Drawing by Josh

Written by Chadmasca, Edwin, Kashbi, and Nathaniel

Why Do We Write / Mike

By Lavon

Writing to me is not just writing.

Writing is more than words on a paper. It's life.

Writing is the way I tell it in black and white.

It's from my mind above and beyond.

Writing is my faith in me.

People say are you feeling it,

but I say it's your mind

thinking from the back to the front and to the front to the back.

Now this is what writing in this project means to me.

When we write we begin to know who we are.

JEDADIAJHA

I hope you leave Monroe County Jail today better understanding the reasons why kids act the way they do in school. I hope you can relate to our writing.

ANTHONY

Listen to us. We want to change. We want to be successful in life. We need you to help us stay in school. We need teachers who will support us and help us and not tell us we are not going to make it in school. We don't need teachers who look down at us. We need teachers who want to help us. Sometimes teachers who don't care are the reason kids drop out of school. Some teachers don't understand we have problems and there aren't adults at home to keep us on the right track.

KASHABI

Thank you for coming to Monroe County Jail to hear our stories. I want you to leave here with sympathy and caring.  I want you to help keep kids off the streets by trying not to kick them out of school. We all need our diplomas. We want a chance to love our lives.

BRADD

Dear You,

This letter is to all high schools, especially in the Rochester City District. I'm here at MCJ writing this letter, not to glorify the connection between the streets and drop out rates, but to write how the streets and drop out rates go hand in hand. And yes, I'm a drop out. I stopped going to school on and off during my ninth grade year and dropped out my tenth grade year. My letter though, I think, is about all students who have dropped out of high school.

Males are most vulnerable to street life because we want to be considered as the kid who's known or who gets money or girls. To me, now when I look at it, it's crazy how Blacks and Hispanics fit what we call the dropouts.

What teachers fail to realize is that after we walk out of the school doors it is a whole different ballpark. Mammas sell food stamps for another bag of dope. Dads are nowhere to be found. Little brothers or little sisters look after younger siblings as we try to find a way to get money so everyone can eat dinner tonight and the day after that. We do what we know best, that's go to the streets. Once we see that people accept us on the streets, or at least we think they do, more than we were accepted in school, how many of us start robbing people at gunpoint, breaking into houses or selling drugs? Not going to school we don't learn about occupations, careers, or how to be stable.

Another reason we seem to drop out of school is because we don't understand the work, and we don't want to ask for help. We don't want to seem slow or dumb in front of the class. Half the time if a student doesn't know something and asks teacher for help, it's repeated in the classroom and the rest of the class get pissed off or makes fun of us. Most of the time we sit in the back of the class looking lost.

Don't even for one-second think that the drop out rates have to do with just the students or the streets. The teachers and the principals play a big role in the drop out rate as well as the streets. I know some of you are reading this and asking yourselves what is this young man at MCJ talking about or asking what does a teacher or a principal have to do with students dropping out of school. They didn't necessarily tell us to drop out of school, but they did help us to make our decision easier. If Timmy is failing in class and he doesn't horse around or try to be a class clown and does his work and pays attention to his class work and actually does his home work and yet he's still failing, who notices the problem? When Bradd seems to be the class clown and horseplay's with his buddies in the back of the class and doesn't pay attention half the time and does most of his work and does some of his homework and fails, who notices?  The teacher seems to address Bradd faster then Timmy, but yet both students drop out. Teachers don't notice that Timmy is gone until it's time to grade papers, but they notice that Bradd's gone when they see that the seat in the back left hand corner is empty.

Do principals know that if Josh is known for getting suspended from school for some dumb reason besides fighting he will eventually get tired of the suspensions and drop out of school?

I think  teachers should not only teach, but should know their students well enough to break down the work so students can understand the work. I think principals should stop suspending kids out of school suspension and when kids go back to school see that the kids get help to learn the work that the kids didn't learn.

I also believe that we as students should come together and help each other find the way instead of watching each other drift apart no matter what our grades are or our backgrounds.

NICO

I am lost,

trapped in a body

whose mind is still free although I am in a cage.

