Internal Reflections

By Changa Asa Ramu

This book is the story of Changa Asa Ramu, but there are many young men who walk in the same shoes and have experienced the same journey. Too often do young African-American men learn from their own experiences when they should have been mentored, educated, and prepared for life struggles as an African American in this racist and sometimes violent country. However, Changa has learned the hard way and finds himself in circumstances that aren’t easy to overcome. He’s now serving a life sentence for a fatal shooting in which his own life was in serious danger. He struggles with the reality that at nineteen years old, he may never see freedom again. He goes through a deep depression and has a bad adjustment to his new reality. In solitary confinement, he comes into contact with older politically, socially, and culturally conscious prisoners who were able to enlighten him and articulate his plight as an individual, as well as their collective struggle as a people. He then went on a search to learn more about his history, culture, and political reality. His story also involves his family and their relationships and struggles during his incarceration. He goes on to experience control units and to suffer from the psychological effects of them. Through all these trials and tribulations, he gives educated commentary and reflections of his life, spirituality, family, race, and culture. He has learned that freedom is more than having liberty to move about in the greater society. Freedom is a state of mind and the ability to think independently.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: May 23, 2017
• ISBN: 9781635684131

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Internal ReflectionS

Changa Asa Ramu

Copyright © 2017 Changa Asa Ramu

All rights reserved

First Edition

PAGE PUBLISHING, INC.

New York, NY

First originally published by Page Publishing, Inc. 2017

ISBN 978-1-63568-412-4 (Paperback)

ISBN 978-1-63568-414-8 (Hard Cover)

ISBN 978-1-63568-413-1 (Digital)

Printed in the United States of America

Chapter 1

Life without the Possibility of Parole

A Cold, Cold World

At the young age of nineteen, I was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole. It didn’t take any further explanation for me to comprehend the harsh reality of this sentence. In the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, a life sentence means until your natural life expires unlike other Commonwealths where life sentences have a minimal sentence of twenty and twenty-five years before parole eligibility. The impact of this sentence is indescribable, especially for someone who is wrongfully convicted as charged and was so young in age. It is like being affected by an incurable disease that will slowly kill you. I was horrified, angry, tormented, and living a nightmare. I had a sense I wasn’t going to make it. I was miserable and fell into a deep depression trying to understand how my alleged crime warranted life imprisonment when similar crimes resulted in manslaughter and third-degree murder convictions that don’t carry a life sentence.

Growing up in an American ghetto and hustling in the underground economy had become a dangerous lifestyle before I knew it. I remember the days when my stealing and robbing weren’t life threatening, nor would I be facing hard time if I got caught. What’s crazy about those times and activities, I was only concerned with making money. Most hustlers I knew were the same way, and I would seriously doubt if anyone was considering the repercussions of their actions. The main decision factor was based on how much money you could make—and if you could get away with it. Of course, a mature mind and a responsible adult would have considered all the consequences. From the ages of ten until nineteen, I was on a treadmill and chasing a green piece of paper. Fresh clothes, food, and basic needs were the motivation. Then it was jewelry and cars, which were status statements among my peers. My greatest concern during this period in my life was my status among my peers. There were no warnings I can remember, telling me the road I was traveling on was self-destructive. Not that I’m convinced I would have even listened to the warning, but it would have been nice to know someone cared enough to sit me down. I was enjoying the benefits of my hustlings and the status I held among my peers. I realize now the delusions I had of reality, although as a young hustler, it was a driving force in my life. In my state of delusion, two critical stages were taking place in my life without my awareness. I became an adult under the criminal justice system at eighteen, and the drug trade had ushered in a new element in the underground economy, gun violence.

These stages in my life weren’t paid attention to once the drug trade became the main hustle. Security became an issue as far as protecting myself from stickup boys and dope fiends. In the earlier stages of my hustling, there were always threats of older dudes in the neighborhood trying to take my money or merchandise. I learned to be slicker than them and sold my stolen goods outside of the neighborhood when I could. I developed relationships with older hustlers in the neighborhood, and these relationships changed how dudes looked at me. Additionally, the young squad of hustlers I hung out with earned the respect of the streets before entering the drug trade. I became a part of the inner hustler circle, and that brought respect, which prevented others from taking me for bad. As I grew older, there was no threat of my property being taken, or so I thought. However, the drug trade brought in a different mentality, and threats were there that didn’t exist before. Gun violence was the equalizer among hustlers, and it didn’t matter your age, size, or status. Before I knew it, times had drastically changed. Many of my homies were killed in the streets. Situations that would usually end with a fistfight were ending in death. Things had become really dangerous, and dudes were playing for keeps.

