**This was written last August after a 51 day lockup which ended up derailing two of Johnny’s courses and cost us thousands of dollars in tuition money. We held off on publishing this article for obvious reasons, but now wish to share it.  The 51 day lockup and investigation yielded no evidence of any wrongdoing by Johnny, but he suffered the scattershot of what others had done.  There was no apology, there was no recouping the lost tuition dollars.  It was just “gee, that’s too bad.” –Tracy

I appreciate all of the prayers, thoughts and well wishes.  I too can appreciate the inquiries and curiosity.  Even after my attorney received assurances from the state’s Attorney General’s office that my blog was fine, I’ve still remained reluctant to write.

In my 48 years on planet Earth I’ve learned one absolute truth concerning human beings: if you want an enemy, simply challenge authority, or tell the truth.  Vital to my future, my family’s future, and to the citizen that I want to be when I return to my community, is finishing my Master’s degree, and being prepared for a PhD program. I’ve been shown by a group of individuals that no matter how conservative their politics, that the education fetus is one that they are not only willing to, but want to abort.

It is fascinating to me that any correctional official in Iowa or Illinois would take personal exception to my blog.  To the chagrin of my academic adviser, who is also one of my mentors, I try to avoid personal anecdote in my writing for several reasons.  The first reason is that I am a scientist who is bound by the facts.  Secondly, I want to be taken as a serious writer, not as some disgruntled convict with an axe to grind.  And finally, precarious is my situation, and it would do no good to ruffle feathers.  Thus my writing fails to meet the mark of my adviser (who is an English professor) because I stand outside of it rather than submerging myself in it.  Then too, she’d rather that I pursue an advanced degree in Fine Arts instead of STEM.  I guess I am just a little more Cornell Belcher-ish than Richard Wright-ish.  But perhaps this present discourse grants her wish.

Some time ago I met a new employee of this prison and the person said to me smiling, “Well if it isn’t the enigma, it’s nice to finally meet you, Mr. Back-and-White.”  The statement sounded so rehearsed that it caught my attention.  It was a perplexing statement of greeting, so after some small talk about math and stats, if there is any, I asked about it.  Did the person think that I viewed everything in terms of race?  Or that my sociology was void of nuance?  Ultimately the answer was one that a former employee had once advised me of, but it had faded into the recesses of my aging memory.  The “Black-and-White” statement wasn’t about me per se, but rather the person’s fellow employees, at least those who had voiced an opinion about me.  I was told that I have either advocates or detractors; no one with an opinion seemed to be indifferent.  There were no shades of grey, it was absolutely black and white, i.e., “That guy is unbelievably bright, we’ll never see him here again.”  Or, “I can’t stand that arrogant sonuvabitch, can you believe the administration is allowing him to do that?”

I know of this dichotomy, and thought that I knew the persons belonging to either group.  The reality of the existence of the latter group recently reared its ugly head, and did so in such a manner that I am left to wonder who is fish and who is fowl (or maybe foul is the word).

Again, pardon me for going light on details because I am attempting to avoid retaliation and further hardship on my family (my blog has a troll–I believe that phrase is a double entendre, making my English professor proud).  The situation took me back to a quote that I often share from Frederick Douglas’ writings:

“…To use his own words further, he said, ‘If you give a n—er an inch he will take an ell.  A n—er should know nothing but to obey his master–do as he’s told to do.  Learning would spoil the best n—er in the world.  Now if you teach that n—er how to read, there would be no keeping him, it would forever unfit him to be a slave.  He would at once become unmanageable, and of no value to his master.  As to himself, it could do him no good, but a great deal of harm.  It would make him discontented and unhappy. (emphasis added)

I will also remind you of something else I often share.  According to the Constitution of the United States I am, in fact, a slave:

Amendment XIII, section 1.  Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for a crime whereas the party should have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States….

When I returned to college, albeit as a distance student, it returned the vision I possessed as a boy (I should say “little boy” , because I am still a “boy” now, remember).  As a little boy I read rapaciously and unrepentantly.  My mom once happened upon me dumbfoundedly reading the instructions from a Summer’s Eve box.  She made me put it back under the bathroom sink and gave me something more age appropriate to read, The Prince, by Machiavelli.  My insatiable reading habits (which one of my nieces shares) resulted in me having an extremely wide scope and view of the world.  But by the time I had reached my 20’s and was in trouble with the law, my views had narrowed to tunnel vision-like proportions.  Yet, the journey that was the road to my Bachelor’s degree, was but a stroll down memory lane–quite literally.  I could quote portions of Homer’s Iliad by the time I was eight years old, or my dad would beat the fuck out of me.  What this post secondary excursion reminded me of is the fact that life is great, life is possible.  I have become “forever unfit” to be a slave, so I act and speak in that manner, often to my own peril.

What I sometimes fail to remember is, according to the aforementioned document that we hold so dear, I am a slave. The place where I presently reside is then, a plantation. From the 400 years of recorded American history we know that it takes a special kind of mentality to run the plantation.  It takes a personality that recognizes when a slave is becoming “unmanageable”, even if that unmanageability is but of the intellectual sort.  He must be willing to take action.

No matter how amiable the person at the top is, there are but so many times that he will step in to save the hide of even his most prized slave.  For the sake of clearly defined lines he must sometimes let the overseer have a pound of flesh, even when the slave has committed only a small, or even no infraction at all. This serves several ends, one of them is that it keeps the morale–not to be mistaken for morality– of his plantation managers high.  Too, it covers and hides the ineptitude of the incompetent and over-zealous overseers by placing the onus on the slave.  Finally, it keeps the slave’s spirit low and assures him of his diminished capacity, even when weighed against the lowbred and low browed.  The lashes I recently received were not of the absolutely debilitating sort, but they were brutal and scar leaving just the same.

I often mention the likes of Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglas, and even Cornell Belcher and Richard Wright. I realize I cannot hold a candle to these people, but I’d like to think I share their desire for justice and passion for egalitarianism. These are the folk upon whose shoulders I stand as I race toward my Master’s degree and eventual PhD. Nevertheless I am acutely aware of the fact that I will never be able to stand next to them.  They are incomparable in stature, they cast enormous shadows, and they were/are people of integrity.  My own stature is unremarkable, a gnat easily escapes the shadow I cast, and in order to lighten the heaviness of the lash–and continue my journey–I compromised my integrity.

I would probably do well if now and again I reminded myself of some numbers I’ve learned and shared.  The criminal justice system employs more than the three largest employers in America.  Further, each of the slaves confined to the plantations that litter the American criminal justice landscape is responsible for creating 1.1 criminal justice jobs each (this does not even take into account the latent jobs created, which brings it up to 1.9). Accordingly it does not behoove the country’s economy to lose too many slaves, as the livelihoods of 2.53 million families , many of one demographic, are dependent upon status quo regarding the number of slaves.  Even the rhetorically inept Donald Trump said as much, so we are keeping private prisons. With that said, if I indeed desire to leave the plantation, I should do so quietly.  That is not to say that “Massa” would not be the wiser, but perhaps he would turn a blind eye to my departure if I do not get the other slaves riled up through readin’, writin’ and ‘rithmatic.

My promise is, and God is my surety, if I am ever excreted form the bowels of this oppression, I will not go quietly into the night.  I will rabble-rouse, scream, shout and muckrake until my voice is quelled, my vitality is deplete, and I am no more…so help me God.

Johnny Pippins