Alright bruh I’m back. You doin’ alright today? Good, good. X, I’m a firm believer in horizons being unlimited, and I most certainly feel that yours are. But for you as well as for everyone, it takes discipline and hard work to attain ones dreams, and to attain unto them! And what you’ll find here on Texas Death Row is that a lot of individuals are not willing co “sacrifice” in order to reach that point, or to the goal in which we’re all professing to meet! A lot of individuals here want gold, but don’t wanna put no work into reaching that gold. They want heaven, but don’t wanna have to go through hell (struggle) in attaining it! But if there’s no struggle, there’s no progress! Those who profess to only favor freedom, yet deprecate agitation, are but men and women who want crops without the thunder and lightning storms. The struggle may be a normal one, or may even be a physical one, or it could be both, but whatever it is, it will try you. Or it wouldn’t be a straggle for real.
Just look at what we must go through on a daily, with all of the many rule/policy changing and reinforcings done randomly. Think about how we struggle to get things done back here when things are taken from us, or just never given to us at all, which we have a constitutional right to have! It’s been in the 40s outside for how many weeks now? And we aint seen no blankets or jackets yet. Think of those rare times when we actually win; it feels so good doesn’t it? Its because, you can always look back and be able to see the progress you’ve made via all of the work ethic you have put into it along the way, and it makes one feel good in being able to see its results. However…. there’s a flip side to that as well. And this is another issue I wanted to dialogue with you on, and it interrelates to “sacrificing.”
Know that not always will you see nor reap the rewards and benefits of the struggle. I want you to think back to olden times, back when chattel slavery was still legal and being practiced like a religion in this land and how widely accepted it was. You see how a lot of our ancestors, and not just our ancestors, but those in whom were sympathizers toward our ancestors, fought hard side by side, and continued to do what they could to go about breaking that vicious cycle of slavery era. Many people lost their lives coming through those times, many lost their lives but didn’t have to. They lost it because they believed in the struggle: they lived for it and they ultimately died for it. They died in hopes of a better day for their children and their children’s children and so on. The point I’m making bruh is that there might be times when you get tired, or you may get discouraged, but don’t never give up bruh, even if your chances of coming out of this madness unscathed (still alive) becomes bleak: never give up, cause ultimately only one has the key to life and death, and that’s the One you prostrate yourself before Night and Day! I believe that someone was trying to convey this to you the other day when you were talking to your neighbor. I listened to the entire conversation, and I can honestly say, that your neighbor only expresses himself from a critical standpoint, and in terms that are designed to try to get you to see the possibilities beyond the trees in the forest.
Now I know what you are thinking, but I really want you to meditate on what I am about to share with you, cause this next subject is something you are going to be confronted with on a daily: racism and bigotry. Say bruh, I know how you feel about your neighbor, due to his way of thinking and his ideologies. But don’t allow yourself to get caught up in the systematic racisms that pervade these institutional walls. Don’t allow someone else’s ignorant fear of another mans identity to imprison and hinder you from being social and learning from others. Because even though your neighbor reeks of racism, and uses racial overtones, the fool has some knowledge of many subjects, and it might be good for you to know what he knows about something. We can all teach each other something. Especially try to pay attention when you get next to some cats that study every day. Usually they is older, but you got a few younger men that can open up whole new worlds for you.
In accepting constructive criticism, sometimes bruh some people do not always know how to give it in a conducive manner, but that even in those times – pay attention to the message of the criticism and see if its about something or if it is just someone trying to hate on you. Sometimes the harshest criticism could be the most potent in terms of elevating ones self, had we just taken the time to get past our emotions, and grasp the message at hand. His criticism may have been a bit harsh and also very vague, but keep in mind that he was really trying to be analytical and just couldn’t pull it off. The vagueness of it can be charged to the fact that you and him were exchanging dialogue. And I feel that, yes, we can sometimes be dogmatic whether we realize it or not. I believe that being a revolutionary (an effective one in the social revolution), one must be critical with himself most of all to ensure that in our pursuit of liberation we do not merely change the face of the oppressor to our own by tryna impose what we believe. And although I know this wasn’t your intention, this is the direction your words appear to be going in, and gave off, as you were subtly throwing out bits and pieces of what you believe in and what you feel things should be like. So, of course, this opened up the door for him to express his own barbaric and extreme eccentric views. That’s why I always say, be careful about what door you pick, cause once you’ve opened it, you’ve allowed yourself to be exposed, attacked, and assassinated…if you are not using good judgment.