I knew things really changed for me when an old head named Quick stuck me up. This was a player whom I looked up to and once took me out on route, showing me new spots to pickpocket and steal merchandise from. He put a gun to my head and demanded my money and drug package. I was madder than I was shocked and refused to comply with his demands. Several of the girls who were hustling on the block with me were crying and screaming for me to give him my stuff. Reluctantly, I gave him what amounted to five hundred dollars in drugs and money. I learned John from West Park gave him the gun. I had an ongoing beef with this dude, and this only intensified my dislike toward him. Several weeks later, I got into a fight and really took a beating. At nineteen, I was still a little dude at about five feet four inches and 130 pounds. I felt I needed an equalizer in those streets, and it was a decision I came to regret. These were not decisions a teenager was supposed to be making. But within the last couple of years my homies were getting killed left and right. Li’l Tim, Big Brick, LA, and Al Regan—all had been killed from gun violence. Out of these conditions, life-altering decisions were being made. I’m out there in those streets drinking syrup and getting high every day. It was impossible for me to make rational, intelligent decisions, and my fate was decided before I realized it.

I say that because all across the country in inner cities, young men were facing the same reality. Many of us had not developed the maturity to make conscious, intelligent decisions. The government had taken full advantage of our immaturity with laws in place that destroyed more lives than it could save. I don’t mean to diminish responsibility for my actions. However, the government shouldn’t be strictly fighting crime on the back side when it totally neglects the front side. I said my fate was decided because the conditions of my environment created circumstances that would cause many to be a statistic. I think preventive measures, such as schooling youth of the consequence of their actions, would’ve given us a better chance to make intelligent decisions. There is something fundamentally wrong when the youth feel they have to kill or be killed. They make these life-altering decisions under distress and aren’t the angry gun-toting thugs the media portrays them as. I personally found myself in a circumstance where I felt it was morally correct to protect myself.

It was normal for young people in the neighborhood to shoot dice, something that was harmless in all my years of shooting dice and watching others shoot them. We had the occasional fistfights from disputes over the games, but that’s it. One hot summer day, I was out there socializing, hustling, and playing dice with others. The boy, John, and a few of his homies showed up at the game. This was the same brother who gave Quick the gun to stick me up. As the game was progressing, John started throwing his weight around, cheating and just messing up the flow of the game. At some point, I was on the dice, and when I hit, John was trying to prevent me from picking up my winnings. We tussled for a bit, and I pulled out my gun to cease further escalation of the problem. He let go of me, declared he was coming back and would lay me down. In the streets, this meant kill you, and there was no doubt in my mind that he was serious. I shot him in a knee-jerk reaction. It wasn’t with malice or from the dislike I had toward him. I didn’t want to end up like many other homies who had been killed that year. There seemed to be funerals every month, and I didn’t want mine to be the next. Even to this day, I don’t blame myself for reacting the way I did.

However, I questioned the lifestyle I was living to put myself in such a dangerous situation. Now that I’m conscious of the consequences of my activity, I do have regrets. Once John recovered from the gunshot injury, he was bent on revenge. He and his boys were doing large drive-by shootings, not hitting anyone, but it let me know this wasn’t over. This only reinforced the position that I held. I had to be alert and watch my back at all times. I’m not naive to the fact that this wasn’t a position a normal teenager should be taking.

However, that’s the reality I’m trying to describe, and how my environment affected me to the point it was rational to hold that position. For several months, I lived under constant threats from John, and everybody telling me to watch my back. The day when I was confronted with bullets coming from a car John was in didn’t catch me by surprise. The only thing that saved me was when I jumped off the wall I was sitting on. I fell to the ground, causing the initial shot to miss. I crept around a parked car and returned fire, hitting John who was in the front passenger seat. It all happened really fast. I didn’t feel anything but relief that the threat of imminent danger was gone. So again, I was contemplating how all of this constituted a life sentence.

The Criminal Justice System

I noticed during my detention in the county jail, depending on which judge presided over a defendant’s trial often determined the outcome of the trial. Prisoners waiting on trial in the county prayed for certain judges to be assigned to their case and dreaded others. How something so fundamental to justice can come down to the demeanor and tendencies of the judge presiding over the defendant’s trial. I personally went with a jury out of fear that this judge wouldn’t be fair. That is only the tip of the iceberg of injustice that has been inflicted on me and many others in similar situation. However, I was convicted and sent up to the State Correctional Institution, condemned for life, and expected to conform to the SCI’s standards. My depression and confused mind made it difficult to adjust to prison life. I refused to accept this was it for me, and I sought strength in my religion. This gave me temporary resolve and contentment internally. Although my young mind was forever curious and questioned what I was taught, what I read, and what I was supposed to believe in. At this point in my life, I was undereducated with a fifth grade reading level, and all I knew was what the public school taught about history, culture, and the world. I couldn’t reconcile my religious beliefs with the reality of the world I was living in.

I had a lot of soul-searching to do and questions that needed answers. I was becoming discontent spiritually, emotionally, and psychologically. Striving for paradise in the hereafter was no longer feasible when my personal life was a living hell. Religiously, I went back and forth with different sets of Islam in a short period of time. None of them addressed the issues I was struggling with internally and externally. Institutional racism and white supremacy had a fundamental impact on my self-identity, self-esteem, and my psychological and emotional health as an individual. From the time of our birth, as an African American, we are subliminally alienated from the mainstream culture that promotes European superiority and African inferiority. The public school curriculum teaches history, social studies, math, and science from a Eurocentric perspective.

