“I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein’s brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops.”  –Stephen Jay Gould

A powerful statement. Think about all of the human talent never given the opportunity to illuminate our world. Racism, classism, sexism, ignorance, and every other form of ontological othering used to divide society into unfair slices of those deemed worthy of upward mobility and those destined for a path of inferiority and servitude need to be challenged. Let’s face it, our institutions are not “OUR” institutions.  Instead, visionless misleaders act to perpetuate the same old power structures which resist positive change, often in the name of public safety, and yet no meaningful change ever seems to be delivered.  We fork over our hard-earned tax dollars but can’t get our change? It’s frustrating, but it doesn’t have to be this way.

The National Prison Debate League seeks to facilitate the important policy debates which our partisan Congress seems to have completely abandoned. What ever happened to rational discourse in this country? When did we become afraid to accept the best ideas on their merits? How are we to advance human society when we can’t even acknowledge the humanity of those we dislike or misunderstand? A glance within the framework of contemporary American punishment systems reveals that those society judges as “criminals” are, per the 13th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, legally labeled as slaves.  It’s horrifying to think that a person’s humanity can be erased so easily in the name of morality and somehow good people turn a blind eye to the prison walls they drive by everyday never having to see the effects of discarded personhood.

We believe in the power of human potential and at every one of our events the talent and redemptive capacity of incarcerated people is on full display. So many people got to see the bright lights emanating from our comrades within Maine DOC: Victoria Scott, Chandler Dugal, Shaun Libby, Tatyana Tomlinson, Daniel Porter, and Anita Volpe, and they represented themselves and incarcerated people everywhere with great skill and dignity.  How sad is it then that so many good, talented people are destined to die in cages, never making it to a stage to show what they’re truly capable of instead of being forever judged for their worst moment?  In the case of Maine, there isn’t even a parole system! Think about all of the wasted humanity within prison spaces alone and support our work because we are trying to give humanity the stage it deserves to shine again.