Abstract
Niggers shouldn’t talk to white girls! was what I heard yelled in my direction. The audacity to spew such hatefulness was shocking. I wasn’t accustomed to hearing overt racism. It was the night before Thanksgiving, 1991. My mother sent me and my five friends to the store to pick up some stuffing for the Thanksgiving Day turkey. On the way back from buying the stuffing, we spotted a group of girls and began talking to them. There were four of them. Three were Black and one was white. No sooner than we began talking and flirting with the girls, our night was interrupted by bigotry and hate.
At thirteen years old, I had already experienced many traumatic events. By then, each exposure to violence caused me to grow more and more fearful of everything. I was tormented by constant anxiety. The only thing that seemed to help me feel happy and calm the constant nervousness was smoking weed. I was ashamed of the nervousness and fear that came along with the feeling of danger around every corner. I knew I couldn’t live like that in California. Nobody likes or trusts cowards where I’m from, and I refused to be looked at like one. After all, I was no coward, but those feelings told me to go hide in a safe place and never go into the dangerous world again. I became determined not to allow those feelings control me. I refused to coward down to anything, or anyone, so I did my best to ignore it. At times, I used it as fuel to attack whenever threatened. To overcome the fear, I told myself I was tough. I forced myself to stand my ground and fight. I made myself ignore every instinct to run from the face of danger. And that is precisely what I did on this night.
I immediately knew the hate speech was directed at me. After all, I was the only Black guy in my group talking to a white girl. My first thought was to ignore or pretend I didn’t hear it. Unfortunately, doing that would cause everyone to think I was scared, and that would only bring more problems. I knew I had to confront it, so I turned and used my toughest voice. “Who said that?” I said loudly, as I looked around to find the culprit. I really didn’t want to know, but I was now committed. You heard me nigger. I said niggers shouldn’t talk to white girls! he reiterated, further putting me on the spot. With my chest poked out, my toughest walk towards him and my boys following me, I accosted my tormentor. “We got a fuckin problem, man?” I heard myself ask, really hoping he’d see he was outnumbered and leave. I got a problem with ALL niggers! he yelled, as he took his shirt off, exposing a torso covered with tattoos of swastikas and lightning bolts. He looked to be between 25-30 years old. He was a grown man with muscles everywhere, and he became more imposing and intimidating the closer we got to him.
There were six of us and one of him, but he clearly wasn’t scared or intimidated. This is white power! he continued, getting himself worked up and ready for a confrontation. “C’mon, man, let’s go,” I heard my friend say, “This White boy’s crazy!” he told me, while motioning for us to leave. I couldn’t have agreed more, and I welcomed the way out. I looked around to see the other guys nodding in nervous agreement. “You ain’t worth it, man” I heard myself say, maintaining my toughest voice. We turned to walk away. “You’re lucky!” was my parting words to keep up my tough charade. I heard him spew some more obscenities as we walked away. I thought, “Whew! I dodged that one.” Little did I know, it wasn’t yet over.
We walked away. Seemingly shaken by such racism and hate, each one of us attempted to move on from the dreadful encounter while trying to hide how deeply affected we were by it. We walked by an ice cream parlor, and someone suggested we get some ice cream. I thought it would be a good distraction from what just happened, so I agreed. We went in and surveyed the different flavors before being helped by the staff. There were some chuckles when the server asked what flavors we wanted, and one of the guys answered, “Black Cherry!” I don’t know why it was funny for the others, but the irony of continuing to want anything black after such an attack on our blackness was not lost upon me. We left the store having put the racist tirade behind us and focused on eating our ice cream.
What’s up now niggers! was what we heard no sooner as we left the store. Not only had the racist waited for us to come out, but now he was brandishing a huge bottle. He charged me first and swung the bottle at my head. I ducked, causing it to narrowly miss me. He began swinging the bottle at the others while continuing with his racist tirade. Each of us tried to get away with our lives, but the angry racist was intent on bloodshed and pursued us. I didn’t even notice all the bystanders watching as I remembered I had a pocket knife. I reached in my pocket, pulled it out and unfolded the blade. What are you gonna do with that nigger? he said, as he approached me. I knew what I had to do in order for us to survive the ordeal. I waited for him to swing the bottle at me, and when he did I ducked. I felt the bottle wiz over my head when I stabbed him. Nigger! is what he yelled as the knife penetrated his abdomen. Time stopped. And I looked at his face seeing nothing but pure rage. I’ll kill you! he yelled, as I withdrew the knife from inside him, he swung once more. I turned to run and felt the pain of the bottle strike my left shoulder. He began to chase me, but was unsuccessful and collapsed.
