Grandson: What are you, Democrat or Republican?
Grandpa: I’m a Yellow Dog Democrat, and proud of it.
Grandson: But didn’t you join the army, Gramps?
Grandpa: Yeah, but I think that you may be misunderstanding what Yellow means. There are two kinds of Democrats, a Yellow Dog Democrat and a Blue Dog Democrat. Yellow means that I rarely agree with a Republican position. Blue Dog Democrats more often than not agree with the Republican point of view, so much so that in my opinion they are little more than Republican moles, masquerading as Democrats. Do you understand the difference?
Grandson: I get it now, but my teacher said that Abraham Lincoln was a Republican.
Grandpa: Yes he was, but in Lincoln’s day, the Republican Party was genuinely the party of the people. They were both logical and humane. Today’s Republicans are mostly downright mean racists and sexist hypocrites, by design.
Grandson: You got an example?
Grandpa: Sure. Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that most Americans want Republicans and Democrats alike to take a tough position against terrorism and terrorists. Right?
Grandson: Yeah.
Grandpa: The majority of Americans like to think that it is Republicans who are the toughest on terrorists. Am I right?
Grandson: Yeah.
Grandpa: In American politics you have to look below the surface of any stated position a Republican takes, because there is usually a secondary motive behind it.
Grandson: Gramps, I got to be honest with you. What you just said is not much of an example. In fact, to me, it sounds more like you just don’t like Republicans.
Grandpa: Okay, there is some truth to that, but I can and will give you a better example.
Grandson: Bring it on.
Grandpa: Republicans preach a lot, but rarely practice what they preach. For instance, if a person from another country becomes a US citizen, but is suspected of being a terrorist, that person is placed on the FBIs terrorist watch list. Consequently, he or she cannot board a plane bound for, or in, America. I think that is a good idea. What about you?
Grandson: Me too.
Grandpa: Okay, tell me if you think this is a good idea. Despite being on the FBIs terrorist watch list, that same person can legally purchase an AK- 47 assault rifle, with a thirty round clip.
Grandson: Gramps, you’re kidding me?
Grandpa: No son, I’m dead serious.
Grandson: So how do you know this is true?
Grandpa: Have you ever heard of a Senator Graham?
Grandson: You mean Senator Lindsey Graham, of one of the Carolinas?
Grandpa: Yeah, South Carolina. He recently stood up in vigorous opposition to a very logical bill that would have made it illegal for anyone who is on the FBIs terrorist watch list to purchase an assault weapon, or explosives. So while he logically doesn’t want such a person on a plane – for obvious reasons – he illogically seems to think it’s okay for such a person to purchase assault weapons and various explosives.
Grandson: Wow! That’s kind of dumb.
Grandpa: When the bill was tabled for approval, during a hearing that was attended by members of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, Senator Graham strongly objected and said, ‘I think you’re going too far here.’
Grandson: You know, I’ll bet that the National Rifle Association wrote him a big fat check for that objection.
Grandpa: You’re probably right. Republicans are quick to use the right to bear arms, as is set forth in the US Constitution, to back up any absurd notion that they can come up with. It is as if they don’t realize that the Constitution was drafted by men who wouldn’t allow the women in their families to vote. We are talking about men who owned slaves; forty, fifty and sixty year old men who thought it was okay to marry child-brides. All of that kind of crap was legal when the US Constitution was written. Republicans do not accept the fact that times have changed, unless a situation can be used to their selfish advantage.
Grandson: Now I understand why you call 'em sexist, racist hypocrites! Can I ask you a couple of personal questions, Gramps?
Grandpa: Okay, sure.
Grandson: How long did you stay in prison?
Grandpa: Thirty-two years.
Grandson: Can you buy an AK-47 legally?
Grandpa: Of course not. The only right I have to protect my home is in my right and left arms when I pick up that baseball bat that I keep under the bed.
Grandson: Gramps, a foreigner who is on the FBIs terrorist watch list (but who also has US citizenship) has more rights than you do!
Grandpa: Hey, is that you paying attention to what old Gramps is saying?
Monday, 31 May 2010
The Grandfather Dialogues: Two
Grandpa: What size is your waist?
Grandson: Twenty-two.
Grandpa: So why are you looking through a rack of size thirty pants?
Grandson: Baggy pants are in, Gramps.
Grandpa: The thing to remember about what’s in or out is that trends and styles are always in a state of change, son.
Grandson: How come you never say anything about how low I wear my pants? I know you don’t like it.
Grandpa: Coming from you, that’s an unusually astute observation.
Grandson: Then you admit that you don’t like my sense of style, but not enough to complain about it?
Grandpa: Well, I come from a place in time where men generally are in the habit of letting other men be free to design, define and refine their own style. As a matter of fact, when I was just a couple of years older than you, most young Black men were wearing our pants so high that we walked around with a constant wedgie, day and night. I’m guessing I don’t have to tell you what happened in the front of our pants as a result of pulling them up so high––not everybody liked to see one of us coming, if you catch my drift.
Grandson: How did the White guys dress back then?
Grandpa: The young White guys wore their pants then like young Black men do today. They thought their pants nearly falling off were cool. Some were worse than you––at least you wear drawers. Many White guys in the fifties didn’t have the decency to wear any drawers.
Grandson: You mean, they actually showed their crack?
Grandpa: Yeah, pretty much. There were a lot of them who thought that was real ‘cool’. They wore their shirt collars turned up, and their pants all but falling down in Chicago.
Grandson: Wow, I didn’t know that Gramps.
Grandpa: Sounds like we might need to talk about this kind of stuff more often.
Grandson: Wait here, I’ll be right back.
The young man turned and walked briskly back into the men’s clothing store. Three or four minutes later her returned.
Grandson: I exchanged that pair of size thirty for a size twenty-four.
Grandpa: You giving up cool for logic?
Grandson: Naw, I’m still cool. But I’m refining my cool, a little bit at a time.
Grandpa: Well nobody can do that better than you son.
Grandson: Twenty-two.
Grandpa: So why are you looking through a rack of size thirty pants?
Grandson: Baggy pants are in, Gramps.
Grandpa: The thing to remember about what’s in or out is that trends and styles are always in a state of change, son.
Grandson: How come you never say anything about how low I wear my pants? I know you don’t like it.
Grandpa: Coming from you, that’s an unusually astute observation.
Grandson: Then you admit that you don’t like my sense of style, but not enough to complain about it?
Grandpa: Well, I come from a place in time where men generally are in the habit of letting other men be free to design, define and refine their own style. As a matter of fact, when I was just a couple of years older than you, most young Black men were wearing our pants so high that we walked around with a constant wedgie, day and night. I’m guessing I don’t have to tell you what happened in the front of our pants as a result of pulling them up so high––not everybody liked to see one of us coming, if you catch my drift.
Grandson: How did the White guys dress back then?
Grandpa: The young White guys wore their pants then like young Black men do today. They thought their pants nearly falling off were cool. Some were worse than you––at least you wear drawers. Many White guys in the fifties didn’t have the decency to wear any drawers.
Grandson: You mean, they actually showed their crack?
Grandpa: Yeah, pretty much. There were a lot of them who thought that was real ‘cool’. They wore their shirt collars turned up, and their pants all but falling down in Chicago.
Grandson: Wow, I didn’t know that Gramps.
Grandpa: Sounds like we might need to talk about this kind of stuff more often.
Grandson: Wait here, I’ll be right back.
The young man turned and walked briskly back into the men’s clothing store. Three or four minutes later her returned.
Grandson: I exchanged that pair of size thirty for a size twenty-four.
Grandpa: You giving up cool for logic?
Grandson: Naw, I’m still cool. But I’m refining my cool, a little bit at a time.
Grandpa: Well nobody can do that better than you son.
The Grandfather Dialogues: One
Brandon never stops reading, listening, thinking, and then writing his responses to the world. He does this through fiction, essay, memoir, and short articles. What follows is the first in a series of dialogues between a grandfather and his teenage grandson about all manner of topics, social and political.
Brandon would like readers to suggest topics, and write to him directly via his prison address:
Mr Brandon Astor Jones, 400574
Georgia Diagnostic Classification Prison
P.O. Box 3877
Jackson, Georgia
GA 30233
USA
THE GRANDFATHER DIALOGUES: ONE
Grandpa: Well, you’re going to be a teenager tomorrow. I’ll be calling you a ‘young man’ from now on.
Grandson: I’ve been a young man for a long time now.
Grandpa: Okay, I stand corrected. So tell me young man, exactly what was it about the woman who just walked by us that caused you to turn around for another look?
Grandson: I wanted to see her walking away.
Grandpa: Well, what do you think?
Grandson: No onion!
Grandpa: Don’t tell me you’re going to grow up and be one of those guys who make all kinds of silly assumptions about women, based soley on the size of their backsides?
Grandson: Gramps, nice behinds are important to young Black men––at least, that’s how it is with the guys I hang out with.
Grandpa: Let me be sure that I’m understanding what you’re saying here. That woman’s beauty as she was walking towards us, in your opinion, deserved a second look when she passed, but because she was not about to pop the seams in that dress you think that she fell short on your beauty-meter’s scale?
Grandson: I guess so.
Grandpa: You guess so? Are you saying you don’t really know who or what you like?
Grandson: Well…
Grandpa: Since you can’t answer that question, maybe you can answer this one. Tell me exactly who determines who is, and who is not, good-looking in your life?
Grandson: Me!
