Right Beside The Condoms

Someone sent me an e-mail with an attachment and the subject ‘Feedback Please’. Who are you and exactly what is the attachment? I went ahead and tried to open it figuring that if it’s a deadly virus, the super virus stuff we have would catch it. But it won’t open.

I got a letter from a relative yesterday. Letter? Yes letter!!! Didn’t I tell y’all I have two relatives in jail? Pay attention! One writes and calls all the time. The other younger one? Not. So. Much. I was excited to read what he’d written. But not before I went to get my brows plucked and my nails done. Yeah, the old Kajuana of weekly hair appointments and nails done is back b*tches!

I open the letter and it started off with the reason he’s not written me before. Lemme give you some back story. He and I grew up together. He was a bright kid. Interested in being an architect, not in a George Castanz/Art Van Delay way either. He is fluent in Spanish and had started college. All in all, a good kid. Sure he had some familial issues but who hasn’t? He was on the track to be something great right out of the gate. Was on the track to probably follow me to Howard. But he decided to stay local choosing to go to a college near his drug dealer relatives.

He started going downhill and fast. Who took him down?? His family. Ya see, he was the only male in his family on the road to getting out of Detroit, Michigan. He was the only male in his family wearing button up shirts and doing homework. But they eventually got to him. He started selling drugs.

I guess it was 2001-ish. He’d called and left a message on my cell. It took a day for me to get back to him. I called, left a couple messages and he never called me back. I chalked it up to a young guy being busy. I’d talk to my mother later and find out that within 24 hours of him calling me, he’d gone to jail.

Anyway, the first paragraph of his letter said he hadn’t written me because he was embarrassed and ashamed of what he’d done. And I smiled when I read that. Because he should be. He had everything right for himself to be something different. I smiled because with that one paragraph, it seemed that he got it. Even though he was in jail, he hadn’t bought into the idea that jail is part of being a Black man in Amerikkka. And that even in jail, he knew he expected more from himself. I think that’s good. Too many of our young men in urban cities think jail is a part of their life cycle. It’s not. Strangly enough, the guy most into being a drug dealer has never served a day. Matter of fact, he managed to get himself a legal business. Go figure. But in the process he ruined lives of impressional people around him and even testified against his own brother. A brother that helped raise him.

He (the guy in jail) also wrote that he feels a bit lost because he doesn’t know what he wants to do when he gets out. I don’t know when he gets out. Never bothered to ask because that date is usually pretty flexible depending on more factors that I’d bother to add, subtract, multiply, and divide. I told him it’s OK to not know exactly what he wants to do. Even if he wasn’t locked up, he’d probably still not be sure of what he wanted to do. And that even if he does decide, he’s young enough that he can change his mind six or more times!

I read it twice. On the second go-round I noticed not one word was misspelled. There was not one grammatical error. I could see even where he’d made errors, he went back and fixed them. I don’t know what all that means but I’ve seen some other stuff come out of prisons and it’s barely readable. They say prisons are filled with people with learning disorders. I guess he took pride in what he was writing. Or maybe this letter was evidence of what he could have been and hopefully still can be. Someone who takes pride in who they are, what they do, etc.

Thing about him is that he has shame. So often, young people go about their lives doing reckless things then walk around like their shyt doesn’t stink. I used to think they had to feel a shred of embarrassment. They had to feel some shame beneath all that bravado. But they don’t. Why?? Because shame is no longer an issue. People look cross-eyed at me when I use the word ‘bastard’. It’s because that’s what they are. Look it up! The word conjures up shame. Who wants to be met with the error of their ways? I know I don’t. Just kidding-sorta. And yes, there should be some shame associated with having babies out of wedlock all willy-nilly. I don’t/won’t visit either of my relatives in jail. I don’t think they really want me to. Why?? Because they are ashamed. There’s shame attached to not being smart enough to think your way around being a drug dealer.

Further, there should be shame attached to doing anything your grandmother wouldn’t approve of. Why granny? Cus you’ll find people who hate their parents but nobody hates or disrespects their grandma. Sometimes I wish I could package shame. I’d but it in CVS right beside the condoms. Yep, sure would. I don’t know if people would buy it but maybe if there was some physical reminder that we should take pride in the things we do, that we should be respectful, that we should want to make our people (family, friends, and even country) proud, we’d all stop doing so much and start thinking more.