Greetings to our readers, writers, and supporters of The Beat Within! We’re so glad to have you with us, and to present another stellar double issue of writing and artwork by our incarcerated community.
We love when our facilitators share their thoughts on our weekly topics, as it gives us insight into the wide spectrum of experience we bring with us to workshop every day. For this issue, we have our longtime friend and colleague Michael Kroll with us offering his perspective on our our 30.13 topic, “I’m Proud Of…” Please join us in welcoming Michael to our editoral pages!
Recently, The Beat asked what you are proud of. In thinking about that topic for myself, I realized that I am proud, very proud, of The Beat Within. The words you spit on these pages provide a window into the realities of your lives. I know people who might never even have given you or your world a thought if they didn’t read your words in The Beat.
I wonder if you readers and writers know just how powerful and important The Beat Within is, which is another way of asking if you know how powerful and important you are, because you are The Beat Within.
The Beat is a door into a world that too many so-called “good” people of the city and the state and the country would rather not see. They don’t want to think about the world that you occupy. That is why we put prisoners behind walls: out of sight means out of mind. So how can they ever know what happens in those other neighborhoods, those “bad” neighborhoods, those places they would rather stay hidden?
Where so many close their eyes to certain parts of the world, then your eyes become all the more important. It’s what you see and express through the pages of The Beat Within that lets them see what you see, and learn what you know. Your words give them a chance to put themselves in your shoes, and to imagine how they might act if they were in your place.
The Beat provides a unique window into a world few of us can even imagine. In each issue, you paint verbal pictures of lives filled with violence, but also filled with love. It’s true that many of you are dealing with things no one, young or old, should have to deal with, including absent or drug-addicted parents, police abuse, and gun violence. These are the conditions the media focus on, hardships too often self-medicated with drugs, or alcohol, or self-harm.
Yet, even as they report your rage, few have any understanding of the other side of the coin. Unless you tell them, they’ll never know how much you are like their own children, full of youthful exuberance, love for your families, and hope for the future.
Through The Beat, these seldom told and seldom heard stories of happiness, of love for family and neighborhood, reach a growing audience that includes judges, probation officers, police officers, community workers, as well as those you love, both inside and out.
Your voices are so important. They must be heard. But a voice is useless without an ear to hear it. You are the voice; we are the ear. By keeping it real, you have allowed the deaf to hear and the blind to see. Without you, there is no us, and without us that door, that window would be slammed shut!
We know we sound like we’re blowing our own horn, and to be real, we are! We think The Beat is one of the finest publications available, and every one of us is proud to be associated with it. But to keep it really real, it’s not our horn we’re blowing, but yours.
Keeping it real, though, requires me to add that while most of our writers take seriously their responsibility to step up, others take the easy (one might say, lazy) path. They want to read what their friends have written in The Beat, and they scratch out the fewest words they can to trade for the magazine.
For example, we asked what the streets have cost you, and got back more than one reply like this: “The streets have cost a lot. My freedom, life, etc.” It’s that “etc.” that bothers me. What is in it? What is the writer thinking about? What has he not said that fills in that “etc.”?
Another writer responded to the question, “What do you look for in a partner?” with a single word: “Sex.” And while that is amusing, it does nothing to reveal the thinking of the writer, and what he might have said.
To me, these writers are cheating. Not like cheating in a math test, but cheating me, and all the readers of The Beat Within. You writers are telling me things I can’t know about unless you tell me. You are the teachers; I am your student. You are cheating me out of your knowledge. Knowledge that could help someone younger than you to avoid some of the mistakes that got you here. (Of course, you’re also cheating yourself by not practicing the skill of writing, and by not thinking more deeply, both about the topics and about yourselves.)
Okay. Enough of that lecture. You know who you are.
It is truly an awesome responsibility you have to “keep it real” for those who don’t want it real. That puts a lot of weight on your shoulders, but you’ve been carrying a lot of weight for a long time. Those of you who work each week to put down real words of real lives in our pages are doing much more than you know. We believe that years and years from now, scholars will read The Beat to learn what life was really like in those places that society has ignored or forgotten about.
We know you’re up to the task. It is a task most of you step up to every time you put pencil to paper. And that is why I am so proud of this publication, so proud of you.
It’s up to you, and you’re up to it!
-Michael Kroll
Thank you, Michael, for sharing your pride in our readers with us, and for your encouragement to keep it real. It’s definitely no easy task, but the bravery and passion that our writers bring to this work deserves recognition. We celebrate you, writers and readers, and your commitment to your truth. We’re here for you, and we’re honored to be on this journey with you.
We stay up to the task and challenge of articulating our truth day in and day out, and for twenty-eight years The Beat has remained a place for you to express your deepest thoughts. We can’t say enough how proud we are of you, and the pride we take in publishing your voice. Thank you for your trust, your faith, and your own pride in this work! The Beat goes on!