#changethewhether

People aren't broken, the system is.

[changethewhether]

I remember being about 7 years old and hearing my oldest sister recite this at Young's Chapel in St. Johns. In this moment, maybe for the past couple of weeks or so; I'm thinking about my Mother, my daughters, my sisters...hell I'm just thinking about all the black hands in my life... Just thinking and wallowing in gratefulness for Black Mothers, Black Daughters, Black Sisters - I'm just thinking and loving black, being black and every single struggle that comes with it.

Lewis Conway Jr

I Have Seen Black Hands

by

Richard Wright

I am black and I have seen black hands, millions and millions of them— Out of millions of bundles of wool and flannel tiny black fingers have reached restlessly and hungrily for life. Reached out for the black nipples at the black breasts of black mothers, And they've held red, green, blue, yellow, orange, white, and purple toys in the childish grips of possession, And chocolate drops, peppermint sticks, lollypops, wineballs, ice cream cones, and sugared cookies in fingers sticky and gummy, And they've held balls and bats and gloves and marbles and jack-knives and sling-shots and spinning tops in the thrill of sport and play And pennies and nickels and dimes and quarters and sometimes on New Year's, Easter, Lincoln's Birthday, May Day, a brand new green dollar bill, They've held pens and rulers and maps and tablets and books in palms spotted and smeared with ink, And they've held dice and cards and half-pint flasks and cue sticks and cigars and cigarettes in the pride of new maturity . . .

II

I am black and I have seen black hands, millions and millions of them— They were tired and awkward and calloused and grimy and covered with hangnails, And they were caught in the fast-moving belts of machines and snagged and smashed and crushed, And they jerked up and down at the throbbing machines massing taller and taller the heaps of gold in the banks of bosses, And they piled higher and higher the steel, iron, the lumber, wheat, rye, the oats, corn, the cotton, the wool, the oil, the coal, the meat, the fruit, the glass, and the stone until there was too much to be used, And they grabbed guns and slung them on their shoulders and marched and groped in trenches and fought and killed and conquered nations who were customers for the goods black hands had made. And again black hands stacked goods higher and higher until there was too much to be used, And then the black hands held trembling at the factory gates the dreaded lay-off slip, And the black hands hung idle and swung empty and grew soft and got weak and bony from unemployment and starvation, And they grew nervous and sweaty, and opened and shut in anguish and doubt and hesitation and irresolution . . .

III

I am black and I have seen black hands, millions and millions of them— Reaching hesitantly out of days of slow death for the goods they had made, but the bosses warned that the goods were private and did not belong to them, And the black hands struck desperately out in defence of life and there was blood, but the enraged bosses decreed that this too was wrong, And the black hands felt the cold steel bars of the prison they had made, in despair tested their strength and found that they could neither bend nor break them, And the black hands fought and scratched and held back but a thousand white hands took them and tied them, And the black hands lifted palms in mute and futile supplication to the sodden faces of mobs wild in the revelries of sadism, And the black hands strained and clawed and struggled in vain at the noose that tightened about the black throat, And the black hands waved and beat fearfully at the tall flames that cooked and charred the black flesh . . .

IV

I am black and I have seen black hands Raised in fists of revolt, side by side with the white fists of white workers, And some day—and it is only this which sustains me— Some day there shall be millions and millions of them, On some red day in a burst of fists on a new horizon!

[changethewhether]

We Not Me - The Podcast for The People

“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.” #WENOTME is our way of putting US in WE The People. Over 200 years ago a group of men gathered and with these simple words launched America’s improbable experiment in Democracy. My name is Lewis Conway Jr and I’m formerly incarcerated, negatively and directly impacted by the Texas Criminal Justice system. In other words – I’ve been to prison. I’m also running for City Council in Austin, Texas and there’s an archaic clause within the Texas Constitution that forbids a formerly incarcerated from serving their communities in a public fashion. We are here to change that clause and organize folks around that cause.

Check out this episode!

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#WENOTME - The Podcast - Episode 2 / 2017 Look Back

My name is Lewis Conway Jr and I'm formerly incarcerated, negatively and directly impacted by the Texas Criminal Justice system. In other words - I've been to prison. I'm also running for City Council in Austin, Texas and there's an archaic clause within

Check out this episode!

