Prison Journal: Day 8,208
January 29, 2010
Today a young prisoner–I’ll call him ‘OG’–told me about his life as a gang member. OG is only 23 and he grew up with out a father in Southern California. His neighborhood, as he called it, encouraged its male adolescents to join one of the various street gangs. The purpose, he said, was to make the neighborhood known.
“Known for what?” I didn’t understand the motivation.
“Known for being bad,” he told me.
“But why would you want people to know you for being bad?”
“So people would respect us, so they wouldn’t mess with anyone from our neighborhood.” OG answered.
He told me how he would gang bang and I asked what that meant. While driving past other boys, OG said that he would stare at them aggressively, as if challenging the boys to say something, anything. If the boys didn’t show him the “respect” to which he felt convinced he was entitled, OG said he’d “blast on them fools.”
The sadness in this tale is that OG has a natural gift of intelligence. Although he said that he didn’t study much in school, he expresses himself well in writing. I know this because he has shared some of his work with me. I read a three-page essay he wrote, I was impressed by his clarity of thought as well as the way he expressed himself.
When I converse with OG and his fellow gang bangers, I hope to help them identify a way to a better life. Instead of trying to instill fear in others, or to be “known for being bad”, I suggest that they educate themselves and prepare for a life that will bring them respect when they walk into an office of professionals. Rather than living as destructive forces in their communities, I strive to inspire them to prepare for productive, law-abiding lives, so that they will strengthen their neighborhoods.
These young gang members know that I’ve been incarcerated since 1987. Ironically, to them, the fact that I’ve served so much time in prison makes me worthy to listen to. It’s not that I’ve educated myself, built a productive and industrious life while in prison, nurtured a strong network of community support, or contributed to my family through work. They listen to me because I’ve been locked in prisons of every security level.
Whatever their reasons are for listening to me, I still use the opportunity responsibly. OG is paying attention. He’s now enrolled in Taft Community College and I will continue to guide him toward steps he can take to emerge as a law abiding citizen.
This morning I ran 10 miles and followed my run with 600 pushups.
[consecutive running log: 3,670 miles over the past 413 consecutive days]
[pushups in 2010: 9,900]
Friday, 29 January 2010
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