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“Raised in the system,” the first episode of the new season of the news magazine of the HBO series “Vice”, gives an in depth look at minor mass imprisonment in the United States, managing a tone as serious and encouraging. Our guide-actor and activist Michael K. Williams, who played Omar on “the wire.” Williams grew up in the projects Vanderveer, in East flatbush, Brooklyn, and visit loved ones at the age of seventeen years. In 2014, when Williams was assigned to the A. C. L. U. Ambassador for ending mass incarceration, he told me about some relatives in the system; in the film we meet his nephew Dominic, who at nineteen was sentenced to twenty-five years in prison for second-degree murder, and his cousin Niven, who entered the prison system at the age of fourteen years. Felicia Pearson, who played Snoop in “the wire” talks about his experiences as a teenager, in prison for adults, and we meet with youth mentors from Richmond, California, and juvenile judge from Toledo, Ohio that help troubled Teens and ex-offenders to navigate their lives. If you happen to associate with Vice-the Kind of work that drew on the times media ridicule David Carr in the documentary “the first page” since 2011, “raised in the system” will be a pleasant surprise.
Recently there was a premiere and discussion held at the gala screening room in a Whitby hotel in the centre of the city. Williams wore a hat, pants with vented knees, and the robe, who said, “trayvon”. He looked triumphant. When the older woman wasn’t presented to him, he gave her a bear hug and rocked back and forth, beaming. Several of the film subjects now—they are mentors, judges, and Williams nephew Dominick as some of Williams’s “the wire” peers: its Creator David Simon, bald and serious, and Jamie Hector, who played drug Lord Marlo, looking serene. Simon shook hands with one of the most influencing characters in the film, an elementary school boy that looks to be the first in his family to “grow and not get in jail.” In the episode, he tells Williams that he hopes to become a family-services workers, so that it can help and motivate children like him. At the screening, he wore a bow tie and bright plaid suit, and he often smiled.
The United States is definitely the highest rate of incarceration of minors in the world. As the episode begins, Williams is visited by a group of teenagers at the Bon air correctional center for minors in Virginia, which is very similar to an adult prison. He asks them how they’re doing, and they say to him: not so good. They sound measured and reasonable, sometimes expressing hope, but most have a flat look dejected. Some commit serious crimes, some less serious. A young woman named Danielle who has committed an “aggravated malicious wounding in 16 years,” the screen says, and who had weapons, robbery and auto theft—will serve thirty-three years. “Part of me is glad that I’m trapped because I can get my shit together,” Williams says. “But it’s not thirty years to get your shit together.”
The documentary acquaints us with the legacy of the nineties—draconian crime policies, talk about juvenile super-predators—killer clips of the rhetoric of politicians, ranging from newt Gingrich to the Clintons; the policy at that time led to harsh sentences and gloomy institutions, which are often not the rehabilitation of offenders or reducing crime. We also see progressive and truly delight, modern programs that aim to keep kids out of jail, and we learn about brain development in adolescence and their role in behavior and decision-making. If the movie doesn’t have any incidents, it may be one or two too many shots of Williams is looking for the grave and moved. But he’s such a cute character and his emotions are so clearly authentic, that we forgive it.
After the screening, Williams spoke with author and activist Wes Moore, C. E. O. “Robin hood”, a non-profit organization that aims to fight poverty in new York. “Poverty-to-prison pipeline is not just a pipeline,” said Moore. “It hyperpyra”. Much of what he and Williams said that he received applause, or felt it necessary. “I’m just doing what grown man, especially from my community, needs to do,” Williams said, his activity. “We are losing a generation of the human race”.
The talk turned sharply to arms. When the poor district is awash with illegal weapons easier to obtain, but not to trace because of inter-state lax laws and the absence of a national database—this gun is a recipe for disaster, Williams said. When he grew up he continued, “the biggest, baddest gun on the block .45-caliber. If you have a Glock 9, you are the Almighty God.” The crowd laughed. Now, Williams said, there is a new term in the poor neighborhoods—the“spray”—because the weapons were more powerful, more automatic, and more dangerous. “These young guys in Florida, in the Park—I can’t tell you how thrilled I am by them,” he said. “And I say it’s about damn time that we have a national conversation about violence with a firearm. I say Welcome to the party, because he was from my community for decades.”
Williams and Moore ended the discussion of poverty and mistakes that young people, especially in a crisis, can do. “We are criminalizing of adolescence,” said Moore. “Yes, we do,” Williams said. But working on “raised in the system” had encouraged him. “I went to this movie, feeling helpless and hopeless, and not knowing what I could do,” he said. “The genocide we inflict on each other, it was very painful. Having met people doing the real work—can I say? I have some PEP in my step.”
Sourse: newyorker.com
