LETTER FROM INMATE RAY JASPER PART 2

ray-jasper-cropped

Mr. Nolan,

When I first responded to you, I didn’t think that it would cause people to reach out to me and voice their opinions. I’ve never been on the internet in my life and I’m not fully aware of the social circles on the internet, so it was a surprise to receive reactions so quickly.

I learned that some of the responses on your website were positive and some negative. I can only appreciate the conversation. Osho once said that one person considered him like an angel and another person considered him like a devil, he didn’t attempt to refute neither perspective because he said that man does not judge based on the truth of who you are, but on the truth of who they are.

Your words struck a chord with me. You said that my perspective is different and therefore my words have a sort of value. Yet, you’re talking to a young man that’s been judged unworthy to breathe the same air you breathe. That’s like a hobo on the street walking up to you and you ask him for spare change.

Without any questions, you’ve given me a blank canvas. I’ll only address what’s on my heart. Next month, the State of Texas has resolved to kill me like some kind of rabid dog, so indirectly, I guess my intention is to use this as some type of platform because this could be my final statement on earth.

I think ’empathy’ is one of the most powerful words in this world that is expressed in all cultures. This is my underlining theme. I do not own a dictionary, so I can’t give you the Oxford or Webster definition of the word, but in my own words, empathy means ‘putting the shoe on the other foot.’

Empathy. A rich man would look at a poor man, not with sympathy, feeling sorrow for the unfortunate poverty, but also not with contempt, feeling disdain for the man’s poverish state, but with empathy, which means the rich man would put himself in the poor man’s shoes, feel what the poor man is feeling, and understand what it is to be the poor man.

Empathy breeds proper judgement. Sympathy breeds sorrow. Contempt breeds arrogance. Neither are proper judgements because they’re based on emotions. That’s why two people can look at the same situation and have totally different views. We all feel differently about a lot of things. Empathy gives you an inside view. It doesn’t say ‘If that was me…’, empathy says, ‘That is me.’

What that does is it takes the emotions out of situations and forces us to be honest with ourselves. Honesty has no hidden agenda. Thoreau proposed that ‘one honest man’ could morally regenerate an entire society.

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Looking through the eyes of empathy & honesty, I’ll address some of the topics you mentioned. It’s only my perspective.

The Justice system is truly broken beyond repair and the sad part is there is no way to start over. Improvements can be made. If honest people stand up, I think they will be made over time. I know the average person isn’t paying attention to all the laws constantly being passed by state & federal legislation. People are more focused on their jobs, raising kids and trying to find entertainment in between time. The thing is, laws are being changed right and left.

A man once said that revolution comes when you inform people of their rights. Martin Luther King said a revolution comes by social action and legal action working hand in hand. I’m not presenting any radical revolutionary view, the word revolution just means change. America changes as the law changes.

Under the 13th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution all prisoners in America are considered slaves. We look at slavery like its a thing of the past, but you can go to any penitentiary in this nation and you will see slavery. That was the reason for the protests by prisoners in Georgia in 2010. They said they were tired of being treated like slaves. People need to know that when they sit on trial juries and sentence people to prison time that they are sentencing them to slavery.

If a prisoner refuses to work and be a slave, they will do their time in isolation as a punishment. You have thousands of people with a lot of prison time that have no choice but to make money for the government or live in isolation. The affects of prison isolation literally drive people crazy. Who can be isolated from human contact and not lose their mind? That was the reason California had an uproar last year behind Pelican Bay. 33,000 inmates across California protested refusing to work or refusing to eat on hunger-strikes because of those being tortured in isolation in Pelican Bay.

I think prison sentences have gotten way out of hand. People are getting life sentences for aggravated crimes where no violence had occurred. I know a man who was 24 years old and received 160 years in prison for two aggravated robberies where less that $500 was stole and no violence took place. There are guys walking around with 200 year sentences and they’re not even 30 years old. Its outrageous. Giving a first time felon a sentence beyond their life span is pure oppression. Multitudes of young people have been thrown away in this generation.