Grandpa: Okay, tell me, what color are her eyes and hair?
Grandson: I don’t remember.
Grandpa: Light brown eyes, black and brown hair, and she’s wearing a gold wedding band on her left thumb.
Grandson: You saw all that in one passing glance?
Grandpa: Yeah, but only because I was looking at the whole package of the beauty she projected – not just her backside as she walked through this mall.
Grandson: So you’re saying that I need to expand my female-vision a little more?
Grandpa: No, I’m saying a lot more. I’m saying that a woman is a lot more than what you see behind, or in front of, her. One more thing, just in case you have not noticed, I’ve been a Black guy for a long time now, too.
Brandon would like readers to suggest topics, and write to him directly via his prison address:
Mr Brandon Astor Jones, 400574
Georgia Diagnostic Classification Prison
P.O. Box 3877
Jackson, Georgia
GA 30233
USA
THE GRANDFATHER DIALOGUES: ONE
Grandpa: Well, you’re going to be a teenager tomorrow. I’ll be calling you a ‘young man’ from now on.
Grandson: I’ve been a young man for a long time now.
Grandpa: Okay, I stand corrected. So tell me young man, exactly what was it about the woman who just walked by us that caused you to turn around for another look?
Grandson: I wanted to see her walking away.
Grandpa: Well, what do you think?
Grandson: No onion!
Grandpa: Don’t tell me you’re going to grow up and be one of those guys who make all kinds of silly assumptions about women, based soley on the size of their backsides?
Grandson: Gramps, nice behinds are important to young Black men––at least, that’s how it is with the guys I hang out with.
Grandpa: Let me be sure that I’m understanding what you’re saying here. That woman’s beauty as she was walking towards us, in your opinion, deserved a second look when she passed, but because she was not about to pop the seams in that dress you think that she fell short on your beauty-meter’s scale?
Grandson: I guess so.
Grandpa: You guess so? Are you saying you don’t really know who or what you like?
Grandson: Well…
Grandpa: Since you can’t answer that question, maybe you can answer this one. Tell me exactly who determines who is, and who is not, good-looking in your life?
Grandson: Me!
Grandpa: Okay, tell me, what color are her eyes and hair?
Grandson: I don’t remember.
Grandpa: Light brown eyes, black and brown hair, and she’s wearing a gold wedding band on her left thumb.
Grandson: You saw all that in one passing glance?
Grandpa: Yeah, but only because I was looking at the whole package of the beauty she projected – not just her backside as she walked through this mall.
Grandson: So you’re saying that I need to expand my female-vision a little more?
Grandpa: No, I’m saying a lot more. I’m saying that a woman is a lot more than what you see behind, or in front of, her. One more thing, just in case you have not noticed, I’ve been a Black guy for a long time now, too.
Wednesday, 28 April 2010
'...the humanity of prisoners'
The door to the cell block's control booth has a small rectangular opening. It has a hinged flap through which, more often than not, a female correctional officer will push institutional forms and memorandums for prisoners to read or fill out.
There is a Plexiglass window above the opening. The bars do not block the officer’s view of the cell block. Once posted inside the control booth the officer’s primary duty is to operate the control panel (here read, push the buttons that electronically open cell gates inside the cell block).
It is February 21, 2010; since it is a Sunday, there will be no incoming mail for the control booth officer to pass out. Correctional Officer, First Grade (COI) Patrick is in the booth today.
I should note too, that COI Patrick is one of a few female officers at the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison who chooses to conduct herself in a genuinely professional manner.
Let me clarify that: I have always found her to be civil, respectful and dignified in her interactions with prisoners. Consequently, it is fairly easy for us to reciprocate despite the fact that dignity has to duck a lot of punches around here.
COI Patrick’s humanity is such that she never fails to recognise ours. Unfortunately, the unprofessional behavior of the majority of her colleagues (be they male or female) suggest that they have lost touch with their own humanity, which greatly reduces their ability to see a prisoner as a human being. In many ways their self-made-prison is far worse than the one us prisoners are forced to live and die in.
Those readers who would like to know more about the absence of humanity currently being demonstrated by the majority of the men and women who work at the GD + CP should be on the lookout for this author’s next book which will be published later this year: it is titled the humanity of prisoners.
Brandon A Jones can be reached at:
UNO#400574
Georgia Diagnostic Classification Prison
P. O. Box 3877
Jackson, Georgia 30233
USA
Attention Editor
Copyright ©2010
All rights reserved by
Brandon Astor Jones
Word count 341 (including name and address)
Composition date: February 21 2010-03-16
21:00 hours
There is a Plexiglass window above the opening. The bars do not block the officer’s view of the cell block. Once posted inside the control booth the officer’s primary duty is to operate the control panel (here read, push the buttons that electronically open cell gates inside the cell block).
It is February 21, 2010; since it is a Sunday, there will be no incoming mail for the control booth officer to pass out. Correctional Officer, First Grade (COI) Patrick is in the booth today.
I should note too, that COI Patrick is one of a few female officers at the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison who chooses to conduct herself in a genuinely professional manner.
Let me clarify that: I have always found her to be civil, respectful and dignified in her interactions with prisoners. Consequently, it is fairly easy for us to reciprocate despite the fact that dignity has to duck a lot of punches around here.
COI Patrick’s humanity is such that she never fails to recognise ours. Unfortunately, the unprofessional behavior of the majority of her colleagues (be they male or female) suggest that they have lost touch with their own humanity, which greatly reduces their ability to see a prisoner as a human being. In many ways their self-made-prison is far worse than the one us prisoners are forced to live and die in.
Those readers who would like to know more about the absence of humanity currently being demonstrated by the majority of the men and women who work at the GD + CP should be on the lookout for this author’s next book which will be published later this year: it is titled the humanity of prisoners.
Brandon A Jones can be reached at:
UNO#400574
Georgia Diagnostic Classification Prison
P. O. Box 3877
Jackson, Georgia 30233
USA
Attention Editor
Copyright ©2010
All rights reserved by
Brandon Astor Jones
Word count 341 (including name and address)
Composition date: February 21 2010-03-16
21:00 hours
Monday, 9 November 2009
ATTENTION FEMALE SMOKERS!
Do you want to stop smoking?
I can help you do that, free of charge.
Write to
Brandon Astor Jones, G3-83
UNO# 400574; (Group #1)
Georgia Diagnostic Classification Prison
P. O. Box 3877
Jackson, Georgia 30233
USA
Saturday, 5 September 2009
Thursday, 27 August 2009
'...before I die here'
Yes, it is true that I have never visited
any part of their beautiful land
There is an ineffable thing inside of me,
of it, they helped me to take command
They are refreshingly intuitive people
at once countrified and urbane
Humane, genuine and unpretentious, free
of jaded little socialized games
Bestowing their welcomed presence upon
me without self-righteous disdain
All helped me win the bloody war against
my bad past criminalities' stains
Make no mistake, with mounting flaws
and all, I still love America
However, the people I describe in the
lines above live in Australia
This less than brilliant poem is my way of saying thank you to Australians who have kindly entered my life. They cause me to want to expand my number of Australian friends.
To those readers who are interested, I herewith extend the offer of friendly exchanges via correspondence. I will answer all letters.
I genuinely want to know how you see, think, and feel about this world we are privileged to share. Please feel free to broach any subject with candor. There will be no taboos.
Let me be clear. I do not care what your ethnic background is, nor do I care how old, young, rich or poor you are. I will make no judgements about your political or lifestyle choices. The only criterion I now restrict is gender: I ask for only female correspondents, as I have a big imbalance between men and women in the people who write to me.
I am an African American man who has spent the last 31 of my 66 years on death row in America. I hope that you and I will take advantage of every opportunity that our correspondence will afford us to learn and grow communicatively in ways that enhance – rather than reject – our shared humanity before I die here.
Mr Brandon Astor Jones, G3-83
UNO #400574; (Group #1)
Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison
P. O. Box 3877
Jackson, Georgia 30233
USA
any part of their beautiful land
There is an ineffable thing inside of me,
of it, they helped me to take command
They are refreshingly intuitive people
at once countrified and urbane
Humane, genuine and unpretentious, free
of jaded little socialized games
Bestowing their welcomed presence upon
me without self-righteous disdain
All helped me win the bloody war against
my bad past criminalities' stains
Make no mistake, with mounting flaws
and all, I still love America
However, the people I describe in the
lines above live in Australia
This less than brilliant poem is my way of saying thank you to Australians who have kindly entered my life. They cause me to want to expand my number of Australian friends.
To those readers who are interested, I herewith extend the offer of friendly exchanges via correspondence. I will answer all letters.
I genuinely want to know how you see, think, and feel about this world we are privileged to share. Please feel free to broach any subject with candor. There will be no taboos.
Let me be clear. I do not care what your ethnic background is, nor do I care how old, young, rich or poor you are. I will make no judgements about your political or lifestyle choices. The only criterion I now restrict is gender: I ask for only female correspondents, as I have a big imbalance between men and women in the people who write to me.
I am an African American man who has spent the last 31 of my 66 years on death row in America. I hope that you and I will take advantage of every opportunity that our correspondence will afford us to learn and grow communicatively in ways that enhance – rather than reject – our shared humanity before I die here.
Mr Brandon Astor Jones, G3-83
UNO #400574; (Group #1)
Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison
P. O. Box 3877
Jackson, Georgia 30233
USA
Sunday, 3 May 2009
A Letter from 1995
The following was written on official state stationery bearing the departmental seal of the 'City and County of San Francisco's Office of the Sheriff'.
