“Never forget that justice is what love looks like in public.” – Cornel West

 

“Cornel West Quotes.” Cornel West Quotes (Author of Race Matters). N.p., n.d. Web. 21 July 2017.

This is what was said by scholar Cornel West, yet as a 24-year-old I sit and wonder if we even know what justice is? As we continue transitioning through the 21st century racism is nowhere near dead, police brutality persists and with only 5% of the world’s population, the U.S. has more than 20% of the world’s prison population.

The number of people who are sent into solitary confinement on a yearly basis is 80,000 to 100,000 prisoners according to stats from 2014 and not all of them are justified uses.

The tactic is so known for the deterioration of the human psyche that the UN stated in a report that it is a form of torture. One of the more heartbreaking cases is that of a young Kalief Browder.

 

This tragic story starts with a 16-year-old who was incarcerated in Rikers Island FOR STEALING A BACKPACK (I don’t think I have to describe how this is cruel and unusual). The young man eventually spent 3 years in jail WITHOUT BEING FOUND GUILTY. Having survived several suicide attempts while incarcerated, Kalief eventually made it back to society, earning his high school equivalency and started community college in what seemed like steps towards rehabilitation. However, it seems that as a result of doing a year of DAILY 23-hour solitary stints, the trauma overwhelmed him, leading him to take his own life in his parents’ home. This situation was so grotesque that on January 25, 2016, President Barack Obama banned the holding of juveniles in solitary confinement in federal prisons solely because of Kalief. Obama asked, “How can we subject prisoners to unnecessary solitary confinement, knowing its effects, and then expect them to return to our communities as whole people?”

Kalief became a casualty in a war with no real purpose, forcefully fueled with prejudice. A war, as scholar Michelle Alexander put, is known as “The New Jim Crow.” Petty crimes that can essentially be life ending in the short or long term as we saw with Kalief.  Essentially, reporters are comparing Kalief’s case to a current situation facing Pedro Hernandez. Pedro has been assaulted by correctional staff in the past as caught on camera and is being framed to be the shooter of a crime by a cop who is now under investigation. The crazy part is Pedro has eight witnesses stating he did not commit the shooting, including the victim of the shooting.

Although time will tell what Mr. Hernandez’s situation will look like, one thing is for sure: the system loves to punish minority men. This posting is to remember the lives of the millions of juveniles, men and women who enter the system and are not promised to make it back. This posting especially goes out as a reminder of the Kalief Browders who exist in this warzone called “Criminal Justice.”

This is a poem I wrote in memory of Kalief.

ODE TO KALIEF

                        By: Jonathan Cabrera

 

Young man

 

Your loss is incomprehensible

 

It is irreprehensible

 

How you saw life when fear came and entered you

 

Being alone, lost in your lonesome

 

But if you could loan some

 

Of your tears and your courage, perhaps we may fathom your gradual murder

 

Truth be told, I think it’s for us to be prepared for things that are unheard of

 

You see, you were a prince, a king

 

YOU STILL ARE

 

But as you were caged behind those steel bars

 

I can imagine you thought at one point how you should be swiping your meal card

 

How you should be on campus

 

Where your main worry should be getting a good grade in math, this

 

Clearly took a wrong turn

 

A man burned

 

Only for his ashes to return

 

Your memory forever burned

 

Into the minds of rappers, families and our President

 

Your residence on this earth has already transformed the future by its effects on the present tense

 

I didn’t know you Kalief, but what I do know is you were Heaven sent

 

 

Is this Criminal Justice or Criminal it Just Is?

MY MUSIC

“Exchange” is one of several tracks I made, hope you enjoy: