Man // Foundations

By Brandon Hope

Black man, white man, who am I man?
Oppressor or victim to oppression?

I am human, you can not second guess it –
but that tends to go in one ear and out the other.
The less that I’ve chosen one race over the other,
the deeper I dove in to the bi-racial struggle.

Confusion that’s when they can’t tell what’s my color.
Deception accusations when they can’t tell what’s my color.

Abusive repercussions cause I’m not quite my mother,
Abusive repercussions cause I’m not quite my father,
Abusive repercussions cause they don’t know what I am,
Abusive repercussions when I’m merely just a MAN.

My experience with racism is very different from most, being that I am a bi-racial man that comes from a bi-racial household. For one, my grandparents on both sides of my family are very bias towards the other race, so that was an interesting and painful experience growing up, never feeling accepted in my own home amongst my own family. Then, I got the same type of experience at school and in my neighborhood. So on top of the systemic racism that we are all faced within our neighborhoods, (the ghetto) and in our schools, I was dealing with it from my family and peers.

Now, I believe that racism can be fixed…. but only with hard work and time, because racism is inbred within the system (when I say the system, I am speaking of the American government).

Now, picture the system as a structure like a building. If the system was a building, then the issue that needs to be fixed is deep within the concrete structure, so the only option when there is a structural problem, is to build a new foundation. But to build a new foundation, we must first tear down the building; and the new building can’t be built upon another corrupt foundation. There must be no flaws, or we will have to tear it down again. There should be no hatred in the foundation, nor bias of any kind. We must find a way to utilize love, or at the very least empathy, and build our foundation amongst it.

The answer to racism is the most common and simple phrase you hear growing up – but it is also the most complicated – because America as a whole has still failed to master it. All we have to do is, TREAT OTHERS HOW YOU WANT TO BE TREATED!!! Think about it.

– Brandon C. L. Hope, From Hampton, VA

Prompt: Justice for All? Overcoming Racism in America

From day one, American children are unassumingly taught of a set of illusionary lines concerning race… lines that marked boundaries, established sides, and created imaginary boxes that have kept a great disparagement present between races in America, possible.

The American heritage can be accurately described as one giant story of racial volatility. Its origins are steeped in a history of industrial slavery, initiating racial proclivities sustaining major gaps between the black and white conscious in America since the emancipation of slaves. All the psychological devices used to engineer more complaint products in the slave trade, and ensure that the markets could be ripe with white consumers who actually WANTED to own other human beings, had some serious after-effects. Effects that have prompted a set of unspoken laws and rules that serve to preserve the series of debaucheries that created America and its debased heritage of racial inequality…

No present day American is totally free from the effects fore mentioned. The propagation of racial class and the absurd idea of an inferior or superior race forms the basis of what the present black-white social interaction is in our counter. The concepts of white privilege and black anger show the deep contrast of the American experience. The practice of widely accepted, government sponsored denigration of humans into property, is our history. Black leaders only sought out the complicated task of reconstructing the identity of an enslaved, newly-freed, newly- formed people, Black Americans. The first bit of culture Black Americans assumed for themselves was met with public skepticism and political fear-mongering. The majority and mainstream America instantly demonized it and branded the concept of “being Black” as a lunatic fringe, subversive counterculture. “Being Black,” they labeled as “aggressive” and “anarchist.” Black people were displeased and here to overthrow the government. “They’re angry, they’re loud, you should fear them…”

Time has exposed the truth and brought their devices to heel. The modern-mind of our nation now has experienced the advent of social media in the age of information, a Renaissance in thought on American society and race relations. Now, what do we do with it? We COULD say the atrocities committed against black people were done in the ignorance that befell a still growing America… sure, that COULD be said… but that’s for those who truly believe in the strength of human decency and the belief that love can and will transcend us all into a greater society. Still, for those select few, there is the essential task of activism – manifesting beliefs into the material world by means of work… regardless of color, right is right. That feeling that claws at the heart for change, is justice. It is real and it is one. It is the key to the next step in us all making America ‘greater than it’s ever been.’

Educate the mind, keep up the body, free the soul. All power to the brothers and sisters of the struggle… We are one nation. INDIVISIBLE, with JUSTICE FOR ALL…

Prompt: Write an essay, make art, or write a poem answering the following:

What is your experience with racism? Can it be conquered or overcome? Do you have ideas how to do it?

With the special session coming up, they say there’s a chance for change within the system. Do you see that helping or hurting chances at overcoming racism and achieving justice?