Before retiring, Michael Marcum was promoted to the rank of Sheriff amid much controversy. It is Brandon's opinion that he should be the poster person for prisoners' rehabilitation in America. Write to Brandon and ask him why.
Michael Mears
Multicounty Public Defender
Georgia Indigent Defense Council
985 Ponce de Leon Avenue
Atlanta Georgia 30306
May 29, 1995
Dear Mr Mears,
I am the Assistant Sheriff for the City and County of San Francisco. Since 1973 I have served as a jail Commander and Warden, a member of the Parole Commission, and the administrator of mandatory inmate work and education programs combining security and treatment in our six county jails.
In over thirty years in corrections I have struggled with the issues of crime, violence, incarceration, retribution, and even redemption. This work breeds cynicism: resignation to the seemingly endless supply of offenders, and despair for the plight of innocent victims. Every so often someone, or an idea, a vision, a new program, or, more rarely, a new law, reawakens my passion and reminds me why I am in this business in the first place: to discard the cynicism and to make a difference in the community that pays my salary. One such event occurred in 1993 – and so this on behalf of Brandon Astor Jones.
Almost three years ago I stumbled upon a newspaper article written by Mr Jones. A short byline identified him as a prisoner on death row in Georgia. The article astonished me. I wrote Mr Jones and asked his permission to reprint the piece in our jail's newsletter. I offered him no remuneration, only the promise that his writing would be used with dignity in the training of my staff and in class and group situations with prisoners in my charge. Mr Jones agreed, and we have corresponded fairly often ever since. I subsequently collected his articles from American, Canadian and Australian newspapers and magazines, and with his permission used them in various inmate programs and staff trainings.
There is value in Brandon's life and in his writing for all of us – jailers, prisoners, potential victims. I have seen his writings sober and inspire young offenders who are still at risk of committing violence upon release from our jails into our community. He conveys, convincingly, a belief that they can retake control of their lives before they further harm others and themselves, and they can make a lawful place in our society.
There is no excuse for the offense of which he has been convicted. Yet, his work offers hope to those on both ends who are overwhelmed with violence. And in that there is a seed of redemption. This man has value to us all, to a community unable to make sense of violence, victimization and hopelessness that eats away at our best attempts at criminal justice.
That is all I have to say. It is a serious matter. I am not in the shoes of the [C]ourt or the jury. My commitment to criminal justice is absolute. It is my duty to affirm the value of this man's life.
Sincerely,
Michael Marcum
Assistant Sheriff
San Francisco, California
Before retiring, Michael Marcum was promoted to the rank of Sheriff amid much controversy. It is Brandon's opinion that he should be the poster person for prisoners' rehabilitation in America. Write to Brandon and ask him why.
Thursday, 22 January 2009
Giving and receiving
Brandon is working on his manuscript 'growing down', which is the story of his early years from childhood to young adult.
He started writing it in 1989, and is now having the current draft typed up. Once that is done, he will begin rewriting and contextualising his early lifestory, adding perspectives from three different viewpoints: the 1940s when he was living it; the 1990s when he was writing; and with respect to race, including the election of the first African American President.
This is very important to Brandon, and he feels he does not have much time remaining to complete his project.
What we are calling for are donations to help him pay his typing fees, which will amount to about $400. All donations will be gratefully received, and you will be helping Brandon to tell his story, a piece of African American history as well as a personal document.
Please send your donation to Brandon's agent:
Mr Del Cassidy
142 Wilmer Street
Glassboro
New Jersey 08028
USA
and be sure to provide your name and address so Brandon can personally thank you. He advises you to send US dollars if possible.
Thank you in advance!
He started writing it in 1989, and is now having the current draft typed up. Once that is done, he will begin rewriting and contextualising his early lifestory, adding perspectives from three different viewpoints: the 1940s when he was living it; the 1990s when he was writing; and with respect to race, including the election of the first African American President.
This is very important to Brandon, and he feels he does not have much time remaining to complete his project.
What we are calling for are donations to help him pay his typing fees, which will amount to about $400. All donations will be gratefully received, and you will be helping Brandon to tell his story, a piece of African American history as well as a personal document.
Please send your donation to Brandon's agent:
Mr Del Cassidy
142 Wilmer Street
Glassboro
New Jersey 08028
USA
and be sure to provide your name and address so Brandon can personally thank you. He advises you to send US dollars if possible.
Thank you in advance!
Monday, 3 November 2008
'...one page per day on air' by Brandon Astor Jones
For sixteen years, the judge advocate had impassively presided over incidents of murder and child rape, yet nothing of this kind could be attributed to Caesar, whose crime had been to steal food. [The judge] was unperturbed by venality in convicts; he expected it. What so disturbed him about this refractory convict was the persistent refusal to be reduced to the condition of a slave.
Professor Cassandra Pybus
Research Chair of History at the University of Tasmania
Review of Epic Journeys of Freedom: Runaway Slaves of the American Revolution and their Global Quest for Liberty. Beacon Press, 2006. ISBN 080705514X. $US 26.95.
This is the first time I have started a review with a quote taken from a book's epilogue. However, since I am an African American being held in one of America's Southern prisons, it seems appropriate for me to do so out of a genuine respect for those who have gone before me.
I had a visceral reaction to Professor Pybus' words. For I know that I share a historical kinship with the man who was known as 'Black Caesar' in eighteenth century Australia. A bounty was placed on his head: 'dead or alive'. He was hunted down and killed. The reward for killing him according to Professor Pybus was a 'lavish' one: five gallons of rum.
On February 15, 1796, the New South Wales Judge Advocate David Collins wrote a brief obituary which in part read: 'Thus ended a man who certainly, during his life, could never have been estimated at more than one remove above a brute'. The judge went on to later declare Caesar an 'incorrigibly stubborn [B]lack'.
Interesting words to be sure, especially when you consider that they were chosen and written by a White man who obviously condoned the State paying other men to go murder a man for the liquid coin of rum.
Professor Pybus has produced an informative and scholarly work full of little known African American history. In many ways her book salutes those men, women and children who were able to cast off the chains of their bondage in the American colonies before, during and after the American Revolutionary War.
When American colonists began to rebel in earnest against British rule, England's on-the-scene representative, Lord Dunmore, felt sufficiently threatened that he prudently sent his wife back to England.
While the British warship HMS Fowey rode at anchor on Virginia's James River, Dunmore used the vessel as his headquarters. In her wardroom he set about the task of 'assembl[ing] a squadron to strike back at rebellious Virginians', who greatly outnumbered British loyalists in the vicinity. Moreover, he had been told that in 1775, there were no less than 180 000 Black people enslaved in Virginia.
One of Dunmore's war stategies was the offer of 'freedom' to any slave who would swear an oath of allegiance to England. Consequently, slaves ran to Dunmore in droves. One among them was Harry Washington who was once the servant of then Colonel George Washington, the same George Washington who would become America's first president. Harry became a member of England's Royal Artillery Unit. Of course, no one thought that the rebellious colonists would actually win the war.
In defeat large numbers of Dunmore's troops, and those runaway slaves who supported them, succumbed to various diseases along with the standard horrors of mortal combat. Those who survived the colonists' fury were grudgingly allowed to leave America after a victory and ceasefire had been declared.
In due course, the British sailed first for Nova Scotia and after making landfall they deposited a substantial number of Blacks there. However, the bulk of the British fleet sailed for England, taking even more freed Black people with them.
From that point on, the African American struggle for freedom became a global diaspora. A growing number of destinations far beyond the shores of Nova Scotia and England (here read the West Indies, West Africa's Sierra Leone and Australia, for example) became both havens and/or earthly hells for those intrepid Black men, women and children.
Epic Journeys of Freedom is an engrossing read. For me it has had the effect of connecting those dots left dangling by several other historical narratives on the African American experience.
This book also exposes a demoralizing feature on the part of the well intentioned British effort to enhance the growth of freedom's seed for those Blacks who left America: a kind of undeclared Holy War between the Anglican Church and a number of seemingly adversarial Methodists. The consequence of which more often than not rendered Black refugees casualties of the very freedom they had been offered by the British.
Added to the long list of instructive history this book provides is its 26 succinct biographies of Black refugees, a feature which is easy to access while absorbing the depth of the main text.
On November 3, 2006, I listened to the 'Frank and Wanda Show' on V-103 radio, in Atlanta Georgia. The host, Frank Ski, offered a prize to the caller who could give the name of the first President of the United States. Several people called, none with the right answer. Eventually someone said John Adams and Frank Ski agreed and awarded them the prize!
If ever there was an example of how badly some African Americans needed to study history, this is it. Of course George Washington was America's first president, and John Adams the second (from 1797 to 1801).
Sadly that error was neither noted nor corrected.
While both Mr Ski and the caller were wrong, I do not mean to assail them. My deeper concern is for those many poor African American children listening to that show five days a week who are learning degrading rap lyrics and this kind of historical misinformation.
I wish that Frank Ski and the caller would read this book aloud - one page per day on air.
Brandon encourages your response to this or any other essay, poem, book review or short story. He does not care if your response is positive or negative - he answers all letters.
If you are interested in reading more about African American history I urge you to read 'while the Mississippi and Hudson merge' a roman à clef. It can be purchased from iUniverse.
