at the enormity of what that statement portends. It’s like all the convicts, standing as one, in defiance, yelling that WE ARE ONE!

 

And, again, I must take a second to point out just how we got to this crossroad. Listen, it was you, America. It was never enough for this country to merely jail a man. No sir, that would have been too humane, too rehabilitative. The laws of this country required that you not merely break a man physically. He had to be broken spiritually as well. You yank him from the breast of his neighborhood, and plop his ass smack-dab in the middle of a man-made hell where everything is so homogenized and bland that he can’t tell if he’s coming or going.  With no respect for his person, you incrementally strip and rob him of his humanity and dignity. You reduce him with your regimentation, and you destroy all vestiges of his individuality by taking away his name, replacing it with a number. Then you dress him up to look just like everyone else in the prison, a living, breathing, law-breaking mannequin.

 

Soon, even he doesn’t know who the fuck he is. So, there you go. You have just effectively erased away another human being, but one day, these soulless automatons you have invented are going to break down the last of those dividing walls. Then, they will free themselves. May God be with us.

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6 hours ago, Troy said:

Hey Gibran, have you ever seen a TV show or Movie, or read a book that accurately describes what prison life is like?

 Bro. Troy, I gotta be honest. I cannot bring myself to watch prison movies or read novels about being locked up. I have never even watched Shawshank Redemption. It sorta odd, but if I'm watching Tv and I see bars of anything prison-related, I reach for the remote. And it is not just me. A lot of friends are like-minded. It is almost like we might jinx ourselves. Crazy, right, but, yeah, it's real. Even now, I will drive out of my way rather than to drive past the street where the jail is located. But back to the original question, No. Most books and movies probably focus on the violence for the shock potential, but the real struggle in prison  is to stay sane. You must be able to think or else you die.

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3 hours ago, Gibran said:

I cannot bring myself to watch prison movies or read novels about being locked up.

 

I can only imagine. I watched the documentary about Khalif Browder and other Brothers and that is hard for me, so I can't imagine what watching it must be like after having acutally gone through it.

 

3 hours ago, Gibran said:

You must be able to think or else you die.

 

Of course being locked up is one thing. But this true in the real world too. People trapped in poverty experience something similar, they stop dreaming, seeing a way out. Once you stop dreaming you die.

 

I've see many Brothers and sisters come out and live life like there is no tomorrow, making the rest of us look like we are standing still.

 

I guess when something valuable is taken from you, and returned you appreciate it more ... as long as you have continued to think and dream.

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