Hard Rock Returns to Prison from the Hospital for the Criminal Insane
by Etheridge Knight

Hard Rock / was / “known not to take no shit
From nobody,” and he had the scars to prove it:
Split purple lips, lumbed ears, welts above
His yellow eyes, and one long scar that cut
Across his temple and plowed through a thick
Canopy of kinky hair.

The WORD / was / that Hard Rock wasn’t a mean nigger
Anymore, that the doctors had bored a hole in his head,
Cut out part of his brain, and shot electricity
Through the rest. When they brought Hard Rock back,
Handcuffed and chained, he was turned loose,
Like a freshly gelded stallion, to try his new status.
And we all waited and watched, like a herd of sheep,
To see if the WORD was true.

As we waited we wrapped ourselves in the cloak
Of his exploits: “Man, the last time, it took eight
Screws to put him in the Hole.” “Yeah, remember when he
Smacked the captain with his dinner tray?” “He set
The record for time in the Hole—67 straight days!”
“Ol Hard Rock! man, that’s one crazy nigger.”
And then the jewel of a myth that Hard Rock had once bit
A screw on the thumb and poisoned him with syphilitic spit.

The testing came, to see if Hard Rock was really tame.
A hillbilly called him a black son of a bitch
And didn’t lose his teeth, a screw who knew Hard Rock
From before shook him down and barked in his face.
And Hard Rock did nothing. Just grinned and looked silly,
His eyes empty like knot holes in a fence.

And even after we discovered that it took Hard Rock
Exactly 3 minutes to tell you his first name,
We told ourselves that he had just wised up,
Was being cool; but we could not fool ourselves for long,
And we turned away, our eyes on the ground. Crushed.
He had been our Destroyer, the doer of things
We dreamed of doing but could not bring ourselves to do,
The fears of years, like a biting whip,
Had cut deep bloody grooves
Across our backs.

“Hard Rock Returns to Prison from the Hospital for the Criminal Insane” from The Essential Etheridge Knight, by Etheridge Knight, © 1986.

REPOSTED WITH PERMISSION

I am blessed to meet some amazing people because of the work that I do.  I am lucky to know Bob Koehler who is a great writer but most importantly a really good soul.   Bob writes a weekly column that I highly recommend to everyone.  His column this week really moved me and I asked him if I could share it here.  He agreed.

THE HEALING WALLS

By Robert C. Koehler

“There’s something about creating beauty that reaches people and that in the end gives us hope that things can change. . . . It shifts the consciousness of a neighborhood.”

Sometimes people really mean what they say.

An extraordinary documentary, “Concrete, Steel and Paint,” takes us on a journey of transformation — and it goes the long way, the honest way, through the shoals of anger and mistrust that separate social opposites. The film is about prisoners in a maximum security facility outside Philadelphia. It’s also about crime victims, women and men damaged — driven, in some cases, to the edge of “why go on living?” — by the murder of a loved one, by sexual assault, by some deep violation.

The two groups, so distant from one another — separated, indeed, by the razor wire that winds around the heart — yet so inextricably connected, come together under the auspices of Philadelphia’s Mural Arts Program, design and create two linked murals together, and “shift the consciousness of a neighborhood.”

The speaker quoted above is Jane Golden, director of the Mural Arts Program, an internationally acclaimed organization (and a city agency) that has helped residents create more than 3,000 murals throughout Philadelphia over the years. Part of its mission statement is what it calls its Golden Rule: “When we create art with each other and for each other, the force of life can triumph.”

The documentary by Cindy Burstein and Tony Heriza, released by New Day Films, was one of the selections at this year’s Peace on Earth Film Festival in Chicago, and when I saw it I knew I had to write about it. I’ve never seen a more compelling portrayal of the restorative justice, or peace circle, process in action, as the two groups met repeatedly — sat in a circle with one another at Graterford State Prison — and talked about their hopes for the project and the feelings it generated in them.

The prisoners, for their part — caught in the consequences of their actions, some of them in prison for homicide — wanted desperately to reach beyond themselves and the severely limited, cut-off lives they were leading. Golden had been invited to speak about her mural work to the prison’s art class. After this initial session, many of the inmates wrote to her, asking for her help in creating a mural that could be given to the city. They wanted to make a contribution.

“I don’t want my legacy to be that I was just a murderer,” said one of the inmates, Zafir. “I do have something to contribute. I’m still a human being.”