Professor Cassandra Pybus
Research Chair of History at the University of Tasmania
Review of Epic Journeys of Freedom: Runaway Slaves of the American Revolution and their Global Quest for Liberty. Beacon Press, 2006. ISBN 080705514X. $US 26.95.
This is the first time I have started a review with a quote taken from a book's epilogue. However, since I am an African American being held in one of America's Southern prisons, it seems appropriate for me to do so out of a genuine respect for those who have gone before me.
I had a visceral reaction to Professor Pybus' words. For I know that I share a historical kinship with the man who was known as 'Black Caesar' in eighteenth century Australia. A bounty was placed on his head: 'dead or alive'. He was hunted down and killed. The reward for killing him according to Professor Pybus was a 'lavish' one: five gallons of rum.
On February 15, 1796, the New South Wales Judge Advocate David Collins wrote a brief obituary which in part read: 'Thus ended a man who certainly, during his life, could never have been estimated at more than one remove above a brute'. The judge went on to later declare Caesar an 'incorrigibly stubborn [B]lack'.
Interesting words to be sure, especially when you consider that they were chosen and written by a White man who obviously condoned the State paying other men to go murder a man for the liquid coin of rum.
Professor Pybus has produced an informative and scholarly work full of little known African American history. In many ways her book salutes those men, women and children who were able to cast off the chains of their bondage in the American colonies before, during and after the American Revolutionary War.
When American colonists began to rebel in earnest against British rule, England's on-the-scene representative, Lord Dunmore, felt sufficiently threatened that he prudently sent his wife back to England.
While the British warship HMS Fowey rode at anchor on Virginia's James River, Dunmore used the vessel as his headquarters. In her wardroom he set about the task of 'assembl[ing] a squadron to strike back at rebellious Virginians', who greatly outnumbered British loyalists in the vicinity. Moreover, he had been told that in 1775, there were no less than 180 000 Black people enslaved in Virginia.
One of Dunmore's war stategies was the offer of 'freedom' to any slave who would swear an oath of allegiance to England. Consequently, slaves ran to Dunmore in droves. One among them was Harry Washington who was once the servant of then Colonel George Washington, the same George Washington who would become America's first president. Harry became a member of England's Royal Artillery Unit. Of course, no one thought that the rebellious colonists would actually win the war.
In defeat large numbers of Dunmore's troops, and those runaway slaves who supported them, succumbed to various diseases along with the standard horrors of mortal combat. Those who survived the colonists' fury were grudgingly allowed to leave America after a victory and ceasefire had been declared.
In due course, the British sailed first for Nova Scotia and after making landfall they deposited a substantial number of Blacks there. However, the bulk of the British fleet sailed for England, taking even more freed Black people with them.
From that point on, the African American struggle for freedom became a global diaspora. A growing number of destinations far beyond the shores of Nova Scotia and England (here read the West Indies, West Africa's Sierra Leone and Australia, for example) became both havens and/or earthly hells for those intrepid Black men, women and children.
Epic Journeys of Freedom is an engrossing read. For me it has had the effect of connecting those dots left dangling by several other historical narratives on the African American experience.
This book also exposes a demoralizing feature on the part of the well intentioned British effort to enhance the growth of freedom's seed for those Blacks who left America: a kind of undeclared Holy War between the Anglican Church and a number of seemingly adversarial Methodists. The consequence of which more often than not rendered Black refugees casualties of the very freedom they had been offered by the British.
Added to the long list of instructive history this book provides is its 26 succinct biographies of Black refugees, a feature which is easy to access while absorbing the depth of the main text.
On November 3, 2006, I listened to the 'Frank and Wanda Show' on V-103 radio, in Atlanta Georgia. The host, Frank Ski, offered a prize to the caller who could give the name of the first President of the United States. Several people called, none with the right answer. Eventually someone said John Adams and Frank Ski agreed and awarded them the prize!
If ever there was an example of how badly some African Americans needed to study history, this is it. Of course George Washington was America's first president, and John Adams the second (from 1797 to 1801).
Sadly that error was neither noted nor corrected.
While both Mr Ski and the caller were wrong, I do not mean to assail them. My deeper concern is for those many poor African American children listening to that show five days a week who are learning degrading rap lyrics and this kind of historical misinformation.
I wish that Frank Ski and the caller would read this book aloud - one page per day on air.
Brandon encourages your response to this or any other essay, poem, book review or short story. He does not care if your response is positive or negative - he answers all letters.
If you are interested in reading more about African American history I urge you to read 'while the Mississippi and Hudson merge' a roman à clef. It can be purchased from iUniverse.
Stamps
To: Major Scott (Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison)
From Prisoner Brandon Astor Jones, UNO#400574; G3-83
Date: September 12, 2008, 17.01 hours
Subject: Our encounter yesterday regarding 'Stamps'
It is ironic amid all of the Department of Corrections' talk of the need to save money that frequently when there is an opportunity to make money this prison's store passes it up.
It costs 94c to send a letter to Australia and the United Kingdom. Yet the highest denomination of United States postage stamps a prisoner can purchase at the GD&CPs store is an 84c stamp. A letter must therefore have one 84c, three 3c and one 1c stamp on it. As you know we are limited to 20 stamps per store purchase (which causes us to use one quarter of the purchase for one letter). This is absurd when a 94c stamp is all that is needed.
Moreover, the GD&CP store VERY OFTEN does not have 84c stamps, and it strangely has never sold 94c ones. I have the nature of this long-standing problem known to Counselor Clark, Unit Manager Goen, Lieutenant McCormick and many others here among staff administrators, both verbally and in writing. I even wrote an Informal Grievance Form about it last year and I have not had that Informal Grievance returned to me yet (I put it in then Counselor Murphy's hand personally).
I have mail I have been trying to send out for weeks, due to lack of postage. In effect, I am being denied timely access to US Courts, lawyers, family and friends needlessly despite being under a sentence of death (I could have a fourteen day death warrant read to me at any time).
I respectfully request that you fix this problem.
From Prisoner Brandon Astor Jones, UNO#400574; G3-83
Date: September 12, 2008, 17.01 hours
Subject: Our encounter yesterday regarding 'Stamps'
It is ironic amid all of the Department of Corrections' talk of the need to save money that frequently when there is an opportunity to make money this prison's store passes it up.
It costs 94c to send a letter to Australia and the United Kingdom. Yet the highest denomination of United States postage stamps a prisoner can purchase at the GD&CPs store is an 84c stamp. A letter must therefore have one 84c, three 3c and one 1c stamp on it. As you know we are limited to 20 stamps per store purchase (which causes us to use one quarter of the purchase for one letter). This is absurd when a 94c stamp is all that is needed.
Moreover, the GD&CP store VERY OFTEN does not have 84c stamps, and it strangely has never sold 94c ones. I have the nature of this long-standing problem known to Counselor Clark, Unit Manager Goen, Lieutenant McCormick and many others here among staff administrators, both verbally and in writing. I even wrote an Informal Grievance Form about it last year and I have not had that Informal Grievance returned to me yet (I put it in then Counselor Murphy's hand personally).
I have mail I have been trying to send out for weeks, due to lack of postage. In effect, I am being denied timely access to US Courts, lawyers, family and friends needlessly despite being under a sentence of death (I could have a fourteen day death warrant read to me at any time).
I respectfully request that you fix this problem.
Saturday, 1 November 2008
'...death row prison cell' by Brandon Astor Jones
CHOICES
if i can't do
what I want to do
then my job is to not
do what I don't want
to do
it's not the same thing
but it's the best I can
do
if I can't have
what I want...then
my job is to want
what I've got
and be satisfied
that at least there
is something more to want
since I can't go
where I need
to go...then I must...go
where the signs point
through always understanding
parallel movement
isn't lateral
when I can't express
what I really feel
and none of it is equal
i know
but that's why mankind
alone among the animals
learns to cry
Professor Nikki Giovanni
My good friend Dr Jill Segger recently shared this poem with me in her latest communication. I had previously written a letter to her in which I included a copy of the letter I wrote to Professor Giovanni on April 17 2007, after she had been featured on the Public Television program The News Hour with Jim Lehrer. The professor spoke at some length after an angry student had shot and killed 33 people (including himself) on campus.
In my letter to the professor, amongst other things I wrote that I felt she had given "eloquence and hope to the aftermath of utter violence and devastation", as I offered my heartfelt condolences. More on Professor Giovanni's poem and my letter to her later.
As usual, I plan to rely on the reader's intelligence to grasp the full meaning of my words on these pages and those unseen messages conveyed between the lines that I dare not write, but you know that I am thinking.
The main thrust of my letter to Professor Giovanni follows here:
I also believe that violence in America is taught in both overt and subtle ways. Few will admit it, but the majority of Americans consciously and unconsciously give tacit approval to (and encourage) violence from the cradle to the grave.
For example, more than 57 years ago, when I was one of less than a handful of Blacks among as many as 354 White students at Lowell Longfellow School in Harvey, Illnois, I became both victim and, as a sad but necessary consequence, a perpetrator of violence. In classrooms, hallways and especially out on the playgrounds, groups of White boys would attack me repeatedly. During one of those attacks, Mr Fry, the school principal, pulled no less than five bullies off me. He had seen me being pummeled and kicked to a bloody pulp. I was clearly the victim.
Looking back I realize that it was silly of me to have thought that Mr Fry was saving me when he pulled those guys off me. You see, when he took me to his third floor office, he produced a wooden paddle that was about three feet long. He then explained that because I started the fight, I would be given 'four licks', despite my protests that I had not started anything at all. He gave me those four licks, immediately.
