Criminal Justice Reform

[Music]

imagine you’re a 12 year old child

being awakened before dawn by the

screens of gunshots

and premature death

leaving for school in the morning

greeted by

yellow tape white chalk

and the smell of gunpowder while

fighting to maintain your balance

slipping on shells of ammunition

and empty crack cocaine vials

on your journey to school you see blood

caked into the concrete from someone’s

soul having bled

from their corpse just a few hours

earlier

you look in every direction of your

village

and see nothing but the reality

of death despair

and the curse of intergenerational

illiteracy

and poverty all denying you

the audacity to hope for anything better

you’re mere blocks away from the u.s

capitol

u.s supreme court and the white house

this was my village the village that

raised me in the nation’s capital

in the 1980s and 90s

a time when first lady hillary clinton

published a book titled it takes a

village

after the african proverb it takes a

village to raise a child

and first lady nancy reagan

was telling children to just say no

but my village it never afforded me a

choice

my village didn’t teach me no

my village it only showed me

yes

in the early 1990s a professor

at princeton university wrote a report

that labeled me and other teenage black

boys

as super predators

godless fatherless and jobless

his assertion was supported by lawmakers

who changed policy to make it easier

to try children as adults in the

criminal injustice system

and to sentence them in prison for the

remainder

of their lives

on january 21st

1997 one of those

cold gun powder mornings

i was charged with being accomplished to

a murder

at trial the alleged shooter

had all the charges dismissed against

him

but yet i was convicted a super predator

in the flesh and sentenced

under the accomplice liability doctrine

to two indeterminate life sentences

we were just kids yet the village

fell to raise us instead of pouring love

into us they just threw us into cages

we see greatness was always within us

even before the life sentence

we were just under 18. yet everyone

forgot

that we were just human beings

super predators became our label

that we were children became a fable

converted us into juvenile lifers

but look at what just three years did

the khalif router on rikers

yet we served decades and still

remain whole with the power

of love igniting our soul

we just wanted society to accept us with

open arms

give us a second chance to bring

love and not harm

from lockdown to georgetown

we just needed someone to believe

that justice also encompasses mercy

and redemption is possible for all

to achieve

at 16 i’d become a character

in the dehumanizing narrative

labeling children whose village never

gave them a chance

whose leaders punished the children

instead of the village

a contrived and misguided story

told over and over

again that led to me

being convicted of a murder

that i did not commit

but that story there see that will end

with me

my teenage years in confinement begged a

new question

if it takes a village to raise a child

what happens when the village fails

are we to punish the innocent child for

actualizing

the intergenerational realities of

poverty

illiteracy drug and alcohol abuse

and gun violence or will we

also hold accountable the caretakers of

the village

fulfilling to create and sustain a more

loving

and healthy environment for its children

i will cry for the little boy

in shackles and away from home

i will cry for the little boy

trapped in a cell all alone

i will cry for the little boy whose

heart

is too cold to weep

see i will cry for that little boy whose

pain

never lets him sleep

i will cry for the little boy he was

buried alive

in the burning sand i will cry for the

little boy

sentenced to life like a man

i will cry for the little boy who knows

that his soul is in chains

i will cry for that little boy his

spirit died

again and again

i will cry for the little boy a good boy

he tried

to be i will cry for that little boy

that died inside of me

i published 11 books

during my 22 years of incarceration

words were my only freedom

inside of my cage i discovered

that children are merely a reflection of

the adults

that they see if they are loving human

beings

then it’s because of a nurturing village

that invested love

and care into their development

if children are the monsters super

predators

and menaces society label them to be

then they can only be a reflection of

the village that failed to create a

healthy and humane

environment for them to develop

into productive members of our

collective society

i am a super predator the child

that we cast away

flushed down the school the prison

pipeline

for decades in a cage too late

see my soul strolls the confederacy

river

well i cannot call massa mister

strange fruit vulture pig from the

linton tree

what so would dare compose a song for me

see i am nothing but a menace to society

with no big will for god’s grace to

carry me

to a place where my foot won’t slip

beneath

the sand to drown

as a man child in this promised land

so my soul would decompose in a cage for

22 years

made in the veneer of america’s fears

who will fight for the child that the

village failed to raise

with no audacity to hope for better days

is it possible for a child to transcend

the confines

of their environment of course

but it is not the child’s responsibility

to create a loving village to nurture

them

into healthy adults if children are not

responsible enough to vote

to serve on a jury or to hold political

office

then it is not fair to expect them to

exercise the maturity to overcome the

inter

intergenerational barriers within their

homes

communities and our society see i

believe in the transformative power of

love

radical love for self for those who love

you

and even those who may hate you

in my decades of confinement it was the

transformative powers

of literature and the arts along with

revolutionary love that gifted me

the audacity to hope that i can be more

than a super predator that my village

labeled me to be

i’m not going to write poems about

people judging people

see i’ma write poems and speak about

people loving people

because the problem is much bigger than

just class

and race see it’s not a political war

but a spiritual battle between love

and hate if it’s going to take a village

then our villages are going to need love

so when they see us they don’t see us as

killers

and thugs so when they see us

they see us and don’t judge so when they

see

us they see us with us

full of love

it’s not about conservatives and

liberals reaching across the aisle

it’s about reaching into our hearts to

extend a loving smile

see these labels are fables that

separate us from our truths

we all need to weed the weeds to see the

love

in our roots

love is the revolution

and compassion be our bullets

empathy is the trigger for forgiveness

to pull it freedom

is our target and unconditional love

be our goal with civic engagement

starting at the seat of our soul

grace plays the symphony as just mercy

leads the band

for the lady of liberty to love

and accept all in this land

the coronavirus pandemic taught us all

how it feels to be isolated

in a way from the people places

and things that we love the most

we’ve learned what it feels like to live

in fear of the shadow of death

waiting for us on our doorsteps

and we’ve experienced how deeply

interconnected

we all really are

regardless of the superficial barriers

of race gender

and class

and perhaps in being denied

the physical touch we became

aware of just how critical

to our joy and happiness and our

survival

that it is to be able to just have the

opportunity

to reach out to another with love

what does the revitalization of love

look like in our state of the union

today

lady liberty puts out a call

to the world give me your tired

your poor your huddle mass is yearning

to breathe free

why do we stifle living breath

when she promises hope

why do we choke the call for justice

when she promises all equality

why do we end the life when all

any of us want to do is breathe

the village fails when it does not love

we fail when we do not love ourselves

when we fail to love ourselves

it is impossible for us to love others

when we fail to love our children

we forsake our own future i believe

in the transformative power of love

thank you

you