by Heather D’Aoust
The themes of the letters we receive are often painful, but none so painful as the genocidal incarceration of our youth. Children subjected to the torture of solitary confinement; children given death sentences of various kinds; children sentenced to adult prisons; children stolen from us. Our children … – editor
I am a non-binary, pansexual, born female-sexed individual. I was dubbed “Free” at 14 years old when given a life sentence.
I also knew Black Lives Matter long before the pandemic hit. That is because I know firsthand, as a victim of police brutality, that social injustice is a hugely destructive political weapon used against minorities on a grossly biased and tilted government scale in America.
I began writing with the Prison Journalism Project once a poem I wrote about George Floyd, R.I.P., which connected the pandemic to an overall virus I call intolerance, became public.
In time, I did in-depth, online journalism about Covid in California prisons; it led to the release of my book on Amazon, “Campfire Stories: Tales of Terror.”
Despite not being Anglo-Saxon or a staunch Republican, I am making it in life – and did it as an incarcerated individual.
That is because of people like you who now read this – the supporters of a movement that prompted me to get a cursive tattoo of the word “colorblind” on my arm.
I believe in democracy and will not cease until social equality is inherent in a true United States in a truly free America.
Send our sister some love and light: Heather D’Aoust, WA4003, CIW, HB23L, 16756 Chino Corona Rd., Corona, CA 92880. Heather D’Aoust is a journalist for PrisonWriters.com and ally of the Prison Journalism Project. The book “Campfire Stories: Tales of Terror” premiered on Amazon.com during January of 2021 and is a fictional thriller. D’Aoust is a member of Black and Pink, a radical LGBTQ group that are avid activists for BLM (Black Lives Matter) and AAPI (Asian American Pacific Islander) movements.
