Essays

We are entering the final week of English classes.  Last Wednesday and Thursday the two classes submitted their major research papers, seven to ten typed pages on a current controversy, arguing persuasively, with supporting documentation either pro or con on their subject.

I am working with a group of men for whom education has always been a challenge.  Few of the men in the regular college program or special IT program were successful in school prior to being incarcerated.  The vast majority of them, in fact, earned GEDs while in prison.

In that educational environment it’s easy for someone like me to forget a lack of educational success does not equal a lack of intellectual capability.  These guys are bright and they have a story to tell.  Sometimes, it just takes someone willing to listen.

“Blow's” research topic was welfare.  I sat stunned as I read his first draft.  One of the things I’ve impressed on the guys is to “hook your reader in early”, make them want to read more.  I said “Blow, is this true?”  He simply replied “every word”.

Blow, a 25 year old black man, is doing his second bid for drug dealing.  He wrote about the demeaning characteristics of welfare.  “It makes you want to do nothing.”

His “hook” involved his memory as an eight year old little boy.  His mom had four children, all by four different “daddies”.  His mom didn’t work, just drank soft drinks and complained about the size of the section 8 apartment the government gave her.

One day his mom was going on and on about “the government needs to do this for me and this….”  Finally, this little eight year old said “Momma, if you love us, why don’t you do something to help us?  Why don’t you work instead of going out?  Why don’t you get us out of this apartment?”

He said “she just stared at me and never said a word.  She knew I was right, but she gave up her pride for a check and an apartment.”

Then there’s Todd.  Todd wrote about the need for more mental health support for anorexia and bulimia.  Todd’s younger sister suffered from bulimia.  For years his parents dealt with doctors who would put her on a strict, high calorie diet.  Todd wrote how he belittled her for “puking all the time”.

Later, Todd fell in love with a beautiful George Mason student.  “I noticed after a few months she would eat crazy on the weekends, then run to the bathroom.”  She also did hours of aerobics each day.  Then came the day she collapsed while running.  Todd came back from work and found a voicemail message from his girlfriend’s roommate.  “She was in the hospital, unconscious, weighing 88 pounds.”  He never saw her again.

There was Dom who wrote about tolerance after dealing with his niece – a high school student – who came out as a lesbian.  And there was Jeff, who wrote passionately about the immorality of the death penalty.

“My brother won awards as a marine copter gunner in Iraq even though he has nightmares knowing he shot innocent civilians.  Casualties of War they call it, ‘collateral damage’.  I know guys in the system carrying the same nightmares for their wrongdoing.  Killing, in war, in crime, or by the government as punishment is morally wrong.”
Pretty powerful prose from all three.  I don’t recall ever having insight like that in my sterile, idyllic freshman English class in college back in 1977.  Then again, I lived a sheltered, middle class life. 

The fact these guys have been through so much and still have a sense of humanity should give us all hope in God’s redemptive power.  No one is a lost cause.