MyTimeToBlog
Okay, so I exited the chow hall after a torrential downpour. When I did, I noticed the head investigator, a sergeant and a correction officer surrounded one of my classmates from Ancient Civilization. The investigator was ordering my classmate to head back to the building; he did this by gesturing with his hand. My classmate did the same, gesturing in the opposite direction. I shook my head because what I knew was that he had mental health issues.
This came to my attention when I heard that my classmate got high on some kind of drug and jumped off the top tier. He has been different ever since, so much so that when I ran into him a week ago, to sign back up for college, he said he was done. Now I know this doesn't make him have mental health issues, what does is his state of mind. He's been seen staring off at the sun, lost in his head. The men in his housing unit shared that he's off, like a light switch.
Now as I turned the corner, returning to my building, I watched my classmate get pepper sprayed. He ate it as if it were nothing, just standing there unfazed. The investigator, who sprayed him, handed off his canister of pepper spray, then stepped around my classmate. His arms wrapped around my classmate, then the investigator picked him off his feet and slammed him to the ground. Other COs hopped on my classmate's back, cuffing him.
When I got on the phone after that incident, I didn't know how upset I was. I'm being asked how I'm doing, and that turned into me ranting about what I just witnessed. What also came to mind was the brother on the subway in New York who brandished a knife at two police officers--they shot him to death. All of this is bouncing around my head because nobody seems to know how to defuse anything without violence. One man is dead, while another stews in Restrictive Housing, not receiving mental health assistance.
I sat with my peers, discussing the subject of the day: how to fix the problems that we see. We placed ourselves in those men's shoes, then recanted our point of view. Why? We can't think for those individuals in those situations. What we can do next time is suggest some ideas that can de-escalate the problem before it becomes problematic.
In our prison, they have mental health therapists, but you never see them unless you request a meeting on paperwork that may take a couple of days to be answered. So why not use us (incarcerated men) as a voice of reason? I say this because if I knew it would've gone to the extreme of pepper spray, I could've attempted to speak up. Sadly, I didn't, because I didn't think it would reach that point.
I'm bothered by that. I am. I keep dwelling on being a positive voice for my brothers in the struggle. Instead, I'm typing alone on my tablet, trying to find a way to say I'm better than what I was yesterday. These are the things that keep me up at night. Why? I want to show my transformation, but today, I showed I need to get back to the drawing board again.
I'm in a problematic world. Men are deteriorating into nothing but broken men, and I want to do my part. I keep thinking about this quote: Get off the bench and enter the game. I pick and choose when I want to get up and show my best when eyes are on me. What about when they're not, that's when I need to rise to the occasion. I say this because what if the investigator slammed my classmate on the ground and broke his neck, killing him? It's too late then, and I can't allow someone's mother to receive a call, hearing her child perished because he refused to go to his housing unit.
This is a lesson for me to be accountable for opening my mouth when speaking about a problem. I must put actions to what I'm saying, instead of having hindsight on what I could've done.
How about you: have you sat by and watched a problem arise, and talk about it, instead of doing something to fix it?