-Q. Patterson

Sleep in Peace, by Brandon Hope

Awake behind walls of concrete,
Stay away wicked thoughts of deceit,
My appearance and my name is clean,
The truth lies in my thoughts and my dreams.

Drift asleep and nightmares are present,
wide awake and life’s still unpleasant.
Through the pain, hate is the norm.
Utilize love and make it form
the new norm,
a brand new society,
one where to get justice –
there’s no need for rioting.
Where there will be no battles where none should exist,
Now I understand why we hold up our fist.

The power’s in us, united at least.
Once we accomplish this goal,
I can sleep in peace.

– Brandon C. L. Hope, From Hampton, VA

POLICE REFORM: Communities

The prospect of police reform has recently become a new topic of debate on the national stage. This movement was sparked by the outrage the George Floyd video caused. The world watched in horror as a Black man was murdered by a White cop who kept his knee on his neck for 8:46. Law enforcement has the authority to deprive American citizens of their life and liberty. After George Floyd, America must now question should anyone be given such a right?

In my book, APOTHEOSIS LORD SERIOUS HAKIM ALLAH’S HABEAS CORPUS APPEAL, I predicted that the problem of police brutality would never be solved until the police were held accountable to the communities that they patrol. Who is policing the police? Who do they answer to? If it is not the community that they serve, then why do you expect them not to abuse their power? Especially, when White cops patrolling impoverished Black communities have an ‘us vs. them’ mentality every time they put on their uniform. They do not see the members of my community as their fellow neighbors. They do not have enough respect for us as their fellow citizens to respect our rights. When they arrest us, we are not promised to live long enough to even make it to a courtroom to have our day in court. Too often, White police officers play the role of judge, jury, and executioner for the unarmed Black man.

So, I think society needs to take the power out of the police union’s hands and give the power of oversight of the American police force back to the communities that these officers patrol. They need to make filing a complaint against an offending officers easier. Citizens should be able to file complaints online. They shouldn’t be required to drive down to the station, because some of them don’t even have cars.

I also want to see state legislatures to pass laws that will keep track of how many people are shot by police. The FBI keeps track of all crime, however, they do not keep track of how many unarmed Black men are being killed by police. And they also need to make laws that specifically define what excessive force is, and when it is appropriate to use. When the laws are too ambiguous, this is what allows offending officers to avoid being held accountable.

I think all officers on the scene should also be required to intervene when another officer is using excessive force. With these changes, the police can be better regulated and controlled. Peace.

– Lord Serious Hakim Allah / J. Boughton Jr., Chesapeake, VA #1404741

Take a Stand for What’s Right

It is a tragedy that many lives have been taken in the same way that George Floyd’s life was taken. In fact, it’s by the very ones who have the responsibility of protecting the lives of everyone in society. This is not an issue that has only occured once or twice, but has happened so often throughout the past, that it has a pattern of resurfacing whenever the time is right. Although these officers are the ones who are to blame for the lives that were taken, we as a society have opened the doors for things like this to happen. I’m not saying that we do not deserve better treatment, but what I am saying is that if we took responsibility for our own well being and the well being of those around us rather than waiting for someone to give us what is rightfully ours anyway, law enforcement would only be used when it was appropriate in situations like the ones we face today… where lives are taken by the authorities for no reason at all, the one who committed the murder would be facing the same punishment any civilian would face for the exact same crimes.

The only thing that I see fit for the times that we live in is that everyone gain their independence. What I mean by this is each and every one of us is in a much better position to carry out justice by educating ourselves and encouraging others. We shouldn’t continue to depend on the same ones who are threatening our livelihood day after day for protection. Everyone who decides to take a stand for what is right, prevents things like this from happening again.

My name is Shaveek Pittman and I am currently behind the walls of LVCC Lawrenceville, Va and I hope that all who read this are encouraged to keep striving for a brighter future.

– Shaveek Pittman

Keep on Marching

How much longer do we have to march the streets in protest?

Our words can be seen from space, but we’re still not being heard.

We are still being killed in public, beaten in public and our young generations are being harassed and/or arrested for petty crimes just to have them in the system instead of being given a warning or a citation.

It took a deadly virus (I call a blessing in disguise, even though I’ve lost family and friends) to remove the blind fold from our eyes and now we can see all the injustice world wide.