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Restoring Unity: Meet the Candidate Lewis Conway Jr

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(#WENOTME) WENOTME - The Podcast / Episode 1! #Tell20 #Share20

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Perpetual Interest Rate

When does a person’s sentence actually end?

By Lewis Conway Jr

Whenever I have had the honor to address a roomful of listeners, preferably students. I always begin with a question. The same question, I’ll ask now: How many of you have taken out a loan of some sort. House? Car? Perhaps a student loan? I’m sure at some point, you have borrowed something and agreed to pay it back. You agreed to a certain set of conditions when you accepted that loan. One of those conditions, we can assume was to pay the loan back with interest. However, you knew once you paid the loan back, your credit score would improve and you would be clear of the debt.

For some reason all the planets align and you are able to pay the loan off. Imagine if you will, even after you paid off the loan you were still being charged interest on that loan. And not only did your credit score not receive the anticipated bump, it dipped to an all time, permanent low. How would that land on you and your family? Your future? How would that affect your decision making? What do you think that would do to your aspirations in life? How would you feel?

At this point I can tell when the audience is resonating with what their lives would look like. Then I follow with, “That’s what folks with criminal backgrounds deal with on a daily basis. Every day you live, is like a coin thrown with the care of a child into a bottomless well.” The buzz phrase in use now is: collateral consequences. Nice little package, that gives you the option to avoid looking too deep into the conditions that caused the collateral-ism in the first place.

Unless you have walked down ‘turn rows’ in brogans too small for three years. Picking cotton, squash and potatoes, under the eye of an armed prison officer. 

You can never truly appreciate how long those consequences last. Even after you’ve done the time. Satisfied the requirements of your sentence, it’s still not enough. Particularly for those who have been convicted of a violent crime. Those folks can literally hang it up. Their lives are over. Even though the recidivism rate is lower, than for those with drug offenses.

Austin is the first and still the only city in the South to pass a fair chance hiring ordinance. That effort was led by a contingent of formerly incarcerated individuals nascent in political strategy, but well versed in oppression and discrimination. That motley crew of individuals set about not only to implement a measure of compassion for folks with backgrounds, but they sought to transform a system that had historically marginalized them. I was one of those individuals and that is where my political career began.

Once I tell folks about my involvement in the campaign for Fair Chance hiring, sometimes they put it together. Most times they don’t. Sometimes, I see the nodding heads scattered about the space. I tell them the same thing, I tell you now: I’m formerly incarcerated and I was the Political Director of Second Chance Democrats, the Democratic club that advocated for Fair Chance hiring in Austin. I proceed to tell the audience, that I spent 2, 095 days in prison and 4, 015 days on parole for Voluntary Manslaughter. I was charged in 1991 with Murder and subsequently took a plea bargain for 20 years.

Not once have I denied my actions and I have always expressed contrition couched in remorse. And I have long since stopped trying to explain why, I felt the need to defend myself in that moment. I accept my punishment and I’ve never made any excuses for my actions. In the days leading up to my time in prison, my father suggested that I view prison the way he viewed going into the Army at the age of sixteen - a rites of passage. I heeded his advice, for better or worse. I took that transformation God made in my life, while I was on bail into prison with me. I did my time and came home.

When I accepted the plea bargain of 20 years for voluntary manslaughter, I was naive enough to think that was my punishment.

I was under the impression that my punishment was being sentenced to 20 years in prison and once I completed that sentence, my life would go back to normal. The audience usually chuckles at that last line. And I know why they do. How could I have been so dumb to actually think my life would ever be worth anything, after taking a life and being a convicted felon? I was young and naive as I said, is my only excuse. I actually believed what my lawyer and my family told me, “It’ll all work out fine. You’ll see.”

Well 27 years later, it has not worked out fine by far. However, I have chosen to make the best of a life that was flushed down the drain at 21. I have chosen to forge new opportunities, because of my past, not despite of it. I have chosen to seize this moment, this time and this life, coupled with that lived experience; as the reason to be the change that I wish to see in my community in Austin and in Texas. I have chosen to view the last 17 years of permanent 3rd class citizenship, as my rites of passage to the present. That is what I have chosen to do, the impetus matters not. What does matter is the folks that come behind me.

