by Julias Humphrey
Let me rst say Thank You for publishing my words for other people to read, especially our young. We all must understand their position in the adversity of life today because it is much harder for them in contrast to when I was a child which brings me to my topic – the “School-to-Prison Pipeline”. What’s the main causation and how do we stop it?
Along with this writing you will nd a copy of the response I recently received from President Barack Obama. I wrote him concerning his visit to El Reno Federal Penitentiary (in Oklahoma). When he sat down and spoke to six of the prisoners, it had meaning to him – this is what he later said to the press “these are young people who made mistakes that aren’t that different than the mistakes I made and the mistakes that a lot of you guys made. The difference is they did not have the kinds of support structures, the second chances, the resources that would allow them to survive those mistakes.” (Inside Journal, volume 24, No. 4, Fall 2015, Prison Fellowship’s Newsletter for America’s prisons – Pope and President visit prisoners, page 4.)
I shared an excerpt from a writing I’m a currently working on. Something I said caught our President’s attention. The excerpt is as follows: “I’ve found the best way to learn something without experiencing it rst hand is to learn it is from someone who has the full impact of what’s being told to them becomes real to the recipient because the results are standing right in front of them. They’re to face with what the experience caused. (President Obama, I am that experience.) Urban children of all colors are faced with the school-to- prison pipeline and it will be their reality if we don’t join together to help them become better human beings.
Let’s face it. The majority of America’s youth who live in poverty are not going to pick up the book I write. A Resurrection and Re- Awakening of the Mind, or Toxic Schools by Bowen Paulle, nor any book written by President Barack Obama to learn about the crisis they are in. My part of the solution is this, now listen closely. Myself and others who have experienced the many challenges of survival that exist in drug infested and crime ridden communities, can be used to steer our young people away from the traps and vices that produce the school-to-prison pipeline. To know better is to do better. And those of us that know must enlighten those that don’t. This is serious to me. It’s crippling our youths’ potential and shaping a future not worthy of them to look forward to.
There is no crystal ball to look into. No magic wand to wave or genie bottle to rub. There is nothing tangible that can give them the reality of what is to come better than someone who has already been through what they are now going through. I want to help.
My concept of what and why things are the way they are doesn’t make me the wrong person to listen to and it should not disqualify me from the list of those willing to assist with the process of changing the conditions that are destroying our children, our homes and our communities.
It’s good to have a president whose concerns of the world include the welfare and education of inner-city neighborhoods. Considering the president, along with his wife and two daughters are African-American, his concerns are legit because for many like myself these concerns are more personal. The problems I speak of run too close to home for him. He understands how easily things could have been different in his life. How my very own mistakes could have been his. He knows that one thing different may have made him just another Black man on probation, parole or in prison.
Was it luck that kept opening the door of opportunity? No, it was education. It was being able to live in an environment without the sound of gunshots interrupting his study. It was being able to stand outside his home without someone either attempting to buy or sell drugs to him. It was being able to feel safe inside his home while growing up without worrying about the changing faces that routinely run in and out of other young children’s home at all hours of the night because of a family member’s addiction.
The school-to-prison pipeline can be derailed. The tracks that mislead children can be removed, but it is going to take all of us working together to make it happen. Only then will our children begin to rise from the ruble of elements that threaten their future and reach their full potential. Only then will the reality of the school-to-prison pipeline no longer exist.
I didn’t expect to receive a response from President Obama but yes, he wrote to me. That says a lot about the character of our Nation’s President. I believe there were “close calls” in his lifetime that could have sent him in another direction if he had not done exactly what he set out to do each day. We, as a nation, have lost many good young men to violence, drugs and a life of incarceration and must nd a way to end the cycle.
In my opinion drugs are the main factor that gives birth to criminal behavior in young people. Education is the foundation that whispers to their need of a better life. And doing without things such a food and clothing opens that door to the school-to-prison pipeline because once the behavior becomes a repeated action, getting caught is inevitable. To be continued.