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<dd><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=5>25-LIFE - WHAT DOES THAT
MEAN TO ME? <br>
<dd>BY H. BELL, 3/26/11) <br><br>
</b></font>
<dd><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=2>
Although I have served more than 37 years in prison, I am still unable to
wrap my mind around what that means; years of locking in-and-out of
cells, letters from home and the occasional family photo; one letter
telling that the new baby has arrived, another telling that my niece or
nephew is doing well in school and that the neighbor next door died in
his sleep; the photo shows Ma-dear and Dad looking good but are
noticeably older, 25-life (what does that mean to me?).<br>
<dd> <br>
<dd> If
you were a family man, like I was, with a young wife and two rambunctious
boys, the separation had to have been heart-wrenching. It was for me. My
boys, Johnes and Keith, had thoroughly broken me into domesticity:
feeding them, changing and washing their diapers, dressing them,
consoling them, taking them for their shots. Hoping the family dog
wouldn't bite me for reprimanding them. Their mother, high-spirited and
the love of my lie, was no less challenging; a borderline red-bone, with
a delightful spray of freckles across her nose and cheeks, almond-shaped
eyes and pouty lips. During our feuds, rather than talk, we wrote notes
to each other and the children handed them to us.<br>
<dd> <br>
<dd>
What does doing 25-life mean to me? As I mull over this question, I am
reminded of Elmina, the Portuguese slave fortress, located on the West
coast of Ghana from which enchained afrikans were led through its
infamous "door-of-no-return" to the holds of waiting slave
ships that would take them to the New World. I too feel as though I've
walked through a "door-of-no-return." <br><br>
<dd>IMPRISONMENT (A MODERN PLANTATION)<br>
<dd> <br>
</b>
<dd> If one
knew nothing about the geography of a town in upstate NY where one is
imprisoned, then one can readily imagine what the afrikan slave must have
felt on a southern plantation – not knowing where to run or how to get
there. For me, getting from Attica or Clinton Dannemora, to my hood,
seemed no different than for the afrikan on a slave plantation in Georgia
getting from there back to Afrika. Across the country, I have been held
in many jails, and my family has had to travel thousands of miles to see
me at considerable expense.<br>
<dd> <br>
<dd>
You know how families are received at these places: standing in the
elements to get in; suffering the indignities of disparaging remarks;
seating arrangements; frustrating package rules. Prison is where
spiteful, petty, contemptible, morally unkind acts find free expression
at the whim of those who have authority over us. The keepers are vigilant
and they instinctively ferret out unguarded self-esteem, courage, and
strength. Prison is designed to break you down, not build you up. It
casually destroys the weak and unwary (as though they were an
afterthought), and turns the spiritually debased into beasts. What's not
so strange about this is that the spiritually debased elicits no
particular attention from the keepers. 25-life (what does that mean to
me?).<br><br>
<dd>AS THE YEARS GO BY<br>
<dd> <br>
</b>
<dd>Time, faces, and relationships change, and like sand cascading down
the funnel of an hourglass, nothing can resist this change. One day, you
look in the mirror and see gray hair and a face that tells you you've
aged; your body tells you that too. Some of your old friends have moved
on and new ones have come to take their place.<br>
<dd> <br>
<dd>Your mother and father may have passed away, as have mine, and I was
unable to see them buried. You may have contemplated numerous possible
scenarios, should you be imprisoned, but never that; and neither did I.
The years take their toll, the people you believed in, the certainties
you once embraced might have led you to realize that the more you know,
the more you realize you don't know. With luck, we come to understand
that humility and wisdom come with age and experience, and that death is
often merciful.<br>
<dd> <br>
<dd>RELEASE TIME AND ITS UNCERTAINTY <br><br>
</b>
<dd>In doing 25-life, you never now when your release time will come; as
it is with death, you can never foretell the day it will knock on your
door. Yet, in both instances, you better be prepared.<br>
<dd> <br>
<dd>MAKE TIME WORK FOR YOU (SELF-IMPROVEMENT <br><br>
</b>
<dd>The old-timers in here will tell you: make time work for you, not
against you. <br>
<dd> <br>
<dd>Education:<br>
<dd> I
earned a dual Bachelor of Science degree in psychology and sociology and
a master's in sociology. It was hard work and could not have been
accomplished without discipline, commitment, and sacrifice. Through the
self-help projects I've developed on the outside while imprisoned, e.g.,
Calendar, Community Gardens, I have built remarkable relationships inside
and outside these walls. And I have managed to keep a good name (which is
all one can rightly claim as one's own in here). Because of that, I have
managed to make it through the day, one day at a time. 25-life (what does
that mean to me?).<br>
<dd> <br>
<dd>THE PAROLE BOARD <br><br>
</b>
<dd>
Parole is discretionary, we are told, not a right. When one's freedom is
withheld by another, be it a state institution or a private individual,
it's tantamount to slavery and is a poignant reminder that slavery was
never abolished in the US; the 13th Amendment preserved it.<br>
<dd> <br>
<dd>
State parole commissioners have guidelines to aid them in their parole
decision; that decision, nevertheless, is still subjective. A host of
variables weigh in on this process, including the kind of day a
commissioner is having, societal stereotypes, the crime that one
committed 30 years ago. As a parole candidate, one has to be impressed by
what I've accomplished inside and on the outside; and my disciplinary is
exemplary. Yet my next Board appearance will mark 10 years beyond my
minimum sentence. And I am not alone in this experience. Because of
consistent denials, one is led to conclude that more is involved in these
parole denials than what meets the eye. One is led to conclude that
power, politics, and economics are driving them. And that this
triumvirate serves special interests. Yet those invested in this
practice, and who profit handsomely from it, still argue that the mission
of prisons is and always shall be about corrections and rehabilitation.
They argue that prisons are not used as an employment agency or as a tool
of social repression. But if that were true, then surely fewer people
would be in prison today.<br>
<dd> <br>
<dd>CONCLUSION<br><br>
</b>
<dd> This is
just a tiny piece of the picture. The point is that we remain in the
grips of an economic order and culture that's as formidable and
treacherous as the recent quake, tsunami, and meltdown in Japan, and I
wish it were not so.<br>
<dd> <br>
<dd>
Think about it. What do you or I produce in prison? Okay, there is the
Corcraft Industry, which generates a few million dollars a year, yet it's
a pittance compared to the bigger picture relating to you and me.
Billions are made just by keeping us in a cell. Our very presence is the
raw product that sustains the prison industry. It did the same during
chattel slavery for almost 400 years, and, like today, we've benefited
none from it. Today, our people spend well over 500 billion in the US
economy, and we control practically none of it. The only institution of
any consequence we control today is the Black church. <br>
<dd>
<br>
<dd>
Today, the sons and daughters of the people employed to keep us here have
begun to keep watch over us and our children, who now are finding
themselves in here. We have to get out of these places, stay out of them
and keep others out. And while still in here, it is our duty to use this
time constructively, and thus be an asset to our communities when we get
out. That way, we turn this thing on its head, snatching victory from the
jaws of defeat, which in this instance is what is meant by: falling in a
shithouse and coming out smelling like a rose.<br><br>
<br><br>
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