Sitting in the law library
listening to Jay-Z’s “Reasonable Doubt”
trying to find a way
to explain away
my reasonable doubt
in this system of punishment
and what it is all about
I waive my right to remain silent,
stand tall, act up, and get violent
We’re not buying the way it’s all marketed
Like a bullseye, I feel targeted
Is it justice?
Or is the problem really just us?
Lock us up
throw away the key
then you will never have to hear our plea
for justice and equality
We put it in the NFL
and on your TV
so you can see
that we will not stop fighting
until we are all free
I look over at the prosecutor
and the judge
They don’t look like me
They don’t represent my community
There is a lack of diversity
My only similarity
are with those found guilty
Unfortunately
that is how the system
was designed to be
Our destiny from the creator
was to be cheap labor
since 1776
How should my generation lose their rights?
I’ll let you pick
Republish this article
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Here are our ground rules:
- You must credit Prison Journalism Project. In the byline, we prefer “[Author Name], Prison Journalism Project.” At the top of the text of your story, please include a line that says: “This story was originally published by Prison Journalism Project” and include a link to the article.
- No republishing of photographs, illustrations or graphics without specific permission. Please contact inquiries@prisonjournalismproject.org.
- No editing the content, including the headline, except to reflect changes in time, location and editorial style. For example, changing, “today” to “last week,” or San Quentin to San Quentin, California. You can also make minor revisions for style or headline size, and you can trim stories for space. You must also retain all original hyperlinks, including links to the Prison Journalism Project newsletters.
- No translation of our stories into another language without specific permission. Please contact inquiries@prisonjournalismproject.org.
- No selling ads against our stories, but you can publish it on a page with ads that you’ve already sold.
- No reselling or syndicating our stories, including on platforms or apps like Apple News or Google News. You also can’t republish our work automatically or all at once. Please select them individually.
- No scraping our website or using our stories to populate websites designed to improve search rankings or gain revenue from network-based advertisements.
- Any site our stories appear on must have a prominent and effective way to contact you.
- If we send you a request to remove our story, you must do so immediately.
- If you share republished stories on social media, please tag Prison Journalism Project. We have official accounts on Twitter (@prisonjourn), Facebook (@prisonjournalism), Instagram (@prisonjournalism) and Linked In.
- Let us know when you share the story. Send us a note, so we can keep track.