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Why You Should Care about a Writer’s Life in Prison

By: Henry “Wazir” Broomfield

Normally. when writing an autoethnography, one would follow traditional guidelines. I am choosing not to follow those guidelines because there is nothing normal about being black or brown in America. There is nothing normal about being placed in a cell the size of a bathroom at 17 years old and to still be there in your 40’s. I humbly ask, why should you care about a writer’s life in prison? Before you begin your response, I challenge you to listen, to put yourself in our shoes, and also think about these questions: Do I really care about the men and women in prison? What have I done to assist them? 

Growing up as a kid, what most would consider abnormal was my normal, such as killing, drugs being sold, and drugs being used. My childhood was full of trauma, violence and abuse. There were times where my friends and I would be playing basketball and drug dealers would come past us shooting like we wasn’t even there. Luckily, neither I nor any of my friends were ever hit by a stray bullet. I can remember seeing people get killed or shot. Right after watching the ambulance leave, we would be right back out there playing around the blood spots like it never happened. I can remember like it was yesterday when I saw my first dead body. It was lying on the sidewalk. As his body was turning cold and as the people surrounded him in awe, I just stared at the body while others stood around shook their heads in sadness. You could hear the tears, you could feel the pain, and you could tell who his friends were because they had a serious look of revenge on their faces. His new Nike Air tennis shoes had blood and dirt on them. His gun was still in his hand with this finger stuck to the trigger, his head to the side, and fresh blood running from his mouth. I thought deeply to myself like, “Damn. His life is over; where is he going to go now?”

That night as I slept, I could still see him lying on the concrete with his finger on the trigger; he was even in my dreams. I can also remember as a kid when New Year’s came and me and my mom would sleep in the closet because she didn’t want me to get hit by a stray bullet. She could drag my mattress in the closet and put the TV in front of the closet door so we could watch the music countdown. Then as soon as 12:00 hit, it would sound like a war zone, just as the number one video played. The sound from the different guns created its own beat. So very often when shots rang out, they would penetrate the window and hit whoever was by it. 

With every passing day crack cocaine was taking over, and now most of my friends’ moms got caught up in that wave of users. The people that were using didn’t realize that crack would steal their soul. They thought it would only be as addictive as powder cocaine. I watched my neighborhood go from decent to Michael Jackson’s thriller video, with soulless zombies walking around. Then on the flipside the men were getting jailed because they were selling drugs or using. So, my question to you is, is this normal? No. 

When it came to discipline my mom and every other mom in our neighborhood believed in old fashion ass whoopings. I still have scars on my body from some of the beatings my mom gave me when I was a kid. It didn’t seem out of the norm for me, because all my friends were getting beatings too. I can remember getting an ass-beating in the morning just because, and all I could think about was what did I do for you to treat me like this? I realize that my mom was stressed from my dad not being around and having to raise me with no help. It wasn’t until I was grown, reading about slavery, did I realize that the way our moms beat on us was passed down from slavery. During slavery when a kid was acting up and did something that the slave master didn’t like, the mother would beat her child rather than let the slave master half-kill or kill the child from a beating. 

So, even this tradition has been passed on from slavery, a generational trauma that is ever ongoing. So, I ask the question again, is this normal—but more importantly, am I a monster? You and society are so focused on what we are doing, the crimes we commit, what we are wearing, and if  he or she is a gangbanger. The why is more important than the what. The what is obvious; it’s only when you answer the why that you can begin to understand the root cause of the issue. 

In my humble opinion, you don’t want to know the why because it forces you to look at me as a human being. It forces you to feel something for me and connect with us on a level that doesn’t help the system's bottom line. Feeling feelings forces you to empathize and humanize with the urban community. In the 1930’s and 1940’s J. Edgar Hoover came up with a program called Cointelpro and as part of their mission he said, “Before you kill a black man, make him killable and before you jail him, make him jailable.” Whereas, one would do that by putting negative images in the media of black men. This method was effective because it desensitized the public and prevented people from feeling anything for the people in the urban community. So, when something tragic happens, they would feel as if we deserve whatever happened to us. 