To you I am probably just a person to laugh at,

point at, and make fun of,

someone in a orange jumpsuit and handcuffs in the back of a police sheriff's van.

To me I am a precious soul.

I am delicate,

with a heart, a spirit, and feelings.

I am loved by a family, maybe similar to yours, maybe not.

I cry just like you would

if a loved one were to pass.

I bleed the same color as anybody else,

free or incarcerated, black or white, Hispanic or Asian.

I love.

I have people who care.

Have you felt the way I feel? Have you seen what I have seen?

Until you put on my shoes, lived a day in my life,

looked at each and every positive or negative choice I have made,

you can't say a word about the person I am or was.

Each person has his story,

his own tale of what he has lived through.

Whether criminally insane or a troubled juvenile,

or even someone never in trouble before,

that person could end up successful in life

after his days of sorrow.

The person never in trouble before may be in jail for years in the days to come.

This is my life.

These are the struggles we, as God's creatures, are faced with.

Think about your life and that's where you can point fingers.

You don't know the next man's story.

You don't know why he choose to pick up a weapon.

the only thing you know is yourself.

Stay in your shoes

Dark figures approach and begin to judge because of what they see.
I simply say, I know what I am.
Unknown voices tell me I will never amount to what the light of the future holds.
I simply tell the voices

what you tell me is unknown and as dark as your voice is strong.
The harsh voices pursue a negative judgment upon me.
I do not bargain for my innocence.

The voices do not control my movements only impair.

If we allow
these structures, the negative impact is great.

Today I no longer listen to what you say.

You are only voices and my new conscience
stands much higher and greater.
I will not suffer from evil, for I followed the evil path you laid for me.
It only brought great harm upon my loved ones and me.
I continue to push down the path where they stand upon both sides of me and begin to press.
I am moving away from the nasty facts of the once called reality of feelings on this road.
I clearly begin to see the light, which holds my destiny.
I push the discreet voices away, throw them into a dark pit behind me.
They will not be heard from for eternity.
These are the voices of an unknown mind

NATHANIEL

What do I know? I know I love my mom and my grandparents. I know I really miss my uncle who passed last month. He was very smart. He taught me how to read the newspaper and how to play the drums and basketball. I really listened to what he told me.

I would give it all up just for one chance to have my freedom and to make it big like my cousins, one in the NFL and one in the UFC.

When I was twelve, I was put on probation for skipping school and coming home at all times of night. When I was fourteen, I was put in a group home called Baker Victory Services. I spent three years in Lackawanna, New York. I came back home when I was sixteen. Then I went to school for a little bit, and I dropped out. It happened because I was going back and forth.

My mother and my grandmother tried their best to help me.  I got into fights with the sentry, then got kicked out for messing with the wrong people. I caught charges, and now I'm locked up praying to God that I am released.

Me, I have been in the system since I was twelve. This is my life story. I have one love in my life. I have been writing to her and calling her, and I still do not get an answer. I want to find her. We were engaged until I came to jail. She cheated on me, and I lost it and caught charges and became an inmate. I was released on August 10, 2010. I was on an ankle bracelet.

I messed up again, and now I have been in here since October 7, 2010.

I pray to God for a miracle in my life.  I want to be successful. I want to live a good life. I want

to have a nice house and a car and take care of my mom and my little brothers and my grandparents.

I want to try to make it to the top.

JOSH

Where do I go when I feel tears and the pain in my heart and soul

from not seeing my family, not seeing my mom?

It is hard.

I am in a cell with no one to talk to but the walls.

I was born with a problem that people tease me about.

It's hard being teased for a problem you cannot do anything about.

It is hard being in jail for the holidays without your family.

At visits when I haven't seen my mom in a long time,

I feel like crying because I want to go home with her.

Who am I?

I'm an eighteen-year-old Black man in a cold place

with no one to ask to call my mom or my family.

I am an eighteen-year-old Black man

in a place where people tell me when to eat,

when to sleep, when to lock in.

I see myself as a Black man with a family who misses him.

My family is all I have in life, and now I am in jail with a big bail.

I want to be Black man with a high school diploma,

not another Black man in jail.

I have a life and my life is not in here where it is cold,

where I am told to lock in so many times a day.

