-Jose, Santa Clara
After more than three years of being incarcerated, I have developed and created a vision that I once never had. For so many years, I was blinded to the fact that there was so much more that being contained in a single environment that is built to keep the people of color down.
The system that those so-called good Samaritans “government” implemented on our people, was to “teach us a lesson” or to break bad habits, but all it’s done is just make us more mad and more hungry.
Some individuals will never get out of the system but the so-called lucky ones get a second chance. To me I call it a blessing, that I can never do for as much or say as much I am grateful for. It’s been three years and some change that I been down and every day I continue to grow mentally and physically.
Sometimes I reflect on how much I have grown and think to myself that I haven’t grown much, but people around me have noticed the change in me. Sometimes it takes someone to take the blindfold off so you can have twenty/twenty vision.
It’s been a little over a year that I have written for The Beat Within. People around me are growing and that makes me happy because those are the type of people I want to surround myself with. You’re only as good as you can help others so stay humble, don’t be flaunting like a peacock, but that doesn’t mean be confident.
Mistakes are always going to be made, but the difference from a boy and a man is, the boy never grows, but a man takes accountability for their actions and “learns” from his mistakes and from other people’s mistakes.
You got to focus on yourself, take care of yourself before you try and help others, make the best with what you have, wake up with a good attitude, do everything with effort, make your people proud.