I See Hope in the Men at San Quentin !
I want to acknowledge everyone that made this experience happen. It was one of the most significant and most challenging opportunities I have had. My initial feeling for the trip was excitement and curiosity, but it changed by the end of the journey to feeling empowered but also sad. After spending this time getting to know these men, I felt that I wanted to act on their behalves. I also felt so sad that I was the one who had the privilege to leave.
Since seeing the men, I see hope, I see happiness, I see love, and I see peace. I do not see anger, hatred, evilness or hopelessness in them. Let me be honest, that was not what I expected. It hurt me that I let myself think like that in the beginning. I honestly thought they were inhuman because they might have committed murders and robbery. However, after spending time with them, I judged myself, asking, who am I to judge other human beings? Many of the men are more educated than me in Shakespeare, a topic I did not have much knowledge about.
Throughout the three hours, I was so shocked and surprised in many ways. One of the men asked me “why did you come here?” I was frozen because I did not know how to answer that question. I thought in my head, should I tell him the actual reason I was there? I didn’t tell him the real reason, but instead, I told him “this experience is unexpected, I need time to reflect on it.” It was a cowardly approach I took, but after a day of reflection, I want to use my experiences and tell others to think and reflect on what they think of the men in San Quentin. Which I did. I talked to my friends about the experience and shared my feeling about the men and told them to not judge the men without knowing their real story. It is the social structure that needs to be blamed and fixed.
It is a cliché that we spend hours and hours in class just talking about the men and women in prisons without “real life experiences.” It made me feel privileged that I get to sit in class and discuss mass incarceration and the root-cause of this social dilemma we have in America. However, listening to one of the men deliver a poem about his childhood and how the social structure failed him over and over, made me realize the issue is real and it close to every one of us. It is us that needs to take the responsibility to change the social structures with writing and education that expose these issues.
How can we change the root-cause issue? That seems impossible, but I believe that education and the right usage of resources will improve lives. We don’t need more money for the military. We don’t need more money to punish people. We also need to stop imprisoning men and women because of their skin color. The $75,000 we spend on every man and woman in prison each year, that money could be used to help them find a career, a place to live, or even help their families to survive.
In the end, we need to stop talking about changes. Instead, we need to take action!
