Letter to the Judge by Kameron Abram

Kameron Abram

Letter to the Judge

The ConTextos Authors Circle was developed in collaboration with young people at-risk of, victims of, or perpetrators of violence in El Salvador. In 2017 this innovative program expanded into Chicago to create tangible, high quality opportunities that nourish the minds,,expand the voices and share the personal truths of individuals who have long been underserved and underestimated. Through the process of drafting, revising and publishing memoirs, participants develop self-reflection, critical thinking, camaraderie and positive selfprojection to author new life narratives.

Since January 2017 ConTextos has partnered with Cook County Sheriff's Office to implement Authors Circle in Cook County Department of Corrections as part of a vision for reform that recognizes the value of mental health, rehabilitation and reflection. These powerful memoirs complicate the narratives of violence and peace building, and help author a hopeful future for human beings behind walls, their families and our collective communities.

While each author’s text is solely the work of the Author, the image used to create this book’s illustrations have been sourced by various print publications. Authors curate these images and then, using only their hands, manipulate the images through tearing, folding, layering and careful positioning. By applying these collage techniques, Authors transform their written memoirs into illustrated books.

This project is being supported, in whole or in part, by federal award number ALN 21.027 awarded to Cook County by the U.S. Department of the Treasury.

Letter to the Judge Kameron Abram

To Whom It May Concern: You are the line between Slavery and Freedom. The person who determines whether we are bonded by chains or given another chance at life. As I stand before you, a man with a life just as valuable as your own, I am forced to leave my life in your hands.

As a Judge you don’t get to see me for who I am. You see the image of me that is portrayed by the State. Whether I am a first time or repeat offender doesn’t matter. If they label me a menace then a menace is what you see. Knowing who I am behind the scenes is completely off-limits to you.

Since you aren’t allowed to know who I am outside of the courtroom, allow me to give you some insight. Before my innocence was tainted, I came up in a family home with both of my parents and three other siblings. I was a straight - A student in school, always landed on either the A or B honor roll. I had friends and could go outside most days and enjoy myself.

I was young but I wasn’t oblivious to the fact that my Mom and Dad were sick, both diabetics suffering kidney failure. I saw the pain in their eyes daily and always hoped they would be better soon. Not knowing that these sicknesses were so deadly. It wasn’t until the day I woke up and my dad wasn’t there that it finally hit me, and life started going downhill.

My Mom told us he had a stroke in his sleep and from there he had a seizure in the hospital and took his last breath. Hearing that he was dead and wasn’t coming home broke me down.

I was still young and so death hit but I didn’t know how to handle it. At the funeral I felt like I couldn’t cry so instead of crying I played the shoulder to cry on for my Mom and siblings. I told them to be strong cause we’re my Dad’s soldiers but on the inside I was losing the fight.

Seeing my Dad in the casket I didn’t even know the words to say. I just took a mental picture of his face because I knew I wouldn’t see it again for a while.

My Mom was like the chain link trying to keep the family together but it was already too late.

Everybody grieves differently and I feel like everybody leaving home was how my siblings grieved. I was the baby so I stayed with my mom, she needed me and I needed her. A diabetic with no toes on both feet, suffering kidney failure, and going through dialysis and arthritis, still the strongest woman I’ve known in my life.

My Mom couldn’t work because of her disability so we couldn't keep the family house.

Homeless, sleeping at grandma’s house on the floor or couch, or at another family member’s house, not having no form of privacy or escape to be alone made me mad. I always felt crowded but I was young and couldn’t do much so I would just go outside to get away. Walk around with no destination, so many thoughts running through my mind. What next? What we gone do now? How we gone get money to move? Where we gone go next? It was just a lot to deal with. I started getting mad because I didn’t have those answers, shit I was only 10 years old turning 11.

I felt like I had the weight of the world on my shoulders trying to help my mom deal with those burdens. She was just as sick as my dad and stressing would not make her live longer. She told me to focus on school so I did my best to excel in school to graduate. After a while I started noticing my mom getting worse and deep down I knew it was almost that time, but I always hoped the time never came which was inevitable.

Right after my eighth grade graduation, night of September 25, 2016, my Mom closed her eyes for the last time. I usually rubbed her back until she falls asleep to soothe her arthritic pains. Getting woke out my sleep by her friend telling me she wasn’t waking up and her body was cold put me in a state of panic.

