Desertion
By Brandon Astor Jones
"When I say that we have begun to desert and abandon one another, I mean that African-American men should start refusing to kill and maim each other. No, I am not suggesting that we start killing Caucasian men, instead — quite the contrary. I am simply being honest in my recognition and admission that we do not forgive each other enough." — Irving Elmer Bell
I am a deserter. I deserted my children when they were at the most crucial and vulnerable stages of their lives. I will not try to reduce the magnitude of what I did by citing the extenuating circumstances that accompanied my cowardly actions. No excuses will relieve those daily pains that each of my children went/goes through as a result of my deserting them.
I know the pain first hand because my parents deserted me for the bulk of my adolescent years. I am something of an authority on desertion; my perspective is that of both the deserted and the deserter.
Only one of my children has found it in her heart to forgive me. I understand that my two sons have not. I was almost 40 years of age before I was able to forgive my father. I began to forgive my mother's desertion at age 18.
It took me several years to even begin to forgive myself for deserting my children. It was not easy, but I knew I had to do it. In due course I hope that my sons can forgive me too, not so much for my sake as for their own. I am reminded of the words of an author whose name escapes me at the moment: "Bitterness does more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to the one on which it is poured". In the process of forgiving myself I have learned that those words are absolutely true.
I thank my daughter Lisa Ann for forgiving me. It warms my heart to know that she is not becoming a bitter vessel. Thank you Lisa Ann. I am also sorry that I am in prison and as a consequence restricted from doing all of those fatherly things my desertion has deprived you of for most of your life.
For nearly two decades in prison, I have observed a portion of African-American behaviour as that relates to black men's interactions with one another. Some of us do not forgive easily. Most people know that as a group we forgive quicker and easier than most men in the US. But too many of us lack, it seems, the ability to forgive other black men.
Our inability to forgive is acted out in a prison environment in destructive ways so strange that they boggle the mind (and for reasons as different as the men who entertain them). For example, there is a certain kind of black man in prison who can have an altercation with a white man, but six weeks or months later he is very likely to be on amicable terms with that white man. That same black man can have a similar confrontation with a black man and spend the rest of his time in prison trying to kill the latter for much the same thing he chose to forgive the white man for.
That so many black men are deserting the concept of brotherhood and even sisterhood is easily demonstrated by viewing the incoming visitors' line at any prison in the US. Black men are conspicuously absent in those lines in numbers that give cause for alarm.
I wonder what percentage of those black men who travelled hundreds of miles to gather in the nation's capital have also travelled 20, 50 or 100 miles to visit with another black man in prison. According to figures from the so-called "Justice Department" showing that one out of four of us is involved in the system, it is logical to conclude too that no less than one out of four of those who attended that Million Man March in Washington knows at least one black man in prison.
Those in politics create images of the black man in prison that render us as little more than crazed criminals devoid of humanity, morality or compassion. Then there is the theatre and television industry in its endless depictions of black men, prior to coming to prison, as drug dealers, pimps and robbers.
We are rarely presented as friends, brothers, husbands, fathers or providers. We are seldom shown to be the hard workers who on many occasions paid the house notes, rents, car notes and other overdue obligations for other black men and their families who had fallen on hard times.
Those black men accepted our favours gladly. Now, some of those black men are economically and socially secure in those communities from which we were taken. Yet very few of them will even answer a letter from, write a letter to, accept a collect call from, let alone visit with, another black man in prison.
Why not? Is it really that hard to forgive/embrace us, or for them to see themselves in us?
To those black men who do support and sympathise with black men, women and children in prison, I speak for many when I say that we thank and salute you for your kindnesses and brotherhood. You know who you are, though your numbers are few. Thank you for answering our letters and, via the God in each of you, our prayers. We love and appreciate you.
For some years, I have been corresponding with people around the world. I sometimes even correspond with some of their children. On occasion I am pleasantly overwhelmed by the sheer volume of the mail I get. I love it.
About half of my correspondents have become very much like family to me. There are at least 100 men, women and children in my extended family circle. I have become a better man for each of their presences in my life. None of them are rich, or well off. In fact, some of them are downright poor, yet they continue to write, call (or allow me to call them collect), visit and in general do a long list of other things that constantly impress their love upon me. I try to reciprocate their love in every way I can. Friendship is a very real thing to them.
That is the good news. The bad news is: with the exception of my dear daughter, none of those friends/correspondents are African-American. There are some problems here, as a whole people, we need to address.
African-American men, in or out of prison, need to take the initiative and urgently and honestly admit that we have been at least 10 times harder on each other than any other group on the planet. We have, in huge numbers, in fact and symbolically, deserted one another in very much the same way I deserted my own children 30 years ago. Until we find in our hearts the strength and courage to admit this fact, the only places in which our numbers will flourish are prisons and cemeteries.
I have often anguished over writing this essay because I once feared being greatly misunderstood. I no longer have that fear. As I write this last sentence I now realise, more than ever before, that if I had not written this essay I would be continuing the cycle of desertion.
Post Script: After sending the original draft of this text to my friend in the Netherlands to be typed up, on that very same day I received a letter from my younger son. I have not seen David Astor in 18 years. The letter, in which he expressed his love for me, produced tears of joy and gave me hope that I can be a father worthy of such a son, who loves me in spite of my having once deserted him. He will not become a bitter vessel. Perhaps the example of this son's magnanimous forgiveness, like dominoes (no longer falling but standing in reverse), will cause many black men who have been down for anything that is against us to stand tall with us.
[The writer is a prisoner in the United States. He welcomes letters commenting on his columns. He can be written to at: Brandon Astor Jones, EF-122216, Georgia State Prison, HCO1, Reidsville, GA 30453, USA. For the first time in 17 years, Brandon has the real hope of his sentence of death being mitigated. If you can help by contributing to his defence fund or in other ways, please contact Australians Against Executions, PO Box 640, Milson's Point NSW 2061. Phone (02) 9955 1731, fax 9427 9489. Cheques can be made payable to "Brandon Astor Jones Defence Fund".]