During my final year of imprisonment, I wrote a monthly update letter and addressed the envelope to the federal probation office in San Francisco. I had no idea which probation officer would be keeping tabs on me, but I coveted the highest level of liberty possible, and hoped to influence the officer who would be overseeing my release.
Shortly after surrendering to the halfway house in San Fran, I asked Charles, my case manager, if he knew which probation officer I'd be working with. He flipped pages through his thick red file.
"Looks like you've got Christine."
Charles gave me Christine's number and I set up an appointment, where we spoke for an hour. Although she hadn't received any of my letters, she said, she listened to me speak about my adjustment plans for building a career around my journey. Christine expressed support. Although I wasn't obligated, Christine invited me to attend a group meeting she held with other men who'd been released from prison.
I met Ronnie at the first and last group meeting I attended.
By then, many years had passed since I'd left a high-security prison. But when I was among the 2,500 men inside the 40-foot walls that surround the United States Penitentiary in Atlanta where I began my term, you could expect violence to break out on any given dayand when Ronnie walked into Christine's group-counseling session, I instantly recognized him as a shot caller, or gang leader. He had a shaved head. Lightening bolts and demons and swastikas sleeved out his arms in fading blue ink. He sat at the head of the table with a "Don't fuck with me" expression on his face.
Ronnie didn't have to say a word for me to know that he'd served his time in high-security facilities, and probably had done a few sordid deeds to earn his place as a shot caller on the yard. Something that was said often to me was, "It's easy to get respect in the penitentiary, so long as you're willing to pay the price"Ronnie looked like he'd paid the price.
Christine introduced me to the group, telling them I'd been transferred to the halfway house after 25 years in prison.
"I was at that same halfway house," I remember Ronnie snarling. "Didn't last a week."
"Why not, OG?" someone asked. Clearly, the other men looked to Ronnie as a leader.
Ronnie went on to explain how, from the minute he got there, he felt out of sortsor "out of pocket." People were slinging dope, women were turning tricks, and he didn't have a knife or pistol!
The other guys laughed.
Ronnie went on to explain how in In the penor federal penitentiaryeveryone knew exactly how to act. The "big homie" on the yard laid down the law. People stuck to their own kind and adhered to established hierarchies. But none of the rules he'd been living by seemed to matter anymore. When he felt disrespected by a man touching his coffee and threw him inside of a locker, US Marshals showed up with the cuffs and chains.
That act of violence sent Ronnie back to prison.
Christine cut in and told us about the growth Ronnie had made since then and how proud she was of his adjustment. He concluded his sentence four years previously, and she considered him a role model because he'd been holding steady employment, an accomplishment few former prisoners can pull off.
Ronnie grew up in Richmond, California, a working-class community just north of Oakland. From the time between his 15th birthday and his release from prison at 49, he'd never experienced more than 12 consecutive months in free society. His last stretch kept him locked up for 20 years.
"Each time I got out before, I just kept doing the same ol' thing. Slinging drugs, doin' what I knew how to do, handlin' business," he said. "When I got out this time, I wanted to do right. Jus' didn't know how. I got a son who starts and quits jobs all the time like it's nothin'. I couldn't catch a job nowhere. Didn't even know how to look. When I go by a spot lookin' for work, they tell me to fill out some application on a computer. Never learnt how to use no computer in prison! Walmart wouldn't hire me 'cause the manager said I didn't exist in the credit world, said I never paid taxes, said I didn't exist. Couldn't believe that I couldn't get a job at Walmart."
"How'd you end up getting hired where you work now?" one of the men in the group who'd been discouraged by the job market asked.
Ronnie explained that a buddy turned him on to a temp agency. "I didn't even know what a temp agency was. Said they give day jobs. I'd been out of work for 18 months and was just trying to do right, trying to get my feet up under me. No one gave me a break. Kept asking about the gap in my resume. Wasn't nothin' there for 30 years. Didn't have no experience, no references.