Your nephew that got picked up for a curfew violation and now has a conviction on his background. Or perhaps it’s your daughter, that was driving drunk and law enforcement pulled her over and charged her with a DWI. Maybe it’s the neighbor that you heard about was hooked on prescription painkillers and you watched them take her kids away, while you shook your head. Then, maybe, possibly it’s someone close to you, like your brother or sister. Someone you were raised with, probably changed their diapers, but because of the shame and stigma - people don’t even know you have a sibling.

What are we going to do about them? Every person that comes home, comes home to a community and like it or not, that person has to make a living and needs a roof over their head. 

We understand the prison industrial complex and the effect it has on the mechanisms that contribute to recidivism. So, it’s a rhetorical question. I know, without a doubt we are going to continue doing what we have always done; create amazing programs and spend money with beneficent organizations that claim to assist us, but yet leave policing and prosecuting structures racially motivated, centered and firmly cemented.

I bring the audience back out of the ‘weeds’ with a story about compassion. It’s the story, I either start or end with, depending on the audience. Obviously, with you, it’ll be my ending. I chose to end with the story, because it sums up my approach to Democracy in the hands of the poor, disenfranchised, left and forgotten. People like you and people like me. It’s a story about the power of compassion and what that compassion did to a life that was destroyed. But also what it did to a life that was lost.

I tell the story about a 21 year old kid named Doonie. Doonie was from a two parent household, with 2.5 cars parked in the driveway. His modest picket fenced backyard, was next door to Wally Freytag, head coach of the legendary Reagan Raider football team. I talk about how Doonie dropped out of Reagan as a junior and started his senior year at HT, as a freshman. I talk about how Doonie was introduced to the streets in a college dorm room. Then I tell them, the story about how Doonie had become convinced that he would be seen in a ‘cooler’ light, if he stopped letting his father pay his tuition.

Doonie decided to sell drugs to get by and get himself through school, like any smart kid from a good family would do. He found himself in a game that he didn’t know the rules to, nor the consequences. For Doonie, it was about finally being seen as something other than soft. Doonie was always a big kid and his mother warned him against fighting, so he became passive..soft. Doonie found himself being robbed in the middle of the night of money and drugs, that were not his to give. Doonie went to retrieve the drugs and an altercation ensued, that led to the loss of two lives.

Doonie stabbed Derrick Lamont Davis, who would later lose his life in surgery from the stab wound. Doonie would be charged with murder and eventually convicted of Voluntary Manslaughter. 

Once entering the system to begin his prison time, his first stop was Del Valle (Travis County Correctional Complex). This is where Doonie would have the encounter that ultimately lands him in front of you today. Doonie was approached by an older prisoner named ‘Cheesy’.

“Yo’ name Lewis Conway?”, he asked. Doonie responded with a nod, it’s jail and you don’t give away the fact that you are a frightened kid. “Lewis Conway, Jr?”, leaning on his mop and giving Doonie the once over. Again, Doonie nodded. “Yo’ Daddy run them apartments off Airport, don’t he? Grant Villa. You don’t know who I am?”, Cheesy asked Doonie. “Nah. N-n-not really...”, stammered out Doonie. “Well you should. You killed my oldest son.”, and with that Cheesy mopped his way down the hallway past Doonie.

Everyone who stood in line, was just as shocked as Doonie was. For the next 2 weeks Doonie would pray for the words to say to Cheesy. There was no way he wasn’t going to encounter him again. Doonie was right. One day in an overcrowded chow hall, Cheesy sat down in front of Doonie. Doonie looked up, froze and began to stammer. Cheesy held his hand up and said, “I forgive you. I forgave you two years ago when it happened. I should have been home, but I was in prison locked up. If I had been home, he wouldn’ta been in them streets, doing what he was doing.”

In that moment, a man who had no reason and every right not to show me a modicum of compassion, heaped upon me a lifetime of it. Not only did he shower me with forgiveness and compassion, he did it in a place that was devoid of compassion. A place where compassion can get you killed. Yet, he gave the killer of his son - compassion. That’s what drives my work. That is what brings me here, before you now.

And so I pose the question to you, Gentle Reader: what’s stopping us from being compassionate enough to give people another chance at life? Another chance at dignity, respect and citizenship? An opportunity to hold a job, be a father, own a home and perhaps, run for elected office in the city he was raised in. What’s stopping us? Moreover, what’s stopping you? That is my final statement and inquiry.

