Justice?

I’ve spent a good deal of time the past two weeks working with guys in the American Lit (pre-1890) class.  They have research papers due in another week and have been laboriously reading works by Emerson, Thoreau, Whitman, Melville and Douglass.  The paper assignment is to identify a significant cultural change in America that took place in the 19^th century and discuss various writers in context with that change.  It’s a rather heavy topic, especially for guys who’ve never before been exposed to writers of that era.  So many of the young guys in here see life solely in terms of their experiences.  History, other places, other ideas, are as far away as the sun.

So I had a few guys gathered the other afternoon to discuss a couple of their topics.  I explained the philosophical basis for Thoreau’s essay titled “On Civil Disobedience”, how Thoreau refused to pay taxes to support a war against Mexico and instead willingly went to jail.  Your conscience, your moral compass, Thoreau argued, requires you to say no at times even when everyone else says yes.  It was Thoreau’s challenge to the “band wagon” effect:  right and wrong are not defined by popular opinion.

We read Lincoln’s second Inaugural Address where the 16^th President noted both sides believe God supported their interpretation of His word regarding slavery.  And Lincoln went on to note the bloodletting arose from those firm positions.  Yet, he said, no country could survive where one out of eight were enslaved.

We read Frederick Douglass who quoted the Declaration of Independence and then simply asked – how does America espouse such ideals and then fall so short?

Unfortunately, the disconnect these writers saw in America is not confined to the 19^th century.  Thoreau, Lincoln and Douglass are as relevant today as they were in the 1800s; perhaps more so.

This week the Obama Administration announced that a CIA drone had killed a wanted terrorist in Yemen.  Shortly after the announcement Congressman Ron Paul issued his comments.  He said the dead terrorist was a United States citizen (true), who had never been arrested, tried or convicted (true) of any crime.  And he said it was wrong for America to sanction assassinations.

Ron Paul may be a lot of things, but he is clearly a man of conscience.  He may be the only courageous politician in Washington today.  His comments go against everything this country has espoused and committed since September 11, 2001.  That his comments about justice and law are so rarely heard today should give anyone pause who believes in American exceptionalism.

An exceptional country does not kill – assassinate – with drones.

An exceptional country does not put security ahead of justice.

This week I read an interview with the recently released hikers home from prison in Iran.

“In prison”, they said, “we lived in a world of lies and false hopes”.  I found those words ironic.  Everyday 2.3 million men and women languish in prison cells around the country.  Everyday they – no, we – are subjected to violence, filth and degradation.  Everyday in prison is a battle against lies told by officers and treatment counselors.  Everyday is a battle against hope.  And nothing these two male hikers experienced is any different than what the incarcerated in America go through every day.

An exceptional country would not tolerate a prison system as corrupt and poorly managed as America’s.

As I spoke to the guys I saw the power of Thoreau’s words, the intellectual truths of Lincoln and Douglass’ words register.  What those men wrote is not confined to the 19^th century.  Their words are relevant today.  America can do better.  America cannot be a county that approves of assassination in the name of national security.  America cannot be the country of 2.3 million incarcerated and 46 million living below the poverty line.

As Thoreau wrote, “Let your life be a counter friction to stop the machine [of injustice]…do not lend yourself to the wrong….”

Homecoming for B.I.

This past Tuesday one of the college students, “B.I.”, left prison for freedom.  He was arrested two weeks before his 19^th birthday.  He left 3 months before his 39^th.  He came in a teenager; he departs a middle aged man.

B.I. was one of the smartest students in the college program.  He was shorter than most guys in here, maybe 5’7” max, but he was bull strong.  He’d spend two hours each day, six days a week, lifting weights.

He was also very bright and well read and very studious.  He would read pretty intense pieces and ponder their meaning.   Whether it was Kant and Nietzsche or Whitman poetry, B.I. always had a book in hand and a pad and pen nearby.

And, he was friendly and outgoing.  He had an infectious smile.  He was polite and kind.  Did I mention he’d spent twenty years in prison for murder?  That’s one of the strange things about prison.  There are guys like B.I. who’ve spent years at low custody (14 of his 20 years).  To see them you wouldn’t know they committed a violent crime.  DOC doesn’t consider them violent – they’re housed at lower levels.  And yet, the years roll by, like water in a stream.

The last week before he left, B.I. became withdrawn, introspective.  He quit lifting weights choosing instead to spend hours by himself walking the track or just sitting outside.  Last Sunday, I finished running and B.I. came up to me while I cooled down.  We talked for a good while.  B.I., a guys who’d seen the worst prison had to offer coming into the system at a high security level with stabbings, rapes and extortion a daily occurrence, was scared.  He wasn’t sure he could make it “outside the walls”.

It reminded me that I’m one of the few who find themselves in this situation who actually lived “normal” society lives.  B.I. never held a full time job, never lived on his own.  Buying groceries, going to and from work, paying rent, buying a car or a house – it’s all foreign to him; so is the Internet, cell phones, ATMs, debit cards.

B.I. came to prison as a 19 year old, living at home with his mom.  He was a high school dropout, selling drugs and carrying a pistol in case things went wrong.  One night things did.  And twenty years later this no longer young man walked out of prison to a world he’s seen on TV but which is completely alien to him. 

The general “thought” in “cultured society” is way too much is spent on inmate education and programs.  “They’ve got it too easy.”  I’ve heard it; I said it before I came inside.  Nothing could be more incorrect.

Prison is a brutal, dehumanizing environment.  It is also a time warp.  The world moves on each day, yet life in prison stays the same.  And for long-term inmates, men like B.I., the transition from an over-regulated environment fraught with violence and filth, to a relatively fast paced free lifestyle, is perilous.

For B.I. his fear was, in part, driven by the fact that he couldn’t “go home”.  His mother lives in federal subsidized housing which prohibits him from living there.  So Tuesday morning he sat, waiting for his “ride” and wondering, “Can I do this?  Can I survive out there?”

B.I. is one of the lucky ones.  As a member of the college IT grant program.  Goodwill Industries took an interest in him.  Tuesday morning, two representatives from Goodwill’s Northern Virginia office came to Lunenburg.  They picked B.I. up, took him to DMV to get a state issued ID.  They drove him back to Fredericksburg and got him lunch, his first meal outside.

And they did more.  They found him housing and lined up job interviews.  They were there so B.I. had a chance to succeed.  Will he make it?  Maybe I’m too much of an optimist, but I believe B.I. will be alright.  He survived hell; he survived a twenty year time warp.  He has support from the good people at Goodwill Industries.  It won’t be easy, but he’ll do it.  He’ll do it because, in spite of his crime, he is a decent human being who will overcome the challenges facing him.  Hopefully folks “out there” will see that in B.I.   He’s paid his debt.  He is entitled to live again.