Golden knew that this couldn’t be a one-way process, that people on the outside had to be involved as well, and made contact with a victim-advocacy organization in the city. When she presented the inmates’ idea and asked for their participation — all of this is part of the documentary, which unfolds in real time — the reaction among victims was fiercely mixed. Their wounds were raw, their anger was visceral. Their questions were elemental:

“When you realize that an actual person did this — this wasn’t cancer or a sickness,” said the mother of a boy who was murdered. “This was an actual person who shot holes in your child’s body. How can a human being kill another human being?”

But what “Concrete, Steel and Paint” demonstrates is that the human urge to connect is stronger than anger, stronger than hatred, stronger than fear. The two groups met at the prison. The inmates expressed their remorse and talked about their own victimization; the victims and victim advocates were skeptical and challenged this remorse.

The process wasn’t a smooth or simple one. It took over a year of back-and-forth dialogue, along with numerous separate meetings. Eventually the prisoner-artists, working with the Mural Arts Program, came up with a design for a wall. Golden presented it to the victims, who felt anger and dismay. This wasn’t their story. This was the inmates’ story.

At one point, Golden said she wasn’t sure the project was going to come off. Maybe, she lamented, “the naysayers were right. Where is this really going, other than the fact that we seem to have opened up wounds? We’ve waded into really complicated territory.”

What they decided to do was create two walls, which eventually came to be called “The Healing Walls.” One was designed by inmates, one by victims. Both designs are stunning collages of suffering, healing, children, mothers, prison bars, angels and much else. The two groups, working together, painted the designs on panels made of a material called parachute cloth, a non-woven acrylic fabric, which were eventually transferred to bare walls on separate buildings in a rundown Philly neighborhood about half a block apart (3049 and 3065 Germantown Avenue). If you stand in the right place, you can see both walls at once.

As a society, we are stagnant in so many ways, and in no realm is the stagnancy more acute than that of crime, punishment and victimhood. We’re locked in a cycle of violence, cynicism and spiritual anguish that perpetuates itself endlessly — but “Concrete, Steel and Paint” informs us with piercing eloquence that, through art and honesty, salvation and transcendent understanding are possible.

“These two groups that started out so far apart were able to connect,” Golden said. “Even if you connect for just a moment, that moment is reflected in that wall forever.”

Robert Koehler is an award-winning, Chicago-based journalist, contributor to One World, Many Peaces and nationally syndicated writer. His new book, Courage Grows Strong at the Wound (Xenos Press) is now available. Contact him at [email protected] or visit his website at commonwonders.com.

© 2011 TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.

By Rachel Williams (Cradle to Prison Project)

I am often called upon to speak about issues facing girls in the juvenile legal system. Honestly, the best spokespeople are girls themselves. Over the years, I have learned so much from young women in conflict with the law as they narrate their own experiences. I have learned from them in person, in one on one conversations, I have learned by reading their own words (mostly through poetry), and I have learned from them through watching many films in which they are the featured protagonists.

Last year, I began working with my friend Dr. Laurie Schaffner to revive a program called Girl Talk here in Chicago. Girl Talk is a program that gives voice and visibility to the needs, issues, and strengths of girls and young women involved in the juvenile legal system. The program works directly with girls who are or have been incarcerated at the Cook County Juvenile Temporary Detention Center (JTDC).

Girl Talk consists of bi-weekly film screenings accompanied by an art project on Saturday afternoons in the Cook County JTDC with the young women there. Led by the Girl Talk Leadership Team and volunteer program facilitators, the group passes out snacks, watches a film (featuring a young woman who faces different challenges in life, ie, The Whale Rider; Crooklyn; Akeela & the Bee) and then works together creatively to talk about themes that came up in the film as we work on our art projects.

We are lucky to have a dedicated group of over 30 volunteers who are supporting this program. Most importantly I am thrilled that the incarcerated girls have the benefit of interacting with fierce, powerful and inspiring women. Most of the girls have never met young women like Girl Talk volunteers. I think that the most powerful part of the program is exactly this point. When an incarcerated girl sees and interacts with a woman who is close to her age and may even look like her, they are exposed to new possibilities for their future selves.

The image that I shared above is from an upcoming zine about Girls in the System that was produced by Rachel Williams through a project called the Cradle to Prison Pipeline that involves three organizations (one of which is mine). That zine will be released in May and I can’t wait to share it with everyone. To my mind, it does a wonderful job of telling a story about the lives of girls in conflict with the law in an accessible and I think beautiful way. Stay tuned for the zine and for news about our zine release event!