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I am proud to work with folks like this. Proud to call folks like this family. Proud to breath the same air these folks! Superheros!! #yeahman #noSB4

[changethewhether]

Raise The Age In Texas

Raise the age for mandatory prosecution as an adult from 17 to 18, allowing non-violent offenders who are 17 years of age to be charged as a minor.

When Justin, my nephew was a pre-teen, my Mother would bring him to visit me when I was in prison. I understood why she was doing it. Why she would argue with him to get up at the crack of dawn and drive hundreds of miles to see his incarcerated uncle. You see - she didn’t want him to end up in prison. She wanted him to see at an early age where his current behavior could land him. My Mother was trying to pivot my nephew, before he had a chance to fall prey to a system that feeds on his kind. Way before the incarceration algorithm could implement the necessary variables that ensures its efficacy. Variables that disproportionately plague communities of color and marginalized members of our neighborhoods, schools and churches.

I got out of prison when my nephew was 16. I was out less than two months, before he was charged with a felony possession of narcotics. Because he had previous arrests as a juvenile for the same crime, the judge decided to sentence him as an adult. At 16, he was about to enter the same adult system that I had just navigated my way through. The differences between my nephew and I are striking. At 16, I was over 250lbs and stood at 6’ 2”. My nephew, slightly built, skinny from drug use, barely topped off at 5’ 4” and weighed less than 100lbs soaking wet. I knew there was no way he was built for the Texas penal system.

Lowering the age of criminal responsibility has an incrementally deleterious effect, that goes unnoticed until it’s almost too late to reverse. A comparison can be made to the sound ordinance that was passed in Austin. On the surface, a sound ordinance protecting the sanctity of the residences of downtown makes perfect sense. Until you weigh in the nascent arrival of the residents to the downtown area and the vital role that music has played in the history of Austin. Now you have a city that hails itself as the ‘Music Capitol of the World’ with a sound ordinance that precludes live musicians from earning a living.

Treating children as adults has the same cumulative effect, but much worse. Because there’s much more at stake than musician livelihoods and peaceful evenings in downtown high rises. It’s about sons and daughters being sifted through human grist mills, oftentimes before they are old enough to vote. Most of these youths have had run-ins with law enforcement throughout puberty and those experiences have shaped a malleable psyche in innumerable ways. Where those of us who haven’t been through the justice system as youth, may have escaped the influence of criminals and caged animalistic traits, most of these kids didn’t and don’t. In effect, these kids are exhibiting the necessary traits to survive in prison, at a time where they should be learning algebra, geometry or the wonderful invention of the ‘oxford’ comma.

Compassion unfortunately is not an adequate enough of a tool to attract your attention. Appealing to your human decency as a parent, uncle or aunt, isn’t quite as convincing as a set of quantitative studies that prove the inefficacy of jailing and imprisoning youth. The recent mini-series on the Kaleif Browder story paints a dire and desperate picture of the current state of juvenile incarceration and isolation, but it does little to move those who are more concerned about punishing the behavior of these kids, as opposed to finding the root causes of the behavior and eliminating the problem at the source. It’s easier to throw these children into a meat grinder like defected fodder and process out criminally influenced youth that are more accustomed to solitary confinement than hugs, than it is to address a system that is flawed and continues to dispose of the brightest lights of our community at the expense of our future.

My nephew, Justin, is now 33 years old and has spent the last 17 years of his life in and out of adult correctional facilities. He is currently serving ten years on parole after serving five years in prison for - you guessed it - drug possession. Not one Judge. Not one Prosecutor. Not one court appointed or paid Defense Attorney, sought to address WHY he was in possession of drugs. They only sought to address his POSSESSION of the drugs. Seventeen years later and no one has yet to address the causes of his behavior. Though he may be free now, theoretically it’s only a matter of time before the incarceration algorithm catches up to him.

[changethewhether]

Give ‘em a round of Applause!

Lawmakers move forward with prison closures to cut budget

By Lewis Conway Jr

Texas legislators have taken a laudatory step towards decreasing the state’s reliance on private prisons this legislative session. Lawmakers have chosen to close four prison units and two of each are privately ran facilities. These closures mark an important shift in policy for the Republican led House and Senate, that have consistently adhered to the ‘lock ’em all up’ strategy employed for decades in Texas.