— I believe the President is trying so desperately hard to reopen businesses to put the blind fold back on us, so we can no longer see the injustice and continued brutality from the police, to get the people back to work to stop the protest of the Black Lives Matter movement. —

Keep on marching as long as you can until we are heard; do not let them put the blinds fold back on. Black Lives Matter!

– Brandon Henry #1493358
Woodbridge, Va

Prompt: ‘Criminal Cop’ Justice Reform

The conceptual lines that formed the basis for the childhood game of cops and robbers has been destroyed.

Though many of us knew of the ambiguity associated with criminals and law enforcement projected in mob movies by the depiction of the crooked cop, and ambiguity through the vicious images of cops’ mistreatment of black lives captured during the civil rights movement, the idea hasn’t been accepted on such a mainstream scale as easily as it has today. That’s with good reason I suppose: law enforcement’s intricate roll in the operation of society. Many would love to maintain the illusion of a perfect system (a perfect cop), rather than accept the fact that the system is finite and many people lose their lives at the present of its inconsistencies. So the back draft of the collective societal thought passes the blame on to the less essential. They will say: “Why are the cops killing black people? They must be doing something wrong…” But the presence of social media, free of expert commentators, leaves no room for harsh realities to be ignore any longer. The truth is becoming clearer – the ones sent to serve and protect have done so, not so much with communities in mind, but serving in the further corruption of their departments and unions, protecting shady cops from prosecution for their crimes of mishandling lives in their charge.

The term ‘criminal justice reform’ has taken on a new skin… in the matter of less than a year. This reform is now focused on the policing of cops… a funny idea if I should say so myself. The administrators of policy and law still have to administer laws, even if they’re new ones, right? That thought itself gives me goosebumps… as I’m not sure exactly how to ‘police’ police better. Honestly, I thought the implementation of the body cams would suffice for effective policing of police, and yet others have lost their lives with mysteriously no body cam footage of the account… only civil bystanders armed with phone mounted cameras, capturing truths that would of otherwise been buried in mounds of disinformation and political jargon – aimed at furthering the decades old agenda of being “tough on crime…”

Writing Prompt Assignment:
What further can we do as a society to make sure that lives like George Floyd’s aren’t taken without healthy fear of prosecution?

Write your experiences with criminal cops. Write your ideas (if any) for changing the way cop are held to the letter of the law. Write between 2-5 paragraphs, if possible.

Make sure you add your name and any other information you might want people to know about you.

– Q. Patterson, Creator, Organizer, Writer, VADOC #1392272

Editor’s Note: If you or someone you know (incarcerated or formerly incarcerated) wants to write on this prompt this month and be featured on BrillianceBehindBars.com, send an email to yourlovedoneq@gmail.com with the essay and bio to review, or we can add inmate numbers to our Brilliance Behind Bars JPay to allow them to contact us directly.

2020: The Seed of Freedom

The halfway point has arrived, establishing this year as the tilling: the cracking of the ground and ingrained systemic racism – granting some air to the fertile soil of change that has desperately been fighting for breath.

A pandemic – resembling a biblical pestilence; and protest – resembling a spiritual famine… what is this? The exodus? Who knows what powers are at work. But what is known (and is clear) are the frustrations baring down on the souls of the free… and now those souls seek the surface…

The pandemic has given time to those who were too engulfed in their own daily struggles to see the lifetime national collective struggle of our country and our world. Protests, like the pandemic, have reached beyond seas and touch minds and hearts of blacks, whites, and all colors of multiple nationalities that believe in the ideals of equality and freedom perpetuated and woefully being contradicted by our country. Those contradictions stand to tear the free world apart. But ever-resilient is the spirit of mankind, and even more pervasive is the spirit of freedom that drives man to fight.

To fight from chains onto an identity.
To fight from poverty onto prosperity.

We must not forget, injustice festers in a state of complacency. Forever vigilant, is the eye of the one who fights for freedom. The energy for the movement towards true change is robust, but momentous. We cannot allow the visions of truth and justice to flee once this one ceiling gives way. And when I say we, I say ALL who believe, faithfully, that justice and equality are more substantial than empty undertones hinting to a state unattainable by the human family.

Some people profess: “well if the pandemic didn’t hit, then this wouldn’t be as intense,” or “If we had a different president, we wouldn’t be going through this.” All could be true. Even so, I myself believe that even when others like to disregard it in these tragic times, everything happens for a reason. Even the struggling is purposeful. Us, as a nation having to endure Trump, having to suffer through coronavirus, and the tragic loss of George Floyd, each egregious event holds its stake in the change to come.

