Confession of an Ex-con

Even though life, for me, started out rough and many of whom were grey and wise could have predicted parts of my future, a big piece of the picture was missing at my sentencing.

Like most children from inner-city neighbourhoods, I was active, mischievous and got myself into all types of trouble. Trouble, that if one wanted to be technical, could be defined as crimes; minor conflicts, major brawls, innocent exchanged of contraband to deliberate sales of them.

Truth be told, some of my activities were done with 100% ignorance and naivety, while others were established to me as being absolutely illegal.

And despite my justification of exercising these acts, like my momma always say, “right is right and wrong is wrong!”

Speaking of my momma, she knew that I was no saint, but she also knew that I was far from being a monster which any innocence person had to be weary of. My relatives and friends all knew that what I did, was what everyone else was doing, and while the city might have defined it as crimes, we defined it as getting by; in other words, surviving.

And as long as no innocent person was being hurt, I always went to sleep with a clear conscience, so clear that every morning I use to pray to God for guidance and protection, and thanked him every night for keeping me safe through another twenty-four.

Don’t get me wrong, sometimes people got hurt, myself included; it’s a doggy-dog world when business is exercised on the black market or better said, outside of the prescribed law.

We were deemed ‘not innocent’ simply because our activities weren’t notarized and registered at City Hall, it couldn’t be, and they wouldn’t have wanted that. If that was to be, the Mayor would have had less reasons to claim aid funds and half of the security forces would have been laid off.

Still, among all that politics or should I say ‘polytricks’, I was arrested, arraigned and sentenced without anyone batting an eye.

I served my time over two decades ago and recently while counselling some youngsters, I surprised them with a confession.

Over twenty years ago, I was deemed one of society’s bottom-feeders, hood-rats or more politely put, a minority or a non-Caucasian, who is a resident of the ghetto.

While living in the ghetto, crime and violence are everyday sightings, and often, at some points, with knowing or not knowing, we all participated in acts which could be defined as crimes.

As I got older, I became more aware of my actions which were defined as crimes. My momma had her suspicions, but my friends were certain of my actions, and last but not least, the local police had information about my activities; their information was correct, but their timing for a bust could not have been any worse.

So after entering my home for a search, they came up empty handed; I was clean, with a cup of Seven-Eleven’s frozen slurpee, being the only thing in my immediate position.

Still, I was given a sentence of ten years, and like I said, no one batted an eye, not even my mom; instead of hearing my plea of innocence, my mother was busy trying to negotiate a deal.

After a while, I too, started to think that I was guilty; after all, I was no saint.

If anything, I was only smart to be one step ahead of the cops, but as you can see, that didn’t help either.

My confession to the boys was a declaration of serving time for a crime that never even took place.

At first, I justified it by all the bad I had done, without consequences, then I blamed high society and its prejudices, I blamed my momma for making me into a minority and I even blamed God for making such an injustice prevailed, and after a very long time, I found the strength to be humble and accept it all.

It’s done and over with.

I now credit the experience for being an eye-opener to one of society’s businesses, which uses its people as commodities for trade; incarceration is a money making business, for some, and not always about innocent nor guilty.

While laws and punishments psychologically prevents more than two-third of us from committing crimes, this strains the business of prison populations, and for this reason, every so often, an innocent person has to be branded ‘Convict’.

My Welcome to America

Being a 70s kid who grew up in one of the world’s Countries described as being third world, I was exposed to the lust and drools of migrating to the United States of America. I mean, as a child, hearing about the USA was like hearing about a secondary heaven, but instead of meeting God, you were expecting to meet a big apple, in which after taking your bite, you will find success and happiness; wow, right?

So as I aged, I too developed that lust for the rumoured paradise, I envisioned a flawless Country where the streets were so clean, you could practically eat from it, I envisioned people of the utmost class, as if they invented etiquette, manners and respect. As attracted as I was to such a place, I was equally intimidated and felt as if I wouldn’t fit in, it would be above someone of my calibre; after all, I am a third-world citizen, almost a nobody other than me considering myself as a somebody, but I was no elite considered by the Gods of this heaven on Earth.

See, growing up in my third world native land, it was no secret that we were poor and that there were other parts of the world doing way better than us. It was clear that the only thing we had for sure was God, the real God, the unseen eyes, the Creator of all things, and in order to have his continued grace we must acknowledge him, so despite our poverty, we knew of God and we knew church as much as we knew school, if not more.

The other things, as a nation, we thrived for was education. Education was deemed the key for everything, it was talked about in a way like, if you attained a good education, you could actually escape the poverty and find some success and happiness. With education we were also taught to maintain manners, respect and be polite. And considering that our native language was English, despite an existing famed contesting nonstandard slang, we were encouraged to speak the national language of English. Slangs were deemed poor and reflected on individuals as illiterate, being unable to have a full English speaking conversation.

All of this was in aim of our cultured decency.

Being decent was an accreditation to our citizenship, and as a nation we took pride in decency. For some it was easier than for others; remember, we were poor. Poor and desperate, so it wasn’t the easiest task, desperate men did desperate things, and the expected high crimes among poverty existed; poor people were robbing from other poor people just to get by.

It was almost like a necessary evil, but with the upbringing that I just described, I am sure that most of the offenders had guilty consciences for their dirty deeds, and wished that they did not have to hurt their own kind in order to survive. But their choices were limited and their number one wish was to get to the heaven on Earth, by all means and escape this apparent forbidden life.

Still, crimes were not tolerated by our Land, and offenders were usually imprisoned. Imprisonment was seen not just as a punishment, but also as a huge shame and disgrace to the Convict and his or her relatives. Jails and prisons were considered forbidden institutions, where only ignorant low-lives, who disregarded the cultured decency would end up.

Like some, I too, made it to the United States of America, attaining the apparent escape from poverty.

My first impression of the USA left me dumbfounded with a mixture of shock and disappointment, it was a clear conflict to my native culture and my bubbled imaginations of clean street and better behaving people than my natives, were quickly burst, but food and clothes were in abundance, so much that they even had second-hand shops (Thrift Shops) that sold used clothes, used furniture and appliances. It was all new and fascinating to me, they had the biggest supermarkets I’d ever seen in my whole life, two of their supermarket’s isles carried more items than the supermarkets that I was accustomed to, and cars were so cheap, you could buy a used car for as little as fifty dollars; it was unbelievable.

All the things that the people of my Country lacked was there in abundance to the waste. So despite my initial disappointment, it was a great place, I could see why they praised it like heaven, it was better in providing food, clothes, shelter and a surplus of other luxuries; that was my second impression.

And as I gradually started to know the Americans, I noticed one thing which they all had in common, which was a no-no in my Country; they all either had been to prison, been on probation, been on parole or had a family member or friend who have been. They all either used some kind of illegal drugs, sold it or knew someone who used it, sold it or was in prison for it.

Being fully cultured by my native Land, I turned my nose up on this realization, with disgust; that was my first reaction. My second reaction came a little while after I too was jailed; that reaction was a smirk of understanding my new found culture.

Probation, Parole, Jail, Prisons are big businesses in America; it’s a part of the heaven’s culture, businesses which generate billions of dollars, and humans branded as criminals are its assets, I learnt that after I became one of its assets who glided along its conveyor belt.

Prisons are privately and publicly operated like hospitals, schools, libraries or universities, which require to be filled, in order to be profitable. And being a big business, it is kept filled by all means necessary, even if that means is to promote crime.