The other side of the coin is there are those in the corporate world making money off prisoners, so the longer they’re in prison, the more money is being made. It’s not about crime & punishment, it’s about crime & profit. Prison is a billion dollar industry. In 1996, there were 122 prisons opened across America. Companies were holding expos in small towns showing how more prisons would boost the economy by providing more jobs.

How can those that invest in prisons make money if people have sentences that will allow them to return to free society? If people were being rehabilitated and sent back into the cities, who would work for these corporations? That would be a bad investment. In order for them to make money, people have to stay in prison and keep working. So the political move is to tell the people they’re tough on crime and give people longer sentences.

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Chuck Colson, former advisor to the President once said that they were passing laws to be tough on crime, but they didn’t even know who the laws were affecting. It wasn’t until the Watergate scandal and Colson himself going to prison that he learned who the laws were affecting. Colson ended up forming the largest prison ministry in America. He also foreseen in his book THE GOD OF SPIDERS & STONES that America was forming a new society within its prisons. Basically, that prison would become a nation inside this nation. He predicted that over a million people would be locked up by the year 2000. The book was written in the 8O’s. Now, its 2014 and almost two million people are locked up. It’s not that crime is the issue. Crime still goes on daily. It’s that the politics surrounding crime have changed and it has become a numbers game. Dollars & Cents. You have people like Michael Jordan who invest millions of dollars in the prison system. Any shrewed businessman would if you have no empathy for people locked up and you just want to make some money.

I don’t agree with the death penalty. It’s a very Southern practice from that old lynching mentality. Almost all executions take place in the South with a few exceptions here and there. Texas is the leading State by far. I’m not from Texas. I was raised in California. Coming from the West Coast to the South was like going back in time. I didn’t even think real cowboys existed. Texas is a very ‘country’ state, aside a few major cities. There are still small towns that a black person would not be welcomed. California is more of a melting pot. I grew up in the Bay Area where its very diverse.

The death penalty needs to be abolished. Life without parole is still a death sentence. The only difference is time. To say you need to kill a person in a shorter amount of time is just seeking revenge on that person.

If the death penalty must exist, I think it should only be for cases where more than one person is killed like these rampant shootings that have taken place around the country the last few years. Also, in a situation of terrorism.

If you’re not giving the death penalty for murder, then the government is already saying that the taking of one’s life is not worth the death penalty. Capital murder is if you take someone’s life and commit another felony at the same time. That’s Texas law. That makes a person eligible for the death penalty The problem is, you’re not getting the death penalty for murder, you’re actually getting it for the other felony. That doesn’t make common sense. You can kill a man but you will not get the death penalty……if you kill a man and take money out his wallet, now you can get the death penalty.

I’m on death row and yet I didn’t commit the act of murder. I was convicted under the law of parties. When people read about the case, they assume I killed the victim, but the facts are undisputed that I did not kill the victim. The one who killed him plead guilty to capital murder for a life sentence. He admitted to the murder and has never denied it. Under the Texas law of parties, they say it doesn’t matter whether I killed the victim or not, I’m criminally responsible for someone else’s conduct. But I was the only one given the death penalty.

The law of parties is a very controversial law in Texas. Most Democrats stand against it. It allows the state to execute someone who did not commit the actual act of murder. There are around 50 guys on death row in Texas who didn’t kill anybody, but were convicted as a party.

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The lethal injection has become a real controversial issue here of late because states are using drugs that they’re not authorize to use to execute people. The lethal injection is an old Nazi practice deriving from the Jewish Holocaust. To use that method to kill people today, when it’s unconstitutional to use it on dogs, is saying something very cruel and inhumane. People don’t care because they think they’re killing horrible people. No empathy. Just contempt.

I understand that it’s not popular to talk about race issues these days, but I speak on the subject of race because I hold a burden in my heart for all the young blacks who are locked up or who see the street life as the only means to make something of themselves. When I walked into prison at 19 years old, I said to myself ‘Damn, I have never seen so many black dudes in my life’. I mean, it looked like I went to Africa. I couldn’t believe it. The lyrics of 2Pac echoed in my head, ‘The penitentiary is packed/ and its filled with blacks’.