By the time I ran into my house, only two of the five guys remained with me. The others had run off in different directions. As I walked in the back door, my mom was sitting on the couch with my step-dad watching television. I walked up to her and handed her the brown bag containing the stuffing she had requested with the change left over from the money she had given me to purchase it. I didn’t realize the opposite hand still held the bloody knife. I also hadn’t noticed the sounds of sirens and helicopters filled the air outside. My mom noticed, just as she noticed the bloody knife in my hand, my panting, and the look on my face. “What happened?” she asked in a panicked tone. I sat down in shock not knowing what to say. “He just stabbed a guy,” responded one of the guys with me.
The police went door to door looking for me. I was escorted out of the house by my mom once they made it to the house next door and turned myself in. After what seemed like an eternity of being questioned, it was decided not to prosecute me. The racist turned out to be twenty-five years old and had recently been released from prison for a hate crime. Witnesses described him as the attacker, and us as having walked away. It was a clear case of self-defense.
The racist was the leader of a white supremacist gang from another part of town. His followers took exception with what had happened to their leader and began staging incursions into my neighborhood to find and kill me. After a few attempts on my life, I was forced to join a gang for my protection. The added help of those equally ready to be violent caused the hateful gang to quit pursuing me, but it also exposed me to further traumas that caused me to become even more rigid. At sixteen, my anxiety became so severe that I began suffering panic attacks. The stresses of gang life, coupled with the effects of previous traumas, took a toll on me. Thinking a new place would allow me to get away from gangs and provide me an opportunity at a fresh start, we moved. What I didn’t realize was, if I didn’t understand what the problem was, it wouldn’t matter where I moved to. However, one cannot be aware of a problem that is internal when they are looking to find it externally.
Violence has surrounded me like invisible bars my entire life. Like real bars, I have been a prisoner to it. It has directly and indirectly hindered my every attempt at progress. It wasn’t until I moved to Arizona and was subsequently sent to prison, for reasons unrelated to the above events, that I came to understand that it wasn’t “bad luck” or where I lived that was the problem. The problem was me. More precisely, it was the heightened anxiety and fear of perceived hidden dangers, symptomatic of unaddressed previous traumas, which caused me to act like a tough guy out of fear of others seeing me for who I truly was. When threatened, this caused me to condition myself to react in the manner I thought appropriate. As a result, my actions and reactions set off a series of chain reactions that culminated in violence against me or around me. Discovering this allowed me to free myself from the confines of my own creation.
Invisible bars can be anything that prevents anyone from freely thinking or acting rationally. Violence had such a traumatic effect on me that it became my invisible bars. Once I understood that, I was able to concentrate on gaining awareness of when and why my anxiety surfaces and establish positive methods of responding to it. I had to retrain myself on how to react to perceived threats against me. This proved difficult in a hostile environment like prison, especially without help. In the absence of actual therapy in prison, I found writing and religion to be therapeutic for me. Both taught me a lot about myself, but they also revealed other things. Mainly, I learned about the broader aspects of violence and its effects on others. The absence of the invisible bars allowed me to discover empathy, sympathy, and forgiveness for those who brought trauma to my life. I find myself sometimes thinking about the racist and his followers. I wonder if they have discovered their invisible bars. I’m curious how their experience with me impacted their lives. Do they regret their actions or did my violent response only strengthen the invisible bars around them and add to their justification to further hate? I think about what may have transpired in their lives and what traumas they must have endured that created their bars. Most importantly, I forgave them. If I didn’t, my invisible bars would continue to remain.
Society tends to put people in a box by placing labels on them. Much like the label I put on my attacker, this is particularly true when it comes to prisoners. We are labeled “violent” and “nonviolent” criminals. I have been in prison for twenty two years. In my experience, those labeled “nonviolent” tend to be the most violent, nonproductive, and disruptive in prison. While “violent,” we are generally the more stable, productive, and nonviolent. The circumstances surrounding our imprisonment is typically the catalyst that forces us to look at ourselves retrospectively and introspectively. The answers we find in our pasts and within ourselves leads us to embrace personal development. We don’t do it because of the labels. We do it in spite of them. We do it to free ourselves from the invisible bars of emotional torment. As an added bonus, I am able to proclaim: We who are labeled “violent” can and do change.
Perhaps those who are unable to believe otherwise have their own invisible bars they have yet to discover.