Remembering MLK Jr. -- A Prisoner's Perspective

Martin Luther King Jr., had a dream.... a dream that one day, people would be treated equally, judged on the content of their character and not the color of their skin. Essentially, a dream of justice. Not tipped in the favor of the white man, or in today's cases, the white man or the rich man. Slavery was abolished on paper, but still alive and well in other forms during King's time, conforming society in its evil grips. Like the slow takeover of Hitler, slavery creeps back in, in another form, but slowly introduced in a way as to not create alarm. Citizens, good people, become complacent and blind toward their brothers and sisters suffering. They are indoctrinated to believe that it's deserved, or just the way things are. Again, the black man, woman and child become victimized, caught in another government slavery- The American Prison System. The poor of all ethnicities fall with them because failure to afford a defense or be uneducated in the rules of engagement for the rich man's law results in an unfair balance, the weight of the world. The white man and rich man ignore it, saying that slavery is dead, an old issue, mostly because its a comfortable stance and they are unaffected. Mind over matter : they dont mind, so it doesn't matter. They give a little relief, mostly to soothe their conscience, like the First Step Act. They say "We are doing something, be patient and grateful". No! We have been patient long enough. What our government has been accommodating and enforcing is modern day slavery, not a dream but a nightmare. America's epic fail.

A prisoner works for $0.23 an hour, with 10% of their pay often withheld for various reasons. There are correctional enterprises and phone companies that collect the remaining amount of the prisoner's wage. Fat cat companies built on the backs of the exiled and defenseless, whose voices have been ignored because their credentials have been annihilated. But they are in prison, so they deserve it, right!?! The assault on humanity condoned by rich men and women who fail to see that the system is not set up to protect society, but rather to enslave it. Mass incarceration is now an issue. Is it because crime is on the rise? Or maybe because people stopped spanking their children? Or maybe, just maybe, it is the probation offices that prey on the drug addict, giving them unattainable goals with no help, baiting them to battle in another courtroom, only to be swallowed by "American Justice". Without significant money or a background in the language of law, they are doomed to be digested by a system that may never vomit them out. Or maybe it's the one who was excessively sentenced, because they learned the rules too late. Or maybe they suffer as mental health patients, and there is no place for them but to be chemically restrained in a system where they are just a number and cease to be a human being. At best, these PEOPLE get vomited out of incarceration smelling like felons, covered in ink and the pain from their past, convinced that society is no longer their home. So when have they paid their societal debt? When is punishment complete? You see, it's not about punishment at all. All of that is an illusion, a cover... for the corporations and companies that commit this modern day enslavement of America's people. This has become socially acceptable because we are "convicts". Former free world people. People who often are only one happening, one circumstance, from where you are right now, reading this in the comforts of your freedom. What happens when the cries are that of your Sons, Daughters, Mothers and Fathers? Suddenly that "convict" is human, they are real, and they matter. Dr. King said it best, that freedom belongs to ALL of God's children. Regardless of color, age or ability to afford a defense.

From concrete cages , to cinder block cells -- let freedom ring! From State to State, let Freedom ring! Freedom from the oppression of our government, ensuring that justice really is for all... let freedom ring so loud that it rattles the cages of all those enslaved, and all those whose time has not yet come.