I was born in Oakland, California on November 24th, 1976. However, from the fourth grade up until the second semester of my sophomore year in high school, I lived in Portland, Oregon. For most of middle school and high school I was bussed to a predominantly white school located in Cresham, a suburb of Portland. At first blush, I thought that all of this occurred because of the fact that I obtained one point shy of a 4.0 GPA. 

Thanks to Saturday school, that was sponsored by the National Urban League and the Black United Fund, as well as my mom, who took me to the Multnomah County Public Library (that was at the time walking distance from the apartment we stayed in), I was able to read various books.  I viewed documentaries and listened to my mom tell me of her personal experiences growing up and as a teenager. This is when the bus boycotts, freedom marches, lunch counter sit-ins, freedom rides, and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 took place.  It was brought to my attention that people who didn’t even know I would exist, had paid a great price for me to enjoy progress. 

At the same time there was opposition paving the way for the new Jim Crow, known as mass incarceration, or slavery by another name. 

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I was victimized with micro aggressions known as The Pipeline to Prison, first by way of suspension for the slightest offense of defending myself from being assaulted and called “nigger” and “tar baby.” I was then placed in a special behavior class, then in an alternative school, until I simply dropped out of high school in my junior year. 

As I look back and reflect on my own experiences, along with the history of the struggle for equality, I am well aware of the fact that the struggle continues. I, too, must do my part, take up the baton, and spend the rest of my life striving for social justice. 

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Social justice, from my viewpoint, and the understanding that I have come to after studying, researching, reflecting and observing my life experience, is an ideal that makes everything equal and fair for everyone that makes up what I like to call the overall human family. 

I have read and studied the books that were written about the brothers Martin and Malcolm, and observed the signs of the times that I live in. Mass incarceration is not the only new Jim Crow, or slavery. It’s not a civil rights issue but a human rights issue, because poverty discrimination, as well as lack of opportunity, is a public health disaster and not a criminal justice issue. The politicians make it out to be one, justifying  draconian prison sentences. The derogatory words “nigger,” “boy,” “coon,” and “bafoon” that were used to classify a group of people exist now,in an  age of colorblindness, but are replaced with “crime,” “criminal,” and “felon.”