Prisons and Immigration

I've been meaning to say something about the U.S. prison system and current immigration policies for a while now. Right now, though, I feel like I'm writing out of the blue, so I'm not prepared to put my heart into this post yet. Maybe I'll get to that certain place you get to when you open up your heart and just write- if I just start somewhere.

So let me start with a few thoughts:

Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses, yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, the tempest-post to me,
I lift my golden lamp beside the door.

When I think about our country, I think about the great ideals that we were founded upon. They weren't perfect. We were, after all, founded upon a time of slavery, of sexism, and on war and territorial expansion. But even with all these caveats, we created a country. It was a country which I think was created for the purposes of aiming for ever higher ideals of compassion and benevolence, with the goal of progressively creating a better civilization and society for us and those after us. It was written, after all, that "all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." Not some, not only citizens, not whites or landowners or those who are educated or Christian, but "all".

I love the inclusive "all" in that sentence. I love the words "yearning to breathe free", and "I lift my golden lamp beside the door." I think of these words, and I get so inspired. I feel full of love and sympathy. I want to get into public policy when I think these thoughts. I want to teach our next generation of students to feel the same way. I want to do something that expresses these wonderful thoughts that were written naught three hundred years ago.

We have come a long, long way since those early days. We have expanded suffrage and granted minorities more rights and liberties and equalities progressively with time. At the same time, I think, we are getting a little bit more isolated. I think a lot of people tend to be drawn into their own little comfortable social circles, and try not to worry about social problems unless these problems directly affect them. I look at capable people who could do some good for this world, and I see some of them distracted by suburban living, by wealth and luxury, by sailboats and video games, by everything other than thinking about what's wrong with our society and working towards a solution. I see people that look down on others, and disparage them, and add to their hopeless situation.

I don't want to disparage these people, and I don't want to say that "if they only knew better, they would think the same way that I do. " I don't think that way. At the same time, I just wish that more people were compassionate in our society. I see compassion as something that's fading away with time. I think of the people in prison, and I ask the question, why do we let so many people rot there, for so long? I think of some people's reactions to immigrants, and I wonder how they have little compassion for people who, just like their forebears, are only looking for a better life? I love Maya Angelou's poetry, especially "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings." I don't want anyone to be the caged bird. But we have so many caged birds. Literally, we have a growing prison population (the highest in the Western world, even higher than China's on a proportionate basis) for silly things like drugs and petty crimes, which are bad, but why aren't we exploring rehabilitation and other policies just like other societies do? If our system's broken, why aren't we trying to fix it? Where is our compassion for our human brethren?

A free bird leaps on the back of the wind
and floats downstream till the current ends
and dips his wing in the orange suns rays and dares to claim the sky.

But a bird that stalks down his narrow cage
can seldom see through his bars of rage
his wings are clipped and his feet are tied so he opens his throat to sing.

The caged bird sings with a fearful trill
of things unknown but longed for still
and his tune is heard on the distant hill
for the caged bird sings of freedom.

The free bird thinks of another breeze
and the trade winds soft through the sighing trees
and the fat worms waiting on a dawn-bright lawn and he names the sky his own.

But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams
his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream
his wings are clipped and his feet are tied so he opens his throat to sing.

The caged bird sings with a fearful trill
of things unknown but longed for still
and his tune is heard on the distant hill
for the caged bird sings of freedom.

What are your thoughts? Reactions?