It’s really an epidemic, the number of blacks locked up in this country. That’s why I look, not only at my own situation, but why all of us young blacks are in prison. I’ve come to see, it’s largely due to an indentity crisis. We don t know our history. We don’t know how to really indentify with white people. We are really of a different culture, but by being slaves, we lost ourselves.

When you have a black man name John Williams and a white man name John Williams, the black man got his name from the white man. Within that lies a lost of identity. There are blacks in this country that don’t even consider themselves African. Well, what are we? When did we stop being African? If you ask a young black person if they’re African, they will say ‘No, I’m American’. They’ve lost their roots. They think slavery is their roots. Again, its a strong identity crisis.

You take the identity crisis, mix it with capitalism, where money comes before empathy, and you’ll have a lot of young blacks trying to get money by any means because they’re trying to get out of poverty or stay out of poverty. Now, money is what they try to find an identity in. They feel like if they get rich, legal or illegal, they’ve become somebody. Which in America is partly true because superficially we hail the rich and despise the poor. We give Jay-Z more credit than we do Al Sharpton. What has Jay-Z done besides get rich? Yet we see dollar signs and somehow give more respect to the man with the money.

A French woman who moved to America asked me one day, ‘Why don’t black kids want to learn?’ Her husband was a high school teacher. She said the white and asian kids excel in school, but the black and hispanic kids don’t. I said that all kids want to learn, it’s just a matter of what you’re trying to teach them. Cutting a frog open is not helping a black kid in the ghetto who has to listen to police sirens all night and worry about getting shot. Those kids need life lessons. They need direction. When you have black kids learning more about the Boston Tea Party than the Black Panther Party, I guarantee you won’t keep their attention. But it was the Black Panther Party that got them free lunch.

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People point their fingers at young blacks, call them thugs and say they need to pull up their pants. That’s fine, but you’re not feeding them any knowledge. You’re not giving them a vision. All you’re saying is be a square like me. They’re not going to listen to you because you have guys like Jay-Z and Rick Ross who are millionaires and sag their pants. Changing the way they dress isn’t changing the way they think. As the Bible says, ‘Where there’s no vision the people perish’. Young blacks need to learn their identity so they can have more respect for the blacks that suffered for their liberties than they have for someone talking about selling drugs over a rap beat who really isn’t selling drugs.

They have to be exposed to something new. Their minds have to be challenged, not dulled. They know the history of the Crips & Bloods, but they can’t tell you who Garvey or Robeson is. They can quote Drake & Lil Wayne but they can’t tell you what Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton has done. Across the nation, they gravitate to Crips & Bloods. I tell those I know the same thing, not to put blue & red before black. They were black first. It’s senseless, but they are trying to find a purpose to live for and if a gang gives them a sense of purpose that’s what they will gravitate to. They aren’t being taught to live and die for something greater. They’re not being challenged to do better.

Black history shouldn’t be a month, it should be a course, an elective taught year around. I guarantee black kids would take that course if it was available to them. How many black kids would change their outlook if they knew that they were only considered 3/5’s of a human being according to the U.S Constitution? That black people were considered part animal in this country. They don’t know that. When you learn that, you carry yourself with a different level of dignity for all we’ve overcome.

Before Martin Luther King was killed he drafted a bill called ‘The Bill for the Disadvantaged’. It was for blacks and poor whites. King understood that in order to have a successful life, you have to decrease the odds of failure. You have to change the playing field. I’m not saying there’s no personal responsibility for success, that goes without saying, but there’s also a corporate responsibility. As the saying goes, when you see someone who has failed, you see someone who was failed.