Operating the largest state prison system in the nation, Texas currently has 109 prisons and jails that house approximately 147,000 convicts, with a budget of more than $3 billion a year. In the past five years, Texas' convict population has dropped by about 9,000 prisoners as sentencing reforms and ramped-up treatment programs have cut recidivism and helped keep crime rates low. Following these trends, reducing the amount of contracts with private corporations like CoreCivic, MTC and GEO group, makes as much moral sense as it does economic sense. Coupled with dropping oil prices, the reduction of the state’s crime rate provides an undeniable impetus to finish what Texas lawmakers have started: closing ineffective overpriced human cages.

Many of these facilities are located in rural areas and in small municipalities. Creating a eco-system of economic dependency that is rooted in providing low paying, dangerous employment opportunities with mandated overtime and scant medical benefits. Oftentimes these corporations are capable of recruiting local officials, city chambers and media outlets in their efforts. Investing heavily in civic activities for-profit corrections corporation deeply embed themselves into the fabric of these spartan and disparate communities.These corporations offer the only source of gainful employment for many in these areas, that were once devoid of any state sponsored economic stimulus. Texas has operated a system wherein we theoretically reduced unemployment by increasing incarceration, this is an unacceptable and destructive demonstration of poor leadership by the Texas Legislature.

Depending on for-profit prisons to undergird the local economies across Texas has proven to be successful venture for a few wealthy, privileged participants, but deadly for those who find themselves imprisoned in these state funded cages. State sponsored warehousing of humans is a system that has been perfected in Texas at the expense of unsuspecting taxpayers. The economic infrastructure provided to rural companies by corrections corporations, while leveraging humans in custody, continues to be the bane and indelible legacy of Texas’ ‘tough on crime’ political strategies. The trend of mass incarceration is unsustainable morally and we must hold ourselves accountable for allowing our economic growth be connected to such a heinous and insidious practice as human warehousing.

[changethewhether]

The Incarceration Algorithm

al·go·rithm /ˈalɡəˌriT͟Həm/

noun - a process or set of rules to be followed in calculations or other problem-solving operations.

The process from release to reincarceration is a closed circuit algorithm that was formulated for and perfected in communities of color. An algorithm - in this instance a system of removing the best and brightest minds from an environment that is already devoid of light. It is a formula that employs every level of the government and wouldn’t be functional without the financial support of the public. This algorithm, much like the ones used by your favorite social media site is specifically designed to produce results.

For example, should you deprive an area of economic opportunities and mandate dependence upon governmental supplements. Then inundate that region with liquor stores and poorly funded educational institutions. Police the neighborhoods and criminalize the inhabitants. Incarcerate the males from these environments before they have a chance to escape the tentacles of a dark, doomed, predetermined destiny. Once you incarcerate the males and glean profits from mandated penal labor, release them back to the communities they were confiscated from. Repeat the process, but this time around include drug addiction syndromes, mental health issues stemming from trauma, unemployability, homelessness, unpaid child support and poor health care from incarceration to the equation.

Solving for X, using humans as common denominators; is the defining characteristic of the Incarceration Algorithm.

Stratagems that keep prisons at capacity are also defining components of the algorithm. Without the policies that govern sentencing, probation and parole, the algorithm wouldn’t function as effectively as it does. Codifying behavior that keep police in black and brown neighborhoods arresting teenagers and young men, are the binary codes that drive the Incarceration Algorithm. We look at the results of the policies, but never the policies themselves; too cowardly to look at the lobbyists, legislators and lawmakers, yet so quick to punish the victims of those policies.

Alternative facts claim the algorithm is a myth, yet we profit from it. We say that prisons are mechanisms of social control and correction, yet people are still going to prison. The success is in the algorithm. The success of mass incarceration was achieved by perfecting what I like to call the Incarceration Algorithm. Barriers of employment, housing, health care, education and treatment are compounded when coupled with a felony conviction, adjudicated sentence or in some cases an arrest. Those barriers operate like 1′s and 0′s of basic binary code. Depending on the sequence of the 1′s and 0′s, determines the outcome. Given a different set of variables from which to operate from, individuals can and will make different choices.

This offsets the algorithm.

Another way for us to define algorithm is: a sequence of steps designed to solve a specific problem.