In the meantime, I am big fan of a terrific film about incarcerated girls that was shot here in Illinois called Girls on the Wall. If you are interested in the plight of girls in trouble with the law, you should see the film. You can watch the trailer below:

Finally, as I mentioned earlier, I am a fan of young women narrating their own experiences. I received a great collection of writing by teens at the Denney Juvenile Justice Center in Washington from Mindy Hardwick . Here is a poem written by an incarcerated young woman from that collection:

Powerless
They think I’m Powerful
Because I do whatever I want
Because I tell everyone to screw off
Because I don’t listen to anyone
Because I run for months and I am never spotted

But, I am Power-Less
Because my friends are backstabbers
Because I can’t trust anyone
Because I was raped
Because I was jumped
Because my Mom doesn’t want me in her house
Because I cry everyday
Because I’m an addict
Because I miss my old, happy life.

Born in 1952 in Santa Fe of Chicano and Apache descent, Jimmy Santiago Baca was abandoned by his parents and at 13 ran away from the orphanage where his grandmother had placed him. He was convicted on drug charges in 1973 and spent five years in prison. There he learned to read and began writing poetry. His semiautobiographical novel in verse, Martin and Meditations on the South Valley (1987), received the 1988 Before Columbus Foundation’s American Book Award in 1989. In addition to over a dozen books of poetry, he has published memoirs, essays, stories, and a screenplay, Bound by Honor (1993), which was made into a feature-length film directed by Taylor Hackford.

Like an Animal
by Jimmy Santiago Baca

Behind the smooth texture
Of my eyes, way inside me,
A part of me has died:
I move my bloody fingernails
Across it, hard as a blackboard,
Run my fingers along it,
The chalk white scars
That say I AM SCARED,
Scared of what might become
Of me, the real me,
Behind these prison walls.

“Like an Animal” by Jimmy Santiago Baca, from Immigrants in Our Own Land. Copyright © 1977, 1979, 1981, 1982, 1990 by Jimmy Santiago Baca.

I have never written about this before. I am prompted to do so today because of a New York Times Magazine Feature Story that appeared over the weekend.

I was born and mostly raised in New York City. Growing up, I lived in an apartment complex in mid-town. My neighbor during those years was Lori Berenson.

Lori and I are two years apart. She is older than me. We lived on the same floor in a 8 story duplex apartment complex. This is a building where you got to know your neighbors. Lori’s family still lives in that apartment complex and so does part of my family. So when I go back to NYC to visit, I still stay in the apartment that I grew up in.

Lori and I had a cordial relationship. We were not close friends. She went to public school and I went to private school. When you are a kid, a two year age difference is a big gap. We traveled in different circles that did not overlap. Yet when we ran into each other in the laundry room, in the elevator, at the playground or at the supermarket, we would engage in light banter and chit chat. We were never close.

Lori and I were very similar in temperment. We both liked to keep our own company and did not particularly share our inner-most thoughts with others. We were both serious young people. She was socially conscious even though her family was not particularly political. I too was a young social activist. In retrospect, I think that we would have had much in common to discuss.

Lori left for college a year before I did and I would see her from time to time during the holidays when we were both back home. Lori became interested in Latin America. I was taken with the Caribbean. She traveled to El Salvador and was fascinated with radical nuns. I went to Cuba and was infatuated with Assata Shakur. By the time Lori was arrested in Peru in 1995 and sentenced to life in prison, I had moved to Chicago. I didn’t learn about her arrest until several months later.

What did I do once I learned about Lori’s arrest and conviction? I am sad to say… Nothing. When I would travel back to New York, I never stopped by to check on her family, to ask for news of Lori. I was silent about the situation and so were most of our other neighbors. I think that people were shocked by what had happened and I do not think that anyone knew how to react. I certainly did not.

After the first year of Lori’s imprisonment, I finally started to do things like signing petitions asking for clemency and making phone calls to elected officials asking for them to intervene in her case. But still, I did not directly reach out to her family to offer my support and to ask how I could help. I could have done so at any point and I just did not. I felt guilty about it but I didn’t know how to broach the subject when I would run into her parents. I feared that they must be exhausted from the sad looks and the probing questions. Instead, I acted like nothing was amiss. I acted as I always had with them. Saying hello in the elevators and making small talk.