Neither am I saying that advantages are always circumstancial. Sometimes its knowledge or opportunity that gives an advantage. A lot of times it is the circumstances. Flowers grow in gardens, not in hard places. Using myself as an example, I was 15 when my first love got shot 9 times in Oakland. Do you think I m going to care about book reports when my girlfriend was shot in the face? I understand Barack Obama saying there is no excuse for blacks or anyone else because generations past had it harder than us. That’s true. However, success is based on probabilities and the odds. Everyone is not on a level playing field. For some, the odds are really stacked against them. I’m not saying they can’t be overcome, but it’s not likely.

I’m not trying to play the race card, I’m looking at the roots of why so many young blacks are locked up. The odds are stacked against us, we suffer from an identity crisis, and we’re being targeted more, instead of taught better. Ask any young black person their views on the Police, I assure you their response will not be positive. Yet if you have something against the Police, who represent the government, you cannot sit on a trial jury. A young black woman was struck from the jury in my case because she said she sees the Police

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as ‘intimidators’. She never had a good experience with the Police like most young blacks, but even though she’s just being true to her experience, she’s not worthy to take part as a juror in a trial.

White people really don’t understand how it extreme it is to be judged by others outside your race. In the book TRIAL & ERROR: THE TEXAS DEATH PENALTY Lisa Maxwell paints this picture to get the point across and if any white person reading this is honest with themselves, they will clearly understand the point. I cannot quote it word for word, but this was the gist of it…

Imagine you’re a young white guy facing capital murder charges where you can receive the death penalty… the victim in the case is a black man… when you go to trial and step into the courtroom… the judge is a black man… the two State prosecutors seeking the death penalty on you… are also black men… you couldn’t afford an attorney, so the Judge appointed you two defense lawyers who are also black men… you look in the jury box… there’s 8 more black people and 4 hispanics… the only white person in the courtroom is you… How would you feel facing the death penalty? Do you believe you’ll receive justice?

As outside of the box as that scene is, those were the exact circumstances of my trial. I was the only black person in the courtroom.

Again, I’m not playing the race card, but empathy is putting the shoe on the other foot.

The last thing on my heart is about religion and the death penalty. There are several well-known preachers in Texas and across the South that teach their congregations that the death penalty is right by God and backed by the Bible. The death penalty is a governmental issue not a spiritual issue. Southern preachers who advocate the death penalty are condoning evil. They need to learn the legalities of capital punishment. The State may have the power to put people to death, but don’t preach to the public that it’s God’s will. It’s the State’s will.

If God wanted me to die for anything, I would be dead already. I talk to God everday. He’s not telling me I’m some kind of menace that He can’t wait to see executed. God is blessing me daily. God is showing me His favor & grace on my life. Like Paul said, I was the chief of sinners, but God had mercy on me because He knew I was ignorant. The blood of Abel cryed vengeance, the blood of Jesus cryed mercy.

There are preachers like John Hagee in San Antonio who have influence over thousands of people, who not only attend his church, but also watch his TV program, and hear him condoning the death penalty. Hagee doesn’t see his Southern mentality condones the death penalty, not the scriptures. There is absolutely nothing in the Bible that condones the way Texas executes people today.

Southern preachers use scriptures like God telling Noah, ‘Whoever shed’s man’s blood, by man his blood shall be shed’. ‘That’s murder. Under Texas law, you cannot receive the death penalty for murder. There is no such thing as capital murder in the Bible, where murder must be in the course of another felony. Yet, they preach capital punishment is God’s

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will. Even if you’re guilty of capital murder in Texas, it doesn’t mean you’ll receive the death penalty. People get the death penalty when a jury has judged them to be a ‘continuing threat to society’. ‘That means they are deemed so bad that they have no hope of redemption or change in their behavior. That is the only reason a person gets the death penalty. They are suppose to be the absolute worse of the worse, so terrible that they cannot live in prison with other murderers.

That in itself is contrary to the whole Christian faith that believes no one is beyond redemption if they repent for their sins and put their faith in Jesus Christ. For a Christian to advocate the death penalty is a complete contradiction.

As easy as it is for a preacher to stand up in the pulpit with a Bible and tell thousands of people the death penalty is right, I challenge any preacher in Texas, John Hagee or any others to come visit me and tell me that God wants me to die. Martin Luther King said, ‘Capital punishment shows that America is a merciless nation that will not forgive.’

