COURTS, PRISON, REENTRY . . . MY TREPIDATION: WOMEN: MR. MUTI A. AJUMU-OSAGBORO

 

“Sometimes I wonder if I know her.

Or if I really need to ask.

The woman in you, is the worry, the worry in me.”

--Excerpted lyrics of “The Woman In You” featured on the “Live From Mars” Album

Performed by Ben Harper and The Innocent Criminals—

        From last to first, rebirthed, then re-earthed.  To the alleged reentry writers:  None of the so-called Philadelphia Child Advocates have informed us of your existence, so please read this carefully and publish it for community enlightenment.   In the context of a corrupt court system, this subject is as alien as anything you have ever experienced and would otherwise be unfathomable if the unspoken is not plainly spoken.  The “clear word” must be articulated.  The Dogon Nation of West Africa call it “so daye” (pronounced So Die EE) which means “the “clear word”.  It is the highest state of consciousness.  The peak of one’s “huemanity” comprehended.  It’s when the essence of a word becomes crystal clear in relationship to an event, people or sentient beings.  The Lakota Nation have a similar concept of elevated consciousness in their culture as well.  While the above Ben Harper’s lyrics allows you to understand this experience in the mind and heart, it is the notoriously talented Innocent Criminals Band, that allows you to understand it sonically at the level of spirit.  A transcending, pulsating groove that makes skin and bones comprehend it.  Giving your very skin an explanation that brings it into harmony with the understanding of all the other elements of your being.  A groove that makes spirit a bridge that immediately closes the distance between isolation and intimacy and fires the quest for men to bond with women naturally; and sustain it, with reflections on how to get closer, and go deeper in the understanding.

        Does this have anything to do with my reentry and Philadelphia’s court system?  Oh, you didn’t think this was a philosophical fire drill, did you?

        There is the legal and then there is the psychological.  Legally, my reentry is all about ending my Child-Death-By-Incarceration (CDBI), euphemistically termed “Life (without parole)” – LWOP -- by the state of what I call:  PennCELLvania.  Because it leads the world in dishing out to children this draconian conviction and sentence.  At worst,. I’ll be resentenced and “set free” two weeks or so thereafter.  At best, I’ll be exonerated of all charges and set free – in the true sense of the word – from the courtroom.  For examples of this type of vindication, I have listed, in order, the following names of the following exonerees with an accompanying link to information about their respective cases which appears on the Internet:  Davontae Sanford (voiceofdetroit.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/Davontae-Sanford-appeals-decision-9-26-13.pdf); Ivan Serrano (https://www.law.umich. edu/special/exoneration/Pages/casedetail.aspx?caseid=3626); Steven Crawford (https://www. law.umich.edu/special/exoneration/Pages/casedetail.aspx?caseid=3131); Jeffrey Deskovic (https://www.law.umich.edu/special/exoneration/Pages/casedetail.aspx?caseid=3171); Ryan Ferguson (https://www.law.umich.edu/special/exoneration/Pages/casedetail.aspx?caseid=430 4); Santae A. Tribble (https://www.innocenceproject.org/cases/santae-tribble/); Kawami Ajamu   (https://www. innocenceproject.org/ohio-innocence-project-client-exonerated-after-spending-17-years-in-prison/);   Timothy Cole (posthumously vindicated) (https://www.innocenceproject org/ cases/timothy-cole/);Daniel Taylor (www.law.umich.edu/special/exoneration/Pages/casedetail. aspx?caseid=4212)    Rosean S. Har- grave (https://www.law.umich.edu/special/exoneration/ Pages/casedetail.aspx?case id=5328). There are many other Exonerees, but these are just enough to wet your appetite against injustice all over America.

      All the above Exonerees were CHILDREN.  Most of them were sentenced to Death-By-Incarceration.  Nationwide, out of all the thousands of vindications, 13% of them are children.  Of that number, almost 80% are Black and Brown hued.   The first crime – which is the worst crime – committed against these children, is that the court system, and all of its agents, did not see them as children.   The entire court entity literally robbed them of their childhood by not even acknowledging that they are in fact – first and foremost – CHILDREN.  When you read all of these stories you will notice that all of the writers refused to call them children, which they would have done if these disgraceful numbers were white faces.  Victims of the court by illegal convictions.   As Philadelphia playwright Sister KoKer!, so profoundly reminds us, the first part of this societal downward spiral, is in us not calling “our children, children”.  But rather every euphemism in the book to avoid the protective hedge of international law that is triggered by the title of child, which also commands multiple moral and national legal obligations on all the adults involved within and without the court system.  Euphemisms like minor adolescent, kid, teen, and youth.  All these terms are commonly used in daily speech, but most don’t know that their true legal and etymological meanings are degrading and designed to circumvent the sympathy and sensitivity that is innate to matters involving children.  The most pernicious of these misnomers is the word “juvenile”.  For a broader understanding of this overall concept of attacking children through legalese, please read “The Essence Of Innocence  The Consequences Of Dehumanizing Black Children”, by Dr. Philip Atiba Goff and “Promoting Racial Literacy In School”, by Professor Howard Stevenson.[1]  This is the reason for this serial series.

