Thread by @papertigerx_, I don’t talk about my incarceration background much because to me it’s [...]

I don’t talk about my incarceration background much because to me it’s not nearly as bad as other stories I’ve read from others I know.

My juvenile record is half a mile long. I ate moldy jail food, was put in solitary confinement, saw other kids dragged through halls by COs.

I won’t tell the story again but my childhood was full of poverty and abuse. I was removed from my home at age 13 after my brother took his life and I was angry. Angry at my birth mom for abandoning me. Angry that my brother was gone but no one seemed to care.

I spent my 14th birthday in solitary. From November 2000 through February 2002 I cycled in and out of group homes, crisis units, jail. I got in fights. Ran away. Did drugs. Messed around with men twice my age. I broke my grandmother’s heart.

I had a judge who heard testimony from my adoptive parents, social workers, teachers about how bright I was. My whiteness also played a role after I attacked an officer at age 13 and I didn’t get put in the ground for it.

Instead the judge started having me serve my time over weekends so I wouldn’t miss school.

I thought it was stupid at the time, but god look at these stories of all these people who never got such a chance. I had no idea how lucky or PRIVILEGED I was.

If I weren’t a well-read white girl I wouldn’t be telling this story.

My record got expunged at age 18 and now I get to be here on twitter. Married to an incredible man who’s also justice involved, who gets it. Mother a wonderful child.

I was dragged to court in pajamas with no shoes after I’d refuse to go. I screamed at social workers and judges. But I had that chance dropped in my lap and I did nothing to warrant it.

And Black men reaching for IDs, cooperating with police, get murdered. Because they were seen as threats and I never was. That’s why I’m on this side of the grass.

I shared all this in undergrad with a black male colleague in our social work program. He said “you know where I’d be if that were me?” And I knew. He wouldn’t have been given a way out.

I can do a few things with my story:

*go about my life doing nothing
*frame it like I’ve been given this chance because I’m special
*or tell it like it is and use it to draw attention to the fact that not all 13yo juvenile defendants are treated equally

I did learn and turn my life around. Some nights I dream about solitary. Not often anymore, but I haven’t forgotten. I’m 31 now with a pretty amazing life. Others I met while locked up are dead.

Most folks who know me as an adult have trouble believing my “wild years,” while others who have known me all this time are shocked that I’m more or less “normal” now.

I know this thread is all over the place. It’s not a story I set out to tell tonight. But it’s one that I need to tell.

I am alive by the circumstance of being born white. I’ll never forget that.

And I want anyone who works in CJ reading this to take my story as a baseline of how juvenile defendants (hell anyone) should be treated regardless of the circumstances of their birth.

I was given the chance by a judge to actually be somebody more than a statistic from a broken home. My trauma was used as a mitigating circumstance and the system listened to that. All defendants should be given that chance.

And I’ll forever fight for POC voices going through the system to be given the grace and mercy I was.

The Black lives going through life, the system, work, school, etc also matter, even though they’re treated like they matter less than mine. They don’t.

Okay I’m done now. I hope this thread makes some sense. I know it’s jumbled but I wanted to get this out.

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