Lady Gray
I want to share with you some subjects that are very close to my heart. Issues that many would just as soon ignore until it's left on their doorstep or welcome mat. If not given attention or made a priority, these issues are going to become enormous for us in the future. Much greater than the housing or employment issues we now face.....
This year has already proven to be turbulent within the elements and realms of ’Mother Nature’. She tests our character, strength and hearts...after surviving the ’storm’ we reap her beauty and are often awed by her power and ’glory’. Yet, there are other storms in life which we fight to survive also...our end reward is only pain, concealed scars, and ’passing time.’
This year to date, has been deadly for youth in America’s cities, where it seems ’gangsters’ have arisen from their resting places to once again leave ’dark chapters’ in the history books. It reminds me of the ’incubated mentality’ that has become a disease within the realms of youth, impoverishment, disenfranchisement and the elite within life’s capstone. The disease which is like a cancer that erodes society and stagnates our growth and development. I’m speaking of the negative and false portraits which so many have been conditioned to embrace as a leg of their journey in life.
That one will not be allowed to advance or grow unless they pay their dues to society first by entering the realms of incarceration, ’America’s Great Cash Cow’. That we too can carry within our own characters, the evil, bitter, violent, abandoned attitude that the realms and dimensions within the media, Hollywood and the government create for us to embrace. The ’nightmares’ and ’darker side’ of life that haunt individuals who have no strength within their own character to live through themselves, so they want to share their ’pain and misery’ with others.
Youth, who embrace ’negative portraits’ due to the quantity of exposure within their daily lives. Everywhere we turn we see images of ’evil’, chaos, mayhem, and disillusioned images of life. The images like the ’mentality’ behind them, have no lesson to be taught, no reason, purpose or answers to overcome the weaknesses or ’short-comings’ within man that they portray. Thus, the individuals who become a part of the painting, carry out actions depicting the mentality, with no cause, reason or purpose behind their actions or movement.
I often become angry with individuals who have fallen prey to the portraits and ’broken’ judicial system which they embraced, and do not have the strength within their character to step up to the plate to reveal the TRUTH. Men and young individuals who have been ’down’ for the ’count’ and do not want others to know of their weaknesses and short-comings. So they often cover-up their own nightmares and pain with ’blankets’ of ’grandeur’ and ’cottoncandy’ portraits. But as I have said many times over through the years...no man is an island.
Individuals who have the mentality that I did my time, so can they...some will prey on others to carry out their self-serving agendas, plans that they’ve whipped up on the inside, to ’conquer’ life this time around on the outside. They’ll tell you, that it was ’a piece of cake’, ’I do my time, nobody does it for me,’’I can do this little bit of time standing on my head,’ ’they’ll never break me, I’m my own man, I have strong will power.’
The youth (juveniles) and first time young adults within the realms of prison life, are the hardest individuals to ’protect’ and the ’easiest’ to prey upon. They learn too often very fast, that the only thing they have control over on the inside is their ’animalistic pride’. They’re often tortured, abused, preyed and played upon, mentally tortured,...this is done through ’isolation’ by not only individuals within the realms of their confinement, but by the judicial process as well. They feel abandoned by their ’biological’ families, significant other, street ’fam’, friends...many times as not the old phrase ’out of sight, out of mind’ applies. They become embedded with bitterness and misery...they think about the individual who told them that this was a ’piece of cake’, too late they see the ’weakass’ individual for his true ’colors’.
What those men who have been released from time, don’t tell you about, are the ’nightmares’ that visit them. The cold sweats that come to sap them of their sleep. The screams and whimpering that wake them up from time to time in the night.
The young and old inmates who visit the infirmary, if they’re lucky, because they read their cellies mail...not because the individual was nosy, but because they just wanted to touch life themselves. I’ve heard stories of men during the holidays getting killed for reading someone else’s Christmas card. Of youth and young adults being disabled for life for taking a packet of coffee or a tea bag. Of riots over changing the TV channel...