Again, Mr. Nolan, this is only my perspective. I’m just the hobo on the street giving away my pennies. A doctor can’t look at a person and see cancer, they have to look beyond the surface. When you look at the Justice system, the Death Penalty, or anything else, it takes one to go beyond the surface. Proper diagnosis is half the cure.

I’m a father. My daughter was six weeks old when I got locked up and now she’s 15 in high school. Despite the circumstances, I’ve tryed to be the best father in the world. But I knew that her course in life is largely determine by what I teach her. It’s the same with any young person, their course is determined by what we are teaching them. In the words of Aristotle, ‘All improvement in society begins with the education of the young.’

Sincerely,

Ray L. Jasper

Ps: Forgive me for being longwinded, but I was speaking from the heart. Thanks for the opportunity.

http://gawker.com/a-letter-from-ray-jasper-who-is-about-to-be-executed-1536073598

0 thoughts on “LETTER FROM INMATE RAY JASPER PART 2

    1. hayyyyyyyyyyyyy Im dancing ”When you learn that, you carry yourself with a different level of dignity for all we’ve overcome”.

  1. The United States is only 5% of the world’s population, yet we house 25% of the world’s inmates.

    Prison is big business. That is the sole reason we have criminalize everything from J walking to marijuana, even though no one has ever died from marijuana.

    Slavery has never ended. There are more black men in prison today than were enslaved in 1849. The plantation has only been moved from the cotton fields to the prison system.

    The jeans called ‘Prison Blues’ are made in prison. Did you know that many times you call customer service it’s actually prisoners taking the calls?

  2. Here are a list of items that are produced by prisoners.

    Each month, California inmates process more than 680,000 pounds of beef, 400,000 pounds of chicken products, 450,000 gallons of milk, 280,000 loaves of bread, and 2.9 million eggs (from 160,000 inmate-raised hens). Starbucks subcontractor Signature Packaging Solutions has hired Washington prisoners to package holiday coffees (as well as Nintendo Game Boys).

    Texas inmates produce brooms and brushes, bedding and mattresses, toilets, sinks, showers, and bullwhips. Bullwhips?

    In the mid-1990s, Washington prisoners shrink-wrapped software and up to 20,000 Microsoft mouses for subcontractor Exmark (other reported clients: Costco and JanSport).
    Dell used federal prisoners for PC recycling in 2003.

    Texas and California inmates make dorm furniture and lockers, diploma covers, binders, logbooks, library book carts, locker room benches, and juice boxes.

    At California’s prison dental laboratory, inmates produce a complete prosthesis selection, including custom trays, try-ins, bite blocks, and dentures.

    DO YOU KNOW WHY?
    Because prisoners get paid 28 cents an hour, they don’t get sick time, vacation time or unemployment benefits and they can’t take a day off.

    Imagine that if you were a company….that’s billions of dollars in profit.

    Now do you understand why they closed 23 public schools in Philadelphia claiming they have no funds, yet they are building two new prisons?

  3. It’s called a SCHOOL TO PRISON PIPELINE…

    It’s a reason they teach them that they came from slaves and not from kings and queens. It’s a reason your real history is missing from the history books. Slavery wasn’t abolished, it was relocated and became even more profitable.

    Do you know how many millions AT&T makes off prisoners collect calls per year?

    Do you understand that your very government has assured the prison industry full capacity?

    How can they guarantee that they will keep the prisons full? Because, you my dear are the target and you are being led to the slaughter.

    But unless people understand how everything is intertwined, they won’t get it.

    1. Yes but black people have to realize this and keep their children out of prison. To me sometimes they cry injustice and these parents are supportive of the wrongs their children do. I have issues with that

      1. That’s the thing Met, the parents don’t know any better. When they can take to the streets and collectively boycott rap music and the music geared toward their children, boycott the violent video games and start teaching their kids at home who they are like Afeni Shakur did with Tupac, then we will have change.

