Practice Prevention and Self preservation without Offense
Stay Focused on Constructive Pursuits
Chose Friends Carefully
Beware media Exploiters
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NEVER put yourself in the path of, or in any way up against the power,
processes and personnel of the US criminal justice or judiciary criminal divisions—not
out of weakness or irrational fear but as a practical matter of self
preservation.
Stay focused on life. Spend time
constructively. If you are born into a broken or otherwise dysfunctional home
and manage to grow to school age, go to school, pay attention and do your
lessons diligently, ask for help when you don’t understand (don’t be afraid or ashamed
to ask). Focus not on awards offered by others but focused on the reward of the
diligent doing—doing a job well (to the
best of your ability), whether in school, during the school day, or in some
other decent labor after the school day.
In that constructive time, plan ahead—plan to have a better job and
live a better life, not compared with others; but just adequate for yourself, a
decent life in decent surroundings.
Save your money—decent money. Prostitution money, drug money, casino money
are not examples of decent money. Such moneymaking portends a path toward entry
into the arms of US criminal divisions. In the developmental years, take a
little job and save little by little.
Mind your choice of friends. Be selective, discriminating (discriminating is a good word in this
context). Use your instincts. If a person’s behavior seems questionable (if
her or his associates appear dodgy), steer clear, no matter how attractive they
may seem; no matter how much you’d like to have friends. The world is vast with
potential friends and associates.
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eware media personalities.
One of the problems I have with major media (left and right) is that
they use people, often encouraging the
wrong kind of behavior, even illegal behavior aimed at attracting (shocking or
misinforming) listeners or viewers.
The Democracy Now! program is
such an exploiter. While its principals seem to employ no American Negroes (an
old term but more accurate than the contemporary terms) among their
broadcasting anchors, they seem tireless in dragging Negroes into their
features on “black stuff,” “black” issues or “black” problems as if America’s
problems are color coded and separate or segregated.
One radio program comes out and uses the words “Black America,” framing
a separate America in the minds of listeners—as also separate blue, red, black,
left, right, white, “of color” (the divisions are unlimited) Americas.
Democracy Now’s Amy Goodman gave prominent air space to a young student,
a young female student, who was committing a crime of vandalism by climbing on
to and attempting to tear down a historic statue. Goodman is still doing this
with women injured in Portland. She is aiding and abetting criminal behavior
that these young women—not Amy Goodman—will pay for as they will inevitably come
into contact, even collide, with US criminal justice or judiciary criminal divisions
and their processes, personnel, and prisons.
No moment or quest for fame or infamy, no instance of reducing oneself
to the hand of an exploiter or the mendacious mind of a manipulator—is worth putting
one’s life and opportunities jeopardy; and, even worse, losing one’s life and
future entirely.
These two women, one in Portland, Oregon, another at UNC Chapel Hill,
North Carolina will pay for their bad judgment and criminal acts. I say this not as a person who opposes
protests; but as one who opposes lawlessness (violence, criminal or
undisciplined behavior, irrational thinking and acting out), no matter who
commits it—whether president or plumber, politician or pauper, regardless to
color, creed or any number of superficial variations one might present or
impose.
Often a desired end or rather a constructive end is a matter of means chosen to achieve that end.
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hese thoughts congealed into an essay as I was listening to “Outbreak at San
Quentin,” Snap Judgment’s July 23, 2020 edition:
“the story of the devastating
COVID-19 outbreak at San Quentin State Prison, as told by people on the inside.”
“At the time of this
recording, 13 people from San Quentin have died due to coronavirus, bringing
the total number of lives lost in California prisons to 40.
“While people inside
San Quentin and other detention facilities across the country are faced with
the threat of coronavirus, it is not just them who are affected. This piece is
made up of a collection of letters from people on the outside trying to reach their
loved ones currently behind bars.”
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an Quentin
- A court-ordered report released in 2005 found that San Quentin was ‘old, antiquated, dirty, poorly staffed, poorly maintained with inadequate medical space and equipment and overcrowded.’
- In 2020, San Quentin became the center of a COVID-19 outbreak, after a group of prisoners were transferred to San Quentin from the California Institution for Men in Chino, California. Initial reports suggested that San Quentin officials were told that the new inmates had all tested negative. However, few of them had been tested at all.
- By June 22, 2020 at least 350 inmates and staff had tested positive, in what a federal judge called a ‘significant failure’ of policy.
San Quentin minimum–maximum prison opened July 1852
Managed by California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation
- Death row capacity (2015): 715 prisoners
- Capacity: 3,082
- Population total (April 2020): 3,776
Women sentenced to death in
California are driven to San Quentin to be executed.
California’s Top Men: Governors in the recent era
- November 17, 2003 – January 3, 2011: Arnold Alois Schwarzenegger
- Former Austrian (US immigrant) professional bodybuilder, actor, businessman, and January 22, 1990 – May 27, 1993 US presidents George H. W. Bush and William Jefferson Blythe Clinton’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sports Chairman
- January 3, 2011-January 7, 2019: Edmund Gerald Brown Jr
- Former Attorney General of California, January 9, 2007 – January 3, 2011; and Mayor of Oakland January 4, 1999 – January 8, 2007
- January 7, 2019 – present: Gavin Christopher Newsom
- Former Lieutenant Governor of California January 10, 2011 – January 7, 2019; Mayor of San Francisco January 8, 2004 – January 10, 2011
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on’t end up in a San Quentin.
Don’t depend on papas and mamas or let them misguide you away from your better interests. Beware the Browns, Goodmans, Newsoms, and Schwarzeneggers.
Don't depend or be beholding
“Mama may have, Papa may have
But God bless the child that’s got his own”…
Them that’s got shall get / Them that’s not shall lose…
Rich relations give Crust of bread and such /
You can help yourself / But don’t take too much
“Mama may have, Papa may have
But God bless the child that’s got his own…”
Respect yourself and respect others.
Learn without internalizing the rough stuff, the vile, vulgar, and vicious, the violent.
Learn reflective thought and critical judgment; practice these always.
Kneel to no one.
Sources
Snap Judgment Season 11 – Episode 24 “Outbreak at San Quentin” Contributors:
Chanthon Bun, a producer now living on the outside; Greg Eskridge and Thanh
Tran, multimedia journalists currently incarcerated at San Quentin; Rasheed
Lockheart, narrator; Ant, Eric Phillips, and Alex Simon, storytellers; James
King from the Ella Baker Center and Adnan Khan from Restore Justice. Overall program
producer: Pat Mesiti-Miller and Ninna Gaensler-Debs; Original score by Pat
Mesiti-Miller; Artwork by Teo Ducot; Letters from Uncuffed. Broadcast July 23,
2020 (archived) https://snapjudgment.org/episode/outbreak-at-san-quentin/
Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Quentin_State_Prison
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arnold_Schwarzenegger
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gavin_Newsom
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerry_Brown
Written and performed by American legend Billie Holiday from the 1940s
on
“God Bless the Child” written by Billie
Holiday and Arthur Herzog, Jr. in 1939, first recorded on May 9, 1941 under the
Okeh label. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_1LfT1MvzI
Insight Beyond Today’s News, CLB - © All Rights
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