But the saddest information I’ve ever heard over the last 8 yrs, was from a lifer in a state penitentiary. He tells me of the new ’youth & meat’ in his unit. "All they talk about is pimping, selling drugs, getting high, or someone else’s girl they stole or raped. They don’t have a clue, a thought worth a dime, or respect for themselves. You really have to feel sorry for them. They’re easy to spot." Then he continued to tell me about the new arrivals and the youth filled with abandonment and misery. Who wait for the rain, so that they may open up the flood gate of emotions that they harbor within their souls. Mother Nature disguises their tears with rain, as they shuffle their feet on their way back from the yard or chow hall. They’re easy to spot for us lifers’ and especially for those gaurds on power trips. The men who have been down a while, run or jog to go inside out of the elements, but the "newbies’ they shuffle and drag their feet.
I’ve tried over the years to understand this mentality of destruction that the youth and young adults have today. Destroy before an element or individual gives us a reason, cause or purpose to harbor ill feelings. The displays of disrespect for life...that is something I have the hardest time dealing with. Since personally, I fight every day just to touch life and feel it vibrate from within and without. I’m not speaking about the vibration and gurgling of blood either as it leaves the body prematurely.
I find it a bitter pill to swallow, our present direction in life and the struggle that is placed upon us as individuals. I’ve done many things in my lifetime...met some very intelligent and influential individuals. But I’m finding out that the greatest minds and answers for issues which concern us as a society and a ’whole’ are being silenced within the ’Great American Cash Cow’. Minds of youth and individuals who at one time had great dreams and spirit...now silenced, abandoned and harboring our future in their souls and hearts. Maybe that is why we have seen no movement or greatness the last couple of decades. Those whom had answers and great aspirations to move life in positive directions, were deviated from a righteous pursuit. By individuals who prey on ’negativity’, ’weaknesses, blindness and that time within life when individuals become ’Knotheads’.
There are so many youth today who look to the future and see a ’black hole’ or abyss. Yet they hold the ’future’ and the ’world’ in their hands. However they are told that they only hold ’one’ corner, ’one’ block, and one position within life...they believe in the portraits that have been painted for them by those who capitalize off from their blindness and ’Knothead’ attitude.
I’m disappointed with society as a ’whole’ when it comes to the ’growth and development’ of our youth. It seems today that they go from being children, directly to being adults, life’s little soldiers and ’clones’. I believe that is due to the fact, that most adults today are miserable and we all know that misery loves company. We are also envious of what they possess, since we lost it, we’re not going to let them have it either...
How they only see beauty, happiness,...their creativity, recklessness...their abundant supply of love, faith and trust in the ’WHOLE’ of life. Where we see ’mud’ after a storm and walk around it, they kick off their shoes, roll up their sleeves, and make ’mud pies’. When we see a new batch of ’baby ducks’, we see them in our minds as full fledged ducklings, leaving their little droppings all over for us to step in. The youth will come every day to see the baby ducks on parade, waiting for them to get their wings to take their first flight.
Take a child into a children’s ward of a hospital once...they see no colors, no pain, no disease or ugliness...they just want to play and find out what’s wrong with their ’new’ little friend. When did we as a society, stop letting children be children, before we asked them to carry our burdens for us??? I hang my own head often in shame....you’re not alone.
What I find so amusing is that most children and young adults today, harbor within their souls, more ’common sense’ and ’strength’ than adults. Perhaps that is because life is still new to them...they see life in its purest form...therefore they’re not going to believe an ’ugly’ portrait immediately...when they discovered the beauty of it first.
I try to let youth and young adults see the false portraits and ’mad artists’ behind them. I want them to know that they have more strength, common sense, creativity, intelligence and room for growth than most adults. I hate to see the ’souls’ of our youth, ’the hurricane lamps’ of hope, dreams and wishes, consumed by the negative portraits painted by ’mad artists’ who are envious of an aspect of character they can’t capture in their paintings any longer.
I hope that our youth and children will be allowed to be children, for just a while longer. That their ’pristine’ views of ’life’ and the ’world’ will not be tainted by ’Knotheads’ and ’Blindmen’ who no longer hold the strength to dream in a pristine and righteous manner. That adults will find the strength within their own struggles to spend time with their children and youth from their community, to capture just a little bit of love, faith and trust again in life...in tomorrow.
I leave you as I came with a great deal of love and respect for life
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