Since the Reconstruction era a narrative has been spun about big, black, violent, freed slaves running amuck, ravaging white women and threatening white men. We became familiar with and undaunted by the obstinate images of buck dancing, illiterate, subservient, head bowing, hand wringing, docile and compliant negroes. We grew comfortable with the yarn about black folks being lazy, violent and looking to steal everything they could from white folks. A narrative borne in guilt, but an effective one nonetheless. The idea that black Americans shouldn’t have been freed in the South, permeated the minds of our forefathers. That belief has polluted the DNA of our culture and springboarded the movement to put ‘people of color’ back in their place - cages and chains. I know that sounds harsh, but the evidence is damning and begs the question of action.

According to an online source, "Stereotypes and generalizations about African Americans and their culture have evolved within American society dating back to the colonial years of settlement, particularly after slavery became a racial institution that was heritable. The early blackface minstrel shows of the 19th century portrayed blacks as joyous, naive, superstitious, ignorant, and musically inclined—characteristics related to the way slaveholders in earlier years believed them to be.”, and in my opinion, illustrated a popular narrative about black folks. That stereotype is the base structure upon which the necessity of prisons to control the inhabitants of the inner city narrative is built upon. It is a narrative that permeates the mind of law enforcement, lawmakers and too often employers.  

Employers have become integral variables in the equations that drive the incarceration algorithm. Without the cooperation of employers, public and private, in excluding formerly incarcerated as qualified applicants the algorithm would be offset; rendered useless. The leading indicator of possible recidivism is employment, or the lack thereof. One report noted, “Each year an average of nearly 73,000 people are released from prison in Texas. State regulations make it nearly impossible for many of them, and others with conviction records, to find good paying employment. In Texas, there are 248 mandatory restrictions on employment for people with felony convictions. People with controlled substance convictions are subject to 75 mandatory employment restrictions. The employment category with the most restrictions in Texas is Health Care, with 55 mandatory restrictions for any felony. Occupations restricted in that category include good-paying jobs like Optometrists, which has a median wage of $46.82 per hour.”

It would be a disservice and unfair to simply demonize employers without merit.

Across the country, state legislatures and municipalities are legislating fair chance ordinances. These lawmakers are boldly serving the public in a way, that some business owners are afraid to. A small, but powerful contingent of business owners and business associations tend to bubble up in those areas. This contingent often profits off of formerly incarcerated individuals being regulated to low-paying and low-skilled job opportunities. They, this contingent,  will often be the loudest voice in the conversation when the topic of giving people a second chance is broached. They have said that fair chance ordinances create a protected class and increase the likelihood of racial discrimination; they will cite one study to prove their assertion. They, this small, but powerful contingent of business owners and business associations from state to state are more interested in the freedom to discriminate, rather than being free of discrimination. They are key integers in the equation; part of the basic code of the algorithm.

Algorithms can be disrupted. They can be shifted and redirected.

The Incarceration Algorithm that is driving the policies that look to extend the use of private prisons and incarceration as a form of social control will be interrupted. It will be shifted, by a shift in awareness, action and access to information that will arm those communities under attack with the weapons of organizing, education and restoration. Algorithms don’t deliver results immediately, but they deliver them consistently and the efforts made to disrupt the the Incarceration Algorithm will assume the same course. Aggressively pursuing avenues that place those who directly impacted and affected acts as a line of code that disrupts the algorithm. Positing power with those who experience the heel of discrimination will provide a path to restoration for individuals and their communities. Building a powerbase of men and women that have stood on the front-line in the ‘Battle of the Box’ ensures commitment, passion and dedication to eradicating the Incarceration Algorithm.

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Immigrants, former inmates team up against prisons, deportations

Lewis Conway Jr., a towering man who spent eight years in prison and another 12 on probation shouted into a megaphone as the crowd rumbled through downtown behind a booming drum line.

“Make Some noise for no more prisons, no more deportations, no more ICE, no more police brutality, no more drug wars in our community,” he said.

Conway now serves as a criminal justice program associate for Grassroots Leadership, a group that seeks an end to mass incarceration, deportation and privately run prisons. He called the prison system a social control mechanism.

