-Calvin Edwards, Jefferson Correctional Center in St. Louis, MO
Are you hip enough to pimp a hooker from your tablet? Do you have enough game to turn a staff member into a mule? How about being savvy enough to introduce dope into the institution despite all the administration’s efforts to stop you?
Maybe you have enough game to do all of that. You may think you have enough game to get away with murder in here despite all these cameras. But ask yourself this, are you hip enough to run your own legitimate business? Do you have enough game to convince investors to give you the capital (money) to start it up? Do you have enough savvy to bring a product to market that is now only an idea in your head?
Maybe not, but how about something more basic? Do you have enough game or skills to pay for a house, a car, food, utilities, clothes, marriage, college tuitions, retirement funds, entertainment, medical, dental, life, house; and car insurance, without committing any crimes to supplement your income?
If your honest answer is no, then maybe you’re hip to the wrong game (whether it be stealing, robbing, drug game, murder game, or whatever). Maybe you’re late to an entire world of knowledge that can make you a better person (parent, protector, provider), even while you’re still incarcerated!
I’ll bet you a hundred dollars to a penny that there are books in this library alone that can offer you keys to a better life not just for you, but your loved ones and people around you. In fact, the right law books might offer you the keys to the front gate — literally! So why not invest time into reading and becoming more valuable to yourself, your family and community? Especially when you have plenty of time to invest?
The more you learn and acquire knowledge, the wiser you become. You gain a broader understanding on how to solve problems. This means you can give your son or daughter advice that can help them with school work, direct them to resources that can save them money, and give them game that can save their lives.
This means instead of convincing a female to jeopardize her freedom by bringing or sending you a pack, or committing some type of fraud, you can acquire enough game (as in knowledge) to teach her how to open up a business, invest into stocks, property, etc.
This means you don’t have to keep going to the hole and losing relationships, losing privileges, losing weight, losing the little bit of physical freedoms you have left. This means you can start losing less and gaining more!
If not, if we continue to refuse proper knowledge (the knowledge that affords us jobs, careers, businesses, the “how to” to change laws, policies, lives and culture) then we are stuck with the knowledge that has led us here. The knowledge that has caused us — our families and others — pain, shame, guilt and loss.
We leave our people only with the game (knowledge) that may bring them to a place like this, or worse. Wouldn’t it be selfish and foolish of us if we didn’t try to remove such stumbling blocks? Didn’t search for a better way, for ourselves and our people, while we have the opportunity right now? Is it not lame of us to stick to the same “games” we know have been literally killing us and causing us more losses than gains? Think about it.
“For my people are foolish… They are wise to do evil, but to do good they have no knowledge.” -Jeremiah, chapter four, verse twenty-two.