"Finally got sent out on a couple of labor jobs, making 'bout eight, nine bucks an hour. When I did some dirty work hauling boxes in the hot sun that no one else'd do, I got asked if I wanted a full-time spot. Been working there for two years now, still can't earn a livable wage. Just don't know how to get along in a way to move up."
"What do you mean?" I asked. Like the other men, I was eager to learn more about the challenges of reentry.
"No one out here in society gets me," Ronnie said, leaning back in his chair. "In prison you learn how to carry yourself in a certain way. I don't know how to smile. I'm not madit's just the way I look. Certain facial expressions frighten people out here. I didn't want people approaching me in prison, so I had to look a certain way. That's just the way I am. Don't even realize that I'm doin' it out here. In prison I didn't want people comin' near me. Out here, people take me the wrong way."
The other guys laughed. They could relate.
Check out the moment President Obama meets with federal prison inmates as part of our upcoming HBO special on the criminal justice system.
"See, I can walk into any prison and I'm instantly gonna know what's going on. Don't even got to know no one in the room. I'm gonna know who's who and what's up. Out here, if I walk into a room of people I don't know, I'm uncomfortable. Don't know how to act. Feel like everyone's lookin' at me, judgin' me. That's why I just keep workin' the job I'm on. Even though I ain't earning much, don't want to go through the whole process of havin' to explain myself and my background all over again."
Ronnie told the group that he wasn't alone. He communicated with a few other guys who served long stretches in the penitentiary. They were the same way. The adjustments they made inside made them feel as if they'd missed something when they returned to society. He's as well-adjusted as he'll ever be, Ronnie said. But he told me that he felt more comfortable in prison than he would ever feel in society. "Those are my people in prison and I know how to handle myself in there. Don't know how to act out here. I missed a generation or something, and it's still a shock. I can't relate."
Six years have passed since Ronnie was released, and he's now finished with supervision from probation. I called him recently to see how the adjustment has progressed. He's 55 years old now, he told me, and somewhat concerned with retirementhe doesn't know what he'll do. He doesn't take vacations, sick days, or any time off. He recently got promoted from working in a warehouse to driving. He's been able to purchase his first house, he said, but had to take in four roommates to make ends meet.
"Now just got to hope that nothin' they're doin' brings me problems," Ronnie says.
His is a fairly typical story. The adjustment patterns that many people find necessary to cope in a "correctional" setting contrast with the adjustment patterns that tend to produce success in society. That's another reason we must reform our nation's sentencing and prison systems: They're designed to perpetuate failure, rather than create functional members of society.
Some former inmates like Ronnie succeed in overcoming anyway.
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The average American commuter spends 42 hours per year stuck in rush-hour traffic, according to one recent study.
More than four decades ago, West Virginia University thought it had found a solution to urban traffic woes: It built a transportation system known as personal rapid transit, or PRT.
Instead of riding with dozens of others on a train car or bus, PRT pods carry a small number of people.
You are just a lowly beaker cleaner…until fate intervenes. When the Fake Science Laboratories come calling, you answer—and it turns out to be the greatest adventure of the last 15 minutes.
Can YOU make the mistakes that will save/destroy/do nothing notable to the lab? Can YOU turn the pages? Can YOU really read?
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1. He admitted that he literally does not believe one times one equals one.
2. His admittance that he literally does not believe one times one equals one was only the 7th or 8th most batshit thing about it
This motherfucker does not belong here.
“Here” in this context is not “Earth.” Terrence Howard is, by all accounts, a verified Earthling. Presumably with a SSN and a shoebox full of business cards from people he’ll never, ever contact but still refuses to throw away, just like the rest of us. No, Terrence Howard does not belong here, in 2015. He’s not from the future, though. Everything about him, from his hair and wardrobe (which could best be described as “pool hall chic”) to his countenance and the way he apparently comports himself with women, screams 1955. You see him and you have no problem whatsoever imagining him running numbers with your aint shit great uncles (and running through your aint shit great aunts); slacks creased, Caddy clean, and conk right as he offers neighborhood kids Tootsie Rolls while he’s tonguing a razorblade. His particular brand of aint shit aint just timeless. It’s a relic. A throwback.