“Many of the members of our community are locked in that jail, and they keep making excuses for keeping them locked up. But we’re not going to accept any more excuses,” Conway said. “The same excuses they made for those jails they made for slavery. The same excuses they made for why black lives don’t matter (are) why that jail exists.

http://www.mystatesman.com/news/state--regional-govt--politics/immigrants-former-inmates-team-against-prisons-deportations/ayFXuGvI8svRWhhCmsm03M/

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Hiding In Plain Sight

As a formerly incarcerated person you are faced with the fear of someone finding out your past. You spend day after day figuring out ways to hide; Ways to hide in plain sight.

In prison the best place to hide something is in plain sight. Somewhere the guards could see, but wouldn’t think to look. You would never hide it under something that was hidden, you would hide it in plain sight.

That mentality follows you to the street. You spend all your time trying to figure out how long it is until somebody finds out. Until somebody snitches on you. You show up to work early and leave late. You work hard to be the best employee, because you know that’s your only defense. You take the jobs no one else wants, because you want to feel human. You want to feel like a person. A person of some worth and not just a number.

Then one day the other shoe drops. You get called into the HR department and a stern faced employee tells you - you’re fired. You’re damned if you do and damned when you don’t. Telling the truth at the outset most times only means you don’t even get interviewed. Lying means eventually someone is going to find out and they fire you.

You’re boxed in and no matter where you turn, you are denied access. So you hide. You hide in plain sight. You act like no one knows. You walk around an impostor. Acting like everything is fine and you/re not walking on pins and needles. 

Eventually...you give up.

[changethewhether]

ChangeMaker Finalist: Lewis Conway Jr.

Lewis Conway Jr. Criminal Justice Progams Associate Grassroots Leadership Lewis works to support local criminal justice work, including outreach and planning for Texas Advocates for Justice. He a professional speaker and author of ‘Change The Weather: Tools and Techniques to Overcome your Barrier

The work is about equity, compassion and amplification.

Equity for those who have been historically and presently marginalized. Compassion for those who have felt the inimitable sting of penal cages, detention centers and mental institutions across America and are still languishing in those 'grist mills'. Finally, the amplification of voices that have been stifled and strangulated by the cruel hands of apathy, disguised as Criminal Justice.

[changethewhether]

I am honored to be a finalist for the Austin Young Chamber of Commerce #AYCChangeMaker award. I am thankful for the accolades and grateful for the opportunity. 

The work is about equity, compassion and amplification. 

Equity for those who have been historically and presently marginalized. Compassion for those who have felt the inimitable sting of penal cages, detention centers and mental institutions across America and are still languishing in those 'grist mills'. Finally, the amplification of voices that have been stifled and strangulated by the cruel hands of apathy, disguised as Criminal Justice. 

I cannot and will not accept this recognition without recognizing the one that has stood by me from the start, my wife Nicole Conway. When I wrote Change The Whether: Beyond The Storm, she supported me at my strongest and understood me at my weakest. 

I do it for the people. People like you. People like me. People like US.

In solidarity! #yeahman

[changethewhether]

New Year’s Resolution

As I look at the coming of a new year and not so much the passing of an old one. Looking forward has been therapeutic and effective. Early 2015 I came across a lecture by Kevin Trudeau and I’ve tried to apply the mechanics I learned. One of those mechanics is moving forward in love. The moving forward part is hard enough. But then in love too? Yeah it’s been hard and I’ve been wrong in every instance that went awry this past year. I own those wrongs just vehemently as I own the rights I have done. I call it balance. At least that's the way I like to look at it. Too often we are taught only to own the things that we have done bad or badly and we are held to the grindstone as the result of those choices. Sometimes for life.

Speaking of life... I think we spend a lot of time trying to fill the holes in our lives with things and people. For some people a bad relationship with a parent will cause them to took for proxies throughout their entire life. Trust me. I know.

For me losing access to my children because of my choices, I’m forced to think about the proxies my children will seek in life. As I go about saving other folks children, what about mine right? It’s all about proxies. Or at least this last year has been. It’s been about me inserting a substitute for something I’ve lacked. I’ll take it further upstream. For something WE lacked. We have proxied our way through this whole year. What about this next year? What about 2017? Are we still looking for proxies?

