A Letter to a Dear Friend and Comrade, arrested December 16, 2011, for being a black man and political dissident in Oakland.
(For more info: here’s a short interview with Kali and background on his unlawful arrest)
…
Dear Kali,
I think about you every day. Nearly every day for a year, I’ve written to you. It may seem odd then to admit, there is so much I wish to tell you, but when I sit down to write, I struggle. Often, I am unable to finish my letters. Today, is no different.Every day, there is something that makes me think of you, things I cannot wait to tell you about.
But, at some point while I’m writing, I hit a wall. It’s not writer’s block. It’s more like an emotional wall. I often end up censoring myself, not out of concern that the state will read and censor our letters, but because every time I sit down to write to you, it’s a battle not to be overcome with the sea of accompanying emotions - the pang of sadness and rage regarding your current circumstances and the injustice of it all. But, I don’t want that to be what I send you. I don’t want that to overshadow my love for you and the joy and happiness you have brought into my life. Yet, not writing from the heart seems disingenuous and, no matter how painful, I would never want to withhold the truth from you.
So, instead of sending you these daily letters that end awkwardly or abruptly, I got into the habit of writing my journal entries to you. Somehow, writing to you that way seems less daunting. Do you know that I have a stack of letters to you that I’ve yet to send? The letters I ultimately do send to you, like this one, are pieced together from that journal.
Speaking of honesty, I lied earlier. Today is different.
I don’t know if you’re even aware of the date or its significance. But, maybe because of that, I can’t seem to stop writing. What little time I’ve spent in jail and my letters exchanged with you and other inmates has informed me that prison blurs time. A year ago today was when OPD ripped you away from us. They have since transferred you hundreds of miles away to serve out the remainder of your sentence, yet today I feel closer to you than ever before.
All week, even as I’ve been sick and in and out of sleep, I couldn’t stop thinking about you. Even in my dreams, you appeared.
So, today, I write to you from the bench where I last saw you as a free man.
Today is also different because I’m not just writing to you. I want the police and city council members responsible for your unlawful arrest to know that we have not forgiven nor forgotten their actions. I am writing to keep my promise to you that others hear of your story and hopefully feel moved to do something… as you said, not just for you…but for everyone else like you who is suffering at the hands of this corrupt police department and the treacherous prison industrial machine.
More than anything, I want you to know that you are not forgotten. You are not alone.
I love you.We only knew each other for a few short months before OPD ripped you away from us, but in that time, we placed our lives in each other’s hands and forged a trust that I’ve shared with few in my lifetime. The arc of our relationship might baffle some. After all, much of society would have it that we would never speak much less acknowledge each other. And, that likely would have been the case had it not been for that beautiful community that we gave birth to in front of City Hall. Like so many, last fall brought us together and forged a relationship more meaningful than any words I might try to use to describe it.
That night when you offered me your blanket - one of the few material possessions you had left in this world after having been attacked and robbed repeatedly by OPD - I knew you were also offering me your heart. I hope you know that when you wrapped that blanket around me, I pulled that blanket close to me and held it next to my heart in more ways than one. I still do.
I know you have your own theory as to why we were brought into each other’s lives. Whatever the reason, call it fate, divine intervention, or what have you, I am grateful.More than anyone I’ve met, you’ve taught me about “solidarity,” a word that usually makes me cringe whenever I hear others speaking of it or attempting to deconstruct it…and about being a “comrade” despite so many tossing that word around so haphazardly. As you have told me, our happiness and survival have been bound up in each others. I am still struggling to find the words to express how much you have changed my life for the better, how you’ve challenged me in such beautiful, wonderful ways, how you have stretched my heart…and how it’s killing me to see what the system seems determined to do to you.
With the significance of today’s date and the new year just around the corner, I find myself reflecting on all that’s transpired since last December. I remember the first time I got to visit you a few weeks after they took you into custody. You told me how floored you were that anyone was even showing up to court for your hearings, much less writing or visiting. That morning, when the guards came to wake you and said you had visitors, you confided to me that you were shocked and asked, “What’s a visitor?” I fought so hard to hold back the tears then and even more so every time I reflect on that moment.
Despite having spent upwards of half of your life in prison, you told me that you’d never experienced this kind of support. As if I wasn’t already in tears, Kali, you blew me away with what you said next and what you’ve continued to remind me anytime we write or whenever I can come visit. “Don’t make this about me. I’m OK. I’ve survived all of this before. I appreciate this, but this is about everyone else who’s suffering like me… This has to be about everyone else, if it’s going to mean anything at all.”
This was before we’d even launched an all out campaign to put pressure on the DA and Santa Rita for denying you your meds. For all you knew, you were going to be charged with a 3rd strike and likely facing 25+ to life. As it became clear that with continued pressure, they likely wouldn’t charge you with a third strike, hope set in and that light at the end of the tunnel made things harder. I remember how wonderful and yet utterly painful our visits were then. I could see it in your eyes even when you hadn’t yet found the words to express how this weighed on your heart.When you heard of our mass arrests on J28, I remember our pained conversations as you spoke about that day with excitement and frustration. We recalled the beauty of the fall and the burgeoning community down at OGP as well as all those subsequent cold winter nights together out at OGP, wondering where the hundreds and thousands had gone.But with J28, suddenly, you could picture us all spilling out of the plaza and into the streets.You couldn’t wait to get out then and said as much. I remember joking that the news coverage of us and our 400+ arrests was one of the best messages we could send to you. You were so animated when we talked about it, but I knew it also pained you not to be there with us on the “front lines.” I reminded you then that you were very much on the front lines and that inside or out, we would remain in this fight together.But you finally said what your eyes had been telling me. You confided that anything less than 5 years and you’d agree to almost any deal they wanted, even though we all knew in our hearts that you should never have been locked up to begin with. It was killing you not to be with us, to be kept in isolation. I had to cut you off. I knew they were recording our conversation, but really, it just hurt too much to hear you say this. After all, you’d have been released on your own recognizance and a free man if the courts hadn’t discriminated against you for being houseless! They weren’t willing to see or understand that you are loved and have a community and a home with all of us.But you were arrested on bogus charges for being black and kept in custody because, on top of that, you were a political dissident.They didn’t want to acknowledge the beautiful person you are but were hellbent on making an example of you and punishing you for a past you had already served time for and from which you were working to break free.And, the truth is, what they were and are doing to you got to me. Our letters and conversations with each other mean so much. I treasure them, but they break my heart over and over.
I trust my heart and my life with you and I know that I don’t have to say it, but I will fight with/for you for as long as I’ve got any fight left in me.
I hope that every day, as I strive to keep my promises to you, you know that you continue to be a source of strength and inspiration for me.
In love and in struggle,
nae