Walking in her room seeing her laying there, all I could think to do was call my big brother. Her friend had already called 9-1-1. I tried calling her name in brief intermissions to see if it was just a joke or something. “Ma you okay… Ma wake up…”, nothing. I got close and tried to touch her, and in a room filled with heat she was cold as ice.

My worst fear man, not no heights, not drowning, not being burned alive. My Mom dying, that’s what did it for me. I had already lost a piece of myself when my Dad died but losing my Mom was the cherry on top. Hearing the EMT say my Mom was gone and watching them try to revive her with the defibrillator made me feel like I was having an out of body experience. No tears just a blank expression, I was traumatized. I didn’t have to tell my brother what happened, he was on the phone crying already. I told him I love him and hung up the phone, walked in my room and sat on the bed staring at the wall lost in my thoughts.

A burden like no other resting on my shoulders like it belonged. Me, a 14 year old boy having to tell the family about Ma being gone. Ain’t that some shit. I could’ve called my other brother but he lived closer so I took the bus to his house. The whole ride there I felt like all eyes were on me, I was at my lowest. Getting to my brother’s house standing at his front door so early in the morning, that eerie feeling just lingered like a dark cloud. I knocked and when he opened the door and saw me he asked what I was there for and why I wasn’t on my way to school. When he let me in I tried to find a way to sugarcoat it but I couldn’t. Everything came back to the same result. “Mama gone bruh,” that’s all I could say and it wasn’t no other way to say it. He looked at me confused and told me to stop playing, so I told him the story of my morning. The look on his face, the immediate pain, the fact that he broke down so hard is what finally made my tears fall. We felt the same pain. His girlfriend and the kids cried too, but me and my brother were inconsolable.

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I went to all of my classes, sat in the corner with my hood on, by myself, headphones on and turned the world out. I had a best friend at the time and we only had gym together. I came late, didn’t change into my gym uniform or nothing. I sat all the way at the top of the bleachers in the corner listening to music. She saw me and stopped what she was doing to come see what was wrong with me. “I’m good,” I know she meaned well but this was too personal.

Seeing my Mom on that table she didn’t even look like herself. Normally she’s full of life, happy, smiling, but on that table she just wasn’t her. We couldn’t come up with the money for a funeral so we had her cremated. I didn’t even get the chance to tell her I love you.

I slowly stopped going to school, I felt out of place. My grades started slipping. My attitude towards everything and everybody changed. I stopped listening to what people told me to do. That was my Mom’s job and can’t nobody take her place. I started staying outside as long as I wanted; I made my own rules. Anybody who had something to say about it didn’t have to see me or be around me.

I world. e h t m f fro ra s el f o f y pain fo m e d h e t s o p l sto ,Ic n d go t a l w it h h e l p ed a e t i d e e o m s t u a u lt ca eg d d if f ic y e d th eed be n a w l a p , g I n d i o e k le s v ert sm o f tr o u b t , in t r o a r te d t o n s t a I l u . a o e h me t s id N o nc in g o u e ke p t o m g a d g e e th sto p p P l a y in g . b le . e m i t n o tr o u d sh o r t n a o p a in h ig h . N

Eventually I had to grow out of that habit because I was getting older and it was time for me to start taking care of myself, and the checks I was getting for my Dad wasn’t enough. Me being young and dumb, I spent my money on all types of stuff instead of saving. So I knew it was time for a job. Some type of income to make sure I have some type of money or something.

I was so invested in staying away from people that I didn’t get a real job. I would help my ex-girlfriend’s dad with work and he would pay me generously. Or I would work with somebody who needed help with anything really, just to keep some money. It wasn’t much but it was something.

Bouncing around from place to place, I ended up staying with my Mom’s best friend.

She said she wanted me to stay with her, she told me she wouldn’t mind it. All she really wanted was the money from my checks, and to treat me like I was a little kid or something. I got tired of that real fast and moved out.

From there I ended up at my Aunt’s house in the Gardens, with my Grandma and my favorite Cousin. This is where most of the bad in my life came from, but it's also where a lot of good came from. I met some people who I thought to be friends until I started to see the real them. My mama always told me “Everybody ain’t your friend.” I wish I would’ve listened back then.

