Greetings readers and writers of The Beat Within! It’s been a while since we’ve published the voices of our hard working high school interns, who often transcribe pieces that come to us through adult institutions, published in The Beat Without section. We’re happy to welcome two students who have been working with us over the past few months, Billy and Maddie. In his reflection, Billy talks about his ability to see these writers as human beings and not numbers, as he found plenty of hope and inspiration from each piece he worked on. Maddie writes about the way her transcriptions have changed her perspective: people’s crimes do not define who they are. We are grateful for both writers/students for their belief in and contribution to our mission!Â
Finding Inspiration
It’s easy to imagine incarcerated people as numbers and nothing more. We hear facts and statistics everyday about the US’ incarceration rates. They’re all percentages or incomprehensible numbers that doesn’t express that these are people, not numbers. Before I started with The Beat Within I didn’t think of each number as a person. Each one of those incarcerated people has a family, friends, hopes and dreams. Some will have another chance to fulfill those dreams, some won’t.
Every letter I typed up during my time had some kind of hopeful or inspirational message, without exception. I would type the letter, reading it intently at the same time, wondering how someone in a situation I saw as incredibly difficult could think positively. In my life of highschool, every essay, or 70% on a math test seems like the end of the world. Yet for these people, they somehow find the ability to hope in the future so that they do not make the same mistakes as before.
One particular letter that inspired me, was an eight page instruction on how to evaluate yourself on what you hold dear, and how to modify those values so that your life can be the best it can be. The man spoke about how during his many years spent in prison he had been able to reassess what he had done, and how he could better himself in the future. He concluded his letter by saying that he is serving up to life in prison. This fact showed me that he had nothing to gain except bettering himself by writing his letter and reevaluating his values.
If someone who is set to spend the rest of their life in prison can look at themselves and decide that they need to reevaluate their life and reflect on what they have done, then I think anyone could do the same. Reading letters like this inspired me to keep a positive attitude, even in situations where you think it is impossible to recover from.
This idea was that affected me most from the letters. The optimism and ability to keep moving forward of these men and women. Of course we must learn from our mistakes but we also can not dwell on them. I would assume that it would be so easy to simply dwell on the mistakes you have made up to the point of being arrested. However, all the letters I saw emphasized similar points – You can’t change the past, you can only keep on living, and hope for a better future. That’s not to say that one should ignore the past, but it doesn’t help yourself or anyone to dwell on it to the point where your future can’t be seen.
My time typing letters for The Beat Within was a great experience that made me think more about our criminal justice system, and the millions of people that have feelings like you or me, that keep living on.
–Billy K, Urban School, San Francisco, CA
A Transforamtive Learning Experience
Ten weeks ago, I decided that I wanted to volunteer for The Beat Within. Aside from a presentation they had given a year before, I had little prior knowledge about the justice system or incarcerated individuals. However, I was excited to read the written work of those who were imprisoned, and to be a part of the process in sharing their story. During these last ten weeks, working with The Beat Within has been a transformative learning experience for me and something that I’ll never forget.
Coming into The Beat Within, the only ideas I had of the justice system and incarcerated individuals were what I had heard in the news, and seen in the media. From the news, I knew that there was a significant racial statistical disparity of those incarcerated, and that people of color took up a large percentage of those incarcerated. Similar to the news, the media portrayed one image of an incarcerated person: someone who had a lot of tattoos, did a lot of terrible things, and also happened to be a person of color. This constant niche portrayal of incarcerated people in the media created a really distinct image of what I thought an incarcerated person would look like. For the most part, I think my view towards incarcerated people prior to volunteering were all very negative: I only focused on the crime that they had committed, and the bad things that they had done. However, working with The Beat Within helped me to broaden my perspective, and allowed me to focus on the backstory and lives of those who had been incarcerated, and not the crimes that they had committed.
During the ten weeks I volunteered with The Beat Within, my work consisted of transcribing letters written by those incarcerated. Over the course of the ten weeks, I transcribed many pieces of work, each one unique, different, and interesting. One thing that I found difficult about transcribing the letters was reading them. A couple of my letters told the life stories of people had been incarcerated, and reading about the struggles they went through, and what pushed them to commit their crime was really difficult for me to read. For me, I think the most interesting part of transcribing was reading about the lives of those incarcerated people. From poems written to their love ones, each piece I transcribed was interesting and different, and really broadened my perspective of people who were incarcerated.
In particular, two pieces that I transcribed really stood out to me. The first one was written by Larise King, who wrote a piece titled Assassin Wife, where she reflected on killing her husband, and the regret and sorrow she faced afterword. This poetic piece really stood out to me for two reasons. For one, this was the only female perspective I was able to transcribe during the ten weeks. Secondly, this piece really stood out to me as raw and emotional, and it was almost as if I could feel the sorrow and regret that King feels. The second piece was a paragraph titled Homelessness, written by Greg Rodriguez. In this piece, he went over various aspects of his life story: where he grew up, his drug usage, siblings, and children. Reading pieces like these illuminated the backstories of those incarcerated, rather than purely focusing on the crime they committed.
My time with the Beat Within allowed me to understand the past and present lives of those incarcerated. It provided a deeper look to what I had constantly seen in the media: instead of focusing on the crime a person committed, I was able to understand their backstory and what they may have dealt with. This was such a unique experience, and one that I will never forget. I’m extremely grateful that I was able to work with The Beat Within for the past ten weeks.
-Maddie, Urban School, San Francisco, CA
Thank you, Billy and Maddie for your reflection essays. We hope you all enjoy this fabulous issue of The Beat Within. There is plenty to read and share. We hope you will do just that. Please don’t hesitate to reach out to us if we can be of any support to you. The Beat goes on…