I taught a college level black studies class some years ago and I assigned a letter written by a prisoner to my students. I wanted them to analyze the letter from the perspective of sociological theory. The letter comes a book called “Maximum Security: Letters from Prison” published in 1972 and edited by Eve Pell. All of the letters in the book were written to lawyers (mostly addressed to Fay Stender who I will write about in the next few days) by prisoners in the California Department of Corrections.

Today I want to share this letter on the blog. In just a few sentences, I think that California prisoner, Alfred Hassan, does more to explain why so many poor, black and brown people find themselves locked up than do many 200+ page ethnographic studies that I have read about the same topic. As I continue my exasperated commentary on Chicago’s “gang” violence in the press, I found it important to return to the letter this week.

Don’t be telling me what is right. You can talk that right jive, but where was you when my old man and the neighbors was teaching me how to steal and shoot dope? Where was you when me and my brothers and sisters was crazy and blind from hunger? Where was you when my mama was gambling away the welfare check? Where was you when the World was calling me a dirty nigger and a greasy Mexican and a poor white peckawood? Where was you when the cops was whipping me upside my head just because my skin was dark? Where was you when I was losing respect for your law and order? Where was you when Wrong was my only salvation?

I’ll tell you where you was. You was clear across town — Y’know, over there living in them big, fine houses — talking that trash about right and wrong. But check this out: There ain’t no such thing as right or wrong in my world. Can you dig? Right or wrong is what a chump chooses to tell himself. And I chose to tell myself that stealing is right. I had a choice: to be a poor-ass, raggedy-ass muthafucker all my life or to go out into the streets and steal me some money so I could buy me a decent pair of shoes to wear, or shoot me some dope so I could forget about the rat-and-roach infested dump I live in.

Yeah, I got a chip on my shoulder. But it didn’t get up there by itself. And it’s gonna stay up there until you eliminate the junky conditions that breed cats like me. Yeah, you gonna send me to the pen. But that ain’t no big thing because I’ve been in prison all my life. And if you think you can rehabilitate me by sending me to prison, then you are sadly mistaken. How do you rehabilitate a cat who has never been “habilitated”? There ain’t nothing to rehabilitate. I know why you’re sending me to the pen. You’re sending me there to be punished, to do some A’ems and P’ems. But, fool, don’t you know that you can’t get nothing down by throwing salt into my open wounds? And I want you to know one thing before I split. I ain’t ashamed of what I did or who I am. I’m me — dig. I’ve talked that talk, and now I’m ready to walk that walk…

Alfred Hassan