Letters to an Incarcerated Brother: Encouragement, Hope, and Healing for Inmates and Their Loved Ones

by Hill Harper

  Even if you end up in the Box again, just remember that any desire you have to make an impact must be based on your highest aspirations. And the actions you take and choices you make should all be geared toward building the needed foundation. That foundation must be strong enough to support those big aspirations. As long as that’s the case, you have a perfect right to dream big. You have a perfect right to dream about making a huge impact. All those amazing things you can and will achieve. Because you’re amazing! You’ll do so much more than simply survive—you’ll thrive! And I can’t tell you how excited I am about your future!

  It’s already time for me to head out to the airport. I got to fly to Detroit to speak before the Skillman Foundation, a place working to develop good schools and good neighborhoods for children. I’ll have to tell you about my time in jail in the next letter.

  Treat yourself, don’t beat yourself.

  Peace,

  Hill

  THRIVE

  LETTER 8

  What Is a Slave?

  You felt that life was acting upon you instead of feeling like you were in control. You became a worker instead of a thinker. You became a follower instead of a leader—a slave, actually.

  —Stedman Graham

  Dear Brotha,

  Hey, man. You’ve been on my mind a lot. I’ve been hoping that you’ve been taking the time to do the positive visualizations I asked you to practice. I’ll be honest, imagining your time in the Box set me off balance for a little while. You told me you’d gone to work to make a chart to tape to your cell wall—a “master list,” as you called it, of your assets and liabilities. You seem really hyped about it. What I like best about it is that you’re going to use it to figure out a plan. What I call a “blueprint for your life.” Although you’re going to “dream big,” you’re not going to pull that dream out of the air. You’re going to base it on the things you think you’re good at or have the potential to be good at. We all have different degrees of different skills and talents. The goal is to cultivate yours in areas that you enjoy and can and will succeed in.

  So, I haven’t had a chance to tell you about my “being in jail.” A couple weeks ago, I was in my dressing room at CSI: NY—we’re halfway through shooting the season—and one of the production assistants brought my fan mail into my dressing room. I was going through it, and I got to a thick packet. I looked at where it was from. It was from a jail in upstate New York, so I opened it up. The first thing that came to my mind was you. “Why did they transfer him to a jail up there?” I thought to myself. Because it wasn’t even a prison, it was jail, like the one where you are now. So I opened the packet, and inside it there was a series of pictures of some young cats in prison uniforms holding copies of Letters to a Young Brother.

  Also in that packet were these letters from these young dudes, all of whom are between the ages of seventeen and twenty-one. They were part of the mandatory GED program. They’d given these speeches at their graduation from the GED class, using my book as the basis for them.

  I was kind of blown away, so I called the warden and said, “Um, thanks very much. What happened exactly?” And he said, “One of the teachers knew about your book and decided to do this program. Eleven of the GED students volunteered to be part of it. We call ’em ‘the Program Kids.’ I’ve got a whole lot of knuckleheads.”

  Now, listen to the words he’s using. Right? It really hit me the wrong way. “I got to step into this,” I told myself, “if I care at all about those kids who asked for my book.” So I told the warden, “Well, okay. Let me send you some more books for all the students in your GED program.” Then I hit up Amazon and ordered twenty copies of the book for them. Because I figured they needed more. That’s all I did. Then suddenly, I thought of you again, and a light bulb went off in my head. I immediately called the warden back and said, “What if I come down there early next week, so I can meet with some of these young men and rap to them about my program MANifest Your Destiny? And how about if I get everyone in your—” You see, I almost said school, though I don’t know why I didn’t think I could say school, but I said, “I want to get everybody in your correctional facility a book. How many?” He said, “There’s eighty-eight.” So I called up Amazon again and ordered sixty-eight more copies of the book.

  The following week, I had a few days off so I flew to New York City and took the train far to the north to upstate New York. I walked into this correctional facility to meet these young men and talk to them about my book. But before I did, I thought of you again and I said to myself, “I have to find out what this place is like so I can better imagine how my Brotha is living.” So I asked for a tour, and one of the deputies—he’d read my book, too, and seen me on TV—said he’d be glad to help.

  “I have to find out what this place is like so I can better imagine how my Brotha is living.”

  Turned out that, just like you, some of them had been there for eight or nine months. First the deputy took me to the ground floor. He called it “Entry.” That was for people who’d just been brought in and were waiting to be taken before the judge.

  No, it wasn’t like the movies I’d made playing the role of an inmate or the things I’d read about incarceration. It wasn’t even like what I’d imagined when I talked about it with the people I know who have been incarcerated or what I’d pictured when I thought of you. There weren’t rows of bars and cells with dudes’ arms sticking out from them. This place was very cold and modern, almost like a lab. There were very narrow holding rooms, with thick doors and thick glass windows, and just a bench coming out from the wall. And some of the people inside looked like they’d been there for many hours, even more than a day. Some of the doors had narrow trapdoors cut into them, so that a meal on a tray could be threaded inside the room without unlocking the door or having to get near the person locked inside.

