Writing My Wrongs

by Shaka Senghor

  —

  THE REST OF my yearlong stay at Standish was uneventful, and it wasn’t long before I was transferred back to the Michigan Reformatory. When I told Baruti where I was going, his eyes lit up with excitement. He told me that his son was there and asked that I connect with him. Little did I know, Baruti and I would be forever connected, even though we wouldn’t see each other again for another sixteen years.

  My third stint at MR, beginning in 1992, was the most important leg of my journey through the belly of the beast. In the midst of daily stabbings, human despair, and overt racism, the man Shaka was born and the boy Jay was laid to rest. It was during this stretch that I would come to acknowledge things my father had been trying to teach me for years—that I was intelligent, that I possessed leadership qualities that could be used for good or bad, and that the choice was up to me. It was there at the Reformatory that I began to understand the power of empathy and human compassion.

  But my transformation didn’t happen overnight. First, I would have to sink lower as I fought to overcome the violent legacy of my past.

  —

  MY FIRST MONTH back at the Reformatory was an adjustment period. I knew I would be there for a while and had to figure out how to make the best of my time. I settled in with a new group of Melanic brothers and met Baruti’s son, Yusef. I was excited to meet a young lion who had the same kind of fire that I had. Both of us were veterans of the streets, and trust was something that didn’t come easy, so it took a couple of weeks for us to feel each other out. But we soon began building a bond based on our love of reading and our desire to make a difference in the world.

  I also started having deep discussions with brothers from other organizations. At Standish, we brothers from different organizations had kept to ourselves, but back at the Reformatory, I began reaching out to other crews because I felt that it was important to find common ground with the fifteen hundred young men who were sharing our space. We held different philosophical and theological views, but we had all come from the same hopeless backgrounds, and we were all caught in the gears of the same heartless machine. Because of my willingness to learn and understand the teachings of the other organizations, I was able to build solid allegiances and bring an end to some of the violence that was standard between groups.

  One day, when I was returning from my work detail, an officer called out over the PA to let me know that I had a visit. By that time, Brenda and I had decided to end our relationship, and she was struggling taking care of our son, Li’l Jay, so my father and stepmother had let her leave him with them while Brenda worked on getting her life back on track. I had never gotten a visit in my previous two stays at the Michigan Reformatory, and I didn’t know what to expect, so I showered and rushed back to my cell to dress in some clothes I had borrowed from one of the brothers. (I didn’t have my own clothes yet, and I sure didn’t want to go for a visit in my state blues.)

  When I entered the visiting room, I was directed upstairs, where my father and two younger sisters were sitting with Li’l Jay. My heart began pounding like an African drum as I studied my two-year-old son from head to toe. The sight of his little fat cheeks melted my prison toughness like butter on hot toast. I greeted my father and sisters with a hug and smile, then attempted to pick up my son. But as I drew close to Li’l Jay, he shrank back in fear.

  I wanted to die on the spot. It took all of the energy I had to hold back from bursting into tears. But my father intervened with words of wisdom.

  “It’s okay,” he reassured me. “He’ll come to you. It just takes him a little bit of time to warm up to people.”

  My father had a point, but in my head I was screaming, I’m not people, I’m his father! I remained silent, however, and took a seat with my family.

  We talked about what was going on back home, and it made me want to find a way to break out of prison that very day. After a half hour of talking, Li’l Jay finally became comfortable enough with me to allow me to pick him up. I held him close to me so that he could feel my heartbeat and the undeniable love that I had for him. He smiled and laughed, and for the short time that I held him, he erased the prison walls that held me captive. I could see my own and Brenda’s features in him. He was a beautiful baby, and I wanted nothing more than to protect him from the cruel, ugly world that he had been born into.

  After about an hour and a half, Li’l Jay started to fuss and get cranky, and my father said that it was time to leave and let him take a nap. I hugged Li’l Jay tightly, one last time, before handing him over to my father. I then notified the officers that my family was ready to go.

  We were escorted downstairs, and when I exited the visiting room, I turned around to see my family standing on the other side of the bars. I smiled and waved, and Li’l Jay lifted his arms up like he wanted me to pick him up. In that moment, every fiber in my body wanted to rip through the bars to get to my son.

  “Mr. White, it’s time for you to return to your cell,” the officer said, jarring me from my thoughts. I turned and looked at the officer with a burning anger, and he lowered his head as he led me into the strip-search room. I felt numb as I removed my clothes for the search. All I could think about was the look of disappointment that crossed Li’l Jay’s face when he realized that I wasn’t able to leave with him.

  —

  I HAD BEEN trying to settle down into a groove and focus on doing my time, but that visit changed me. The thought of how vulnerable my son was without me there to guide and protect him made me unable to handle the idea of remaining in prison. Mentally, I rebelled, sinking deeper into anger and depression, and this manifested in my actions toward the staff and other inmates.

  No matter how much time I spent building with the brothers, I was always on edge. I developed a serious “wish a motherfucker would” attitude, hoping that someone would get out of line so that I could release my pain by inflicting harm on him. A week after the visit from my family, I was presented with the opportunity.