Kind of like how time in prison is a proxy for time in free world. It’s still time. No matter where it’s spent. However, time spent in a cage does something to your heart. Your psyche. Your willingness and ability to emote; to engender the experience of loss the way ‘normal’ people do.  I just recently have been able to get excited about coming of a new year, because I was able to see it as a gorgeous opportunity and not just something I had to endure. That took time.

However, lest I deceive you, I must be honest. I am forced to think about all the New Year Eves I spent in prison. I don’t remember being particularly excited about the coming year, especially if I had just seen parole.You have to feel me when I tell you it's difficult to get excited about a new year in prison after seeing parole.  I do remember one year in particular though.

It was the 2k New Year’s and I was in Colorado City, Texas. A god forsaken town in the middle of a dusty region called West Texas. I remember everyone sort of panicking about what would happen if the computers didn’t roll over to zeros. I worked in the kitchen at the time as a Captain’s Clerk, which is the equivalent to an Executive Assistant in the free world. I was allowed access that most folks incarcerated didn't have. In terms of everything you can imagine and yes, I had access to that too. Most of the time I had free reign of the unit, but I chose to spend the majority of my time in the kitchen. It was my place away from prison, kind of a home away from prison. I worked long hours in the kitchen and as a result I was able to escape the doldrums of prison life.

Whenever there was a lockdown I was first one called out, because I was the only one that knew the exact amount of bread, peanut butter, jelly and bologna we had on hand. You can't feed prison full of people and not what you are going to feed them with. Well, this particular New Year's Eve they put us on lockdown and everyone was giving me a hard time about being the only one that was going to be allowed to move around. I also expected the call as well. It never came. I waited and waited. We waited. No call. No loud, booming voice over the intercom yelling, "Conway P-55...turnout to the Food Service!". Nothing. After awhile it became clear that I wasn't going to be called to the kitchen for lockdown. I didn't mind it. Truth be told, I understood the value of being treated 'regular' just to maintain my status in population. So I grabbed a book, propped myself up and began to read.

I was housed in a hangar shaped building made of steel and concrete, dormitory style with 109 other men. We shared 8 toilets,  8 pissers, 16 sinks, 2 open bay showers with a total of 8 shower heads. I lived on the top 'row' of cubicles and I was afforded one of the coveted views of the outside through a steel framed, reinforced window near the ceiling of the building. From my bunk I could see straight out in the fields that surround the prison unit I was on. On a good night, you might be able to make out car and a far off set of headlights. I would go to sleep dreaming about where that car could take me, if I were in it. On other days you could see the rain beating against the window, like angry streaks of tears tracing lines down the glass. On most nights all I could see was darkness.

About a half an hour before midnight on December 31, 1999, they turned off the electricity in the prison. Everything went dark. Even though we were on lockdown and the TV's weren't on, there's always some kind of mechanical or electrical hum of some sort. It's part of the white noise in prison. Suddenly it was silent. A rarity in prison. Then we heard booms. Not being able to see beyond the row of windows that lined the top of the building, we had no clue what the noises were. Rumors were already rampant about what the 'system' was going to do. More booms. Then we heard a whistling noise followed by a boom and the most amazing bloom of color exploded in front of those windows. People were celebrating. We looked at the time and somebody yelled something about a new year and we just watched the fireworks.

As I write this, I'm sitting on my balcony overlooking my little part of Texas. 16 years removed from that moment and I'm grateful. First time I've thought about that moment, but I think it's important. I think it's important, because there is work to do in 2017. There is policy work to be done. Organizing work to be done. Community based power building to implement. Private prisons to close and fair chance hiring ordinances to protect at the state level. We got work to do. From the offices of the Capital in Austin to under a tree in Henderson, Texas where I met former inmates of Bradshaw State Jail, there is work to be done.

God has seen fit to allow me to see another year and I'm grateful. He's given me a vision and a word for the new year.

That word is: RESIST. We are destined to become the sum total of what we REFUSE to be. Resist conformity. Resist accepting hatred and inequity. Resist politicized solutions looking for problems. Resist become intolerant to people who aren't blessed with your access, privilege and background. Resistance is the most important function of flight. Without resistance a plane could never build up the speed it needs to maintain flight. Such is the truth for all  social equity, equality and egalitarian efforts to mobilize negatively impacted individuals and communities of color. #yeahman #bringit

[changethewhether]

https://www.amazon.com/Lewis-Conway/e/B00YBNHWJ4

[changethewhether]

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