I went to be free like the birds in the trees.

It is so hard to be where people don't respect you

or the stuff in your room.

This is why my goal when I get out of here is to change my life.

I have to go back to school.

I  have to stop running.

I know I need help to stay out of the streets.

Jail is not the way a Black man, any man, is supposed to live.

I know I'd like
a nice house,
a nice wife,
a nice life,
respect, pride, and a nice ride.

I know I don't like jail,
being locked up with forty males
in a busted up cell.

Just like I know

the sun's coming up tomorrow,
I know my days in jail
will be mostly about regret and sorrow.

I know for sure I don't want to come back,

but it seems to me that the deck has been stacked

against me.

I just want to get out and see my family.
I want a good job that pays well,

but I am a Black male with a disability who is locked in a cell.

Some might think my life is hell,

but I am strong like most who have come before me.

I know for sure that I long for Life!

AHJEMIN

On Easter Sunday, when I was fourteen years old,

I was walking down Garson Street with my two brothers and my older cousin.

It was broad daylight,

and we were all playing around, running up and down the street

waiting for our mom to pick us up to go to our other cousin's house.

As we were walking

I saw this man on his porch in his doorway.

He had a silver something in his hand.

We kept walking.

I saw the man, wearing a black hoodie, standing in my aunt's driveway.

I heard this big boom, boom, bang, bang.

When I looked, the man was running our way, shooting at us.

We ran.

My cousin and I saw one of my brothers fall to the ground.

I kept running. I heard five shots fly by my ear.

I heard them hit the house. The shells bounced off the house.

My brother was still on the ground. My cousin was grazed. My brother was not shot.

I thought my cousin was dead. I cried my eyes out.

My cousin did not move at all.

Someone called my mom and told her what happened.

My mom came, hopped out of the car crying, 'Why did they do this to my nephew?

What did he do?'

We told my mom he was just grazed.

My mom said, 'Thank you Lord for what you have done.' She said it again and again.

She hugged us.

Situations like this happened more than once to me.

This is how I got into the 'I don't care mentality.'

I'm smart, funny, and a nice kid

who was trying to get back at people who were hurting my family.

Move me out of Rochester,

get me away from all of the people I hung with who got me into trouble.

Now I am facing time,

looking at state time.

Here is my prayer:

Lord,

watch over my family members.

Lord,

protect my family and shield them at all times.

Lord,

protect me while I am in jail facing upstate time.

Lord,

please help me change.

Lord,

help me stay away from guns and drugs.

Lord,

help me be a man I can be proud of.

JAHEEM

My time in jail, I miss my family.

I miss my mom, my brother and my sister,

and my aunt and my grandma.

I need help.

I cry myself to sleep every night,

thinking about all the fun times my family and I had together.

I think sometimes about here and about home with my family.

Here I see things a seventeen-year-old boy should not see,

like kids fighting over something.

If those kids were at home would they have to fight about food,

or who took someone's clothes?

I feel like my heart has been broken into 100 pieces,

like my heart has been stabbed and stabbed over and over.

It feels like no one cares in jail.

When I get out I know I have to try to be a new man.

I know it will not easy, but I have to try and not give up.

My mom told me that when I was little, and I will remember that until I die.

I am a Black man who is trying to get to a better place

and not come back to jail

I am a Black man who wants to do the right thing

who wants to go to school and finish school,

who wants to play football,

who wants to go to college,

who wants to have a good job,

who wants to have a better life for himself and his family.

Being in this orange jumpsuit is like being lost in the world.

When people heard that I was in jail, some were happy like I was a bad person or something.

I am not a bad person. 

It is hard to be here and know you have loved ones out in the world.

TYSHON

My name is Tyshon.  At the age of seventeen I had my first child. Her name is Nijah Sabree. She was born on May 20th 2010. That day was the best day of my life. I always felt that when I had a child I would show her right from wrong. Just nine days after my baby girl was born, I was ripped away from her. Being away from her makes me feel like my father, and I never wanted to feel like him. Now I sit here and wish I could help her grow and be a lady and take school seriously.  