  Back at Carson City, an inmate had accused me of stealing his vending machine card. It was a false accusation, and the officers found out as much in their investigation, but it never stopped me from wanting to get revenge on the guy. Now that same inmate had transferred into MR.

  One day, my chance at revenge came when our unit was assigned a substitute officer who wasn’t as alert as the one who normally patrolled our block. When they broke our cells for chow and the target of my revenge walked down the tier, I approached him swiftly while my neighbor positioned himself in front of us, blocking the officer’s view.

  I seized him by the neck. “I told you I was going to get your rat ass,” I said, pushing his head through a nearby window and shattering the glass with his face.

  It felt good, and I never got caught. But while the brief adrenaline rush soothed my pain for the afternoon, it had faded by the next day. I needed to hurt someone else, and I did.

  A week later, I choked a fellow inmate over an unpaid debt and beat up another guy over a bad call on the basketball court. It was as though I were an emotional vampire, forced to drain blood from unsuspecting victims in order to keep myself alive. I got away with most of my assaults, but I was quickly earning a reputation as an extremist. And the following month, I was sent to solitary confinement for throwing a dangerously hot tray of mashed potatoes in the face of an inmate who had insulted me.

  When I reached the hole, I paced back and forth in my cell like a caged beast, raging at the other inmate for having snitched on me. The calluses on my heart and mind were thickening, and my soul had become infected with the worst and deadliest of all illnesses: self-hate. I was disappointed that I had allowed my anger to get the best of me. I was even more disappointed that I had resorted to assaulting another young Black male. My actions stood in stark contrast to the man I said I was trying to become. I desired to be a strong Black man and a leader, but my actions showed that I was still little more than a street thug.

  15

  BRIGHTMOOR
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  West Side Detroit

  March 1990

  Released from the hospital, I returned to my block a deadlier person than the man who had shot me. For the next fourteen months, anger would become my mask and shield as I navigated my way through the streets. The last remaining shreds of my innocence had been killed, but at the time, I was blind to what was happening on the inside.

  I became obsessed with carrying a gun, treating my 9-millimeter Taurus like a crackhead treats his pipe. I went to bed with my gun, woke up with it, and wouldn’t so much as take a dump without it being in arm’s reach. At the first sign of a confrontation, I was ready to shoot.

  During this time, I was traveling back and forth from Ohio, selling crack there for two to three times the amount we sold it for in Detroit. It was a lucrative venture, and it provided us great opportunities to buy more guns—which we needed because the local dealers didn’t like the fact we were making more money than they were. As the violence between us and them intensified, we realized that we couldn’t win a protracted war on the other dealers’ terrain, so we closed up shop and headed home.

  I returned to Detroit ready to pick up where I left off, but things had cooled down on the block. If I wanted to make any money, I knew I had to figure out a way to turn the heat back up on Blackstone.

  I reached out to some of our old customers to tell them we were going to start selling again, and slowly but surely they started coming back. Things were still slow, but I was making enough money to stay fresh and take care of basic necessities. It didn’t compare to the money I had been raking in before, but I had faith that Blackstone would rebound and the money would soon come rolling in.

  I had been back for a week when I took notice of the new neighbors who had moved into the house next door to Tamica. They were a family, and although I didn’t know any of them, it wasn’t long before I noticed that a bunch of young ladies were going in and out of the house. From all appearances, it was mostly females living there, and that was right up my alley. Our crew had built a reputation for hooking up with all the females in the neighborhood, and I knew it wouldn’t be long before I made good on that reputation with the girls next door.

  A week or so later, I noticed that a few of our old customers were stopping through the house next door, which made me wonder if someone over there was selling dope. My thoughts were confirmed when one of our old customers stopped by our crib and asked me if that was our operation.

  Later that same day, one of the girls who lived in the house came outside and approached me. She was light-skinned with a pretty smile and silky, jet-black hair. She was dressed in a sweat suit with her hair pulled back in a ponytail. As she approached the porch, I laughed inside at how confident she appeared to be.

  When she got there, she asked, “Do you have a pistol I can borrow?” Her voice sounded casual and relaxed, as if she were asking to borrow a cup of sugar.

  At first, I wondered why on earth a girl like that would need a gun—and if she did, why she was approaching a complete stranger for it. Then I thought about the activity next door and some of the things I had seen over the years selling dope, and my thoughts turned to a small .25-caliber Raven I had purchased from one of our customers. I told the girl that she could use it, but she had to return it.

  I didn’t think about the fact that I was a teenager giving another teenager a gun. All I could think was, if I ever had needed a pistol from her, I would’ve wanted her to give it to me without asking.

  Later that night, she came back to the house, and I learned that her name was Brenda. We talked for a minute, and I found out that she needed the pistol because she was at the other end of Blackstone selling crack. She then asked me if I wanted to bring some rocks down to her the next day.

  That’s how my relationship with Brenda began. You know, “Boy meets girl, girl asks boy to borrow a gun, boy and girl start dealing crack together.”