It goes without saying that you can rationally conclude that Mr Fry was both wrong and racist in his response to the situation, and I agree. However, I want this writing to be more about the instrinsic and varied nature of adolescent violence in America, than the racism that can so often support and perpetuate it.
The violence on the playground that day at Lowell Longfellow School was an integral part of Mr Fry's school administration program. That is to say that from the attack on the playground all the way up to the third floor paddling, violence permeated Mr Fry's school administration. His response to group violence was to administer more violence to the individual victim of said violence.
Most (we can be grateful not all) White people in America like to think of themselves as not being racist. Consequently they see no need to instruct their children in the art of accepting people who look and act in ways that are different.
Of course, by the time those children are started in school, they are not prepared to understand, let alone accept, people who do not look and act like them.
American society, by and large, teaches its members to not only reject but to also assail difference. In this fashion Mr Fry, and millions of parents in America, promote a kind of semi-subtle-violence, a nefarious violence that such parents can routinely pretend to be unaware of.
IMPORTANT NOTE TO ALL:
If you do not consciously teach
ACCEPTANCE OF OTHERS to
your children, long before they start
school, YOU CONSCIOUSLY
TEACH VIOLENCE BY
DEFAULT.
Likewise, if we as a nation do not start teaching small children conflict resolution and self-control, we are encouraging the kind of violent loss of control that visits America so frequently.
Unfortunately when someone actually suggests that we pursue such thinking and teaching methods for Americans, that someone is usually met with the vociferous protests of angry parents/taxpayers who declare that a) the State has no business teaching their children what or how to think and/or b) even if they wanted to try it, there is no money for such liberal teaching concepts in the State or Federal budget.
Those vociferous and angry voices more often than not belong to the same people who support sending thousands of young men and women to war in Iraq, and elsewhere, along with billions and billions of tax dollars.
Last week I was reminded of Mr Fry's paddle as the use of corporal punishment occupied a slot in most evening news programs for two days. Those news programs inspired me to conduct my own survey here in G3 Cellblock, where 20 of the 23 men answered yes when I asked if they had been subjected to corporal punishment while they were in early primary school. One of the men recalled getting paddled, the first time while he was still in kindergarten.
Yes, I know that some readers will say corporal punishment was good for some. To those readers I must admit that is true, but only a minority.
As my fellow prisoner gave me details of the paddling he experienced in kindergarten, I wondered if the woman who paddled him had been at the core of his adult life's anger. I wondered if it was she he was trying to kill, instead of his late wife? I wonder, even now, how many of those 20 men in my Cellblock would be here if they had been given anger management instruction as frequently as they were given corporal punishment, in one form or another?
I am aware as I write this line that most, if not all, of the self-righteously 'vociferous' among us will discount and resent everything that is said on these pages because of who and where I am. That is a sad fact of American life, that few people listen to what prisoners have to say. I am very fortunate to have a friend like Dr Segger, who wrote the encouraging words below:
Thank you Dr Segger. Your words move me deeply. As you might have guessed Professor Giovanni did not answer the letter I wrote to her on April 17 2007. At least, she did not answer it in the direct traditional way. In an indirect way via her poem 'Choices' that you have shared with me in your letter, I choose to consider it in general, and one portion of it in particular, an answer that speaks to me on many personal levels.
If the reader is a person who is of the opinion that all human beings should be heard, no matter their situation or location, feel free to drop me a line. Know that you are in good company with the likes of Professor Giovanni and Dr Segger. I hope to be able to share some things with all of you that are sure to surprise you. Things that come from the Heaven and Hell sides of this death row prison cell.
WRITE TO:
Brandon Astor Jones, G3-83
UNO#400574
Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison
P.O. Box 3877
Jackson, Georgia 30233
USA
if i can't do
what I want to do
then my job is to not
do what I don't want
to do
it's not the same thing
but it's the best I can
do
if I can't have
what I want...then
my job is to want
what I've got
and be satisfied
that at least there
is something more to want
since I can't go
where I need
to go...then I must...go
where the signs point
through always understanding
parallel movement
isn't lateral
when I can't express
what I really feel
and none of it is equal
i know
but that's why mankind
alone among the animals
learns to cry
Professor Nikki Giovanni
My good friend Dr Jill Segger recently shared this poem with me in her latest communication. I had previously written a letter to her in which I included a copy of the letter I wrote to Professor Giovanni on April 17 2007, after she had been featured on the Public Television program The News Hour with Jim Lehrer. The professor spoke at some length after an angry student had shot and killed 33 people (including himself) on campus.
In my letter to the professor, amongst other things I wrote that I felt she had given "eloquence and hope to the aftermath of utter violence and devastation", as I offered my heartfelt condolences. More on Professor Giovanni's poem and my letter to her later.
As usual, I plan to rely on the reader's intelligence to grasp the full meaning of my words on these pages and those unseen messages conveyed between the lines that I dare not write, but you know that I am thinking.
The main thrust of my letter to Professor Giovanni follows here:
Viewing American society for 28 years from a death row prison cell often allows me unusual clarity. I would like to share this thought.
As violence continues to rise on campuses, I have come to the conclusion that one of the best ways to reduce future violence (not just on campuses but in general in American society) is to start teaching children anger management. I mean that it should be taught in much the same way they are taught their ABCs in kindergarten.
Teachers need to teach anger management and how to constructively respond to each days', indeed life's, disappointments, betrayals, etc. The tragedy at Virginia Tech* and countless other places have made me certain that early and sustained instruction in anger management is, at the very least, as important as learning one's ABCs.
I also believe that violence in America is taught in both overt and subtle ways. Few will admit it, but the majority of Americans consciously and unconsciously give tacit approval to (and encourage) violence from the cradle to the grave.
For example, more than 57 years ago, when I was one of less than a handful of Blacks among as many as 354 White students at Lowell Longfellow School in Harvey, Illnois, I became both victim and, as a sad but necessary consequence, a perpetrator of violence. In classrooms, hallways and especially out on the playgrounds, groups of White boys would attack me repeatedly. During one of those attacks, Mr Fry, the school principal, pulled no less than five bullies off me. He had seen me being pummeled and kicked to a bloody pulp. I was clearly the victim.
Looking back I realize that it was silly of me to have thought that Mr Fry was saving me when he pulled those guys off me. You see, when he took me to his third floor office, he produced a wooden paddle that was about three feet long. He then explained that because I started the fight, I would be given 'four licks', despite my protests that I had not started anything at all. He gave me those four licks, immediately.
It goes without saying that you can rationally conclude that Mr Fry was both wrong and racist in his response to the situation, and I agree. However, I want this writing to be more about the instrinsic and varied nature of adolescent violence in America, than the racism that can so often support and perpetuate it.
The violence on the playground that day at Lowell Longfellow School was an integral part of Mr Fry's school administration program. That is to say that from the attack on the playground all the way up to the third floor paddling, violence permeated Mr Fry's school administration. His response to group violence was to administer more violence to the individual victim of said violence.
Most (we can be grateful not all) White people in America like to think of themselves as not being racist. Consequently they see no need to instruct their children in the art of accepting people who look and act in ways that are different.
Of course, by the time those children are started in school, they are not prepared to understand, let alone accept, people who do not look and act like them.
American society, by and large, teaches its members to not only reject but to also assail difference. In this fashion Mr Fry, and millions of parents in America, promote a kind of semi-subtle-violence, a nefarious violence that such parents can routinely pretend to be unaware of.
IMPORTANT NOTE TO ALL:
If you do not consciously teach
ACCEPTANCE OF OTHERS to
your children, long before they start
school, YOU CONSCIOUSLY
TEACH VIOLENCE BY
DEFAULT.
Likewise, if we as a nation do not start teaching small children conflict resolution and self-control, we are encouraging the kind of violent loss of control that visits America so frequently.
Unfortunately when someone actually suggests that we pursue such thinking and teaching methods for Americans, that someone is usually met with the vociferous protests of angry parents/taxpayers who declare that a) the State has no business teaching their children what or how to think and/or b) even if they wanted to try it, there is no money for such liberal teaching concepts in the State or Federal budget.
Those vociferous and angry voices more often than not belong to the same people who support sending thousands of young men and women to war in Iraq, and elsewhere, along with billions and billions of tax dollars.
Last week I was reminded of Mr Fry's paddle as the use of corporal punishment occupied a slot in most evening news programs for two days. Those news programs inspired me to conduct my own survey here in G3 Cellblock, where 20 of the 23 men answered yes when I asked if they had been subjected to corporal punishment while they were in early primary school. One of the men recalled getting paddled, the first time while he was still in kindergarten.
Yes, I know that some readers will say corporal punishment was good for some. To those readers I must admit that is true, but only a minority.
As my fellow prisoner gave me details of the paddling he experienced in kindergarten, I wondered if the woman who paddled him had been at the core of his adult life's anger. I wondered if it was she he was trying to kill, instead of his late wife? I wonder, even now, how many of those 20 men in my Cellblock would be here if they had been given anger management instruction as frequently as they were given corporal punishment, in one form or another?
I am aware as I write this line that most, if not all, of the self-righteously 'vociferous' among us will discount and resent everything that is said on these pages because of who and where I am. That is a sad fact of American life, that few people listen to what prisoners have to say. I am very fortunate to have a friend like Dr Segger, who wrote the encouraging words below:
Dear Brandon,
I was very moved by your thoughts on anger management and how to prepare children for rejection and frustration and how this is essential to reducing violence. You are absolutely right and your life experience gives you a particular authority [in] speaking thus...
