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COMMUNITY OUTPOUR FOR RIVERA

I'M STILL NOT FREE POEM

I'm Still Not Free.

 

Utmost respect for who I see, 

 

the Man in the mirror looking back at me

 

but I'm still not free.

 

Born into poverty

 

In Nashville Tennessee, it was the early 90's when I use to wonder if anybody really cared about me.

 

13 years..

162 months..

707 weeks..

4,953 days..

118,972 hours..

26 minutes.. I have been waiting for relief,

 

done wrong in the name of Justice and I'm still not free.

 

Arrested when I was 18 years young

 

Sentenced to Life plus 100 years

 

I can't say I was shocked cause it never seemed real.

 

Had all my constitutional rights violated just to convict me of every charge that could've been thrown at me. 

 

No, Not being a killer or even a criminal 

but Criminally responsible 

 

Could you handle the truth

it’s closely told through the proof

Justice for all unless they look like me and you

 

Through it all, my flaws and all

I overcame my charge and made my mom proud of me

Yet I'm still not free.

 

In fact she told me

I'm everything she wished I'd be,

A great father, paralegal, and an author

But I'm still not free.

 

When I checked my history books I was not shocked to see my father, nor his forefathers were free.

 

Way before the 90's, my quest to be free would be met by Governor Lamar Alexander and his private interest in a check.

 

While under Lamar Alexander's control of the Tennessee Governor's mansion and the legislative branch, in 1983.

 

Corporate Corrections of America was also born in Nashville, Tennessee.

 

Private prison for profit was the beginning of why a lot of people who look like me would never be free. 

 

Instead of using the state budget to invest in poverty, education, and those who look like me, Lamar and his political friends invested in prisons, lock ‘em up and throw away the key. Creating a pipeline to prison and no we are still not free.

 

I now understand Frederick Douglas’s speech titled, "What does the forth of July mean to the slave?”.

 

My father's father's were in chains, plantations or prisons 

 

slavery by another name.

 

I'm still not free.

 

Injustice on every corner

 

Propaganda on every news channel

 

And It's not just me but actually 1 in every 3 

 

that's still not free. 

 

This system has been broken from the very beginning and we all know it

 

but why does it feel fixed?

 

Wait, I'll give you a hint.

 

Those in power have made a lot of generational wealth off it.

And no, I'm still not free.

 

I've followed the money, 

Gotten to the scheme just to find out mass incarceration is truly just Power vs. Poverty.

 

#Free my body

#Free R. [our] Peoples

#Free our culture

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