Over the years though, I became obsessed with following any information on Lori’s condition. I looked for ways to support efforts that were set up to free her from prison. To this day, over 15 years later, I have not yet talked to her parents about Lori’s situation. It feels too late now. That time has passed. I built a wall between the personal and the political. I felt comfortable swimming in the river of the political. This has always been the case for me. I wonder how many others of my neighbors did the same. We have never talked about it. Where Lori Berenson was concerned, the residents of East Midtown Plaza adopted a generalized posture of silence.

Lori is on parole in Peru now. “Free” after 15 years in prison. She is unable to leave the country until 2015. I can’t even imagine what she has endured over all of her years of imprisonment. Now she faces a new challenge: social ostracism in a country that despises her. How much can a person endure? Some part of that answer can be found in the last few paragraphs of the Times story about Lori. I think that it captures the essence of the woman. I encourage those interested to read the entire article. It is long but it needs to be.

In the 15 years Berenson spent in prison, her peers have moved from early adulthood into middle age. “The world has changed,” she told me in August. “Internet, giant malls.” Technologically, she’s catching up, and has grown comfortable using e-mail and Skype. But at 41, she is still grappling with the fallout of youthful choices that have ended badly: her vocation; her marriage; her love of Latin America. The passion that fueled her move there seems to have left a kind of void, and beyond the need to support herself and her son, her future remains a blank.

Of course, Berenson’s future won’t really be her own until her parole ends; for now, she is raising Salvador alone in Peru, with limited options. If she ever feels despair or defeat at these conditions, she wouldn’t show it — not at 26, with a life sentence in front of her, and not now. Her capacity to absorb fear and discomfort is partly what has saved her — and also, most likely, what got her into trouble in the first place. But this is speculation; Berenson resists such storytelling, leaving the rest of us to our own devices in trying to unlock the mystery of her biography. What she can’t elude is our desire to do so: a notoriety she has sustained, uncomfortably, for most of her adulthood. “I am always conscious,” she said, “of who I am.”

Click here to watch video of Lori speaking for herself. Lori Berenson was a political prisoner and also my neighbor…

Unless something earth-shattering occurs, I will be taking a break from blogging over the next few days. I will be back to regularly blogging on March 14th.

It has been a whirlwind of activity for me over the past few weeks and there is a lot still to happen in the upcoming weeks. I am taking a blogging break in order to focus on my organization as well as to take some personal time off. I’ll be back with more energy and more to share soon.

I leave you with this great song written by Don Henley and performed by India.Arie which I LOVE:

Eric Ruin (Just Seeds Artists' Cooperative - Critical Resistance)

Thoughts Of A Convict
by Luis Verduzco

Some day the gates will open,
and once more I’ll be free.
A fact that makes me wonder,
“What will become of me?”

Have I a future awaiting me,
Such as the past I’ve known?
Will I be accepted by others,
or forced to walk alone?

Are there opportunities of employment,

for a man such as I?
Or will I have to sell dope again,
in order to get by?

What of the friends that I once knew,
but haven’t seen in years?
Will they accept my friendship now,
without any doubts or fears?

What is there awaiting me,
When I go out of that gate?
Is there yet a chance for me,
or is it now to late?

The song is in response to the shooting death of a deaf Seattle woodcarver by the name of John T. Williams, who was shot and killed by Officer Ian Birk. The shooting was found to be unjustified by a review board and Birk is no longer with the department.

Some of the lyrics are below:

“Everyday we wake up for you to protect and serve
But if you can’t do that, tell me what’s your job worth?
Now you’ve got a bad rap and the city really hates you
Not to mention everything you’ve done makes you disgraceful”

“Tell me, how do y’all sleep at night?
You beat and shoot people then go home to your wife
Can you answer why there’s there’s kids layin’ up in the hospital
Bodies in the morgue, to me it’s not logical”

“Protect: To defend something you care about
Serve: To be there when there’s people without
You don’t protect or serve you extort and harass
You took the job for the power of the gun and the badge”

“We need to stand up ‘cause they’re out of control
With police like this, we have to revolt
We cannot sit down we cannot let go
We cannot pretend we haven’t see what they’ve shown”

Ms. K, I need a job….

I will be part of a Women’s History luncheon panel titled “Voicing Resistance: Chicago Women Activists” at a local university tomorrow. I have been asked to reflect on the reasons that I do the work that I do. In the midst of trying to think of what to share tomorrow, something happened today that will inform my presentation.