It indoctrinates students into a false sense of self, which may be effective in building self-confidence in white students and motivating them to learn. It alienated me and left me with questions about who my ancestors were and what contributions they made to science and civilization. The public school curriculum is content with teaching Negro history, which has its origins in slavery. American institutions, religions, holidays, media and government policies legitimize the myths of white supremacy by only acknowledging Europe and white American contributions to science and civilization while depicting Africa only as a dark and backward place. With this miseducation, lack of self-confidence and empowerment, I wasn’t equipped to deal with adversity of this kind. What I learned in the streets of Philadelphia from other undereducated youth and lost souls wasn’t adequate. The blind-leading-the-blind case scenario had only led me to self-destruction. For once in my young life, I started to take inventory and self-evaluation. Still, I didn’t have to be a rocket scientist to recognize life without the possibility of parole was cruel and unusual punishment.

The US Supreme Court finally revisited sentencing juveniles to life without the possibility of parole. On June 25, 2012, the US Supreme Court decided Miller v. Alabama and ruled The eighth amendment forbids a sentencing scheme that mandates life in prison without the possibility of parole for juvenile homicide offenders. The courts further explained, Compared to adults, juveniles have a lack of maturity and an underdeveloped sense of responsibility. They are more vulnerable or susceptible to negative influences and outside pressures, including peer pressure, and their character is not as well formed. While that is a step in the right direction, I would advocate for more reform in the sentencing codes for young adult lifers whose maturation isn’t much different from juveniles. Prior to the US Supreme Court’s ruling that juveniles with life sentences was unconstitutional, they ruled in Roper v. Simon that Execution of individuals who were under eighteen years of age at time of their capital crime is prohibited by eighth and fourteenth amendments. Simon was seventeen years old when he committed a capital murder and was sentenced to death when he was eighteen years old. In this case, it was pointed out that if trained psychiatrists with expertise were prohibited from accessing juvenile antisocial personality disorder, the state should not ask jurors with no expertise to decide the merits of imposing the death penalty.

The courts rationalized that It is difficult even for expert psychologists to differentiate between the juvenile offender whose crime reflects unfortunate yet transient immaturity, and the rare juvenile offender whose crime reflects irreparable corruption. The court further explained that drawing the line at eighteen years of age was a necessity, as opposed to any scientific evidence that juveniles have reached a degree of maturity at that age. The court stated, The qualities that distinguish juveniles from adults do not disappear when an individual turns eighteen. By the same token, some under eighteen have already attained a level of maturity some adults will never reach. Therefore, young adults often possess the same mental capacity of a juvenile, and imposing the death penalty or life without parole should be considered cruel and unusual punishment. Roper v. Simons is the precedent case that Miller v. Alabama relied on to support its argument that life without the possibility for parole for juveniles is unconstitutional. From my point of view, drawing the lines at eighteen years of age is too ambiguous and arbitrary for justice to be served. A civilized nation shouldn’t be so eager to condemn its citizens to life imprisonment for errant behavior, especially when the crime isn’t heinous.

Uncovering the Truth

A life sentence surely challenges an individual’s capacity to change and find meaning in one’s life. Most lifers find it in their religion. Others dedicate themselves to studying law to overcome their convictions. Some become institutionalized, spending majority of their time consumed with sports, play, and entertainment. Salvation and redemption couldn’t be found in religion; for me, it would come with political and cultural consciousness. To quote John Henrik Clarke, I am a very spiritual person with suspicion toward organized religions. I need no one preaching the Ten Commandments to me. I know when to obey and disobey them to give me peace. Knowledge of self afforded me the right to interpret my spirituality, morality, and humanity from an African center. Historically, religions have been used for political, economic, and cultural domination, whether it was the Crusades of Europe or jihads of Asia. People have always used religions to push their cultural selves on others, but it was never simply a spiritual thing. Saving souls was the justification, but they serve to weaken other cultures by being able to interpret their concept of spirituality, including their image of God.

Abandoning the ways of the ancestors is a sure indication of a people who have lost their way. For instance, ancestor worship was never understood by most people, but Africans didn’t worship their dead as gods. They were looked upon as a spiritual extension of the human development. Africans didn’t believe in the hereafter that was separate from the physical world. The ancestors don’t leave this world but continue to live among us in another form of existence. So it’s the practice of Africans to invoke the ancestors for guidance and spiritual power as did the Native Americans. By African Americans adopting new religious concepts, we no longer comprehend ourselves spiritually and misinterpret traditional practice as idol worship. Spirituality is our greatest attribute, and we have surrendered it for foreign concepts that were fashioned for worldwide dominance. They offer you eternal bliss in the hereafter while conquering others’ culture, land,