By Reality Check
This is a three part story that comes from an inmate who is incarcerated in the Florida State Prison System. His name has been changed to protect him from any negative repercussions. There are also graphic details of everyday prison life; therefore, please be warned. If you are sensitive to details don’t read it.
Part 3 of a 3 Part Series
Derek Chauvin was put in a position to spread and inculcate his dysfunctions into these rookies. This created occupational patterns and cultures which guaranteed the unleashing of trauma and oppression into communities.
There are great human beings and great officers in the police forces and great humans and prison guards in here, but the systems of dysfunction overshadows them. We must push for massive structural reforms.
A few years ago I was at an institution that had the highest rate of inmates murdered by offices – 15 men were murdered by offices in two years! I watched as rookies, who came in humble and respected towards us, retrained by racist and sadistic veterans. I watched them lose touch with their humanity as they were trained and cultivated by a system of hate. Once they were released, they were working in a structure fueled by racism. A system that supported and covered up murders, they became swallowed up in their search for acceptance.
Watch the movie, the Stanford Prison Project, a true story about an experiment done by the psychology department at Stanford which exposed the systemic manner in which toxic behavior accelerates in a law enforcement construct where there is no regard for human life. That movie will blow your mind.
I personally experienced the loss of life of 15 men by the hands of a system that needs reconstructing. So my plea to you is personal. Police brutality is a war zone. The abuse in here is a war zone. They are parallel war zones. If you spent a week in here A victim of the open displays of racist ideology and behavior by staff, it would scare you for life.
I stare Derek Chauvins in the eye every day. Their animalistic behavior will scare your soul. So I am begging you to remember us back here because they are murdering us in here: choke a man to death, wrap a sheet around his neck and say he hung himself. Then they call his mother and scar her soul forever with the message of his suicide.
Please don’t forget us! My message to the youth and their leaders: I see your anger; don’t let that anger turn to hate. There is a way to put a spell on someone that causes them to spend their lives going in circles. That spell is hate. I have spent 20 years of my life in prison watching men get beaten, tortured and murdered. But they murder the best part of you when they trick you into fighting them from the position of hate. You must win that eternal war to gain the strength to fight the internal ones. You create the future with your spirit and soul. keep them pure in order to create a future of light. The hardest thing to do in this dirty world is to keep a clean heart. Win that battle and you win all battles. The poet Khalil Gibron said… “Out of suffering has emerged the strongest soul.” And so…and steel we rise… Shakespeare said, “the chains of the body are often wings to the Spirit.”
I’ve been suffering in prison for 20 years, but at some point I realized my suffering was the Potter’s Wheel where I was being molded into a spiritual warrior. Every experience of abuse we’ve endured as a people was another spin on the Potter’s Wheel. Molding us until the spiritual giants and activist who are changing the world with protest in political actions today. Suffering empowers you to be fearless when you understand and that through God’s grace, your suffering has made you stronger – no justice, no peace.
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