Letter To My Younger Self

Letter To My Younger Self

Dear Martin, I write to you from the other side — the side that awaits you if you don’t change your course of action soon. I know you are going through an extremely difficult time right now as you seek independence while trying to figure out your identity. Most...

What Really Matters

What Really Matters

It took several agonizing months of listening to cellmate's stories before I realized that my innocence didn't matter. At fifty-one, I'd had a pretty full life. So, what really matters? This 17-year-old African American boy, arrested in front of school merely because...

Dandy Lying

Dandy Lying

My brother lives in an old farm house in Ohio with this great front yard of plush green grass that in the heart of the season is carpeted with the most beautiful and brightest yellow dandelions you’ve ever seen. I remember when my son was about 5 and he commented,...

More Government Chum

More Government Chum

Pinellas County Florida’s Sheriff Bob Gualtieri’s complicity in creating a racial divide leading to constant strife, stress and physical fights among the prisoners at the county jail facility under his charge actually costs the taxpayers untold thousands of dollars....

The Shake Down

The Shake Down

  Shake down Go ahead and take it from me Shake down In the middle of the night Shake down I’m sleeping here can’t you see Shake down it’s not alriiiiiight… With me Although this sounds like a parody from weird Al Yankovic of a famous Tom Petty song, it really...

Change Starts With You

Change Starts With You

"How am I racist? I’m Black!” Racism is something I never gave much thought to for most of my life, I just didn’t ascribe to the unconscious practice even before I began waking up. My opening quandary is an actual, honest-to-God exchange between an inmate and a...

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