        But once your child is in the streets robbing and stealing, the horse has already gone through the gate.

        1. They know better because when their children do wrong they are the same ones who will cry foul. As Ray said most of them are a people without a vision, they do know right from wrong but they dont expect anything of their lives and so will fall victim to anything

  4. The system is designed to oppress the oppressed. It is design to lead your daughters to places like the Bahamas to be shitted on, and your sons in the penitentiary.

    The name of the game is “pay a few to lead a lot”. With that, they elevate a select set of rappers and entertainers to control the psyche of the kid when he’s young.

    With rappers like Jay Z, Kanye, Rick Ross and Lil Wayne constantly flossing their wealth and talking hard, your sons have no other frame of reference for wealth and success so they take to the streets for the fast life. They do not know that this is not reality.
    When Beyonce came out in a bodysuit in her ‘single ladies’ video, every black woman started wearing bodysuits out to the club. They are easily led. You can lead them in any direction you want them to for they do not know themselves.

    When Kim and Paris rose to stardom as a result of the release of sex tapes, everyone thought their claim to fame and fortune was through promiscuity and some form of lewdness. You know the price they pay? Aside from loss of self worth, reputation…they end up with all kinds of diseases and as used goods.

    70% of black women are single. Yet they yell “strong black independent woman”. Independent my ass! when your damn son is in a skirt, a fag and your daughter is on a stripper’s pole or worse in the Bahamas?

    It’s a set up but when the parents are lost, what do you expect for the offsprings?

    1. Preach it …and they know what their children are doing and dem still a call it independence and it nah get dem no where

    2. See that’s the problem we are a lost race. Rappers should NOT be our children’s role models. Teachers should NOT be the only ones teaching our children. We are just lost. He is absolutely right WE have no vision. If we went back to the days of Dr. King, Ms. Parks, Mr. Garvey,Mr. Mandela just to name a few we would be in a much better place. The Jews have their vision… (i am by no means saying we need to be like no other race.) they have their OWN EVERYTHING, and so can we. But because we are lost we can’t see the vision. We can have our own schools, banks, health facilities, businesses but we are too busy buying high end designer clothing and shoes, who don’t give a crap about us. I am still waiting to read about the items that our brothers and sisters returned to Barneys and Macys after they were profiled and accused of stealing. Chances of that happening.

  5. We support all kinds of f***ery. We support the men in drag. No it’s not okay that every black man in Hollywood has to wear a dress. No it’s not okay that the very black movies you guys support showcase you as cheap, easy, gold-digging hoodrats and the men as thugs and gang bangers.

    Wonder why every successful black man has a white woman? Wonder why 70% of black women are single?
    You cannot raise your sons without fathers, they will become sissies, fags and weak. You cannot raise your daughters without loving fathers, they will end up in the Bahamas.

    Stop buying Jordans for your kids to pretend you are wealthy when you can’t put your child in private schools. Michael Jordan made $300 million dollars investing in prisons when your kids were out shooting each other over a pair of Jordans.

    Black men spend their money or clothes and bottles and when they end up in prison or dead, their is nothing left behind for their daughters and sons. You know the saddest thing I’ve seen? A Jamaican drug kingpin who went to prison, whose son ended up in prison chasing the fast life he did. Why? He didn’t invest in his child. Didn’t make provisions that his child didn’t have to do what he did.

    What does it profit a man to floss for 5 years and spend 30 years behind bars? Look at Flippa? One of many.
    Was it worth it? For some parties, some hot clothes and cars?

    Until we realize we are the only ones with that mentality, black people will continue to fill the prisons.

    1. If u tell dem stop buy dem will se badmine and dem can buy what they want. The mind set haffi change from an early age my parents told me they would never support me if I was caught stealing and I have not forgotten that . Parents fi know what is cute at 2 will not be cute at 20

  6. You know what’s sad Met, Kim Kardashian and her family made $64 million dollars last year. Montana Fishburne, the daughter of Lawrence Fishburne decided she wanted to be famous so she would go the Kim Kardashian route and make a sex video. Her father offered to buy the tape for $1million knowing she is young and dumb, against the plight of her parents she insisted on its release. Where is she now? What money did she make from it? What kind of fame and empire has she acquired as a result? Jack shit!
    Why? Because mainstream America doesn’t place any worth on black women. Just like nygard tell his whores, black women are worth less!
    What worked for Kim won’t work for your black ass. Educate yourselves, keep your head high and die with your dignity….let that be our legacy.