  Then the deputy took me to the top floor, the isolation pod—solitary, I guess—for the troublemakers, which must be kind of like the one you were just in. Their cells were even narrower than the holding rooms on the ground floor, and all of the doors had those slots with trapdoors. The entire pod was filled with a disgusting smell. Seems one of the guys had lost it entirely. He was locked in there completely nude, and he was smearing his feces on the thick window of his cell. They weren’t going to unlock that cell to clean it up until he gave up and sat down. It had been going on for most of the day. And I thought again of you dealing with an atmosphere like that, and a voice inside me said, “I’m sorry, Brotha, I’m so fucking sorry, man.”

  So I suppose you were right in a way. You couldn’t have explained to me what it was like in a million years. Just like you said. If I want to start at “square one” with you, this is where we start. I must admit that I almost gave in to a sense of defeat, almost got to the point of saying to myself, “What’s the use?”

  OUR LADY OF LOCKUP

  That mood changed, however, after my tour of the prison was over. You see, the deputy dropped me off to a counselor who works in that jail and several others. Her name is Cindy Franz. Her office was like some kind of oasis away from the world I’d just seen. A clean, flowery smell. Books everywhere. Pictures from the last graduation. Some fake flowers in a vase on one of the bookcases.

  I began asking her questions about the inmates, and she stopped me right there. She told me that the supervisor of education in that jail prefers to call them “students,” not “inmates.” I realized I could have called this place a school to her and she would have just nodded. She was that cool. And to prove her point, she began loading me up with all kinds of educational resources. I’m slipping some of them inside this letter and telling you where you can send away for others.1 Not everything mentioned is available where you are now, but learning about these services will make you ready to reach out for them if they come along when you’re sent elsewhere.

  There were booklets about getting a “certificate
of relief,” an official document that can restore some of a prisoner’s social rights once he gets on the outside. A pamphlet describing how the local school district is working with the prison to offer courses and training. A handbook of legal terms that anybody incarcerated can use if he decides to put together an appeal. A new work-release program meant to provide jobs for people once they get out, and details about how a local company has decided to take part in it and hire some of them. A prerelease workbook called Living on the Outside that covers a variety of situations when you have just gotten out, from getting your ID and other documents, to a list of jobs that might be right for you, to tips about writing résumés and cover letters. Let somebody in your family (your aunt?) know about all these and collect some of this information while you do the same.

  Do you know what that workbook said on the cover? It said, “You’ve been dreaming of the day when you’ll walk out of here. But once on the outside, you’ll need a plan to succeed. This handbook can help you build your future—starting right now.”

  Once I was loaded up with these resources, I sat down with Cindy to talk for a minute. I figured she could teach me a few things. We discussed some of the reasons for the enormous increase in the incarcerated population. That increase owes a lot to the Rockefeller drug laws, penalties for drug use and sales that were pushed into law by New York governor Nelson Rockefeller in 1973. And the subsequent so-called war on drugs and other woefully misguided statutes, such as life sentences derived from a baseball rule! Yeah, “three strikes and you’re out” is a cute slogan for politicians getting elected but it hasn’t been so cute for nonviolent drug offenders facing life in prison. Across the country people began getting life sentences for what would have been considered a near-misdemeanor just a few years before. But hey, outside of locking people up, baseball is “America’s favorite pastime.” OK, lemme stop.

  VOLUNTEERING FOR SLAVERY

  One of the statements that popped out of Cindy’s mouth stunned me for a moment. She said, “I tell all my students who become repeaters, ‘You’re volunteering for slavery.’” When I left the jail and took the train back to the city, what Cindy said began to sink in. My head started spinning. Thinking about the history of slavery in this country. Thinking about you and our letters. As I rode east toward Albany, I tried to put all of it out of my mind, but I couldn’t. So that very evening at my place in New York, I found myself putting on an old DVD: Antwone Fisher. Ever seen it?

  I wasn’t aware of it that night, but something in me wanted to review that scene in the movie where the army therapist, played by Denzel Washington, tries to explain to the troubled soldier he is treating why the foster mother and her daughter he was placed with treated him with such vicious brutality. The therapist says that the members of that foster family were victims of post-traumatic slave syndrome, a condition passed down from the survival behaviors of American slaves.

  “I tell all my students who become repeaters, ‘You’re volunteering for slavery.’”

  The therapist in Antwone Fisher was essentially telling his patient that some African-Americans abuse each other just as they were once abused by their white masters. They don’t know any other game, and they’ve “identified with their aggressors.” A researcher named Joy DeGruy Leary has studied the syndrome in detail and wrote a book about it called Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome: America’s Legacy of Enduring Injury and Healing, if you’re interested.

