"I'm terrified they'll incarcerate me," he acknowledged.
They're going to arrest me and incarcerate me in the black hole of Beirut Airport, and it's all because I got that stamp at the Syrian border.
They're going to arrest me, and incarcerate me in the black hole of Beirut Airport, and it's all because I got that stamp at the Syrian border.
A very proud Haitian-American (who doesn't shun the begrudged diaspora label), self-identified black feminist, trained anthropologist but accidental academic (long story), performance and multi-media artist who doesn't fully belong in any one community, I am quite used to resisting other people's attempt and need to socially incarcerate me.
After I wrote the story, a friend who spent twenty-three years incarcerated told me that at the prison in the Central Valley where she spent many years, a crane had landed on the yard one day.
"The fact that some of these people are still alive and incarcerated made me want to give them their space," she says of the process behind preparing for the role.
People would rather spend thirty thousand dollars a year to keep a man incarcerated than give me thirty-thousand-dollars-a-year job that creates stability".
If the people in charge of my reintegration are the ones who have the least faith in rehabilitation, how can I expect society to change its views about formerly incarcerated people like me?
When people call me formerly incarcerated or a returning citizen, I do not feel like they are less likely to deny me employment, or housing, or to shake my hand.
This man, old enough to be my grandfather, was incarcerated at sixteen, like me.
