I am Izell Robinson, Minnesota number 210006. As a prisoner, I do my best to preserve my humanity, and one of the ways is through writing which has become a therapy allowing me an outlet to analyze and explore my own life and motivate change within my own life, so today I have this piece. It’s a self-analyzation dialogue. It’s a dialogue with the fearful and resistant part of me that I wrote kinda as a journaling piece that I was gonna share.
I, the fearful and resistant part, am here to ensure that you don’t commit fully to a relationship of closeness and love just to be hurt or devastated. I came from that inner part of your conscious, that has said, “Trust and believe very few,” especially after a childhood marked with unresolved feelings around my mother’s death, resentment held towards an absentee father in love with beer and a new family instead of me, pain from physical abuse that I suffered at the hands of adults who I trusted and were supposed to love and care for me, and the hardness and wall of isolation built as a way to keep from being emotionally offended or teased by others.
I have been your truest friend and protector because I have kept you cautious while shielding you from any potentially devastating harm like in your past, because most people who have befriended you wanted to take advantage of you sexually, financially, or in sort of weird, unhealthy way to leave you scarred. But that hasn’t been me. My intent has only been to help you. If you are going to attempt to change me, you first must learn to trust and healthy acceptance. You must discern to know the people that value and care for you.
This was my response to the resistant and fearful part of me. I thank you, fearful and resistant self, for the sense of security you have provided me with up to this point in life. However, it is time that I begin to evolve from my atmosphere of comfort and take some healthy risk. If I don’t change now to begin to build solid, healthy boundaries and expectations on my path to authentically connect with people, I am only going to continue to isolate myself from my own healing.
If change does not occur, I will continue not to know what it means to trust, love, care for, or be accepted by. I will continue to be suspicious of others and guarded, not knowing how much of myself to really give. I will remain lost and content on blaming others for every fault in my relationships or friendships, yet change will help me to recognize and accept responsibility for my faults and lower my expectations of others to a normal practical level as I realize that I can heal through honest and open communication with others, where my emotions can be displayed without fear. It’s my time to grow up and achieve mature intimacy, so thank you, fearful and resistant self, but I have to let you go at this point.
Well, I pray that you took something of value for my words, that you can utilize to join others and I in the fight for a healthy societal inclusion and change along with police and criminal justice reform. I believe the courage of many to take a stand will make a difference, so you and I must be brave in our pursuit to be heard and demand the change we are long overdue.
Once again, I can be emailed through the JPay app or website, just Minnesota state, 210006 for ID number, or you can mail me at Izell W. Robinson #210006, 7600-525th Street, Rush City, Minnesota, 55069. Remember, all positively supportive contact is welcome and appreciated. Thank you for listening, and thanks to prison radio for this much needed platform of linking prisoners with their communities in a healthy way to foster needed dialogue and support.
These commentaries are recorded by Noelle Hanrahan of Prison Radio.
![Prison Radio is sharing an abbreviated version of a press release covering recent racist incidents at SCI Rockview in PA and the organizing to demand accountability. We are reaching out to people incarcerated at Rockview as well as recently transferred folks, inviting them to call, in hopes of hearing commentaries from them.
Benner Township, PA.-
On November 24th, 2023, imprisoned people at SCI Rockview found two nooses hanging in the CO’s office, displayed visibly for many prisoners to see. When the prisoners asked the staff why the nooses were hung, they were told it was a joke.
By December 4th, prisoners filed a grievance to document what they saw, noting that the hanging of the nooses was “unethical, racially motivated, hateful, [a] deliberate debasement of black inmates" and “unsafe for inmates, staff, [and] the whole prison in general.” In the grievance, they demanded that Sgt. Mosser and CO Richard be fired and investigated for a hate crime, and for CO Kirchner to get therapy. Captain Andrews, the head of security, denied the grievance.
The sergeant and COs are still working in the prison to this day, with no repercussions...
As of March 10th, prisoners have reached out to Pennsylvania officials at the Dept. of Corrections in a letter campaign, sending 100 copies of the grievance. Copies of the letter also were mailed to Governor Shapiro, Senator Fetterman, Senator Street, and various advocacy groups. The demands for relief in the original grievance have now become the platform of demands for this campaign. About 20 of the 100 letters were withheld by the prison.
Activists on the outside are joining forces with prisoners to elevate their demands, flooding the phone lines of DOC offices, assisting with outreach to media, and circulating the stories of prisoners who have found unity in opposition to the facility's virulent institutional racism.
In any other workplace, hanging a noose would be grounds for immediate termination. However, Nicki Paul, the superintendent's assistant and "grievance coordinator" informed the public that they self-investigated their staff and found they did nothing wrong.
Read the full article at i
https://conta.cc/4ayDxlB](https://www.prisonradio.org/wp-content/plugins/instagram-feed/img/placeholder.png)