When I was a little girl, white people used to touch my hair.  They did so without permission.  They felt entitled to touch the braids on a little black girl’s head.  Without permission.  As a grown woman, I cover my head.  I don’t know if these two things are connected.  But those are the facts.

I thought deeply about whether to write this post today.  But I decided that my thoughts were worth sharing.  Being a black woman born and raised in America has made me very comfortable with the concept of “shifting” or double or triple consciousness.

I got an e-mail yesterday that reminded me about the dominant culture’s deep desire to have those who are marginalized define their place in the world.   This is an essential component of privilege.

I will share the e-mail that I received below.  I have taken out any identifying characteristics because my intention is not to embarrass but rather to shed light.

The reason I am contacting you today is because a certain individual –a fan of “Prison Culture”– asked me to contact you over some confusion we were having in regards to particular stances you take in regards to prisons. The X organization’s  stance is rather simple in regards to prison: like civilization and the entirety of the capitalist apparatus, prisons and the penal system must be destroyed. While quickly glancing through your site, I could find nothing describing your stance in this war, just a lot of references to appalling situations and the grueling realities of the prison industrial complex.

I did find much confusion in your description of yourself though…

“I have been an anti-violence activist and organizer since my teen years. I recently founded and currently direct a grassroots organization in Chicago dedicated to eradicating youth incarceration. My anti-prison activism is an extension of my work as an anti-violence organizer.”

When you speak of anti-violence organizing, do you speak of yourself as a liberal? An activist? A pacifist? An advocate against family, PIC, capitalist, relationship, or police violence? Can you see how your statement has me thinking of all of the numerous conclusions of your statement? Any who, I guess I am just requesting clarifications as to who you are and what you believe.

Before I end this e-mail, I would like to pose the following question to you: do you think prisons can be reformed?

Take a moment to let the words sink in.  There is nothing neutral in this e-mail, is there? The author suggests that they “quickly glanced” through the site.  Right away, one is alerted to the fact that the author is looking to make a point rather than to engage in a respectful interaction.  The most salient part of the e-mail is this sentence:

“Any who, I guess I am just requesting clarifications as to who you are and what you believe.”

How should the person who receives such an e-mail respond.  Here is what I wrote:

Thanks for reaching out.  I appreciate your interest in the blog and in my work.  I will start by saying that I am content with the description provided of myself and my work in the short profile on the blog.  I don’t feel a need to expand beyond that.

The blog is really for myself.  I share information that I come across and I struggle with the contradictions inherent in the current social structure.  It is messy and can be contradictory and so is the world.  I have learned over my years of organizing that this is as it should be and it is as it ever was.  I am glad that others find something interesting in it and I hope that they take from it what they will and make up their own minds about what they think.

I respectfully decline to offer a manifesto regarding my “stance about prisons.”  That feels slightly like being asked to offer some sort of manifesto of my ideologies.  I left that world behind years ago.

Perhaps the most that I can offer to you is that I consider myself an abolitionist and humanist.  But even those words don’t capture the full complexity of my views or my work either about violence or about prisons.  I will leave it there.

Peace to you.

If you are reading this and you are a person of color, you might be marveling at my restraint.   Why respond with such courtesy, you might angrily ask?  You should have told this person off… And yet, why should I do that?  I see no need.

I know that the sentiment expressed in this e-mail is familiar to many.  The entire communication could be summarized as “tell me who you are.”  It is a question for the questioner and not for the questioned. “Tell me who you are,” justify your being, your existence. For those who are long-time organizers, you will recognize the sentiment — it is the litmus test question.  Are you down enough for the cause? Are you a true radical or are you a sellout? Questions that have never advanced movement-building in history.  Those of you who are students of social justice movements will recognize the sentiment.

So I could be offended.  I am not.  I could fire off a nasty e-mail in response.  I did not.  Or I could offer some compassion to the writer of the e-mail.  Which  I do.

Here’s my advice to the author of the e-mail…

You know what would have been an appropriate, non-oppressive e-mail to send to a stranger, one that said:  “I am wondering, do you think prisons can be reformed?”  All of the rest is white noise.

Let me end with an excerpt of a poem that I love by Lorna Dee Cervantes.

“I believe in revolution

because everywhere the crosses are burning,

sharp-shooting goose-steppers round every corner,

there are snipers in the schools…

(I know you don’t believe this.

You think this is nothing

but faddish exaggeration. But they

are not shooting at you.)

I’m marked by the color of my skin.

The bullets are discrete and designed to kill slowly.

They are aiming at my children.

These are facts.

Let me show you my wounds: my stumbling mind, my

“excuse me” tongue, and this

nagging preoccupation

with the feeling of not being good enough.”

That about does it for now…