For years I was told I am so many negative things and showed I am so many negative things. That way when someone like me goes to jail unjustly or when my rights get violated, you don't have any sympathy for me because you look at me as a thug, gangbanger, deadbeat, killer and whatever else you think I am. Here is an example of how Conintelpro’s mission has been used recently. Around 2016 Orlando Castile was wrongfully killed by a cop in Minnesota with his 3 year-old daughter and fiancé in the car. When they first spoke about it on the news, they said he lied about the little girl being his daughter when in fact that wasn’t his biological daughter. He didn’t have a criminal record, and he worked for the public school, so they couldn’t destroy his credibility. You tried to criminalize him because he stepped up as a man and said this is my daughter and not step-daughter. I don’t believe in step-kids either because if you’re in a relationship and she has kids, those kids are now yours and you should love them as if they are biologically yours. The point is every time one of us is killed they first talk about our criminal record and then what happened. So by the time they get to what really happened, you don’t even care because you have been desensitized and not allowed to connect with who they were as a person. This prevents an uproar and people coming together saying how wrong the incident was, which these tactics are something that our community is used to. To illustrate these tactics further, I will share with you a poem I wrote called Used To. 

USED TO

I’m used to saying I’m okay when things are not okay,

I’m used to saying I’m fine when I’m really out my mind, 

I’m used to being oppressed when I say I’m blessed and not stressed, 

I'm used to having mixed emotions when I'm in the midst of a body of water and the opposite of floating,

I'm used to reading God’s word and feeling all heavenly and swell, 

But soon as I step outside its back to inequality and hell,

I’m used to Americans’ pledge of allegiance and saying with liberty and justice for all, 

But as a black man I am used to no liberty and justice for all, 

I'm used to being harassed and stopped and I try not to act guilty, 

And even though I am innocent why do I feel so guilty, 

Guilty of being black and guilty of being an ex-slave,

And guilty of my ancestors being tortured and raped, 

I’m used to carrying around this burden and it’s been over 400 years, 

And I am used to black mothers who cry innocent black tears, 

I am used to white America looking at me as if I am beneath them, 

That if they sit their cup on the ground my fingertip may nip their cup brim, 

I’m used to challenging white supremacy and their authority,

All in a respectful manner but still I am viewed as a boy, 

I am used to being in prison and I been here since I was 17 yrs old,

My dad, granny, mom and brother have died so I’m used to being alone, 

I’m used to seeing blacks killed by police and thrown in prison, 

And as black people we are the most forgiving because we are some of the most religious, 

I’m used to praying several times a day to stay doing things the right way, 

But soon as I hop a hurdle and celebrate its another one on the way, 

We used to admiring a sunny day and hoping we can live out the dream of MLK, 

And if blacks and whites are praying to the same God then why do they treat us this way,

The last time I checked Jesus said love they neighbor like you love yourself, 

Which they sure not treating us the way they are treating their self, 

But what I really wanna know is what are you used to?...

Around 2020 the Lieutenant Governor Julian Stratton said on her podcast uploaded to our IDOC tablets that over 76% of the youth that’s arrested in Illinois is living with one of five mental illnesses. Violence is a disease, and anyone who comes in contact with it will get infected. In 2020 Dr. James Garbarino, Ph.D., who has written over 100 scholarly articles and book chapters dealing with family child and adolescent development issues with an emphasis on violence and trauma and from 2005 to 2020 and served as Maude C. Clarke professor of Psychology at Loyola University, conducted an assessment on me. Dr. Garbarino concluded that:

James Garbarino also concluded that I was a good candidate for early release with close to a zero percent chance of recidivism, but I am still in the bathroom…so do you still think the worse of me and could care less about guys like me?

Marc Mauer and Meda Chesney-Lind, in Invisible Punishment: The Collateral Consequences of Mass Imprisonment explain how race has always influenced the administration of justice in the United States of America. Since the day the first prison opened, people of color have been disproportionately represented behind bars. The other side of America is so busy correcting us that you forgot how to connect with us. When you look up any prisoner all you see is the crime we committed and our prison number. You will see nothing else about who we are as a person. The same people who made the rules on how to write an autoethnography are probably the same ones who had slaves or the same ones who use the N word so much you would have thought it was our first name. 