  Do you know why I’m talking about this? It was Cindy Franz’s remarks about “volunteering for slavery” that drew me into the subject. If you compare the option-stealing measures of the prison system to slave-owner strategies, the similarities are almost mind-blowing. Southern slave owners prevented their slaves from learning to read and write when they could. It kept them isolated and dependent. We’ve already seen how forces in our jails work against reading and educational opportunities for prisoners. Like the slaves of the South, some of whom did learn to read and write despite their masters, you have to be wily and resourceful to get an education in prison. Oases of understanding like Cindy Franz are few and far between in prison. In most cases, the poor choice of training programs, the confiscation of books—it’s all there to weaken the resolve and know-how of prisoners. “They’re here to be punished, not rewarded” is the common refrain.

  There are those who would argue with that, saying a lack of books and courses is merely the result of a lack of funds and a disinterested government, but you and I already know how much of a cash cow the prison industrial complex is for some people. The for-profit prison business is booming. As is the cheap labor production within the prison system.

  One other strategy that kept Southern slaves dependent and helpless was violence. Fear of punishment kept them from defying their masters and often worked to set one slave against another. Does that remind you of prison as well? Violence between corrections officers and inmates, between prisoner and fellow prisoner, between gangs, ensures an atmosphere of fear and desperation and keeps the prison body ineffectual.

  Well, man, time for me to sign off. My head is weary just thinking about these complex issues. And I’m pissed off I don’t have the answers. I hope you don’t mind, but I suggested to Cindy that she try to start a correspondence with you, too. It certainly wouldn’t hurt to have two mentors on your side, would it?

  Much love,

  Hill

  VOLUNTEER TO EXCEL

  PART 2

  A LEAP OF FAITH

  LETTER 9

  Doing Time

  Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life.

  —Steve Jobs

  They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself.

  —Andy Warhol, The Philosophy of Andy Warhol

  Hey, Brotha,

  You know what? I’m about to write some things I know you don’t want to hear. Maybe I’m mad at myself; maybe I’m frustrated with you. Hold up. There’s no “maybe.” I’m writing this with some frustration in my heart, but it’s real. It’s honest. If you want to tear this letter up and use it as toilet paper, go ahead. Best of luck with the edges. You see, Cindy Franz told me how you answered her letter. That answer makes you look bad. But because I suggested she write to you and offer to help you, the way you answered makes me look bad, too.

  “Just send money,” you wrote. “I could use some smokes, and more money for the commissary. Oh, yeah, here are the names of a couple CDs I can use. Isn’t much I can do but wait while I’m stuck here doing time.”

  I couldn’t believe that, man! Who did you think you were talking to? Especially since she included all those leads for correspondence courses in her letter. To say I’m disappointed in you doesn’t even capture how I am feeling. I am so pissed! Not to mention all that “victim” shit you piled on. Making sure she knew you’d had lousy parents, had no money for college, were denied scholarships, saw your older brother sent away to prison for eighteen years, lived with a cold and uncaring aunt, were expected to pay child support for a son after your girl became pregnant, blah, blah, blah. C’mon, fam! And the way you presented it: All this stuff “happened” to you. I thought we agreed that nothing merely “happens,” that even a life of passivity is a life of choice with its own consequences. Stop letting anger put you in situations you don’t deserve. Nobody owes you shit. The sooner you realize this, the sooner you’ll start living.

  Nothing merely “happens.” Even a life of passivity is a life of choice with its own consequences.

  LIFE IN THE TREETOPS

  I was still thinking of your excuses for trying to con money and merchandise out of Cindy when I dragged myself out of bed this morning at the crack of dawn. It’s below freezing in New York already, too cold for fall. Ain’t nobody got time for that. But I’m still determined to get in an early-morning run before the responsibilities of the day swallow me up. I wanted to take my mind off the c
old and you, so I began thinking about something I went to a while ago.

  Last spring, I went to a really cool conference called TED, which stands for “Technology, Entertainment, Design.” They invite fifty exceptional people to the conference who are doing something edgy in these fields, and each of them has only eighteen minutes to go onstage and present their ideas with talks, slides, videos, and live demonstrations.

  I happened to walk into the place just as a woman named Nalini Nadkarni was up there, talking about her life in the treetops. You heard me right: life in the treetops. In fact, in the world of science, they call her the “queen of canopy research.” Nalini has climbed trees on four continents with people from all walks of life—scientists, artists, clergymen, loggers, politicians, Inuits (look it up)—you name it. She wrote a book about those experiences called Between Earth and Sky: Our Intimate Connections to Trees, and that’s what she presented: what they call the canopy, the world of treetops.1

  I had no idea I was in store for yet another example of serendipity, because soon it was clear that Nalini was going to talk not just about trees, but about time. And not just about time, but about prisons! And this happened just a week before I got your first letter from jail.

  Now . . . you’ve made it clear that you think of yourself as stuck in jail and that your life’s on hold, right? You think of yourself as being in a state of stasis. Because you’re locked up, you’re as rooted to that jail cell as a tree is rooted to the ground. After all, trees can’t go anywhere, even if they want to. But Nalini Nadkarni has another take on trees, and she explained it like this: “Trees epitomize stasis. Trees are rooted in the ground in one place for many human generations, but if we shift our perspective from the trunk to the twigs, trees become very dynamic entities, moving and growing.”