       Nevertheless, I realize that if you are not a legal buff, my legal wranglings of being prosecuted as a child who is actually innocent, with the evidence to prove it, may not interest you, but my psychological state may  And as such, in terms of you assisting, in whatever way possible to help me make a successful psychological transition.  To remedy, if at all possible, the sole trepidation I have about my return to the community: Women!

         Sending out a plea from a place where some angels dare not visit.  Try to put yourself in my state boots.  For me, it’s like an involuntary steeple chase, where in order to efficiently navigate the possibility of at least having a smidgen of enjoyment – in what I’m about to embark upon, with my reentry, I must look past the inherent evil of my illegal conviction, and all that this entails.  Meaning, focusing on my family and not so much on Philadelphia’s systemic dirty courts, where prosecutors and judges are identical twins.  And so-called defense attorneys (closet prosecutors) are the third wheel no one wants because you learn quickly they are a part of the rig.

       The mental acrobatics required is a mashup of hurdling and hunting for the holy grail.   Knowing that they both exist, but one is seen and the other is unseen.  The visible drives me to the goal of the unseen, all the while I am walking over a trapeze without a safety net.  The citizenry on the sideline who have not experienced even a single day within the cogs of the court system, see this reality as terrifying, so they dismiss my high wire existence as not humanly possible.  Yet, I do it every morning when I rise, buoyed by “Sweet Honey And The Rock”, continuing the fight for freedom by ending this injustice.  For the Jane and John Q. Public that think one day cannot radically open their eyes to what is going on in the so-called justice system, need only revisit the life and writings of David Henry Thoreau.  After Thoreau spent one night in a Concord, Massachusetts jail, the wool was pulled off of his eyes completely.  Only after one night in jail.  Just one!  His essay “Civil  Disobedience” speaks to this lens defogging consciousness.

      If you want to help me – in a way that’s actually meaningful – to psychologically prepare for my return to the community, then enlighten me on what 2017 Women want.  For more than three and half decades this has been the bane of my existence, thus if my educational outreach is to be in any way relevant, I need you, dear reader, to help me with this, my only hurdle.  One of the several things that was said to me, that was actually useful, when I met with the Chair of the Pennsylvania Board of Probation & Parole, was from one of his Deputies and fellow Board member.  In his truthful acknowledgment of my reentry situation, he was accurate as could be when he said, “A child came to prison, and now a man is returning home.”  Very few people in the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections are that truthful and honest in such contentious matters.  In spite of that vote of confidence, I can ill afford to be presumptuous when dealing with a court system that is more concerned with saving face, than doing the right thing.

       The operative words are “child” and “man”.  Quite honestly though, the man (moi) does not know what 2017 Women are searching for.  Spirituality?  Intellectualism?  Is it all about the salary?  Does money make a man sensible?  Said another way:  Is the standard of acceptance, monetary, thus dollars make “cents” of a man?  Are they searching for emotional reciprocity?  Emotional accessibility?  Emotional availability?  Unbridled physicality?  The former (all things emotional) expressed through the musical prism of the insightful Alanis Morisette and the latter by the even more insightful and vividly expressive Elle Varner. Also depicted cinematically in films like “50 Shades Of Gray”.  Are their songs just songs?  Or are their songs indicative and reflective of what women are looking for in this so-called post modern age?  Is the popular embrace of certain types of cinema as examples of women who are just bored and unfulfilled?  Or just those who are being vicariously stimulated by a deep seated longing for male communication that will nurture connectedness that seeks answers that remove the need to engage in the impossible mind read, in order to build an intimate relationship that goes beyond the predictable or social proverbial?

