by Mutope Duguma
It is a very awakening experience to find yourself hauled off to one of Amerika’s many prisons at a very young age – immature, ignorant and politically bankrupt, while trying to fend for yourself through the many “contradictions” that will become the focus of your life. Throughout your prison stay, once you become aware of who you are and what you are destined to be, your humanity begins to “shine” amongst your peers, discovering that you are more than just a convicted felon who has been reduced to a commodity to be exploited for a profit.
Your human worth is no longer the precious valued soul it once was, because the system (government) that is responsible for leading its fellow humans, has failed tremendously and it is up to each of “us” who have found our humanity to be the beacons of what true freedom looks like, instead of the helplessness, hopelessness and despair that we see all throughout Amerika, where humans are in fear of the many threats that are so prevalent around them in so-called free Amerika!
Whether, we are in prison or in so-called free society, our lives should not be in the hands of people who have no value for human beings whatsoever. How can we expect someone to do the human thing when they have no respect or love for humans?
This question has to be answered in order for prisoners who have found their humanity inside these inhumane prison environments to be treated humanely. It’s equally important for the many humans in the so-called free society who have held on to their humanity to understand that if they truly value their humanity then the struggle for them is to resist the inhumane treatment of humans no matter where they are in the world, because “our” humanity has been under attack for centuries by those who have a strong desire to control our lives for all the wrong – the worst – reasons, while parading around like they are doing humanity favors.
How can we expect someone to do the human thing when they have no respect or love for humans? This question has to be answered in order for prisoners who have found their humanity inside these inhumane prison environments to be treated humanely.
We see how they are blatantly carrying out wars of attrition against humans where we humans have to fight for everything that is our basic human right: housing, food, education, clothes, jobs etc. We pay for everything, yet the return for our hard-earned dollar is very poor to say the least. We spend hundreds of billions of dollars on mass incarceration of the citizens of this nation, who are held inside prisons that are used to carry out the social engineering of prisoners under tyranny, and these prisoners are expected to take these social tyranny lessons back to our already impoverished, oppressed communities.
We spend trillions of dollars on wars that are waged on inner cities throughout Amerika by way of counter insurgency, using these hostile, impoverished environments for insurgencies, as we repeatedly see in Nigeria, South Afrika, Mali, Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Palestine etc. There too, people are held under social tyranny by counterinsurgencies that kill and destroy any and all individuals who go against orders.
We as humans have to understand that no matter how bad our environment may be, we have to hold on to our humanity, by all means. It’s what differentiates us from our oppressors. It’s not hard to find your humanity where everyone is humane, but it is a sincere struggle to find your humanity inside an inhumane society.
We as humans have to understand that no matter how bad our environment may be, we have to hold on to our humanity, by all means. It’s what differentiates us from our oppressors.
Amerika is dying because the people who control it are killing the very people who made Amerika great: their people. I discovered my humanity under social tyranny.
All Power to the People!
Mutope Duguma