Since it is still here, let me elaborate on the winter’s bite of the frosty winter nights within the neglectful walls of the Durham County Jail. As temperatures drop, the brick and metal holds tightly to the cold within the harsh facility. Nothing but a mocking cool breeze blows through the vents of most cells, if any at all, of the Durham County Jail. In the dead of winter, as temperatures decline to 14-25 degrees, no heat is blowing to assure the inmates stay warm. No extra blanket is offered, and any inmate that requests one will be laughed at and declined. Nothing more than an extra thin sheet to keep your teeth from chattering and your body from shivering caused by the bitter cold. And that was just to the women. There can only be hope that the male inmates received the same.

If you are lucky enough to have someone on the outside able to scrape up a couple bucks in this dwindling economy to add to your “books,” you may be spared by purchasing some long johns. For the costly price of $5.98 plus a .02 cent tax, you can buy the top and bottom each for a total of $12.00 even. And even with that you can still catch inmates shivering from the cold that lingers because of the brick and metal building and cells. That is a steep price to pay to still be cold.

I understand that jail was not meant to be a place of comfort, but a place where presumed criminals are held until proven guilty. Unfortunately, statistics show, and my up close and personal experience proves that the majority of inmates that house the Durham County Jail as well as other jails and prisons across the American injustice system, are African Americans males and females. Most of which are being unjustly held with ridiculous unaffordable bonds over their heads, for charges given by lazy harassing law enforcers, who help to continue the injustice cycle.

I can say this with the utmost certainty because I am one of the many African Americans who has fell victim to the unjust American dream. I can bear witness in Durham County alone, that so far, all I see incarcerated in here are a majority of my people. One trip to the library, I had only a glimpse of the many male pods that make up this facility. From my viewpoint, I witnessed exactly what I had always expected; every shade of melanin from our lightest and brightest to our darkest and richest shades and not a single white male. Now, I am not saying that there are none. And there are many pods that I have yet to lay my eyes upon. But one fact remains: jails and prisons all across America hold a majority of young Black African American males. On observing this, once only speculated truth, I was also able to find support for another racial theory. Not only do we populate the majority of the facility as inmates, but as employees as well. And, for some reason, no matter what government position black females hold, they tend to be the ones “power trippin” the most.

Furthermore, just as America would not and could not be that which its greatness is today without our people’s demise, both African and Native Americans, so too would this injustice system be powerless without our help and aid. So now then, whom shall we truly blame? Meanwhile, the inmates in Durham County Jail are still freezing their assess off and suffering the cruel and unusual punishments of the American injustice system before they are even convicted or proven guilty.

• Conscious Mind