Even aesthetically, as most other leading men of color today seem to be built like semi-pro running backs and account managers at LA Fitness, Howard seems intent on remaining the guy who says “I’m good with all that gym shit, yo. I’ll catch y’all when y’all get back” to his boys while they head to the Y and he stands on a corner, savoring a square and gas facing city bus drivers.
It’s apropos that his “Lucious Lyon” is the main protagonist on the spectacularly messy and messily spectacular Empire, a show that also does not belong in 2015. Sure, the themes are topical, the music is current, and the jeans are tapered. But the meat of the show — the melodrama, the scenery-chewing, the opulence, and the petty — harkens back to the 80s. It is also, true to its throwback form, an unbridled celebration of lightskinndedness. Both aesthetically and thematically. In fact, there has never been a more lightskinneded show on TV. Never, ever, ever, ever. It might as well be called “Lightskinned Niggas Are Interrupted From Doing Lightskinned Things By Taraji P. Henson.” Watching Empire makes you feel as if the last 30 years didn’t even exist. That the DeBarges weren’t predicate felons yet, that Reggie Theus was still an all-star, and that Christopher Williams still had a functional right hand. It’s a celebration, bitches. A gotdamn lightskinned celebration. And you’re not invited unless you bring a bottle of texturizer.
That it would have its season two premiere fall on the same week Drake dropped an aggressively “eh” mixtape that will somehow find a way to be culturally irreplaceable and double platinum seems more predestined than coincidental. Because 2015 is the year of the lightskint. We do not need any more evidence to prove this truth. No more Splash Brothers terrorizing the NBA with perfect jumpshots and imperfect shape-ups. No more people named “Zach Lavine” winning NBA dunk contests. No more President Obama acting all bad-ass like he’s playing spades and the other team bid “six” but only has “four” and there’s only two books left and he has both jokers. No more John Legend. We get it. The revolution isn’t happening. The revolution has happened, and Wet Wipes Howard and his Terryism are leading the way.
Hispanic-owned businesses are growing like gangbusters — exceeding the national growth rate by 15 times between 2012 and 2015, The Associated Press reports.
According to a study from the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and Miami-based consulting firm Geoscape, Hispanic businesses grew at an annual rate of 7.5 percent compared to the national rate of 0.5 percent.
Kansas and Missouri were among the areas with the fastest growth — 30 percent — in the last three years.
Geoscape CEO Cesar Melgoza…
Last week, Vanity Fair unveiled a striking portrait of the new generation of late-night television hosts, a handsome group that varies in terms of age and race, but, as many critics pointed out, not gender. Also, American Theatre magazine came out with its annual list of the 20 most-produced ...
Ryan Richardson is one of the United States’ foremost collectors, archivists, and dealers of punk rock records and ephemera, as well as being the Internet saint who created free online archives of Star, Rock Scene, and ...
"A single conversation would ruin the beauty and vastness of her silence. Today no such conversation occurs and she is happy."
too close to home there
There is a woman who waits in the darkness for the same bus each morning. Another woman stands stands nearby, in front of the graffiti-covered advertisement for Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2. The women stare into the distance, searching for the lumbering public transport vehicle that will take them to campus. They wait for their future labor like two crocodiles in adjoining tanks. There is only silence.
- -
Another graduate student speaks to her about his work in physics. His laboratory performs the amazing feat of turning light into a solid, or something else that is lost to her in minutes. She returns to the work that consumes her morning hours, blithely ignoring the correspondence between Frankenstein and this wonder of physics. She does not ask the question, are we pieces of solid light?
- -
The day is spent for the most part in a glorious solitude. Like the hunter who moves silently through the woods to check his traps, she moves through the library, cautiously avoiding those whom she knows. A single conversation would ruin the beauty and vastness of her silence. Today no such conversation occurs and she is happy.
