Numbers Inside

So many of my blogs focus on numbers.  There are the number of inmates the United States incarcerates:  over 2 million; numbers relating to living in a low custody dorm (92 guys crammed into 10 square feet of living space each); and numbers about commissary (like Ramen noodles that sell for thirty cents apiece).  Everything, it seems, is about numbers.  It shouldn’t strike anyone as odd that one of the fastest growing security threats inside is built around numbers.  I’m talking about the five percenters.

I’ve written about these guys before.  They are a splinter group of Farrakhan’s Nation of Islam.  Even N.O.I. members will tell you “those guys are nuts!”  I have to be careful how I say this because my own faith history, the early Christian church, grew in spite of severe oppression.  Our founding fathers (and mothers) of faith were in and out of jail, beaten, tortured, murdered.  And somehow the message got out.  But, I am deeply suspicious of any pseudo-faith that sprung up in the last twenty years during America’s love-fest with incarceration.

Here’s the five percent philosophy in a nutshell:  only 5% of the population (coincidentally, all African-American males in or released from prison) are destined for survival.  They follow a system built on the power and mystery of numbers.  Numerology is the essence of their belief system.  They memorize and recite principles ad nauseam (“number eighty-six, in our natural state…”) and funny clichés (“true indeed, true indeed; indeed its so, indeed it’s so.”). 

Here’s the irony.  The guys actively involved are the worst math students ever.  They take names based on their chief “attribute” (there is a “Kinetic”, a “Magnetic”, a “Sincere”, and a “Dominance” to name a few) and spout off “history” that is – at its least damaging – false and many times racist, sexist and homophobic.  It would make a good neo-Nazi blush. 

But numbers; this is about numbers.  These guys don’t understand numbers.  They have no idea how to perform simple math calculations.  They can’t balance their inmate trust account statements.  Basic items like simple versus compound interest escapes them, yet they profess faith built on numbers.

Linguists will tell you numbers are just a form of language.  Accepting that as true, is it any wonder these guys don’t understand math given their total lack of basic skill with the English language?

The five percenter attraction is built simply on the premise that we, the incarcerated, are victims of an unjust, racist system that seeks to destroy African-American males.  There is much truth in the injustice of the American criminal justice system.  But, the answer is not in the organization of a fringe, race-centric sect that promotes violence and exclusion.

The five percenters have built a cult based on numeric and historic ignorance.  They must be challenged.  That requires – on a system level – a massive overhaul of the criminal justice system.  It also requires education.  Education is the key.  These guys feed off ignorance.  Unfortunately, prison is full of those who were left behind in school and know so very little.

So, day in and day out I find myself being engaged by five percenters to explain history, politics, economics and literature.  It’s a battle worth fighting.  Too many young black men are being lost.