Thank you Dr Segger. Your words move me deeply. As you might have guessed Professor Giovanni did not answer the letter I wrote to her on April 17 2007. At least, she did not answer it in the direct traditional way. In an indirect way via her poem 'Choices' that you have shared with me in your letter, I choose to consider it in general, and one portion of it in particular, an answer that speaks to me on many personal levels.
...when I can't express
what I really feel
i practice feeling
what I can express
and none of it is equal
i know
but that's why mankind
alone among the animals
learns to cry.
If the reader is a person who is of the opinion that all human beings should be heard, no matter their situation or location, feel free to drop me a line. Know that you are in good company with the likes of Professor Giovanni and Dr Segger. I hope to be able to share some things with all of you that are sure to surprise you. Things that come from the Heaven and Hell sides of this death row prison cell.
WRITE TO:
Brandon Astor Jones, G3-83
UNO#400574
Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison
P.O. Box 3877
Jackson, Georgia 30233
USA
'...the reader as well' by Brandon Astor Jones
I think the whole glory of writing lies in the fact that it forces us out of ourselves into the lives of others.
Sherwood Anderson
Unfortunately, prisons in America provide little in the way of a means for positive daily individual accomplishment for prisoners. A man like myself, in order to keep insanity and boredom at bay, needs to accomplish something worthwhile every day.
In 1962, when I joined the US Army, I lied when I indicated on the induction form that I had completed '9 years' of schooling. In reality I did not even graduate from elementary school.
It was only after I came to this prison did I manage to - by hook and by crook - obtain a General Education Development Certificate. I am sharing this bit of information because I want the reader to know that I could barely write a letter, let alone a book, when I entered prison.
With the progression of time I began writing poems, essays and short autobiographical snippets. It did not take long for the daily routine of accomplishment - with the frequent discoveries of myself, and others, past and present - to become addictive. I began reading everything I could get my hands on, from cover to cover, even old newspapers and magazines. In time I decided to get myself published.
I began a brief correspondence with Mr Creed W Pannell, the publisher of the Atlanta News Weekly. He offered me a 250 word weekly column with the freedom to write about any subject I chose. That freedom lasted for nearly a year until I wrote about Clarence Thomas, who was then an unconfirmed United States Supreme Court nominee.
Before writing that essay I had read (in detail) the nominee's paper trail in the prison's law library, which led me to conclude that he was unfit as a replacement for the highly esteemed United States Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall.
I got no reader response to any of my columns prior to that article, but that following week ten letters arrived. All were written by African American men and women who expressed outrage that I dared "to write [such] disparaging things about a wonderful Black man from Pin Point, Georgia"!
My column, 'An Inside Look with Brandon Astor Jones', was discontinued immediately. Of course, I take a degree of comfort in knowing that these days most of those letter writers share my opinion of Justice Thomas.
I quickly had begun to enjoy writing a column each week. After not being able to find another column in America, I began perusing foreign publications with a view to finding a new space. All that eventuated was occasional publication in the United Kingdom.
I switched my geographical focus to Australia. Eventually I made contact with a fellow American, who had recently relocated from Wisconsin to Sydney. Mr Allen Myers had just started the Green Left Weekly newspaper, and he offered me a 550 word space each week, which I accepted. Green Left Weekly grew quickly from a fledgling local publication in Sydney to one of the most widely read alternative newspapers in the entire country. It is distributed in each of Australia's states.
For more than eleven years, 47 weeks in the year, my column titled 'looking out' was published. I covered many topics such as racism, sexism, classism, intracultural prejudice, prison, prisoners, crime, capital punishment, spousal abuse, music, history, slavery, local and global politics. Then a new editor came who found me to be too pro-America for his taste. Shortly thereafter 'looking out' was discontinued.
By then my interest in American history had narrowed. The Civil War and those African Americans who had fought and died for the Union (Federal) Navy, long before the Union Army began accepting Black men as soldiers, became my obsession. Sadly, the Civil War as it was fought on America's inland waterways and experienced by Black men and women has rarely been written about. I decided that I would start writing some of this history.
From newspapers I learned of Joseph P Reidy, then the Associate Dean of the Graduate School at Howard University. He and his students had spent a decade researching Blacks' involvement in the fighting of America's greatest internal conflict. I wrote to him seeking the specifics on Black sailors in the Union Navy.
Dean Reidy introduced me to several little known Black heroes who fought in the war, but the one who interests me most is a man named Wilson Brown. He was once a slave on a cotton plantation. He was the only man, Black or White, from the State of Mississippi to be awarded the US Navy's Medal of Honor for his heroic service while under heavy enemy fire during the civil war.
I became so taken with Wilson Brown's life I was inspired to write a lengthy essay about him. Two years later that essay had grown into a book written in the form of a roman à clef entitled 'without war'.
The story begins in Wilson Brown's early years on the Miller Plantation as a slave. In that particular 39 chapter draft, the story ended with Brown's heroics during several of the ship-to-ship engagements of the Battle of Mobile Bay.
While reading another newspaper I came across an article about a Quaker professor at the University of Alabama's Tuscaloosa Campus. He had been the driving force behind the movement to encourage Alabama to apologize for the role it played in the perpetuation of slavery. When I read that, I thought to myself that he would be the perfect person to give me his opinion on my book.
I wrote to him and asked if he would read it. He promptly responded indicating that he would be happy to read it and give his opinion. I sent 'without war' to him immediately.
Three weeks later he wrote again saying that the manuscript was good and, because of its educational value, should be put up on the internet. He added that he would be happy to do that for me. I explained to him that the manuscript was incomplete and that I did not want it up on the internet even in the incomplete form because it could be stolen in part or whole. I asked him to return it.
He wrote again and said he would return it but first he wanted to write an essay on its theme: how the violence of war, love and law can produce redemption. Before I answered that letter, another arrived dated June 25 2004. The professor commented that 'without war' reminded him of 'a short story [by Harriet Beecher Stow] called 'Love versus Law'".
He never returned my manuscript despite my repeated letters asking him to do so. Then he stopped communicating completely.
The manuscript now has 50 chapters. As all my writing is given the title of the final words in the last sentence, the new title of 'without war' became 'while the Mississippi and Hudson merge'.
My purpose for having written this essay is two-fold. First, I hope that many readers of these words will write, call or email the professor and ask him to kindly return my work. I choose not to speculate as to why he has not done so. I just want my work back. He can be contacted at the following work email address at the University of Cambridge, UK: abrophy@email.unc.edu.
Second, I trust that after reading this all writers who are in prison will exercise due caution when sending your manuscripts out. No matter how official their titles appear to be, some people on the outside (but not all) will take advantage of you because you are in prison. If you must send your manuscript out try to send it to an organization you can trust, like the PEN American Center's Prison Writing Mentorship Program in New York.
The words that head this essay are true: 'writing... forces us out of ourselves into the lives of others.' In fact, it is clear that those words also apply to the reader.
while the Mississippi and the Hudson merge can be purchased from the publisher iUniverse.
Sherwood Anderson
Unfortunately, prisons in America provide little in the way of a means for positive daily individual accomplishment for prisoners. A man like myself, in order to keep insanity and boredom at bay, needs to accomplish something worthwhile every day.
In 1962, when I joined the US Army, I lied when I indicated on the induction form that I had completed '9 years' of schooling. In reality I did not even graduate from elementary school.
It was only after I came to this prison did I manage to - by hook and by crook - obtain a General Education Development Certificate. I am sharing this bit of information because I want the reader to know that I could barely write a letter, let alone a book, when I entered prison.
With the progression of time I began writing poems, essays and short autobiographical snippets. It did not take long for the daily routine of accomplishment - with the frequent discoveries of myself, and others, past and present - to become addictive. I began reading everything I could get my hands on, from cover to cover, even old newspapers and magazines. In time I decided to get myself published.
I began a brief correspondence with Mr Creed W Pannell, the publisher of the Atlanta News Weekly. He offered me a 250 word weekly column with the freedom to write about any subject I chose. That freedom lasted for nearly a year until I wrote about Clarence Thomas, who was then an unconfirmed United States Supreme Court nominee.
Before writing that essay I had read (in detail) the nominee's paper trail in the prison's law library, which led me to conclude that he was unfit as a replacement for the highly esteemed United States Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall.
I got no reader response to any of my columns prior to that article, but that following week ten letters arrived. All were written by African American men and women who expressed outrage that I dared "to write [such] disparaging things about a wonderful Black man from Pin Point, Georgia"!
My column, 'An Inside Look with Brandon Astor Jones', was discontinued immediately. Of course, I take a degree of comfort in knowing that these days most of those letter writers share my opinion of Justice Thomas.
I quickly had begun to enjoy writing a column each week. After not being able to find another column in America, I began perusing foreign publications with a view to finding a new space. All that eventuated was occasional publication in the United Kingdom.
I switched my geographical focus to Australia. Eventually I made contact with a fellow American, who had recently relocated from Wisconsin to Sydney. Mr Allen Myers had just started the Green Left Weekly newspaper, and he offered me a 550 word space each week, which I accepted. Green Left Weekly grew quickly from a fledgling local publication in Sydney to one of the most widely read alternative newspapers in the entire country. It is distributed in each of Australia's states.