  7. So how do we keep our sons outta jail n being wrongfully killed n jailed by police all when dem inna dem house innocent????

    1. Keep them out of certain places..Talk to them always..Most parents have no dreams for their kids, they may not be what you want them to be but your children can be who you want them to be

      1. Met I agree one hundred percent wit that but police a target n racially profile them all when dem going about them way innocently

    2. To start we can stop purchasing so much bs and invest our money in our kids. Maybe move to a community that have better schools or pay to put your kids in private school (search around there are some that cost as low as $6000 per year, and there are places where you can get and use bursaries). Volunteering within the school system (that way we are present and hopefully you can be a voice for not only your child but the parent who isn’t there). Spend time with our kids teaching them about their culture ( my granny use to say if you don’t know where you’re coming from you won’t know where to go) and don’t wait for a history teacher to do it because they won’t. Engage your kids in the larger communities which includes taking them to things geared to arts and culture (e.g.museums, science centers, music lessons). Pay for or barter for extra tutorial for our kids if we are not equipped to teach them ourselves (the game is rigged; so we have to do at least twice as much to get the same results). But most importantly spend time with your child so you could discover the things he loves and nurture them. This list is not exhaustive but its some of the things my mother used to get my my brothers and sisters all the way through post secondary education. And its the very tools I now utilized as a mother myself.

      side note: I read this yesterday on huff and all I could think is what a waste of so much potential.

  8. Cheut, we’re never gonna eradicate all the injustices, inequalities and atrocities in the world or in this country and there will always be racist Nazi bastards in the police force, however, we have to actively play our parts. Keep our kids away from certain company for one thing. Move out of certain neighborhoods to give our children the possibility of a better future. Boycott the music, monitor the things and people in their lives and most importantly, build a strong foundation by teaching love of self, and showing the child this matrix we reside in.

  9. Read up a little on his case. Interesting but him gwaan wid a pree-ments that ended with a youth dead – 25 stabs – him say him only do 1 pon the throat area and di real killa do di rest.

    Injustices mad in America. Is white ppl place.

    But at the same time, nuff black kids choose them own direction even when mada and fada a tell dem otherwise. Some black yankees just wutless.

    Saggy pants, rap music and big clothes dem fool a deal wid and our yaardie dem pickup the same f**kry.

    There are opportunities to advance in the US more than Jamaica – you just have to have a goal.

  10. Met, mi affi seh something quick. Black parents know the realities that dem pickney gwine face. Some kids will want to do other than their parents wishes. When dat is de case de parents MUST get more determined to impose their will. Dats is within de rights of parents. Mi jussa peep suh mi a ugh leff da story ya, it have a moral.

    Mi av a gangsta fren who duh some time. Him come out anna live straight wid job an ting. No more illegal bizniz. Him son weh live wid him an him wife start backchat de madda and skip school wid him fren dem an start pon de huslin. Mi bredrin search him room an find two shoes (KartHell howdy doo).

    Mi bredrin just drape up de son, geem two box and tell im is eeda him carry im guh de precinct or im gwine jine SAMs army. Mi bredrin seh is better him son dead pon Uncle Sam side dan him ded pon de streets of Brooklyn or end up a duh life as a slave inna prison.

    Parents affi be honest wid demself and wid dem pickney and mek choices fi di pickney cause if yuh leff it up tuh de pickney dem, dem immature mind will mek dem mek wrong choices. Some choices dere is no redress.

    Mi gawn. Bless up Met, Metters & peepers.

    1. Amen same so..Some of them know what their children will face and they are in steady support I respect him for doing what he did for his son

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