Sex Offender the New Nigger
I recently received a job request to help someone retype their lecture notes into digital form proved to be very interesting. He apparently lectures on the Civil War and what actually occurred and I found some of the statements in his document worthwhile reading and decided what has happened since the mid-1800s hasn’t changed much from today.
With regards to speaking about the slaves and their treatment upon giving them their freedom and yet denying them political rights, land and economic power, the question was asked, “What is freedom? Is it the bare privilege of not being chained? If this is all, then freedom is a bitter mockery, a cruel delusion.” These sentiments were exactly the feelings I had upon being released from prison and told I would be under “court supervision”, a fancy word for probation. In one probative period I served I read these words in their Waiting Room, “Probation is a form of Detention”. I didn’t like it. As I studied that sign, week after week waiting to see my probation officer sometimes waiting an hour for a five minute visit and while enjoying a modicum of freedom a book title came into mind, “I Know Why the Mockingbird Sings”. I believe I understood the meaning. A bird, in a cage, knows its boundaries. Within those boundaries are given its food and water therefore the necessities of life are provided and it is sheltered. It can get rather comfortable in this environment so the bird sings.
I never liked probation because I considered probation as a form of imprisonment and not being free. It’s tantamount to having a rope tied on my leg and whenever the probation officer wanted or thought about me they had the power to reel in the rope knowing I’d be on the other end. I believe they, the probation officer, enjoy this control over those called “offenders”. I made a decision after my probation ended I would never subject myself again to it. I’d rather stay in prison until the day the door is opened and I would be able to fly to wherever it is I wanted to fly knowing there wasn’t anything tethered to me. While in prison I never went to the recreation yard. Why? Why should I be let out into a concrete barrier where I can only look upward to see outside through iron fixtures and barbed wire whose purpose is to contain—me. I can hear the traffic and can even see a bird—we’ve discussed this already, so I decided after my first experience never to tease myself with what would never be given me, so I stayed within my cage, happily singing because I knew my boundaries.
Now, society would create a new brand of “nigger” called “Registered Sex Offender” where those considered the worse of malefactors are labeled, not necessarily caring about the nature of the offense insomuch that it involved a sexual offense and lumped everyone together and now the word “sex offender” is synonymous with that of “predator” and these people are now experiencing being placed where the Blacks had been two hundred years prior. I learned that “…that in 1865, Southern states began enacting what were called Black Codes, a set of laws that seriously limited what freed African Americans could do and in effect replicated slavery:
- They required blacks to carry passes (just as they had under slavery)
- Enforced a curfew (also a feature of slavery)
- Required that blacks live in housing provided by the landowner
- And restricted possible employment (largely to agricultural labor)…”
Doesn’t this sound familiar? Sex Offenders must carry their identification with them whenever leaving home, if they can find one. Many have curfews set by the Court or their Probation Officer and if it were possible, I’m sure there will come a time when someone in their wisdom would try to enact laws to do so to those who have no supervision as they’re trying to do around Halloween. As a result of the unjust laws regarding living restrictions in many communities as to how many feet you can live from where youth gather, as if all sex offender’s criminal involvement involved youth , in effect is the same as having Blacks live in housing provided by “Massa”. Employment for most sex offenders is non-existent no matter what contribution to society previously given prior to an offense. How many worked in high paying positions which are now out of reach because of a smear on their record or because of the proximity of the office is near a child care facility or school?
The professor goes on to state when society advanced itself there were provisions made to assist the Blacks which where, “The first thing they did was to extend and strengthen the Freedman’s Bureau, a Federal Agency which had been created in the previous session to aid the Emancipated Slaves. It was the first Federal Agency of its kind, engaged in uplifting and helping such a large group of citizens: Food and Medical Services, Schools and Colleges, Negotiating Employment Contracts, Managing Confiscated Lands.” Is it envisioned such an effort to right a wrong against sex offenders will ever take place? I doubt it. I think the system of monitoring such a continual growing population even utilizing computers will eventually outpace the ability of law enforcement to make it feasible and other means will either be taken or the system will go back to the original purpose for which it was designed, for law enforcement and not public notification.
The “New Niggers” have quite a road to travel before anything will happen to bring any type of relief. The era of “homosexuals” with their stigma associated with AIDS and the former new niggers of “Mexicans” infiltrating this country will not outlast the “New Nigger of Registered Sexual Offender”.
As difficult as it is sometimes to live in a society where common sense has been replaced with fear of the unknown, it just makes me sick to think getting a job regardless of my former kudos and excellent appraisals, never taking off time for being sick and never arriving late to work will not have any opportunity to bring me back into the workforce as I’ve known it to be, so the thought of returning to prison is a consideration worth thinking because at least there I knew where my boundaries were and they never changed. In fact, I did some of my best singing there.
Tags: Addiction, Child Pornography, Recovery, registered sexual offender