         Is it all of the above?  It it’s “some of the above”, which “some” is healthy for engagement and which for exclusion?  How do I, without reserve, probe each cavity, well beyond the depths of superficiality, to discover which is which, without encroaching on some tacit – even imaginary – but never acknowledged level of 2017 social etiquette?  Will my constant craving to always delve deeply, explore thoroughly, reciprocate incessantly, create discomfort for the 2017 Woman?  These are the things that give me angst.  Excitement, but also dread.  These issues cannot be merely explained away by declaring that this is about my fearing the unknown, because I embrace the unknown as the yet to be discovered other possibilities.

        Unlike most, I celebrate the unknown because it is the new “mo’ better”. Whether in the form of a life lesson that brings clarity, or reverie from the all too often overlooked complexity in the simple act of breathing.  That is, being conscious of taking a breath for the sake of breathing and not because of some pending danger.  Knowing full well that in spite of all the bullets, blades, and pepper sprays deployed against my soul, not only have I prevailed, but I have transcended the court’s systemic evil.  The perpetual miracle of being alive and present in that life with each heart beat. At times being intoxicated by the rhythm of its percussion.  Simply stated, I do not want to impose on anyone’s space, time, or life.  I want to bring, by synthesis, laughter, fun, joy, excitement, intrigue, and unlimited possibilities to a woman’s life.  Nor do I, by expressing a simple “Hello” want to trigger the societal abnormal norm.  The humdrum, gloom, sadness, anxiety, apprehension, redundancy, and circumspection.   Refusals to succeed, mislabeled as immovable limitations that slowly, even imperceptibly, diminish the sacred self.  Where failure to dare, is refusal to live.  Is she ready for political vocation -- where my staunch “Hueman” Rights, child advocacy for public education, and rights vindication within the courts comes first?

       How can I be mindful about not crossing an unetched line?  More importantly, one I don’t even know exists.  One woman’s modesty is another one’s unwanted suppression of her natural introduction to a no-holds-barred coming attraction.  While another woman’s need for constant social intercourse is deemed aggressive and off putting by the next.  How do I discern the prude from the playmate?  Or all the possible shades in between?  The uninhibited from the emotionally constipated?  Is it dialogue or dress?  If it’s communication, is it verbal or nonverbal?  In her mind, does the dress make the woman look good?  Or does the woman make the dress look good?  Or is it some unexpressed specific 2017 signal that I am absolutely ignorant of because of 36 years of inhumane and unlawful imprisonment?  Is Mother Nature still the navigator?  Does the scent of readiness still lie true for women?  Or has it been replaced by robotic disengagement of her electronic device?  That is to say, when she shuts off her smartphone, she’s tired, thus ready for something else – which could, but not necessarily include, the company of a man?  Not any man, but specifically me, the non-electronic junkie.  But one that is likewise addicted to live “hueman” face-to-face dialogue.  The prolific listener.

         My meditation is that I am not too candid about my psychological state and the buzzing trepidation it feeds.  My personal and empirical courtroom experience, particularly as one under the unacknowledged Child-Death-By-Incarceration Act, has been, more often than not, when one expresses an interest to help – all of a sudden – it’s either superficial or in matters not germane to one’s pressing concerns, especially regarding mental health and freedom.  Health and freedom; success demands that they be a tandem linked at the hip. Thus, if you reach out to children – girls and boys – in my situation, who are now women and men, you must be mindful that we have been robbed of our childhoods – physically, psychologically, economically, intellectually, politically, and socially.  So, bring these resources to the operating table to help repair and restore, if at all possible, all of what has been damaged and stolen.

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[1] This serial series is necessary because it is clear that most of the people speaking and writing about our reentry don’t know and they intentionally keep talking to other people who don’t know or know very well but won’t say because it will interfere with their money or prestige opportunities.  In the coming months I will “name names” and connect the dots to the road blockers and misdirectors in our city, lest we forget, “The Philadelphia Negro”  -- W.E.B. DuBois’  searing account of white supremacy’s devastating of Black people, especially children, in Philadelphia, makes us realize that contemporary “brotherly loathing” in our city is the poisonous fruit of the court’s historical tree.  Our desire is to educate not just the Delaware Valley, but also Pennsylvania and both the national and international community about what is really going on behind the curtain in Oz.  And, yes Houston, we definitely have a problem.

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Mr. Muti A. Ajamu-Osagboro is a Contributing Author to “Celling America’s Soul”, a critically acclaimed literary work penned by Ms. Judith Trustone (www.sagewriters.org) and Contributing Editor to IN SEARCH OF FATHERHOOD®.