The "F" Word

Words matter.  No doubt about it.  Words paint mental pictures for us.  They can sway our emotions, feeling heartbreak, joy or blinding anger.  Words are important.  And, many times it is the simplest words that carry the most power.  Think of Moses in Exodus, who asked God “who should I say sent me?”  Exodus records God’s simple, yet powerful words, “I am”. 

Hemingway once wrote a six word short story.  You can’t help but be moved by his words, “For sale.  Baby shoes.  Brand new.”  What, we wonder, is the story of the baby?  Why are the shoes for sale?  And our minds suddenly envision a grieving couple looking at an empty crib.  Baby blankets and sleepers and diapers folded neatly on the dresser.  But there is no child.  The baby has died.

Words matter.  Woody Guthrie soulfully singing “This land was made for you and me”.  Bob Dylan hoarsely calling out “The answer is blowin in the wind”.  Dr. King in his soulful, rich baritone calling forth “Free at last.  Free at last.  Thank God Almighty.  Free at last.”  Yes, words matter.

Words can lift up or bring down.  Perhaps that’s why both Solomon and James focused some attention on taming the tongue.  From my own life I know I have a gift for words.  Yet my gift can be a demon.  Too often I have said things in anger, in haste and hurt those near me.  Words are powerful.  Words can create or destroy.

Words.  For the young boy struggling with his sexual identity being called “fag” tears at his soul.  For the young learning disabled girl called “retard” her heart aches.  She feels loneliness and shame.  Words are a sword that cuts and slashes the fabric of our being.

I hear all kinds of words in here.  Each day is a cacophony of expletives.  I’ve heard every imaginable word to describe every race, every ethnicity.  And, I’ve heard words of hope, of longing, of regret, of comfort.

There is one word, the “F” word that matters most to the 2.3 million men and women in America’s prisons.  That word is “Felon” and the stigma and stain it carries does as much as anything to define which released person succeeds or fails.

As Margaret Love, former US Pardon Attorney recently noted,

“Felon is an ugly label that confirms the debased status that accompanies conviction.  It identifies a person as belonging to a class outside many protections of the law, someone who can be freely discriminated against, someone who exists at the margins of society…a legal outlaw and social outcast.  No passage of time,” she says, “or record of good works can erase the mark of Cain.”

Love notes that labeling a person convicted of a crime as a “felon” for life survives even “forgiveness”.  It is, she argues, an unhelpful label for people who have paid their debt to society.  It is also deeply unfair.

Until the late 20^th century prison, criminal justice was seen as a temporary period.  You broke the law, you went to jail.  But, upon your release you returned home.  However, in the last three decades America, under the dual mantras of “war on crime” and “tough on crime” made an industry out of penology.  And the law expanded with literally hundreds and thousands of new crimes created for social behaviors.  Punishment became key and what better way to punish than make a person wear the scarlet “F” for the rest of their life.  As scholar Nora Demleitner has pointed out, using the label “felon” creates a state of internal exile for those wearing the mark.  Today that label applies to more than 20 million Americans.

Labeling those who have paid their debt to society is directly contrary to the expressed goals and efforts to reduce the number of people in prison, and encourage those who are to rehabilitate and then re-enter society as productive citizens.  And, it mocks the myth of America as a land of second chances.

“Felon” arouses a sense of fear and loathing in “law-abiding” citizens.  Who would want to live – or work – with a “felon”?  In Virginia the fact that one is a felon can be used to deny a person employment and access to many grants, loans and benefits programs.  It shouldn’t be that way.  Love correctly argues that it is time to scrap the word “felon” and the equally reprehensible word “offender”.

In Virginia, over 90% of those currently behind bars will be released.  Governor McDonnell has correctly noted that any recidivism is too much recidivism.  He has made re-entry of released prisoners a cornerstone of his administration’s agenda.  But, it is idle words if the stigma of “felon” remains.

Words matter.   So do actions.  It is time to lay to rest “felon” from this nation’s lexicon.