Loren (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} gute) wrote,@ 2005-07-14 17:35:00 |
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...that doesn't love a wall
Thanks to my sisters, I still have a ratty T-shirt honoring a long-ago Bastille Day party I didn't attend. Since I don't have much urge to celebrate what really happened on Bastille Day, in honor of the day I wish instead:
— that in our country we can stop using our prisons as a Memory Hole or oubliette for people we want to lose;
— and that when or if they come back out we can stop acting as if we just wish they hadn't.
One baby step we may actually take soon: We could remove the insane bureaucratic obstacles that people face who've served their term for a felony conviction and then consider asking to get back the right to vote. In honor of this day, if you are American I ask you to find out what that process is in your home state, whether it is anywhere near meeting current demand, and what purpose you in your heart feel that it really serves. I must warn you that most of you who undertake this are in for an unpleasant surprise.
Inside are more than two million human beings. That's 2,000,000. That's many, many times more than, for instance, all the people you've ever met in your entire life. It's one person out of every 140 or so in our country.
It's another thing we appear to think is disposable, that isn't.
How long does it take you to really succeed in imagining them one at a time as people? And then how about the next one? And then the third one? And then the fourth one? ... [and so on] ... And then the two millionth one? Will you live long enough to do it, do you think?
Another way of thinking of it: The average American spends 1/140th of their life behind bars. So, 62+ hours every year. Or, 72 minutes every week. Or, six or seven months out of an average American lifespan. Know anybody who's spent half a year, total so far, in prison?
The people I know well spend far less than 1/140th of their time in prison— no surprise— but that tells little about how good a job I've done of cultivating in my life only people worth knowing and worth emulating. It tells more about what my parents are, where they raised me, and how poor are the poorer people found there.
How is that in your life?
My new goal is to work to get to know some people who spend more than 1/140th of their time in prison... spending it serving people there. Wish me luck. Also please put me in touch with anybody like that that you're fortunate enough to know.
Thanks to my sisters, I still have a ratty T-shirt honoring a long-ago Bastille Day party I didn't attend. Since I don't have much urge to celebrate what really happened on Bastille Day, in honor of the day I wish instead:
— that in our country we can stop using our prisons as a Memory Hole or oubliette for people we want to lose;
— and that when or if they come back out we can stop acting as if we just wish they hadn't.
One baby step we may actually take soon: We could remove the insane bureaucratic obstacles that people face who've served their term for a felony conviction and then consider asking to get back the right to vote. In honor of this day, if you are American I ask you to find out what that process is in your home state, whether it is anywhere near meeting current demand, and what purpose you in your heart feel that it really serves. I must warn you that most of you who undertake this are in for an unpleasant surprise.
Inside are more than two million human beings. That's 2,000,000. That's many, many times more than, for instance, all the people you've ever met in your entire life. It's one person out of every 140 or so in our country.
It's another thing we appear to think is disposable, that isn't.
How long does it take you to really succeed in imagining them one at a time as people? And then how about the next one? And then the third one? And then the fourth one? ... [and so on] ... And then the two millionth one? Will you live long enough to do it, do you think?
Another way of thinking of it: The average American spends 1/140th of their life behind bars. So, 62+ hours every year. Or, 72 minutes every week. Or, six or seven months out of an average American lifespan. Know anybody who's spent half a year, total so far, in prison?
The people I know well spend far less than 1/140th of their time in prison— no surprise— but that tells little about how good a job I've done of cultivating in my life only people worth knowing and worth emulating. It tells more about what my parents are, where they raised me, and how poor are the poorer people found there.
How is that in your life?
My new goal is to work to get to know some people who spend more than 1/140th of their time in prison... spending it serving people there. Wish me luck. Also please put me in touch with anybody like that that you're fortunate enough to know.