Amidst countless days of small and large failures, sometimes rays of light break through. I was befriended a couple of years ago by a young man in my neighborhood. He sees himself in part as my protector and as a guide helping me to navigate the mean streets. He tells me that people can take advantage of me because, in his words, I am “too nice” and not “street.” I chuckle at his characterization of me as “too nice.” I think that he is just not used to being treated respectfully and that is a crying shame.

He let it be known on my gentrifying street that my car is off limits from being “messed with.” Over these months, I have come to learn more details about his life. He tosses out morsels of his story. I treasure these confidences. I told him that I would write about him today. He insisted that I portray him as heroic. He played it off as a joke. To me, he does in fact deserve hero status.

About 8 months ago, he finally told me that he had spent three years locked up between the ages of 15 to 18. This experience was a searing one for him. He is now 22 and has never had a job. When he told me this, his voice got low. He shared it like a secret. He looked me in the eye and bravely said: “Ms. K, I need a job. Can you help me?” I looked him in the eye and told him that I could not promise him that he would find employment. I explained that if he was willing, I could help him get into a trade program that I was familiar with in the city. I reached out to contacts and he was admitted to a 4 month carpentry training program. I am proud to say that he was a model student and completed the program two months ago.

Today, he called to tell me that he has found a job at Home Depot. He secured the job mainly because he had proven his mettle and his work ethic through the training program. He finally had people who could vouch for him. He had references and they were glowing.

The nature of the work that I have chosen to do is populated with failure. I work with young people who have been failed by the systems that are supposed to buttress and nourish them. I work with young people who are in conflict with the law. They are always failed by the criminal legal system. I work with young people who find it easier to give up than to “fail” one more time and risk becoming even more depressed and alienated.

So, I have to hold on to these small victories to be able to justify my hopefulness. Congratulations D, I am incredibly proud of you!

I want to end with the words of the incomparable Mos Def who always cuts to the heart of every matter. These lyrics from his song “Mathematics” highlight the landscape that faces young people like D all across this country. We need to do better. We really do.

The white unemployment rate, is nearly more than triple for black
so frontliners got they gun in your back
Bubblin crack, jewel theft and robbery to combat poverty
and end up in the global jail economy
Stiffer stipulations attached to each sentence
Budget cutbacks but increased police presence
And even if you get out of prison still livin
join the other five million under state supervision
This is business, no faces just lines and statistics
from your phone, your zip code, to S-S-I digits
The system break man child and women into figures

— Mos Def, Mathematics

By Colin Matthes - Just Seeds Artists' Cooperative

I came across an interesting article last week describing a day at a jail. I think that this type of short ethnographic snippet is valuable to increasing the public’s understanding of criminal legal system. Unfortunately, I don’t know how widely read these accounts really are. I thought that I would highlight a piece of the article here. I encourage readers to read the full article:

People enter the Eastern Shore Regional Jail either directly from court in police custody after a conviction, or by presenting themselves at the door on a certain date if specified by the court.

For example, a person who is permitted to serve his time on weekends will check himself in by 6 p.m. on a Friday.

The inmate-to-be sheds whatever clothes and possessions he might have and changes into a prison jump suit.

His belongings are stored in bags in a special room. He or she is allowed to possess five pairs each of underpants, undershirts, socks and three pairs of insulated underwear.

According to a sign posted in the jail booking area, the only requirement is that the underwear be white and that no sleeveless undershirts, described as “wifebeaters” may be worn.

The inmate may wear his own athletic shoes if they are all white or all black and have no metal inside or out. He may keep a generic watch and a simple wedding band. Anything fancy or valuable will be stored with his other belongings.

He is issued a cup with a toothbrush, toothpaste, comb and shaving supplies. Women may have no cosmetics or makeup.

A prisoner may keep up to five paperback books in the cell with him — no hardbacks and no more than five at any one time. The books will be checked for inappropriate material and contraband, said Kennedy.

Each new inmate is immediately given a test for tuberculosis and kept separate from the general population until the test shows the person to be free of the disease. He is also given a book of rules and regulations that must be followed.

If he is serving weekends or is in jail on a civil charge such as failing to meet child support payments, he goes to a dormitory area — where there are bunk beds in a large two-story space — rather than to the individual cells where the medium and maximum security prisoners are held.