sorry all,
i know we agreed to respond as a comment to the blog rather than opening a whole new one, however, I tried to do that twice and each time it told me that "my tag was not closed"(???) basically I lost what i had written twice and am getting a little frusterarted. So I'm going to try a third time....
If I understood the directions correctly, since I went to the event, I am just sharing my thoughts and feelings on it, correct? okay, I'll give it a try:
I went into the "And still we rise" event knowing close to nothing about it, incarcerated individuals or how the prison system really works. When we got there and sat down, Dr. Johnson pulled us all aside and said that there was going to be a question and answser session and the end of the performance. I finished his sentence by saying "so you want us to be thinking of questions to ask?" he corrected me by saying he wanted us to think twice before asking any questions. I didn't quite get what he meant by that until the performance started up. The performance itself was very powerful and moving as formerally incarcerated individuals acted out moments from their lives. I was overwhelmed with sympathy for these people who had been through so much, but I found that empathy did not come as easily. I felt that I could not relate to being in prison for 24 years or being a crack addict that hit rock bottom. I felt very ignorant and sheltered because I had no idea that some people lived like this. When the lights came up and it was time for the discussion, I observed the amount of diversity in the room, I felt that our little section of Siena Bonners was a minority and most of the audience shared that they had similar experiences to those that had just been dramatized. The person that had been standing in front of me in line testified to having a cocaine addiction and was now clean. I was shocked as he shared his life story, and I had been standing right behind him in line an hour ago and knew nothing about his past. Next, a boy behind us, who was younger than me, shared that he was in a program and would be facing some serious jail time if he didn't turn his life around. I couldn't get over how he was younger than me and was facing this kind of decision. The producer, who was also a professional actor, said that as a middle class white man who had never been in the prison system, he found it a little difficult to relate. However, he said that as an actor, he has been trained to "open himself to experiences that weren't his own" and that is what I really took away from this whole expereince. In my life, there are always going to be people that have experienced things that I can hardly relate to, so how could i possibly judge them? I don't know their whole story and have no right to be making assumptions about who they are and what they have done. I can only open myself to their experiences and be and understanding as possible.