JADE

I'm seventeen. I arrived in New York City from Jamaica when I was six. I'm going to visit my grandma and granddad in Jamaica at the end of school with my dad. This will be my first time going back. My mom was born in Rochester, and my dad and I came here in 1999.

Family and my life are the most important things to me. Therefore, I would do anything to protect my family. Protecting my older sisters is so important to me. I have had to protect my sisters. No matter what the situation is, whether they are in the right or wrong, I will always be there for them and protect them.

I hang out with my brothers and sisters. I remember good meals at Thanksgiving.

When I was fifteen I got in trouble for fighting, and I went to Westfall Road. This was my first time getting into the 'system.' When I was sixteen, I went to Monroe County Jail for the first time. I returned again on May 18th. My experience with jail was based upon my decisions. It did not have to do with school.  

Now that I am in jail, I survive by never giving up. I do this by getting my head right and thinking about what I am going to do when I get out. The things that motivate me are I am going to finish high school and graduate in 2012, find a job, and get my car back on the road.

KASHBI

I'm a young African American male from southwest Rochester, New York who has been through terrible things in my life. Lots of murders happened in my only eighteen years. My friend was killed in front of my face when I was fourteen, and I was shot in the leg and shocked by the scene. I never can stop thinking about that day, April 11, 2007. I hate the life I have lived after that day because my life was almost taken, and I think about that everyday. My mother had to raise me all alone for all of my life. My father was shot and murdered when I was young, and that, plus what happened to me, scarred my mother forever. I made mistakes I know, and now I am trying to do something about it. I dropped out of school, and I am pushing to get a GED. I want to look forward to going to college. I want to believe I can go to college. I want an education. I want to work to help my mother with the bills.

What I know for sure, is that Rochester, New York is one-half love and the other half hate. The people who love you are the people who don't laugh if you can't do the steps to get to a certain stage. They help and talk to you about serious things. These people can be close family or maybe even friends. Their love won't leave no matter whatever happens, fights, arguments, or little fallouts.

Hatred can be the worst nightmare. It can hurt, injure, even kill. Hatred can be found in friends and sometimes even family. Hatred is someone asking for help with things like money or relationships, and the next thing you know someone is stabbing or shooting you in the back. Hatred can smile in your face and play a better role than some of the greatest actors in the world.

We have to learn to pick and know who is right and who is wrong to trust. Rochester is not trustworthy so we have to learn to choose wisely.

Give me a chance!

Please give me a chance.

I'm here in MCJ, and I need a way out. I need a chance to live, to become part of my community. I want to see places.

Please give me a chance

to go and make changes to the mistakes I've made.

Please let me not have my mother, family, and close friends worry about me everyday. I tell my girlfriend and my mother I'll be okay, but I wake up in the middle of the night mostly every night and try to read myself back to sleep.

How long will this go on here?

I ask myself this in my head.

Thinking about the outside stresses me and a lot of others here at MCJ. I know everyone makes mistakes, but it's time for a change.

Please give me a chance to do more things.

I want to be around family, but how can I when I'm here? I want to begin to work. I want to try  to get to college. Please help me.  Give me a chance, better yet another shot! Give all us a chance.

CHADMASCA

My name is Chadmasca. I am sixteen years old. I am a young Asian American born in Rochester. Growing up in Rochester was hard. I would go to school and come home and see my mom crying for me. It was hard to see my mom crying for my troubles. My mom had to work and my grandparents didn't want to watch me, so my mom had to give me up. Growing up all I thought was did my dad want me. I was eight years old at that time, I didn't know what was going on.

Living with my dad was harder, and then I got kicked out of my dad's house when I was eleven years old. Ever since that day I haven't seen my sister, about five years, going on six. When I got kicked out I had nowhere to go so I would break into my dad's house so I had somewhere to sleep and to eat. The only person who knew I was doing this was my sister who I miss so much. 

Living was hard. I didn't even fit in anywhere, so I started committing crimes. I broke my family's hearts being in jail. Being in here is so hard, but without money and clothes and food you sleep hungry and you freeze to death. Being in jail I miss the little things that I remember I did with my family.

