The Glorious Life of a Peon

What if Neo from the “Matrix” was black? That is how I feel; lost in the system. I was asked to take the blue pill or the red pill. I chose not to conform. Prison is where the monotony of life breaks for a new monotony of life that is slower, stripped down, and without decoration. Someone should have seen the torn yard shorts I used to exercise in and play basketball in. Recently, they have allowed us to get jeans. I still don’t get any for fear of getting too comfortable. I frequently stitch my clothes instead of throwing them away; the armpit, torn pocket, sweats, whatever needs stitching. I have poorly stitched together thermal bottoms I should probably throw away. When the hot water is not working, I have to boil water in a hot pot and pour it in a bucket until it fills up and mix it with cold water. A broken hot pot makes a good skillet. Not many luxuries in this place. The only thing that is missing is the downloading of martial arts simulations.

The Racial Justice Act of 2020 was passed for people of color to gain relief in the criminal justice system if they can prove that racism played a role in their case. I can say right now, even if they got you dead bang they overcharge and over sentence. There are four ways the RJA works:

RJA pc.745 A1) when a judge, attorney, police officer, or expert witness showed bias towards the defendant because of their race, ethnicity, or national origin;

RJA pc.745 A2) when racially coded statements against defendant were said at trial;

RJA pc.745 A3) when the prosecution sought more severe charges against the defendant compared to other similarly situated cases in the county;

RJA pc.745 A4) when the court imposed a more severe sentence on the defendant compared to other similarly situated cases in the county.

Most county District Attorney’s offices do not want to turn over records that show disparages in sentencing. Seems pretty simple. If they’re not racist why couldn’t they just show how they sentence everybody? The system is so messed up, there is no way to right all these wrongs. Or maybe the system is operating just the way it is supposed to be. How can the government rewrite decades of locking people up for more time than was allowed? Brothers have spent a lot of time behind these walls. I wouldn’t be shocked if my Deputy District Attorney had deep roots in the Confederacy. If not, I see him being one of the men that fought for the north, not to help the African-Americans but because they couldn’t compete with the free labor the south got from the enslaved that was making the southern aristocracy. I was talking to some brothers at some of the tables on the yard. There were, at the least, four of us. We went around the table. “I got twenty-five years to life under three strikes.” Another one says “I got twenty-five years to life under three strikes.” “That’s crazy” we said in unison “These people are crazy.” All of us had twenty-five years to life under three strikes. (I found out in 2024 I had an illegal sentence under three strikes because I had never been to prison before. It was removed and the courts left on a twenty-five years to life for a one felony strike offense called the “One strike rule”.) None of us had murder, rape, or child molestation; which are said to be the most heinous crimes and still sometimes people who commit these types of crimes don’t get a sentence over twenty years. Something dawned on me. It reminded me of the little known practice of peonage in the United States during Jim Crow.

Peonage was a practice of forced labor the Spanish used on the landless class as de facto slavery in the Americas that was later used in the United States in the south. It was a compulsory servitude that was used to work off debt; a debt that could never be paid. In the U.S. it was as easy as a brother walking alone on a quiet, secluded, dusty railroad track, and being accused of vagrancy. Sun coming down just right, blue sky, with a nice breeze, and you’re whistling a tune that reminds you of how good it is to be free, on your way home to see your loving family. Your whole life ahead of you. A white man walks up to you and holds you at gunpoint with a double-barrel shotgun and says, “You got that money you owe me?” He then takes you to the chain gang. All white men were deputized law enforcement back then. The southerners were still upset about the Civil War and found it necessary to put the black man in his place. A brother could be swooped up on vagrancy laws and sentenced to hard labor for not having a job and loaned out to a white landowner (a prison). Or he could be accused of not having a job and off to the chain gang he goes.

“All crime is commercial.” People see this all the time when a celebrity or a rich private citizen can afford the best attorneys that money can buy. Cases are overturned. Gloves don’t fit. Robert Blake forgets his gun in the car. Celebrity vehicular homicide is probation. The teenage kid suffers from an affluent lifestyle. He is a rapist but swims for Stanford. Sometimes the attorneys are so conniving—I can’t say good—they scare the victim of a crime into signing a Non-Disclosure Agreement and give them hush money. When you are a person of color or a poor white (who still get charged less than us, but still are charged and booked) crimes are criminal. I would have no problem with community service but the United States criminal justice system is not about justice. If it is not murder, rape, or child molestation, why are people getting life? It is based on debts and if you are poor and black or just plain poor you pay with your time. Years in time. You will pay with your life. It is a country that lives by slavery and will die by slavery, apparently. Seems vaguely familiar? He can’t afford bail. He can’t pay for an attorney. (Or he might but most are crooks). He has no savings and loses his job from being in jail. He has no gainful employment. He is oppressed. He is less than, been told that all his life. He has a poor education. He doesn’t have any vocational skills. He’s guilty before proven innocent. He has to be put in his place. “Get your butt on that chain gang.”

It’s been said “A prosecutor can convict a ham sandwich.” This means the top cop of the criminal justice system, the most powerful of them all—more powerful than the judge, governor, and the president—only has to construct a whole mausoleum of charges, with rhetoric to rival the Greeks and ask you a simple question “You got that money you owe me?”. Next thing you know you are Martin Lawrence and Eddie Murphey serving “Life”. This one is not a comedy.

I am not on a chain gang but I’m connected to those men that were stuck slaving away on those plantations just over a century ago. Normally, when I used to hear the word peon, it referred to a small ineffectual person. I was small and ineffectual. Not until I realized my soul was free from the matrix. We still make license plates for cents on the dollar. We still are mortgage and courts use Fidelity to manage its funds for the guaranteed money they get per convict. We are being warehoused and not in the smoldering heat somewhere busting a sledge hammer on rocks. Granted some brothers are not forced to work. But it doesn’t matter if you are in the house or the field, a slave is a slave. Interestingly, a bill went to the California voters to stop forced labor in prison in 2024 and they voted to keep it. In Angola they are still on the plantation.

Some people getting out of prison want to go back to the fancy restaurants and cuisine. They want to go back to the wine, dark liquor, and marijuana. They want to go back to the complacency. I don’t. I want to talk about all these government sleepers that keep trying to put us in economic slavery, wanting us to be a consumer or a cog in the machine. You know the person who says “This is the greatest country in the world.” Well, here is what I would say—me the peon, especially since I live in the third world part of the country inside of prison — “This country was built off the backs of my people and that’s why it is the richest country in the world”. I can thank God for being talented, for being fast, and for being a hard worker. But I can’t thank this country for squeezing the souls out of my people.

We have heard the famous quote, if we are without land, it’s “slavery by another name.” Knowing the truth is liberating. It was only when I got lost in the system that I was able to see its binary code.