Letter to My Brother, Everett, in Prison

Author: Dr. Michael Eric Dyson

Dear Everett:How are you? I suppose since we've talked almost nonstop on the telephoneover the last five years, I haven't written too often. Perhaps that's because withwriting you have to confront yourself, stare down truths you would rather avoidaltogether. When you're freestyling in conversation, you can acrobatically dancearound all those issues that demand deep reflection. After five years, I guess it'stime I got down to that kind of, well, hard work, at least emotionally andspiritually.I've been thinking about you a lot because I've been talking about black menquite a bit—in my books, in various lectures I give around the country, insermons I preach, even on Oprah! Or is it the other way around, that I've beentalking about black men because I've been thinking about you and your hellishconfinement behind bars? I don't need to tell you—but maybe I'll repeat it toremind myself—of the miserable plight of black men in America.I am not suggesting that black women have it any better. They are not living inthe lap of luxury while their fathers, husbands, brothers, boyfriends, uncles,grandfathers, nephews, and sons perish. Black women have it equally bad, andin some cases, even worse than black males. That's one of the reasons I hesitateto refer to black males as an "endangered species," as if black women are out of the woods of racial and gender agony and into the clearing, free to create andexplore their complex identities. I don't believe that for a moment.I just think black women have learned, more successfully than black men, toabsorb the pain of their predicament and to keep stepping. They've learned totake the kind of mess that black men won't take, or feel they can't take, perhapsnever will take, and to turn it into something useful, something productive,something toughly beautiful after all. It must be socialization—it certainly isn'tgenetics or gender, at least in biological terms. I think brothers need to thinkabout this more, to learn from black women about their politics of survival.I can already hear some wag or politician using my words to justify their attackson black men, contending that our plight is our own fault. Or to criticize us for not

Publication Information: Book Title:

Between God and Gangsta Rap: Bearing Witness to Black Culture

. Contributors: Michael Eric Dyson - author. Publisher: Oxford University Press. Place of Publication: New York. Publication Year: 1996.Also found in

The Michael Eric Dyson Reader

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being as strong as black women. But we both know that to compare thecircumstances of black men with black women, particularly those who areworking-class and poor, is to compare our seats on a sinking ship. True, some of us are closer to the hub, temporarily protected from the fierce winds of socialruin. And some of us are directly exposed to the vicious waves of economicmisery. But in the final analysis, we're all going down together.Still, it's undeniable that black men as a whole are in deplorable shape. The mosttragic symbol of that condition, I suppose, is the black prisoner. There are somany brothers locked away in the "stone hotel," literally hundreds of thousandsof them, that it makes me sick to think of the talent they possess going to waste. Iconstantly get letters from such men, and their intelligence and determination isremarkable, even heartening.I realize that millions of Americans harbor an often unjustifiable fear towardprisoners whom they believe to be, to a man, unrepentant, hardened criminals.They certainly exist. But every prisoner is not a criminal, just as every criminal isnot in prison. That's not to say that I don't believe that men in prison who havecommitted violent crimes can't turn around. I believe they can see the harm of their past deeds and embrace a better life, through religious conversion, throughredemptive social intervention, or by the sheer will to live right.The passion to protect ourselves from criminals, and the social policies whichthat passion gives rise to, often obscure a crucial point: thousands of black menare wrongfully imprisoned. Too many black men are jailed for no other reasonthan that they fit the profile of a thug, a vision developed in fear and paranoia. Or sometimes, black men get caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. Worseyet, some males are literally arrested at a stage of development where, if theyhad more time, more resources, more critical sympathy, they could learn to resistthe temptations that beckon them to a life of self-destruction. Crime is only themost conspicuous sign of their surrender.I guess some, or all, of this happened to you. I still remember the phone call thatcame to me announcing that you had been arrested for murder. The disbelief settled on me heavily. The thought that you might have shot another man todeath emotionally choked me. I instantly knew what E. B. White meant when hesaid that the death of his pig caused him to cry internally. The tears didn't flowdown his cheeks. Instead, he cried "deep hemorrhagic intears." So did I.Even so, a cold instinct to suspend my disbelief arose, an instinct I could hardlysuppress. I was willing, had to be willing, to entertain the possibility that the newswas true. Otherwise I couldn't offer you the kind of support you needed. After all,if you really had killed someone, I didn't want to rush in to express sorrow at your

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being wrongly accused of a crime you didn't commit. Such a gesture would notonly be morally noxious; it would desecrate the memory of the man who had losthis life.If I wasn't able to face the reality that you might be a murderer, then I would haveto surrender important Christian beliefs I preach and try to practice. I believe thatall human beings are capable of good and evil. And regarding the latter, wishingit wasn't the case won't make it so. Too often we deny that our loved ones havethe capacity or even inclination for wrongdoing, blinding us to the harm they mayinflict on themselves and others.I eventually became convinced that you were innocent. Not simply because youtold me so. As one lawyer succinctly summarized it: "To hear prisoners tell it,there are no are guilty prisoners." After discerning the controlled anger in your voice (an anger that often haunts the wrongly accused) and after learning thatthe police had discovered no weapon, motive, or even circumstantial evidence, Ibelieved you were telling me the truth. Plus, you had been candid with me aboutyour past wrongdoing. And in the wake of your confessions of guilt, yourepeatedly bore the sting of my heated reproach. For these reasons, I believedyou were not guilty.I realized then, as I do now, that these are a brother's reasons. They are the fruitof an intimacy to which the public has no access and in which they place littletrust. Many of the reasons that led me to proclaim your innocence are notreasons that convince judges or juries. Still, I felt the bare, brutal facts of the caseworked in your favor. A young black man with whom you were formerlyacquainted was tied up in a chair on the second floor of a sparsely furnishedhouse. He had tape tightly wrapped around his eyes. He was beaten on thehead. He was shot twice in the chest at extremely close range, producing"contact wounds."After breaking free of his constraints, he stumbled down the flight of stairs insidethe house where he was shot. Once he made it down the stairs outside thehouse, he collapsed on the front lawn of the house next door. As he gasped for breath while bleeding profusely, he was asked, first by neighbors, then byrelatives who had arrived on the scene, and later by a policeman, "Who did thisto you?" Something sounding close enough to your name was uttered. The badlywounded man was pronounced dead a short time later after being rushed to anarea hospital.In the absence of any evidence of your participation, except the dying man'swords, I thought you'd be set free. After all, he could be mistaken. Given thetragic conditions in which he lay dying, he might not have had full control of his