I belong in the world doing good things, not in prison. About a week ago, I met this 19 year old prisoner who I decided to speak to. I learned he was in a gang I was formerly a part of, so I began schooling him. I’m trying to subtly convince him being in the gang is no good, but I have to be careful. I got him thinking though. I sacrificed a lot of my college study and homework time to fly kites back and forth with him, because he’s on another company in the back half, and I’m in the front half, so I can’t see him face to face. The 21 year old I mentioned in my last commentary — I had come back to this facility after being away several months for court — I had my eye on him previously too, because he was also in my former gang. So I reached out to him. To my surprise, he left the gang already and opened up to me about how much he wants to turn his life around. He said to me, “I owe it to myself, my grandmother and Shorty that I put through a lot.” He confided in me how his grandmother had died while he was in prison. She was his support base. Now he has no one, and his girlfriend, who has kids, might leave him. This young man is calling out for help, and nobody heard his call, certainly not DOC. But I heard his plea, and I vowed to help him.
I get no accolades for the outreach work I do among young prisoners. In fact, I often get criticized, and I can be disciplined for doing it. I do it because I know how it feels to not have someone really in your corner who will go far out their way for you. Many of these young men are never told how much they matter, so they gravitate to gangs, drugs, and violence to fill a void. I love what I do. It gives my life meaning. Remember, I’ve been in prison since I was a teen, and now I’m almost 40 years old. I can’t allow my life to be some asterisk marked in some prison records. If Governor Cuomo won’t commute my sentence, why get bitter? The value of my life has greater meaning than some politician’s whims, who can conveniently ignore the good I would do in this world. I lift people up, even when I’m down. I will tell you I need all the help I can get. I want so badly for someone to beat down doors for me and hound the media about my story. Until there is a public outcry for me, I will continue to suffer in silence doing the uncelebrated work nobody else cares to do, but that’s who I am.
I believe when others don’t, when others lit profess. This is Dontie Mitchell, better known as Mfalme Sikivu, reporting to you from Great Meadow Correction Facility in Comstock, New York. Follow me on Facebook at Free Dontie Mitchell. I told you all before to follow me on Instagram, but it seems the person I asked to start a Free Donte Mitchell campaign for me on Instagram forgot to do so. This is the kind of support I have. The only person I can say is consistent in their support is my good friend Paul Reem. Shout out to you, Paul, but Paul is 70 plus years old, knows little about computers and social media, and can’t do but so much. I’m blessed to have him, though. So thank you, Paul, only if you were 50 years younger, huh? All right, that’s it. I have to go. Thank you.
These commentaries are recorded by Noel Hanrahan of Prison Radio.
