🔵 By Allen Chisom. Photo by lauragrafie.
After being incarcerated for nearly a quarter of a century I’ve finally been afforded an opportunity at higher education due to the recent resurgence of prison education programs in the US. Currently I am pursuing a liberal arts degree through a privately funded Christian college. Who would’ve thunk? Lol. The college professors voluntarily enter this hostile environment and are so warm and welcoming .they see unlimited potential in us, even before we can. They treat us with dignity and respect, expressions often foreign in prison settings. “We don’t see you as prisoners anymore. You’re students now.” asserted one faculty member after another. Hearing those words did in a way take me above and beyond this place of eternal confinement and torture – if only momentarily. For three hour increments we are promoted to the level of human beings again, we are encouraged to believe in ourselves and in unlimited possibilities, our voices are heard, and we matter.
Then we leave the safe haven that those classrooms provide and we are happily reminded by the officers that we are still just abhorrent prisoners, that they don’t care we’re wearing backpacks and carrying books. For some strange reason they despise us even more for thinking that we’re anything more than criminals and that we’re not somehow special.
On the prison yard we’re ridiculed and harassed by our fellow inmates because rather than seeing us as inspiration, the majority of them harbor an unwarranted assumption that we now believe ourselves superior to them. As we walk with our countenance and heads high they wrongly misinterpret our newfound confidence as arrogance. Their indignant remarks cut through like knives inflicting the kind of emotional scars that only a loved one can.
So now as I strive to enjoy and maximize my college experience I have to keep in mind that I am still in prison operating in this overtly counterproductive culture and I am surrounded by some people who do not wish to see me succeed or change even if for the better.
Whosoever the reader is my message to you is never shy away from being different, certainly don’t be afraid to be better, and just because someone has a problem with you doesn’t make that your problem. You are worthy, even if no else affirms it. Don’t allow others to put you in a box, let your place in life be whatever you desire it to be.