The foundation to this country is the constitution and the same people who had slaves. These laws and the constitution were not written with me in mind. In an article by Gene Brody et al called “Perceived Discrimination among African American Adolescents and Allosteric Load: A Longitudinal Analysis with Buffering Effects,” the authors break down how structural racism compounds difficulties for blacks and Latino adolescents who are more likely to lack equal access to high quality education especially jobs, safe housing credit and good health care. Black people were viewed as property; can you believe that, as property! Not property that you value but property that you use and abuse. So question, do you still think that I am still looked at as useless property? A more direct question: do you view the writers in prison as property? Is that why so many of the people in society have not come to our aid?  In prison I have seen guys get a ticket for hurting their self and the ticket would say, “damage to state property.” Not damage to a human being but, property. The ironic thing is that African Americans make up the smallest percentage of the U.S. population but, represent the largest percentage in prison.

The police force was created to capture runaway slaves, and so the first form of harassment came from the police suspecting us as runaway slaves. So many of the writers in prisons’ ancestors were victims of that. So many of the writers in prison share the blood of a slave but the heart of a King and the heart of a Queen. So many of the writers in prison have mental health issues. So many of the writers in prison are victims of mental abuse, victims of physical abuse, emotional abuse and some even sexual abuse. 

The writers in prison are historians and keepers of our history, the same way the ex-slaves wrote about slavery. Question: would you want to read about slavery from a slave master’s perspective or from the ones who have experienced it? So these writers in prison are showing that slavery still exist. They are sharing with you their trauma, their pain and how the system has worked them over, ten times over. Prison is the modern-day plantation and the harshest blow built for mankind, but still these writers in prison have found a way to shine, have found a way to smile and carry on. We are not just writing for the sake of writing. We are giving you a piece of us every time we write a line, writing is therapy for us as we cleanse our soul. We are writing because it is one of the only things we can control. 

There is a phrase we all have heard that says you either are a part of the problem or part of the solution. Which one do you think you are? For many years I have heard so many politicians and people in a position of power say, “Let’s get tough on crime.” I have seen so many win elections because of that phrase. If you support that notion or people who run for office saying let’s get tough on crime, then you support locking up more black people. You support modern slavery and don’t care about our writers in prison. Let’s get tough on connecting with us rather than correcting us. I wrote a song called “Vision” and in that song I said, “the system cares about dogs more than a human being.” I learned that from watching news about Hurricane Katrina. In real time I saw a group of people waving for help on top of a roof and the helicopter flew right past them. Then I saw that same helicopter pick up a bunch of dogs. That broke my heart. How much money has the system or people spent on dogs in that past year versus on writers in prison?

To my writers in prison, I want to let you know I am behind us a hundred percent. In the past two years I’ve held three peaceful assemblies in Springfield and Chicago. I have been advocating about mental health and the youthful offender parole board, Broomfield v Pritzker. I invited a lot of these organizations and they didn’t show up. I formed an organization that I’m building, . I wrote hundreds of letters over the years for help, and no one showed up except one or two. This is for us and our platform where you don’t have to tone down your blackness or your opinion.

In conclusion, to the readers who may be teaching in prison or working or a university with a prison education program, I want to let you know something on behalf of the writers in prison. We are not a pawn, we not a pay check, we not a grade, we not a pet, we damn sure not state property because we belong to God; we his property and we don’t need your fake love. To all my writers in prison regardless of your color, I am your brother and I love y’all. I am a reflection of you. In the bible it says faith without works is dead and I know we gone prevail going forward because through all these years of oppression, slavery and now prison, we still waking up with a smile on our face and full of joy. Don't let this cruel system take what they can’t give and that’s your joy that comes from within, it comes from God an omnipotent source. For every Goliath there is a David and us writers in prison; we are that David! I am inspired by you all. Your strength gives me strength and as long as God is the foundation, how can we fail? In the meantime, keep writing. I want to give a special thanks to my professors Melissa and Michelle for allowing me to express myself uncut. Thank you and God Bless.

Yours Truly,

Wazir