I spoke with my mother one day and expressed my depression, seeing the early stage of the protests turning violent. My mother thought I was depressed because the people were violent. I told her it wasn’t that the people were violent, it was because the people they felt HAD to be violent in order to be heard… that tension over what is clearly a mistreatment of human rights was ignored to the point of explosion… My mother then reminded me that ‘change takes time, and the more monumental the change, the more time it it’ll take…’ She said her grandmother was a slave, her mother lived through civil rights, and she endured the social injustices of the 70’s. Now, our generation, and its youth, masses of whites, blacks, Asians; the modern make of America, take to the streets to push even harder towards equality’s inevitable fruition.

The seed of freedom has been sown in every lasts one of us.

Even in their most hopeless conditions, our ancestors nurtured that seed for generations, and for the generations to come. Now, that seed has pushed beyond the dirt. It has pushed beyond the unknown and hypothetical. To greet and take in the sun and its light… to take in its truth.

We NOW know. The idea of freedom and equality are no longer ambiguous or relegated to some seemingly special privileged class of people. No. It is known now that freedom is an inalienable right of every one human being ingrained in the soil of all who are blessed to take part in the life. So no, I am not distraught by the fighting. Because those who fight, are fighting for what is theirs…

May the souls of every person be aflame with the fires of freedom.

May every tear and drop of blood not be in vain, nor let the blood cool over illusions of freedom.

Continue to fight with every bit of your life, because the world of tomorrow is authored by the heroes of today…

Forever my love and strength to the movement,
Q. Patterson

Cover Photo from B.L. Patterson, Q’s brother

Fear: Writing Prompt

The year of 2020 was anticipated with promise of change. Many of us prisoners here in Virginia were looking towards possibility of some relief, but as quickly as that light came, brilliant and burning with hope, the quicker that flame was doused and the gloom of despair and uncertainty reclaimed the reigns of our community. This time, the darkness came in a form fit for global impact – a pandemic. pestilence. 2020: affectionately dubbed the year of clarity and vision by most of us, has quickly wrapped into 2020: the year of the coronavirus.

Incarcerated populations across America have been affected by the disease at various rates. On the low end, staff’s refusal to work in possibly infected areas is slowing operations. At the high end, the highly communicable virus rapidly spreading throughout the confined quarters of prison communities, where social distancing is literally impossible.

So far, there is no apparent sign that the virus is here at Lawrenceville, but the proliferation of COVID-19 across cable television, the woes of our family members by phone, the statewide directives locking down prisons, and distributing sneeze guards keep fears fluid and real from one side of the gates to another.

Fear: the surrender of the help that comes from reason.

Behind the walls, fear is king. As incarcerated people, we deal with a set of fears most others do not. We depend on staff for almost every necessity. If conditions became somewhat apocalyptic and society destabilizes, prisoners will either be legally executed or abandoned in cells to futilely fend for themselves… a fear permanently etched in the back of the mind, and at the center is the motivation for all fear — the idea of survival.

Prompt: Define fear in your words. What are some of your fears? How do you see yourself overcoming them? What do you think could be done to alleviate today’s fears of sickness and death?

– Quadaire Patterson, Creator, Organizer, Writer VADOC #1392272

Editor’s Note: If you or someone you know wants to write on this prompt this month and be featured on BrillianceBehindBars.com, send an email to yourlovedoneq@gmail.com with the essay and bio to review, or we can add inmate numbers to our Brilliance Behind Bars JPay to allow them to contact us directly.

F.L.Y

“Martin crawled, so that Malcolm could walk.
Malcolm walked, so that Obama could run.
Obama ran, so that we could fly!”

This is the process that pioneers of human right and revolution sacrificed their life for and its quotes, like this one, that intrigue me and inspire me to find a just cause in this life and defend it from injustice.

One would say, “What are we fighting for in 2020? ” I would answer that question with the above quote… In my opinion, we as citizens of America, have two common enemies: oppression, and ignorance. Oppression is the main reason, so I would say that we are fighting to f.l.y. (free lives, yes!)

Freedom is based on being unbounded, and/or unrestricted in all realities of life. Life is to be lived in peace, so when you ( as a human being) are treated inhumanely you tend to rebel against the source of oppression. Maya Angelou’s “I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings” sums up the point I’m expressing. Peace!

– Romello Harris, #1987153, Greensboro, North Carolina
Aspiring Singer/Producer