  Over the next couple of weeks, Brenda and I spoke whenever we saw each other, but she was in hustle mode and not trying to make sparks fly. But one day, I was coming down the block when I noticed Brenda in a different way. She had her hair done, a little makeup on, and was dressed in a cute short set, looking like a young lady. Her face was glowing, and instead of the serious look she normally wore, she had a smile on her face. She had piqued my interest, and according to one of my homegirls, I too had piqued hers. Within a few days, our brief conversations grew in length, and we started hanging out together.

  On the exterior, Brenda had been hardened by the streets of Brightmoor and a rough upbringing. She would fight without much provocation, and she wasn’t afraid to stand her ground. However, the more I got to know her, the more I saw a young lady with a big heart. She would do anything she could to make sure her siblings had money, food, and clothing, and she would fight to the bloody end if anyone threatened them. Sadly, however, like many Black youth growing up in dysfunctional homes, her golden heart had been callused by neglect, hurt, and heartbreak.

  At the start of our relationship, we would spend most of our time hanging out, laughing and joking, or kicking it in the back room of her family’s house. It wasn’t long, though, before the mercurial nature of our personalities began to clash. I was raised to respect women and treat them well, but nothing in the father-son handbook had prepared me to deal with a girl as volatile as Brenda. She didn’t believe in holding her tongue, whether she was right or wrong, and I refused to be spoken to in a disrespectful manner. The first argument we had—over my refusal to loan her sister money for an outfit—nearly came to blows, and I should have known then that we were in for a bumpy ride. Together, we were like two birds with broken wings, trying to find solace in each other.

  By the next month, Brenda and I had moved in together and were selling crack out of our house, doing whatever we felt was necessary to survive. We had customers coming to the same place we laid our heads, so we were extra vigilant. We were careful about who we let in to buy from us, and we kept several guns in the house, never doubting whether either of us would use one if necessary. We had both seen enough to know that no one was to be trusted. At any given moment, a customer could become an enemy, or a rival dealer might try to set us up.

  It was a fast, hard life characterized by desperation and hopelessness. With each day, I drank more and more in an effort to numb myself from the madness around me. I was tired of seeing crack-addicted parents selling food and clothes that should’ve been going to their children. I was tired of defending our territory from other dealers. I wasn’t happy, and no matter how much money we made, it wasn’t enough to heal the deep wounds I had suffered as a kid.

  The spring months came and went rapidly. Our days and nights started merging together into a blur of trips to Northland Mall, meals at fast-food restaurants, and impromptu parties at cheap motels. Like most dealers, we were living for the moment. We had no plans to get out of the game or do anything responsible with our earnings. We spent money as fast as we made it, and we were always playing catch-up. If we had stopped to notice how little money we were left with, we would’ve discovered that we were risking our lives for what amounted to a minimum-wage job.

  After a few months, business began to pick up when I started an operation with Brenda’s cousin’s boyfriend, who had been selling from another spot at the other end of the neighborhood and had a couple of thousand dollars saved up. We went in together on various amounts of crack and cocaine, and split the profits, which helped us go from making a few hundred dollars a day to making a couple thousand every few days. It wasn’t kingpin status, but we felt like we were moving in the right direction.

  The timing couldn’t have been better, because Brenda thought she was pregnant. She was developing all of the usual signs—morning sickness, mood swings, and weird eating habits. At night, we would lie in bed kicking it about our child and the dreams we had for him or her. Knowing that a new life would soon come into our world, we changed our approach to hustling and began talking about savi
ng enough money to leave the game, move away, and make a fresh start. But, although we spent most nights talking about our grand plans for our new life together, when the morning came, it was right back to business as usual.

  Brenda and I really did want better for ourselves and our child; we just didn’t know how to escape the pull of what had become a vicious cycle of crime and desperation. And it wouldn’t be long before that cycle claimed me for good.

  16

  MICHIGAN REFORMATORY

  Ionia, Michigan

  1994

  It was my second time being sent to solitary confinement at the Michigan Reformatory, but this time around, I was more aware of what to expect, and how to manage being caged up for twenty-three hours a day. I quickly developed a routine of sleeping through the morning and reading late into the night as the other inmates caused mayhem up and down the tier.

  Thirty days into this stretch, my father came up to see me. We tried having a normal conversation, and he did everything in his power to comfort me with warm words and thoughts from home. He meant well, but all the conversation did was remind me of how I would never stand on free soil again.

  On the outside, life was continuing on without me. My little sisters were becoming young women. Brenda was struggling to raise Li’l Jay as a single mother, and my son would become a teenager and a young man without ever getting a chance to throw a football with me.

  After about six months in the hole, I was released back to general population. I was assigned to a job in the kitchen but soon got fired for getting in an argument with my supervisor. This gave me more time to build with the brothers on the yard. We formed coalitions and intense study groups with other organizations, and one day, the brothers nominated me to become a spiritual advisor. I was now responsible for the spiritual growth and direction of the brothers in our organization. I would be the main speaker at each service, and I would serve as a counselor, helping the brothers to navigate through whatever emotional and spiritual challenges they faced. I was now also responsible for all communication between our brotherhood and the leaders of the other religious organizations.