Daily Archives: April 29, 2019

Secondary prisonization is what happens when people visit someone in prison. Children are no exception. We experience subtle versions of our parent’s physical confinement, elaborate surveillance and strict guidelines for any and everything. In my experience, from the long rides all the way to small prisons in the middle of nowhere, Kentucky, to my little sister’s severe nosebleeds in the car as we traveled through the mountains of West Virginia, to the amped up security at each facility, to the absurdly cold visitation rooms – all of it was miserable.

Neighborhoods like Bayview Hunters Point and Visitacion Valley have some of the highest rates of dental caries among children aged 0-5 in San Francisco. In San Francisco, there remains a significant disparity in the populations of children currently experiencing this cavity epidemic.

“It was like he was sent by God to give some love to bring us together because that’s what his lyrics were saying, always. He’s not shy to tell the truth even though it might not look good. He wasn’t scared of anything,” said Nipsey’s Eritrean father, Dawit Asghedom. “[God] sent him to send a message, then said, ‘It looks like your time is up because you have completed what I sent you to do. We all have a plan, but God has his own plan. So he had completed what he needed to be doing and he did it early so [God] probably wanted to take him early too.”