Friday, March 29

‘I will never leave your side’: his father’s letters helped him endure 19 years in prison | Race


TOs Shaka Senghor was serving 19 years in prison for murder, a letter from his father gave him the strength to endure and finally reform. “I will never leave your side,” Senghor’s father wrote him, after Senghor told his family, in a letter written from isolation, that they should move on with their lives without him.

Senghor explored his path to redemption in his New York Times best-seller Writing my mistakes: life, death and redemption in an American prison. At age 19, Senghor was convicted of second-degree murder after shooting a man during a drug deal in Detroit. He got out of jail in 2010 and ever since has been a member of the MIT Media Lab Director’s Fellow, delivered a TED talk in 2016 that has collected over 1.6 million views, and has been featured on Oprah Winfrey’s SuperSoul 100.

Now, in his second book entitled Letters to the children of society, to be published later this month, Senghor has written a collection of letters to his two sons: Jay, who was born while in prison, with whom he had a distant and fractured relationship, and his younger position, Sekou, who was born of a wiser and more redeemed Senghor who might have been a present and caring father. In his book, Senghor, 49, struggles to reconcile and build a relationship with his adult son who first met him as a prisoner, and his second son, born to a different mother, who is being raised by a accomplished and accomplished man. released. Senghor grapples with his grief over missing so much of his eldest son’s life, struggles with his own toxic ideas of masculinity, and ultimately works to find a way to love his two sons and participate in their lives in authentic ways. .

The cards played an important role in his own redemption and transformation. Why did you decide to write this book in letter form versus other narrative styles?

My transformation really started with letters from my dad. He is a beautiful letter writer and wrote me five to six page handwritten letters about life. We did a lot of healing and growth together and challenged ideas through our letters. And in my most difficult moments in prison, he would come back and reread his letters as a reminder that there was someone on the other side of the four walls who really cared about me. Someone who loved me loved me unconditionally. Through our letters, we were able to be really honest and very transparent with each other. He could admit the areas in which he felt he had fallen short and I could accept my failures and be responsible and free him from the oppressive thought that it was his fault that I landed in jail. I felt that the intimacy of the letters between my dad and I was something we just don’t see: an honest and emotional exchange between black men. I thought, if I could ever write something to my kids that they could go back to, the way I went back to letters with my dad, their lives would be good.

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You wrote letters over a nine-month period in 2020, during the limitations of the pandemic and a time of uprisings and racial recognition. How did that moment influence your focus?

When I started putting the letters together, it was before the social unrest that we witness worldwide. When I put together my first proposal, it was at the end of 2019, I was thinking about the narrative around black men and this negative story that I kept telling. We are framed as if we were America’s problem; we are the problem of the black community; we are black women’s problems; we are everyone’s problem and nobody’s solution. It really pissed me off because I know so many amazing black men. Originally, the letters were to be addressed to different children: my hip-hop kids, my non-binary confirming kids, my entrepreneur kids. Then, while thinking about it, I thought: “I need to write these letters to my children because between these two worlds are the many children that I meet.”

Your oldest son, Jay, is 29 years old and your youngest son, Sekou, 10. How have they responded to what you have written?

Jay doesn’t want to read the book. He’s so nonchalant and he’s in his own world. I realized that I cannot insert myself into his life in a way that he has not given me permission to do so. So I make the offering, and whatever he decides to do, it seems fine to me. With Sekou, it’s different because some of the content is more mature than where he is. He read a few and had the best reaction of all. I was so amused that my father once bought me some fake Jordans. He was like, “Not the Pro Wings.” It was a special moment.

Do you view this book as a guide for parents of black children? Or do you expect it to have a broader resonance?

This is a book that white parents and children should also consume. They are often in positions that are systemically oppressive to people who do not look like them. It is very important for white parents to understand that black parents want the same things for their children: safety, well-being, the ability to thrive and not just survive. The most important thing I want (everyone) to take away from us is the power of love – the emotional accessibility we owe to ourselves and our children and how shocking it is when you can open up. Love is truly our power and it is the source of all great things.

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You wrote a letter in which you break down the isolation and draw a parallel between being in solitary confinement in prison and the isolation of the early days of the pandemic. What got you there?

When the global pandemic started and people started to lock themselves in, I saw a lot of people fighting. Every time people approached me, they would tell me that I feel bad because you faced real isolation going through solitary confinement. And I would say, “No, this is real. There is no comparison to do, but there are similar issues. “

On your own, what really challenges you is this indefinite sense of not knowing. There is never a specific time frame of when you will be out. The same thing happened with this pandemic: we do not know when we will get out of it. The depression that gripped many people was familiar territory to me.

I remember one day I was in my office coming out of my fifth Zoom meeting. He had ordered the food. I felt the room draw closer to me. I realized that I was shot and my mind had reverted to a previous experience: my experience in prison. It felt like food being brought to your cell. And this is where you’ll be and can’t go anywhere. And then I had to go, to remember, I can get out of here. Isolation happens in many ways.

You spent around seven combined years in solitary confinement for various reasons and during that time you found meditation, discipline, and hope.

I remember writing to my dad and telling him that I think I’m going to die in this place and that they will never let me out. I want you to get on with your life and take care of Jay and the family. I wrote him an honest letter because I thought my life was over and I didn’t want to see him suffer as a result of my suffering. My dad answered me and told me that even though he wished he weren’t in solitary confinement, he had no judgment. He told me that no matter how long I was in prison, he would not leave my side and would always support me. I read the letter so many times because it affirmed me and kept me strong for so many days.

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He writes about trauma, abuse, alcohol and drug addiction, among other serious topics. Why did you want to address these issues with your still young children?

The prison is designed to expose you. It dehumanizes you in such a way and strips you naked. Once you reconcile that, you can live with any truth. There are conversations that our community does not have with children. There is this old model … and we tiptoe through many issues.

I am a parent, parent, and mentor to children across the country. I go into these schools and these 12, 13-year-old kids are seeing everything on social media. Their conversations are hypermature but in a very toxic way. My responsibility is to empower my children with my truth and that truth comes through my own vulnerability.

Because I have a public life and I have been convicted of a very serious crime… children could say things to my youngest son. He was afraid that someone might tell him, “Your dad is a murderer”, without him having any context would hurt him. So, for me, the responsible thing is to tell the truth. I want to be real with both. [They] I already know the worst thing I’ve ever done in my life. So for me, the rest of the topics are not difficult conversations to have.

How about a complete black boy?

When I think of a complete black guy, the first thing that comes to mind is an image of Sekou dancing to old school soul music. I imagine a child who is full of joy and who is able to explore the world with curiosity and without obstacles in his quest to learn, have fun, contribute, have agency over his body and thoughts. Being able to give and receive love without being filtered through a lens of trauma or skepticism. To really smile freely, smile in a way that makes other people smile when they enter the room. Someone who can express himself and has full access to his emotions. There is nothing more beautiful than when my son comes up to me and says he needs a hug. It’s so funny to me, it says, “Dad, bring it, bring it.” That freedom of emotional access, that’s fullness for me.


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