For more than eleven years, 47 weeks in the year, my column titled 'looking out' was published. I covered many topics such as racism, sexism, classism, intracultural prejudice, prison, prisoners, crime, capital punishment, spousal abuse, music, history, slavery, local and global politics. Then a new editor came who found me to be too pro-America for his taste. Shortly thereafter 'looking out' was discontinued.
By then my interest in American history had narrowed. The Civil War and those African Americans who had fought and died for the Union (Federal) Navy, long before the Union Army began accepting Black men as soldiers, became my obsession. Sadly, the Civil War as it was fought on America's inland waterways and experienced by Black men and women has rarely been written about. I decided that I would start writing some of this history.
From newspapers I learned of Joseph P Reidy, then the Associate Dean of the Graduate School at Howard University. He and his students had spent a decade researching Blacks' involvement in the fighting of America's greatest internal conflict. I wrote to him seeking the specifics on Black sailors in the Union Navy.
Dean Reidy introduced me to several little known Black heroes who fought in the war, but the one who interests me most is a man named Wilson Brown. He was once a slave on a cotton plantation. He was the only man, Black or White, from the State of Mississippi to be awarded the US Navy's Medal of Honor for his heroic service while under heavy enemy fire during the civil war.
I became so taken with Wilson Brown's life I was inspired to write a lengthy essay about him. Two years later that essay had grown into a book written in the form of a roman à clef entitled 'without war'.
The story begins in Wilson Brown's early years on the Miller Plantation as a slave. In that particular 39 chapter draft, the story ended with Brown's heroics during several of the ship-to-ship engagements of the Battle of Mobile Bay.
While reading another newspaper I came across an article about a Quaker professor at the University of Alabama's Tuscaloosa Campus. He had been the driving force behind the movement to encourage Alabama to apologize for the role it played in the perpetuation of slavery. When I read that, I thought to myself that he would be the perfect person to give me his opinion on my book.
I wrote to him and asked if he would read it. He promptly responded indicating that he would be happy to read it and give his opinion. I sent 'without war' to him immediately.
Three weeks later he wrote again saying that the manuscript was good and, because of its educational value, should be put up on the internet. He added that he would be happy to do that for me. I explained to him that the manuscript was incomplete and that I did not want it up on the internet even in the incomplete form because it could be stolen in part or whole. I asked him to return it.
He wrote again and said he would return it but first he wanted to write an essay on its theme: how the violence of war, love and law can produce redemption. Before I answered that letter, another arrived dated June 25 2004. The professor commented that 'without war' reminded him of 'a short story [by Harriet Beecher Stow] called 'Love versus Law'".
He never returned my manuscript despite my repeated letters asking him to do so. Then he stopped communicating completely.
The manuscript now has 50 chapters. As all my writing is given the title of the final words in the last sentence, the new title of 'without war' became 'while the Mississippi and Hudson merge'.
My purpose for having written this essay is two-fold. First, I hope that many readers of these words will write, call or email the professor and ask him to kindly return my work. I choose not to speculate as to why he has not done so. I just want my work back. He can be contacted at the following work email address at the University of Cambridge, UK: abrophy@email.unc.edu.
Second, I trust that after reading this all writers who are in prison will exercise due caution when sending your manuscripts out. No matter how official their titles appear to be, some people on the outside (but not all) will take advantage of you because you are in prison. If you must send your manuscript out try to send it to an organization you can trust, like the PEN American Center's Prison Writing Mentorship Program in New York.
The words that head this essay are true: 'writing... forces us out of ourselves into the lives of others.' In fact, it is clear that those words also apply to the reader.
while the Mississippi and the Hudson merge can be purchased from the publisher iUniverse.
Tuesday, 9 September 2008
"... dying in poverty" by Brandon Astor Jones
America's failure to make progress in reducing poverty, especially among children, should provoke a lot of soul-searching. Unfortunately, what it often seems to provoke instead is great creativity in making excuses. - Paul Krugman
On February 24, 2008, I wrote a letter to a correspondent in England, and with that correspondent's consent I am sharing a portion of that letter here for those readers who have asked me questions about my childhood.
Under the title 'Rio Grande Valley Journal: In Remote Valley, A Grim Redefinition of Fishing' there is a photograph of two boys bent over a river's rock-strewn pool in The New York Times' February 15 2008 issue. They are looking for fresh water shrimp.
The photograph conjured up memories of being a nine year old, more than fifty-five years ago, in the exurb of Markham, Illinois. A farming community twenty-five minutes from downtown Chicago.
I can remember getting up long before sunrise, right after my guardians (here read my maternal Great Aunt Lois McKinley-McGee and her husband James Edward McGee) left for work. I only saw them on Sundays, because Monday through Saturday they left in the early darkness of the morning and did not return until late at night.
On the morning in question I quickly dressed, then went outside to pump a bucket of water. I sat the bucket down so all of the rust particles could settle in the bottom. I got my short-axe, and began cutting a supply of wood beneath the naked light bulb that shone brightly above our little shack's front door. I took the wood inside and built a fire in the pot-bellied stove that stood in the middle of the room's dirt floor. Then I poured the sediment-free top of the water into a large pot and put it on top of the stove.
Twenty minutes later the pot of water was hot. I washed up, and brushed my teeth as dawn quietly began to illuminate my late autumn garden. I went to the garden and pulled up two large carrots. I used the water that was left in the bucket to wash them. I started eating one and wrapped the other in my handkerchief - it would be my lunch at school.
Mine was a love/hate relationship with Lowell Longfellow School, in Harvey, Illnois. The school was just short of being five miles away. It usually took me about thirty minutes to walk to school, where for a time I was the only person of color in attendance. I loved school, but unfortunately, I learned very little in the way of reading, writing and arithmetic, but became an expert at fighting extremely racist White boys.
I am sorry. I did not mean to go on so, but for a few minutes I was transported back to the schoolyard during recess - the fights, and the words uttered in them, did not bring back pleasant memories. I am finding this difficult to write. Let me get back to wrapping my carrot.
We lived in the center of a floodplain. The kind of flooding that Katrina gave New Orleans was a yearly occurrence in Markham. Consequently there was a huge drainage canal less than seventy-five yards south of our shack. After I put my carrot in my back pocket I started thinking of dinner. There was nothing to eat in the shack.
I found a five gallon can. I got a hammer and large screwdriver and then punched at least fifty holes into the can's bottom. I cut off the end of our clothes line that was not in use and tied it to the handle of the can. I left for school, but I took the eastern canal route.
A mile or so later, when I walked up from the canal bank onto the Dixie Highway Bridge, I tied the other end of the clothes line to the bridge and lowered the can into the fast flowing Westward current. I made sure that the can's open end faced east. I then continued my walk to school. I walked into Mrs Summers' classroom at three minutes after nine. Needless to say, Mrs Summers was angry. As I hurried to the back of the classroom she said, "McGee, you are three minutes late. You need not come out of the coatroom for thirty minutes!"
I did as I was told. Mrs Summers was a good teacher, but she could not abide a student's tardiness, not even three minutes.
Getting back to the New York Times article, the boys in the photograph reside in the Rio Grande Valley of Jamaica. In bold type are the words "Spearing the giant shrimp is like work. Poisoning them is quicker". As I read those words I wondered if the reporter intended to suggest that the boys are lazy? Maybe, maybe not.
In Portland, Jamaica, a little hamlet that is near the Rio Grande, many of the residents eat the shrimp and crayfish that can be found in the river's rock pools to keep from starving to death.
The people there are as poor and destitute today as we were more than five decades ago in Markham Illnois. While I used a five gallon bucket to catch my after school meal of crayfish, the poor people of Portland, out of necessity due to poverty, have started to use poison.
Marc Lacy writes: '...any toxin will do. Some favor the pesticide used to keep insects off the coffee plants. Others use the potent solution used to rid cows of ticks. When subjected to the poison, the shrimp [and crayfish the size of lobsters] large and small float right to the top. So do the fish. Catching them is as easy as scooping them up before the river washes them and the poison away.'
Speaking of the poison, a fisherperson named Kimberly John, who works with the Nature Conservancy, is quoted as saying: 'You have to put all morals and conscience aside, and then you throw a toxic pesticide in the river... It's [a] very cold, hard reality to put poison in the river, and what ever jumps out, you catch.'
It goes without saying that no one should be poisoning the river. What humans are doing to the environment all over the world is wrong. I think that only a handful of people like George Bush would disagree. We all need to be doing more to help than hurt the environment.
Yet in my sixty-five years on this earth I have come to question whether some of those who profess a desire to save the environment have taken the time to notice that their fellow human beings are an integral part of the environment as much as a river, valley, mountain or frog.
People like Kimberly John worry - and rightly so, I think - about the river being poisoned, but not nearly enough about how POVERTY POISONS the lives of the world's poorest peoples.
I plan to come back to the Rio Grande Valley Journal article later. Bear with me while I fast forward to another New York Times article dated February 18, 2008, appropriately titled 'Poverty is Poison'. It was written by Paul Krugman. The first paragraph reads:
I am always just a little angry when I read of a recent million dollar research body coming up with a finding like this one. I mean hey, I have been Black and poor in America all of my life! I have never attended a high school and yet, had I been asked I could have saved those researchers a lot of time and money: All poor people know what those researchers found out.
