Welcome back to another double issue of The Beat Within! Though our world continues in a state of chaos and uncertainty, The Beat Within remains constant & committed to sharing your voice, your story, and your opinions about what matters most. We’ve been deeply humbled to hear what you have to say about COVID-19, the shelter in place order, isolation, and control – concerns that are impacting all of us, no matter where we are. The advice and encouragement our writers have to offer us readers is so valuable. You bring us the hope, perspective, and enthusiasm that our world needs in this moment.
We also want to update you on our weekly workshops. The magazines and weekly topics continue to be sent and delivered to all our partners. A number of sites are offering virtual The Beat Within workshops, and those are going pretty good, getting better and better with each session. Other sites, the staff of juvenile hall is running our Beat workshops in our absence. We are thrilled to receive the writing and art you all send us, as we work out the glitches and logistical details with some sites. We know this issue will not disappoint. We even have a number of alumni stepping up to the plate to offer perspective and insight as we all are doing our best to navigate the shelter in place, wearing a mask or scarf where ever we go and keeping six-feet distance from our neighbors and others in our community. Thank you for your patience with us as we do our best to maintain a consistent program and magazine, while learning new ways to bring the best product possible to you readers and contributors.
Today we want to welcome the voices of two of our high school interns from Urban School of San Francisco, Alex and Sophria. In Alex’s piece, we see the realization of the American prison system as a place not to rehabilitate, but to consolidate and put on a singular path. Sophria details the specific writers and letters that moved her, and allowed her to see our one uniting factor – that we are all human. Please give it up for Alex and Sophria, and enjoy the latest issue of The Beat Within!
Seeing Past the Shell
Before I began doing work for The Beat, I had a very one-dimensional perspective of prison: it was a place for criminals to be kept until they had served their sentence. As we began to discuss mass incarceration and prison life at school during some of our classes, I became interested in learning about what life was like in prison. This intrigue led me to The Beat, and for my 12-week term of Service I have been transcribing letters from incarcerated people. My time spent reading and re-writing these letters has truly introduced me to the reality of life inside of a United States prison. I heard all kinds of stories, from those writing letters to loved ones that they no longer had the chance to speak to, to those writing poems about school love. Hearing stories like these broke my preconceptions of what a prison was meant to do. For the longest time, thanks to the media’s portrayal of a prison, I thought that a prison was meant to rehabilitate those who had committed a crime, but after my time with The Beat, I realized that the American prison system is only meant to contain and silence those who often most need their voices to be heard.
I heard stories of people getting simple choices stripped away from them, such as what they could eat. While it is a given that one must sacrifice elements of their freedom when incarcerated, it should not be the case that we do not allow people the chance to make decisions and have agency over their lives in a time where things may seem uncontrollable. The prison system has been characterized by the government as a rehabilitating center for those who have strayed off the path. Truthfully, the prison system tries to force those within it onto one singular path, instead of allowing those people to find a new path for themselves. Thanks to my time spent working for The Beat, I was able to see past the shell of the American judicial system and into the truth at its core. Without reading the words and stories of those who first hand experienced the effects of the system, I would have never known the truth about how we portray our prisons.
I have realized that being incarcerated is more than just being a criminal who is serving his time. Being incarcerated is having your ability to learn from your own mistakes and decisions taken away from you, instead ushering you down a path that was predetermined by someone else. The prison system strips away a person’s willpower and reduces them to a number. Without working with The Beat, I would have never understood the reality of what it means to “rehabilitate” while being incarcerated.
After 12 weeks of working for The Beat, I have been reminded to always listen
every side of a story, rather than just listening to whichever voice is the loudest. To me, the news we hear in the media about the American judicial system is the dominant source of information about the incarcerated, which simply does not make sense. In order to be informed about the incarcerated, we must be informed by the incarcerated. In order to understand someone’s life, you must listen to their story, rather than an observer’s perspective.
-Alex, Urban School of San Francisco, San Francisco, CA
We Are All Human
Before I began working at The Beat Within, I saw incarcerated individuals as prisoners rather than individual people. To me, people in jail lived in a universe entirely separate from me. As a privileged high-school student, I had never interacted with incarcerated individuals, nor has anyone I know ever been incarcerated. The only exposure I had into incarcerated life was through movies, books, and television. From transcribing letters from inmates for the past couple of months, I have gotten a direct view of their passions, hopes, and loved ones, which has helped me grow my opinion.
Though I never got to meet any of the writers of the letters I typed, the rawness of the author’s words allowed me to really connect to them as people. Hearing the struggles of their lives allowed me to recognize that my own struggles are really not that different. While typing up a poem titled “Man in the Mirror”, by Alexis A. Pamiroyan, I felt as if her emotional experiences mirrored the experiences that I am going through. She wrote: “When I was a teenager, I looked in the mirror with no sense of direction, I wanted to be somebody? Young minded I didn’t know who I wanted to be? So, I chose to follow and be like the rest.” I am positive that almost all teenagers encounter the feeling of a lack of self-identity growing up. We all try to fit in with those around us. We all feel insecure and lost. We are all human.
The letter that perhaps moved me the most, was written by Glenn Wagner, titled “Dear Generation to Come”. In his letter, Glenn sought forgiveness from the younger generation for the acts he did. He takes on responsibility for all wrongs in the world, which illustrated my original opinion of inmates; responsible for each and every crime as well as all future crimes. While reading his piece, I recognized how ridiculous my original notion was. People are not born evil; circumstances make them so. By taking responsibility for the future wrongs in the world because of how he believed his crimes would impact the future generation, Glenn was able to show that the generation before him was what shaped and pushed him to make the decisions that he did. He illuminated the unjust cycle of the justice system.
The majority of the letters I typed up caused me to follow a similar path of deep thinking and self-realization about both the justice system and incarcerated life, leaving me feeling somber and depressed. However, Glenn’s letter stood out to me because of its positivity. He ended his letter by looking towards the future and trying to find happiness, acceptance, and love for himself, as well as with a smiley face. His optimism in the face of injustice continues to inspire me today. We all go through temptations and can make bad decisions, we all also have the opportunity to learn from our mistakes and grow, regardless of their size.
Because I related so much to letters, I was reading, it was incredibly hard to read about the difficult life situations they had to face and endure. Some letters were filled with despair and hopelessness and seemed as if the writers truly believed that the world had given up on them. They believed that they were truly alone. I desperately wanted to respond to those letters, and to reach out and say “I am here, and I care”. I have learned so much about the prisoner system and those who are incarcerated in the past 12 weeks during which I have been typing letters, that I now truly do care. I now see incarcerated individuals, as individuals with diverse and beliefs, and most importantly, as similar to myself.
-Sophira, Urban School of San Francisco, San Francisco, CA
Thanks again to Alex and Sophria for their hard work and their honest reflections! We hope that our Beat writers and readers are continuing to practice self-care, washing their hands frequently, and reminding their loved ones to stay home, as our nation tries to flatten the curve of COVID-19. Be safe, be well, and please reach out to us anytime! We want your updates and stories! We’d love to hear from you, whether you’re a regular Beat writer, an alum, or a community member. There’s space for you in our pages! Be well.