My Letter to America
Journal #8
Damn…don’t you know America? Men and women are dying. Not all but just a select demographic who’ve been marginalized to poverty, prisons and penal structures. They put people from these places in prisons because they’ve decided to no longer suffer from the many societal pains that derive from the environments they’ve come from. So, the question surfaces, what can be done about a system designed to augment margins and repress people who are doing all they can to go outside those margins?
America, we’re tired of your sneak hatred, we’re tired of your racism and the continuation of investing into institutions that perpetuate different modes of slavery. In prison, the lowest tier of civilization within America, is left outside of rule of law and persons within these places are snuffed out from the world, left to suffer in isolation. The system of communication that’s so widely used in society is nonexistent within the confines of your various “departments of correction.” Others don’t know about said horrors which exist until they’ve been arrested and thrust into the shock of being thrown into a society within a society. These places really do no good for your long term health because they tend to erode the chastity of liberty which begins to leave a filthy stench of hypocrisy.
I ask, why does premeditated murder exists, why does crack and heroine still so often make appearances in my community, why is unemployment always concentrated in the places I’ve grown up and was raised in? Why are laws manufactured and tailored to antagonized me and my pool of friends? You act dumb sometimes and as if you don’t know why you behave the way you do at times. DO you think or do you just act, because when I act without thinking you oppressively incarcerated and do all you can to break my spirit and keep me tunnel visioned to the immediate wrong at hand opposed to the larger wrong that you’ve perpetuated, and caused me to forced my hand.
Don’t get me wrong, I’ve not scribed a sob letter to this because we’ve been called to ACT and act is what we will do. We will no longer allow you to force your oppressive hands upon us. I’ve suited up — along with the millions of others to address and do away with your abuse. Eyes at times have grown weary, but yet we’re wide awake and strategizing. What? You ask me who I denote when I profess, “We’re.” We’re, being we are, is the people who are fed up with your B.S. and have resolved to suffer no more. We see that you derive excitement from our suffering, while you live in every bit of accordance to your dream. Well listen, our dream comes directly from a place of longing in which we will die in order to bring into fruition. Don’t stay up though, because while you’re sleep go fighting your sleep — we’re wide awake and moving about in rhythmic waves of action to fight your system!
Your champion & student,
Derrick Washington