Mr Krugman goes on to remind us that the former President Lyndon Bains Johnson 'declared his War on Poverty 44 years ago. Contrary to cynical legend, there actually was a large reduction in poverty over the next few years, especially among children, who saw their poverty rate fall from 23 percent in 1963 to 14 percent in 1969.'
Then one day a few people saw a handful of so-called 'welfare queens driving Cadillacs' and tax payers got angry and ended the War on Poverty. The majority of people who were and are on welfare actually need the help welfare provides. Alas, because of a few cheats, millions of children were taken off America's welfare rolls - by and large for political expediency. Former President Bill Clinton was instrumental in that removal process.
If people could muster the courage and compassion to care for each other as much as they do for the rivers, I doubt that poor people would be poisoning the river.
Mr Krugman goes on to report that 'to be poor in America today, even more than in the past, is to be an outcast in your own country. And that, the neuroscientists tell us, is what poisons a child's brain' [emphasis added].
People like Kimberly John have a myopic view of how that river gets poisoned. It is not the boys pictured in the rock pool. Poverty is what poisons the river in Portland, Jamaica.
A member of the Portland Conservation group is quoted as having said 'my fear is that the food that we depend on, that is part of our cultural tradition, will die'.
Where is the concern for the two boys in the rock pool?
As I sit in this prison cell I am reminded that on more than a few afternoons when I went back to the Dixie Highway Bridge after school, the five gallon can did not have one crayfish in it. Those were the times when I would go and steal something to eat from the local grocer.
Yes, there are a number of people who survive poverty, some rise high above it. I am happy for them. Nevertheless, at least half of the children who live in poverty never get out of poverty, even as adults.
Americans, as well as people of other nations, are in desperate need of asking our so-called leaders why poverty is not nearly as important as the environment?
I am a sixty-five year old child - locked away in a multi-million dollar prison - still living and dying in poverty.
On February 24, 2008, I wrote a letter to a correspondent in England, and with that correspondent's consent I am sharing a portion of that letter here for those readers who have asked me questions about my childhood.
Under the title 'Rio Grande Valley Journal: In Remote Valley, A Grim Redefinition of Fishing' there is a photograph of two boys bent over a river's rock-strewn pool in The New York Times' February 15 2008 issue. They are looking for fresh water shrimp.
The photograph conjured up memories of being a nine year old, more than fifty-five years ago, in the exurb of Markham, Illinois. A farming community twenty-five minutes from downtown Chicago.
I can remember getting up long before sunrise, right after my guardians (here read my maternal Great Aunt Lois McKinley-McGee and her husband James Edward McGee) left for work. I only saw them on Sundays, because Monday through Saturday they left in the early darkness of the morning and did not return until late at night.
On the morning in question I quickly dressed, then went outside to pump a bucket of water. I sat the bucket down so all of the rust particles could settle in the bottom. I got my short-axe, and began cutting a supply of wood beneath the naked light bulb that shone brightly above our little shack's front door. I took the wood inside and built a fire in the pot-bellied stove that stood in the middle of the room's dirt floor. Then I poured the sediment-free top of the water into a large pot and put it on top of the stove.
Twenty minutes later the pot of water was hot. I washed up, and brushed my teeth as dawn quietly began to illuminate my late autumn garden. I went to the garden and pulled up two large carrots. I used the water that was left in the bucket to wash them. I started eating one and wrapped the other in my handkerchief - it would be my lunch at school.
Mine was a love/hate relationship with Lowell Longfellow School, in Harvey, Illnois. The school was just short of being five miles away. It usually took me about thirty minutes to walk to school, where for a time I was the only person of color in attendance. I loved school, but unfortunately, I learned very little in the way of reading, writing and arithmetic, but became an expert at fighting extremely racist White boys.
I am sorry. I did not mean to go on so, but for a few minutes I was transported back to the schoolyard during recess - the fights, and the words uttered in them, did not bring back pleasant memories. I am finding this difficult to write. Let me get back to wrapping my carrot.
We lived in the center of a floodplain. The kind of flooding that Katrina gave New Orleans was a yearly occurrence in Markham. Consequently there was a huge drainage canal less than seventy-five yards south of our shack. After I put my carrot in my back pocket I started thinking of dinner. There was nothing to eat in the shack.
I found a five gallon can. I got a hammer and large screwdriver and then punched at least fifty holes into the can's bottom. I cut off the end of our clothes line that was not in use and tied it to the handle of the can. I left for school, but I took the eastern canal route.
A mile or so later, when I walked up from the canal bank onto the Dixie Highway Bridge, I tied the other end of the clothes line to the bridge and lowered the can into the fast flowing Westward current. I made sure that the can's open end faced east. I then continued my walk to school. I walked into Mrs Summers' classroom at three minutes after nine. Needless to say, Mrs Summers was angry. As I hurried to the back of the classroom she said, "McGee, you are three minutes late. You need not come out of the coatroom for thirty minutes!"
I did as I was told. Mrs Summers was a good teacher, but she could not abide a student's tardiness, not even three minutes.
Getting back to the New York Times article, the boys in the photograph reside in the Rio Grande Valley of Jamaica. In bold type are the words "Spearing the giant shrimp is like work. Poisoning them is quicker". As I read those words I wondered if the reporter intended to suggest that the boys are lazy? Maybe, maybe not.
In Portland, Jamaica, a little hamlet that is near the Rio Grande, many of the residents eat the shrimp and crayfish that can be found in the river's rock pools to keep from starving to death.
The people there are as poor and destitute today as we were more than five decades ago in Markham Illnois. While I used a five gallon bucket to catch my after school meal of crayfish, the poor people of Portland, out of necessity due to poverty, have started to use poison.
Marc Lacy writes: '...any toxin will do. Some favor the pesticide used to keep insects off the coffee plants. Others use the potent solution used to rid cows of ticks. When subjected to the poison, the shrimp [and crayfish the size of lobsters] large and small float right to the top. So do the fish. Catching them is as easy as scooping them up before the river washes them and the poison away.'
Speaking of the poison, a fisherperson named Kimberly John, who works with the Nature Conservancy, is quoted as saying: 'You have to put all morals and conscience aside, and then you throw a toxic pesticide in the river... It's [a] very cold, hard reality to put poison in the river, and what ever jumps out, you catch.'
It goes without saying that no one should be poisoning the river. What humans are doing to the environment all over the world is wrong. I think that only a handful of people like George Bush would disagree. We all need to be doing more to help than hurt the environment.
Yet in my sixty-five years on this earth I have come to question whether some of those who profess a desire to save the environment have taken the time to notice that their fellow human beings are an integral part of the environment as much as a river, valley, mountain or frog.
People like Kimberly John worry - and rightly so, I think - about the river being poisoned, but not nearly enough about how POVERTY POISONS the lives of the world's poorest peoples.
I plan to come back to the Rio Grande Valley Journal article later. Bear with me while I fast forward to another New York Times article dated February 18, 2008, appropriately titled 'Poverty is Poison'. It was written by Paul Krugman. The first paragraph reads:
'Poverty in early childhood poisons the brain'. That was the opening of an article in Saturday's Financial Times, summarizing research presented last week at the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
...neuroscientists have found that 'many children growing up in very poor families with low social status experience unhealthy levels of stress hormones which impair neural development'. The effect is to impair language development and memory - and hence the ability to escape poverty - for the rest of the child's life.
So we have another, even more compelling reason to be ashamed about America's record of failing to fight poverty.
I am always just a little angry when I read of a recent million dollar research body coming up with a finding like this one. I mean hey, I have been Black and poor in America all of my life! I have never attended a high school and yet, had I been asked I could have saved those researchers a lot of time and money: All poor people know what those researchers found out.
Mr Krugman goes on to remind us that the former President Lyndon Bains Johnson 'declared his War on Poverty 44 years ago. Contrary to cynical legend, there actually was a large reduction in poverty over the next few years, especially among children, who saw their poverty rate fall from 23 percent in 1963 to 14 percent in 1969.'
Then one day a few people saw a handful of so-called 'welfare queens driving Cadillacs' and tax payers got angry and ended the War on Poverty. The majority of people who were and are on welfare actually need the help welfare provides. Alas, because of a few cheats, millions of children were taken off America's welfare rolls - by and large for political expediency. Former President Bill Clinton was instrumental in that removal process.
If people could muster the courage and compassion to care for each other as much as they do for the rivers, I doubt that poor people would be poisoning the river.
Mr Krugman goes on to report that 'to be poor in America today, even more than in the past, is to be an outcast in your own country. And that, the neuroscientists tell us, is what poisons a child's brain' [emphasis added].
People like Kimberly John have a myopic view of how that river gets poisoned. It is not the boys pictured in the rock pool. Poverty is what poisons the river in Portland, Jamaica.
A member of the Portland Conservation group is quoted as having said 'my fear is that the food that we depend on, that is part of our cultural tradition, will die'.
Where is the concern for the two boys in the rock pool?
As I sit in this prison cell I am reminded that on more than a few afternoons when I went back to the Dixie Highway Bridge after school, the five gallon can did not have one crayfish in it. Those were the times when I would go and steal something to eat from the local grocer.
Yes, there are a number of people who survive poverty, some rise high above it. I am happy for them. Nevertheless, at least half of the children who live in poverty never get out of poverty, even as adults.
Americans, as well as people of other nations, are in desperate need of asking our so-called leaders why poverty is not nearly as important as the environment?
I am a sixty-five year old child - locked away in a multi-million dollar prison - still living and dying in poverty.
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