I want to change. How do I get out of this? I want a job. I want to finish school. I'd like to be an actor.

What about my dreams?

DILLON

See, I am stuck in these four walls,

and my soul can't escape.

My freedom left,

just got up and ran away.

Now I feel blank, a body with no soul

like a runaway kid who can never go home.

My body aches and my knees get weak,

day by day, week by week.

JAMES

Growing up in the world is hard as an African-American male. The reason is because everyone looks at us all the same. People don't really see us. It's like a person judges a book by its cover. I always tell people don't judge someone when you really don't you see them because that person can be the most loving and caring person, and you don't really know them or what they have going on in their lives.

I was raised by my mom my whole life because my father was shot and killed when I was five years old. I saw a car of men get out of a blue car and walk up towards my father's car. He got out, and that's when the shots started being fired. I saw my father running away from the car.

Until this day this affects me, and being unable not to let it show is hard. This is why I think have to prove I'm a Black male who has lots of wisdom and talent. We all learn from our mistakes. I trust no one so my best friends are my pencil and paper. This is the only way I express my feelings.

Through my eyes all I see is jealousy and hatred. Aren't they leading causes of violence in the world today? Me being in jail is a bad thing, but when I wandered the streets I always watched my back and worried about being robbed, shot, stabbed, or even killed. In jail I don't have to worry about this.

No one knows my pains or struggles while I'm in this place but this white piece of paper. I look at it as my closest friend because I can tell it anything without it being repeated or broadcast. Trust isn't a word in my vocabulary because I trust no one and I never know what to expect from anyone.

Being in jail is hard for me, but much harder for my mother. I'm her only son and she can't stand seeing me in this orange uniform. When she comes to visit me, I look deep into her eyes and define the meaning of pain. I see restless nights, bitterness, and even stress. It hurts me more to see my intelligent little sister who was always happy and smiling never smile when she comes to visit. I can almost touch that she stresses and worries about me constantly. I'm tired of telling her lies when she asks me when I'm coming home. I hate for her to know that I'm even in here because as a six year old she doesn't deserve the things she's going through. I sit here in this cold isolated cell daily thinking so much that I'm loosing my mind.

Being able to go to school in jail takes my mind off a lot and I thank the people who invented this program. I see in my eyes that the teachers ask us for a lot but not too much, and I know it's to better ourselves. When I leave the classroom I know who cares about us. When I'm locked in I feel like a ferocious beast in a cage.

Everyday my heart bleeds more pain as I express my feelings on the hurt of people whose hearts I've broken by my decisions.

RICKY

Every day I think about my family, about what they are doing, about where they're at.  Now that I am not with them, it's like my family forgot about me. I haven't had a drop off of clean clothes. I haven't had any money in my account. It might be easier to think your family loves you when you don't know. I tell people to try and call my mom for me because I have no money on the phone. I have been here for about two months now, and I have no family I talk to. I don't know how it feels to have money in your account or how it feels to talk to someone on the phone everyday. My mom left me for dead.

What is being free?

Being free is a lot of things to me. Being free is being able to open a door when you want to whether it is locked or not. Being free is you get to walk down the street without people telling you what to do. Being free is someone not telling you when to eat, when to sleep, when to wash clothes, when to go to school. When I get out I'm going to be free, and I mean no one is going to be able to tell me what to do because I will be free!

I see myself growing into a young adult. I see myself getting out of these bars and dreaming of the stars next to Mars. I see myself graduating and getting a nice job instead of being in a mob. I see myself playing ball. I see myself having a nice car and a nice house instead of being trapped in my life like a mouse. I see myself doing positive things instead of negative things.

I'm back in jail once again, or should I say, Hell I failed once again. My mom told me it was time for me to be a man, but all I feel like is a broken fan that can't score. I feel broken some days. I don't want to move. I'm, back in jail once again.

I am a sixteen-year-old Black male who wants to believe he has a lot to live for. I want to tell you that I am more than a Black male locked up.

I feel like I'm in a cage.

I don't have anyone to talk to on the phone

like everybody else.

I'm just waiting for my time to be over,

so I can go back to East.

' 2011  Arts, Literacy, and The Classroom Community