Please contact Lisa Lavaysse if you would like to purchase the full PDF or a printed copy of this issue.
Continue ReadingAuthor: mpau@thebeatwithin.org
Transformation of A Murderer
Ten years in prison. I was housed at Pelican Bay State Prison (in Crescent City, CA). The institution was on lockdown. I was called to see the Chaplin on Monday, June 9, 2008. The Chaplin told me that my baby brother, Edward was shot and killed. I felt as if a lightning bolt struck my body as I fell after hearing this news. I called my baby sister, Tasha and listened to her describe the circumstances of our brother’s death. My eyes watered because I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.
I went back to my cell, told my cellie what I just found out and when we come off this lockdown, I’m out of here. I called out to the tower officer and asked if I could call my family. Him knowing the situation, allowed me to use the phone. After talking to my mother and other siblings. I asked the tower officer if I could go on the concrete yard to be alone for a while. He did so.
Continue ReadingIt Should Come To A Stop
Dear The Beat Within,
My name is Carl. I’m from Richmond, CA and I’m just writing you guys to say thank you for what you’re doing. I like that you guys go to different juvenile halls and county jails to speak to kids and adults like me and others that want to change.
I also wrote you to say whoever wrote the editor’s note is 100% true, and young people know what he is trying to say.
I think there will be change in the world. For example, this rap shhh gets in a lot of young people’s heads. They talk about drugs, sex, killing, dead ones, and stuff like that. I think if there was more people talking out in meetings and stuff that would change street violence, gang violence, killings that’re going on in the world, and it should come to a stop.
Continue ReadingVolume 23.51/24.01
Please contact Lisa Lavaysse if you would like to purchase the full PDF or a printed copy of this issue.
Continue ReadingEd Note 23.51/24.01
Welcome to our year-end double issue, 23.51/24.01. What a year we have had! Thank you all for making The Beat Within the success that it is. We could not do it without you all. As for this issue, there is so much good writing that awaits you readers, we are grateful you stopped by this latest editorial note. As some of you know, we have an amazing partnership with the students at the Urban School of San Francisco. Throughout the school year (for some even during the summer) our high school interns are hard at work transcribing pieces of The Beat Without and supporting our community workshops. Here we’re featuring the reflections of two of our interns, Tara and Sally, who both provide insight into their experiences. In Tara’s piece, the pieces of The Beat Without are like a portal in her hands, fostering a sense of connection to an individual she’ll never know face-to-face. In Sally’s essay, The Beat has given her a chance to see incarcerated folks as individuals, rather than a group solely defined by their common circumstance. We’re so grateful for our partnership with the Urban School, and to be able to work with young people on the outs to challenge perceptions of incarceration. Stay tuned for more of our interns’ reflections! Enjoy the following!
Continue ReadingThe Demise That Opened My Eyes
“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world,” said Nelson Mandela (1918-2013). The word ‘Education’ is derived from the Latin word ‘Educere,’ which means: “to rear, to lead forth.”
In other words, it is something used to move and propel one forward. With this in mind, one might ask his or her self the question: What is it that leads me forward today? What drives me to think, act, and respond the way I do?
As a young kid growing up on the streets of East San Jose, I never really asked myself this question, nor did I take education seriously. Honestly, as long as I was good at being a criminal, who needed education? I could make hundreds of dollars a week living a life of crime, and I didn’t need a degree for that. So, looking back, being a thug is what motivated me. That’s what propelled me.
Continue ReadingAdvice From My Incarcerated Father
by Spookes I got character from my father yesterday. He told me a lot of true things, that I have done wrong in the past and to be honest I got sad, because he called me out on what I did wrong. When my father wrote to me from prison, I felt joyful, because I needed some advice from a father figure. After I read the letter I cried because he told me that I was making him hurt with my life decisions. He told me I was lucky to have a support system that wants to help. My father
Continue ReadingVolume 23.49/50
Please contact Lisa Lavaysse if you would like to purchase the full PDF or a printed copy of this issue.
Continue ReadingEd Note 23.49/50
Greetings friends! We welcome you wonderful readers and supporters to yet another fabulous double issue (23.49/50) of writing and art from the inside and beyond! We are certainly thrilled that you have this one-of-a-kind publication in your hands. As is the case with each issue, there is plenty of solid standout writings from our many contributors – from our young and old who deliver their truths from inside the numerous detention facilities we visit, to those who send their submissions to us via snail mail, as well as those in the free world who courageously share their truths each week!
This week we welcome to our editorial section the reflections of two of our high school interns from the Urban School of San Francisco, Melia and Yudi.
These past few months we’ve had the pleasure of working with fifteen Urban students as they transcribed writing for our Beat Without pages, immersing themselves into the thoughts of our prolific writers.
In Melia’s, “A World Without Borders,” she explores the breakdown of the single-story narrative, and in her words, how “those living inside do not have one identity that is defined by suffering.”
Continue ReadingWhile I’m Here
I murdered him. I stabbed him fifty-one times in his sleep, and now his name likely evokes in people close to him funny, warm and wonderful memories of a man they still love. And then it evokes pain because they remember, they realize suddenly after a happy thought and a smile that he was brutally taken from them for no real reason. Their guts wrench hard. They are saddened. They are angered. They remember that they are lonely and hurting without the treasured piece of their lives that I so callously took from them – their son, their brother, their friend, Carlos. “It wasn’t his time!” they yell furiously all at God and at me and at nobody… But only nobody hears them.
Obviously, I cannot return that precious heart-piece to them. I cannot bring Carlos back – no matter that I wish more desperately every day that I could. In fact, there is nothing I can ever do to make up for this horrible wrong I committed, I know, or for all the harm I’ve caused. Not with my own blood. Not with a lifetime in prison. For there is no justice for murder. So there is definitely no way for me to justify my actions. Though I have spent many years behind these walls trying do that exactly.
Continue Reading