I am getting inundated with e-mails today from friends, family, youth I work with, long-lost colleagues asking me to write about Lil’ Wayne’s release from jail.

Look people: “I DO NOT WANT TO WRITE ABOUT LIL’ WAYNE BEING RELEASED FROM JAIL.” OK now that this is out of my system…

Here is one reason that I do not want to write about Lil’ Wayne today:

“FREE AT LAST!!!!!!!” the rapper’s longtime manager, Cortez Bryant, Tweeted Thursday morning.

His managers have said he planned to head for his home in Miami, where they’re planning a welcome-home party Sunday.

“It should be a lot of beautiful women, just…beautiful scenery. Just treat him like a king, like the royalty that he is and make him feel like we really missed him and welcome him back to the family,” Maine told MTV.

The record label boss, who MTV says is also a close personal friend of Lil Wayne, said after a private party, the entourage would move to a strip club called King of Diamonds.

Lil’ Wayne is released from jail and the first thing that he is supposedly going to do is surround himself with “beautiful women” who are equated with “beautiful scenery.” Then he is planning to go to a strip club. Excellent! There is no mention whatsoever of Wayne possibly visiting his children. After 8 months of incarceration, the svengalis who are in charge of insuring that the Lil’ Wayne “brand” remains lucrative are selling the public on the fact that Lil Wayne’s most important priority post-jail is the continued objectification of women. Good times…

I don’t want to write about Lil’ Wayne’s release because I believe that he is complicit in perpetuating the myth that jail is a “country-club” rather than the dehumanizing hell hole that most inmates experience it as. Regular readers know that I have had a feature called “prison is NOT a country club (contra Lil’ Wayne)” intended to underscore this fact.

I don’t want to write about Lil Wayne’s release from jail because I believe that he is fine with being seen as a brand, a non-person. Since this is the case, he cannot humanize the prison experience. He cannot express the realities of the incarceration experience. To do so would be seen as tarnishing his brand and potentially eating into his revenue generating potential.

In this way, Wayne is an essential player in ensuring the continuation of the prison industrial complex. Not many highlight this fact because it is uncomfortable but TRUE. Wayne has used his incarceration as a revenue generating opportunity. Who can blame him right? But what this does is that it hardens the system and makes it more difficult for those of us who are advocating for abolition to get a hearing in the general public. People believe the hype. They suggest that jail and prison are in fact “country-clubs.” They support measures to make those experiences more harsh and punitive. Wayne is toxic to the prison abolition movement. It has to be said.

So while black and brown bodies continue to fill the coffers and the insatiable appetite of the PIC and destroy entire communities, Wayne is apparently going to the strip club. What happened to going to Disney World?

I expect to get flamed for these views but I DON’T CARE since I DON’T WANT TO WRITE ABOUT LIL’ WAYNE’S RELEASE FROM JAIL. Bring it on!

Update: Michael Jeffries blogs over at the Atlantic about Wayne's release. The most salient part of his post for me is this section:

The reasons people go to jail are not always just, but the experience of incarceration should leave an imprint; it is demeaning and miserable. In most cases, the effects are disastrous. Prison provides no rehabilitative function, the experience is traumatic, and the prisoner exits in worse social and financial condition than when he entered. However, for the privileged few who have the support systems and incentives in place to avoid recidivism, the experience need not be repeated.

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  By yermom, November 5, 2010 @ 8:31 am

  Let them flame away. I agree with your points wholeheartedly. Consider me subscribed.

Other Links to this Post

1. World Spinner — November 4, 2010 @ 2:34 pm