Then I met Niko, he was like the little brother I never had. A troublemaker yeah, but that didn’t change nothing. We was like each other shadow, when you see him you see me, vice versa. His family let me in and my family did the same for him. We ate together, fought together, played the game together. Blood couldn’t make us no closer.

she ol with me like he was so co ng tti ge s wa he t tha the fact I was trying to His babymama didn’t like d told him that I told her an d lie e Sh . us te ra pa se d said a lot of did some foul shit to bait. We got into it bad an the k too he d an ck ba holler at her behind his . s that can’t be taken back rd Wo er. oth ch ea to ff stu bogus

Niko was shot and killed on 130th and Indiana. Waking up and seeing his face on Legal Help Firm wasn’t sitting right with me, I needed some type of confirmation. I ended up calling his mom and she just couldn’t stop crying so I knew my little bro was gone.

Another loss. Why put people in my life just to take them from me.

After Niko, I just gave up on friends. I’m tired of losing people. Ain’t no telling when the next person gone leave too. So I would rather just avoid it all together. I chose to close myself off on the world again, playing the game and getting high closed off in my room. That was how I dealt with all of my problems.

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I guided myself through life, and even though I had support, it wasn’t enough to raise a misguided boy into manhood. I made many mistakes and learned many lessons the hard way, your Honor. Nobody in this world is perfect but God. Everyone has their vices.

So far, I’ve been in your presence once every one or two months, just to get the same results. What’s the endgame your Honor? I know you see me, but do you see me? You smile on the outside while I'm standing in front of you, but what are you doing on the inside? Is that smile the quiet before the storm? The good before the bad? Or are you genuinely considering giving me a chance? Let me know something before my anxiety consumes me.

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Your Honor, I have a few questions that I always wanted to ask the State’s Attorney: Are you proud to say that you see me as a menace and want me imprisoned without knowing who I am, where or what I come from? Is it easy for you to go home to your family knowing that you’re the reason somebody will never be able to go home to theirs again?

Do you know that this billion dollar corporation is what creates the animals and monsters that you want us to be seen as? Being told when we can go to sleep, when we can eat, the small cages that you force us to share with another so called animal. Is this the life you want for your kids? If not, then why do you want it for us?

Your Honor, it devastates me to say this, but I don’t trust you with my life, and it’s not your fault. My life just isn’t safe in your hands, especially when you see how the State labels me. I’m 100% at your disposal. Even if you do decide to throw my case out or send me up the river I may never see you again, but for some reason I feel like you wish that I do. Your motives are unknown to everybody but you. That's what really scares me.

Being a Black Man in America is the hardest thing to be. No matter what we do or how successful we become, we are automatically seen as a threat to the government. At an early age the system already has it mapped out for us to fail at life and end up a statistic, either dead or in jail.

Lives are at stake. Families are being torn apart. Kids are being separated from their loved ones, and it’s all your fault, your Honor. If I’m wrong and you aren’t at fault then who’s to blame? We’re just numbers on a sheet of paper to you. I thought it was supposed to be “innocent until proven guilty” but it feels like I’m “guilty until proven innocent” or “proven guilty.”

Mistreated, disrespected, violated, and Institutionalized are just some of the things we get while being in this so-called “correctional facility.” You would never see this though, because you don’t know what goes down on the other side of the wall.

Subject to everyday violence. Surrounded by people who feel the need to prove how tough they are or how much status they have over the next person. Correctional officers are famous for taking people on the “elevator ride.” Being maced and slammed around for disobeying rules. If you already see us as animals and criminals, why would you expect us to follow them anyway?

My life has been at a standstill for 16 consecutive months. In this time I’ve felt so many different emotions and feelings. Anger towards myself for ending up in this situation knowing that I’m better than this. Disappointed in myself for putting my family through this and knowing I'm not in jail alone. I’ve told myself time and time again that if and when I get out of this situation several changes will occur in my life.

Mistakes are nothing but bad decisions, but there is no person on this planet who makes all the right decisions. For every action there is a reaction. Meaning every choice you make has drawbacks, and sometimes bad decisions are a necessary evil.

At this point in my life there is no room for playing games. I’m a young adult and need to realize that it’s time for me to grow. In order to do that I must leave my past in the past and start from scratch. New surroundings, new people, new habits and new mindset.

re now. The responsibility for My past is what created and molded who I was befo d upon nobody but myself. Any every problem I ever dealt with in life can be bestowe er if I was pressured or not, I have decision I ever made was my own decision, no matt le I associated myself with left full control over my actions so I am to blame. The peop tions of hanging with them when me hanging when I got locked up, so I have no inten I'm let out.

I’ve started getting closer to God. Praying and reading devotion prayers.

Until the lion learns to write their own story, tales of the hunt will always glorify the hunter - African Proverb 2023 ConTextos