- -
At lunchtime she meets a graduate student friend at a vile chain restaurant. They are only redeemed from their disgusting food choices by their inflexible avoidance of the yoga studio above. As they eat the uniform food before them they discuss their dissertations and television shows they have watched on Netflix. They understand each other’s daily labors with few words. Like polar explorers, they do not need to tell each other what is the snow. They simply build a wall with it, against the elements.
- -
Later she tries to return to her work, but is stymied by writer’s block. Though she has named her laptop after a character from a Jane Austen novel there is no friend here but only the pitiless, ruthless gaze of an insensate machine. The screen looks back at her, unforgiving and brutal as the nature that lies forgotten outside her window.
- -
Each night her boyfriend introduces her to a spirit of levity. With the taste in alcohol of a young dandy, she picks up a glass of mead that comes from a bottle stamped with images of Vikings and yells, “Let us breathe fire over the moldering bones of our enemies!” A few years ago, her sister had a genetic test that showed they are descended from Vikings. She finds comfort in pretending that she is a Viking warrior, facing the struggles of daily life with the beautiful and strange fiction that she lays waste to her foemen on the high seas.
what women said: i really need healthcare and planned parenthood is the only place i can get it
what republicans heard: i, a literal witch indentured to satan, am thankful that the Republicans are personally paying for this dead baby store so that i can continue conjuring welfare stamps out of thin air. everyone knows that spell won't work without murdered infants. thank you, American taxpayer
In August, Amnesty International voted to support the decriminalization of prostitution. Many sex workers’ unions and advocacy groups say making their work legal would help them stay safer. It would mean they wouldn’t have to reach clients through sketchy underground channels and could get help from authorities without fearing arrest.
In a paper for U.S.-Japan Women’s Journal, G.G. Rowley described a similar fight that played out in Japan in the 1950s with sex workers unsuccessfully fighting to keep their jobs legal.
At the time, Rowley writes, about half a million women worked full- or part-time as prostitutes in Japan. One source put their typical earnings at 30,000 yen per month in take-home pay, at least three times as much as the salary of a typist, phone operator, or factory worker. The economics of sex work rested partly on patronage from U.S. servicemen who were part of the occupation after World War II and those who visited on rest-and-recreation leaves from the Korean War.
Rowley writes that, prior to the 1950s, the government licensed prostitutes and allowed them to operate in red light districts. But a movement to abolish prostitution, driven largely by middle-class Christians, had begun in the 1880s. After World War II, the occupying Allied command Health and Welfare Section also pushed for an end to legal sex work.
Like today, many opponents of legal prostitution expressed particular concern about human trafficking. Aside from protecting “the way of life of 40 million respectable married women,” as one put it, advocates for the new law argued they were saving women from being forced into sex work by their family members. At the same time, they also sought to make Japan more respectable in the eyes of other nations.
The sex workers themselves disagreed, forming a union and publishing a newspaper to express opposition to the abolitionist movement. Many of the women writing in the newspaper explained that they were helping younger siblings pay for junior high school or they were supporting their parents. They pushed back against legislators who saw their behavior as immoral, asking how they were expected to live if their source of income was taken away.
The Prostitution Prevention Act did finally pass in 1956. But Rowley notes that it did not eliminate prostitution. A survey in 1957 found that 80 percent of prostitutes planned to continue operating. By the time enforcement of the act began in 1958, more than 60 percent of former proprietors of brothels had officially changed their businesses to inns, bars, cafes, or other legal establishments, with sex work continuing more quietly inside. However, Rowley writes, the illegal nature of the industry led it to be taken over by organized crime, which continues to play a big role in Japan’s widespread, but technically illegal, sex trade today.
Photo Credit: Women loiter in the doorways of nightclubs in Yoshiwara, the red light district of Tokyo, while prospective clients wander past or stop to look, circa 1955. (Photo by Orlando /Three Lions/Getty Images)
Dancing school: This image shows a group of girls at a dancing school in Harlem in 1938, which was opened by Mary Bruce, who taught ballet and tap for 50 years.
Amanda Jones has dedicated the past 20 years to an incredible photography project which aims to show just how fleeting the lives of our beloved pets are.