But see, you would already know this, if you woulda been more on guard, and on top of your game, before you allowed yourself to even entertain such conversations. You would have seen him coming a thousand miles away atop of a 50,000 ft cliff, like the eye of an eagle staling it’s pray, the sparrow! I like to use this same analogy whenever I’m dialoguing with these ranking officials around here, whom tend to try to impose on us their own personal quirks, be exerting their authority via “so-called Policy.” Policy in which they neither fully understand nor follow! I see em coming a thousand miles away, that’s why if you notice, bruh, that’s one reason I don’t have a problem in getting anything done around here when it comes to the brass. They know I know the rules. I know OUR rules, and I know the ones THEY must follow!
The other has to do with the time and the work of sacrifices I’ve put in back here, in tryna accomplish things for all of us here on Death Row, fighting this administration and its overseers as well as its central nerve command post in Austin, via the many protests and outside organizing I’ve had my hands in over the years.
But anyway, as I was saying, you should always be careful in what you allow to roll off your tongue, cause the tongue is like a two-edged sword. I also feel that order for any revolutionary to be successful in the struggle, he must first tackle the even tougher revolution before that: the internal struggle within himself. I am a firm believer in the “R” concept, that we are “gods”, that we are creators, that there are laws of nature in existence that are affected according to what we think, say, and do. Thus in that regard we become the creators of our own realities and (in part) destinies and it only reiterates what Kahlil Gibran once said about man and life: “He who is not a friend to himself is an enemy to himself. He who is not a friend to himself is a public enemy. For life issues forth from man inner self, and not from what surrounds him.”
This to me means that a man who doesn’t take time to be with himself, love himself, doesn’t take time for introspection, is a walking disaster waiting to happen, and that he will be the manifester of his disaster because of his wretched internal state. That carries over into hurting other people which also makes him a public enemy. Your internal state will automatically reflect you outer existence. This is like the law of gravity. Whoa, there goes that word again: law. It is non-negotiable, although you may not be able to see it. So, yes, I think we have to keep in mind that we must be very critical with ourselves because were we stagnate internally, we will also stagnate in the social revolution. It is automatic, cause and effect!
Which reminds me, say bruh, real anti-social narcissistic types can be very opportunistic and superficial in their conduct. You have to be able to look through them, to look over them, in order to be able to get around them. Don’t associate with them at all: find only quality people who have shown you that they are worthy of trust. This shouldn’t stop you from being a social butterfly if that is in your nature, you feel me? Be you…and don’t let nobody else “do you.” As for the question you asked me concerning the cats downstairs from you, say X, if I was you, considering how long you’ve been here and why they are, I wouldn’t even waste my time and energy on that, cause truthfully speaking, I don’t really see anything coming out of that situation but drama and animosity, so let it go, it aint worth it.
Remember what I told you at the beginning of this: stay conscious of your surroundings. You are in the penitentiary and on death row, bruh! This aint the Ritz Carlton or the Hyatt Hotel. Fools make noise to be heard and seen. And whether you know it or not, a lot of them are dealing with a lot of mental illnesses and deficiencies! So to stoop to their level by making even more excessive noise, just to out-do them and to agitate them, would be rude. And rudeness is the weak mans imitation of strength! So don’t go there, alright. Stay grounded bruh! Remember what you told me, you wanted for yourself? To get back out there in that world to be with your lil girl; that should be your goal! None of these other things around here should be even able to hold a candle to that! Remember this bruh, nothing in this world is more distasteful to a man than to take the path that leads to himself.
I spent a lot of my earlier years here on death row attempting to please others, by tryina prove to them who I am, and how real I am. Forget that trash, bruh! You know who you are, and in time, others will see as well. You owe no one but your God, and that lil girl that you brought into existence. So until you are content with who you are, be wary NOT to become whom you’re perceived to be. You asked me do I think things will ever change concerning these inhumane treatments were enduring her eon death row, as well as the entire abolition of these diabolical and unethical principles? Of course, bruh, things are changin everyday. The minds and opinions of the public’s eye are constantly changing. Nothing stays the same forever, youngsta! Change is inevitable. Growth, its companion, is optional.
Ok, I’m off again. I will try to finish this for ya tomorrow. Keep your head up.
Amun
© Copyright 2010 by Thomas Bartlett Whitaker. All rights reserved
No Comments