“The law does not care whether this individual had access to good education or not, or whether he/she lives under impoverished conditions because companies in his/her communities have shut down and moved to a third world country, or whether previously available welfare payments have vanished. The law does not care about the conditions that lead some communities along a trajectory that makes prison inevitable.” -Angela Davis
I was being interviewed on a radio show (Haiti Premiere Classe) the other day and the host asked me (Dr. Fayette) what can I say to show the listeners that I have changed? I found myself stuck, paralyzed even. Not because I hadn’t changed but rather because I have been concerning myself with what everyone perceives as change. Well, this produced an unhealthy silence on the air before I responded. When I did answer, again it felt like I was battling all the skeptics in my head.
Later on, I beat myself up over the situation. Rummaging through my mind which by that time was corroded with amateuristic behavior mired in skepticism that has been brewing since humans learnt to lie. I was not here when the White Lion landed on American soil with the Mayflower yet I heard of the Mayflower, as it was marveled but not that ship. The ship that was fated to bring the ancestors that would give birth to the first African Americans in America. I was not present when they drafted the U.S. Constitution with right to all human beings. Then they convinced themselves that some humans were not human. 3/5th if that. I most definitely was absent when Pope Urban II declared himself an emissary of God and sent thousands to take back Jerusalem by any means necessary. He convinced Hospitallers and Knight Templars and others that he could absolve them of any sin. I wonder if he is in Christian heaven with them right now? Because the Knight’s fairy tale, righteousness they fed so many for centuries, don’t hold a candle to the historical fact that those defenders of Christiandom acted very unchristian by not only killing and raping and pillaging Muslims…they also cooked them and ate ’em. I was not there when the US Government made 461 treaties with the Indians and honored but one of them. Let’s not forget I was not at Wounded Knee.
I was not there when the US sent a covert op to take Haiti’s reserve fund or when the Clintons used Haiti as their personal cash cow. Yet I am somewhat familiar with lies people tell and the skepticism built often from naught. Humans in my fifty-seven years young experience, have become academy award winning actors which fuels doubts about change. Yet we are a Christian state, which forgiveness should be somewhere in our conversation.
I am rehabilitated and I am changed. It does not require you to believe it for it to be true. Yet I am curious. What does rehabilitation look like to you? Are you also tainted by the lies you were fed and the truths that were omitted? What does change look like to you?
