Free Your Mind

By Ronald "Madd Ronald" Chatman, for Streetgangs.com Magazine
March 19, 2003

Freedom of speech is a Constitutional right (here) in the U.S.A. and it should be a God given right worldwide (but it is not). Freedom of expression should be a world right. The only that I am truly free is whenever I have the opportunity to write. Writing to me is mentally sexual, it gives me the ability to share my energy with others and bring their minds to points of climax and satisfaction, with my words and feelings. As a student of philosophy and a lover of poetry my views are always, .outside of the box.. To publicly view me in my uniform (dressed in red) you would grab your purse, you.d lock your car door, you may even get a sense of fear. I fit the basic profile of a Blood, so you may take one look at me and say that I belong in a place like Soledad State Prison (been there done that) or Pelican Bay State Prison , under maximum security, or in the S.H.U. program. To talk to me is to realize that I belong among philosophers, poets, innovators and the great thinkers of the new millennium.

I.ve only attended city college (L.AC.C.) for only a few semesters so I am no scholar but, I have been to some of the greatest institutions of learning that a man could ever walk through, places like C.T.F. Soledad State Prison, Solano State Prison, California Men.s Colony, or Corcoran State Prison (just to name a few. When I.d first gone to prison, I was 20 years old. One of the brothers at Soledad told me that it is true that we are in an institution. Then he proceeded to tell me, how this ugly ass penitentiary can be an institution of incarceration or an institution of education. I was so gone on getting my Blood on (gangbangin.), that it was two prison sentences later (at California Men.s Colony) that I had suddenly understood what he had meant. That was over the course of 24 more months of my life, in which I had read three books each and every week for the course of 104 weeks. I had actually read more books in the course of that sentence than I did in a prior sentence when I when I had ended up in Soledad's hole (o-wing) in 1988.

Also as a student of life, I find that I have some of the most intellectual and educational conversations amongst the most alienated in society (those that are referred to as winos and drug addicts). We must remember that a mind is a terrible thing to waste. Free your mind and say what you feel like saying without censorship or judgment. You might feel like saying, .fuck that shit!! I.m tired of being quiet!! Fuck the war, fuck going back to Iraq to get shit right when our shit ain.t right for us down here in the hood. If it was up to me President George Bush and Saddam Hussein would go head up in a death match on pay-per-view and all of the money raised would be given to the poor and starving people of the United States and Iraq. Socrates always challenged fellow Athenians to think about virtue and improving their souls. Socrates was arrested on false charges of impiety and corruption of the youth, convicted and condemned to die. Free your mind, and express yourself, the way you do if you.re sitting in a cell, walking the track, behind the wall, in the hole or anywhere waiting on a date. Fuck that shit!! The Prison Industrial Complex is exploiting prison work and paying slave wages for industrial work. California has the highest incarceration rate in the world. More than 626 out of every 100,000 Californians are incarcerated. Free your mind if you are over worked, under paid and you are tired of the boss talking shit all day. Sometimes enough is enough and we are not going to be disrespected or unappreciated anymore. Free your mind if you are in the hood (slangin. and bangin.) doing what you.ve got to do to get by.

O.G.B Madd Ronald knows what it is like, I ain.t mad at you. Fuck that shit!! We are tired of fighting and dying we want to live and love (Bloods,Crips, Hispanics, the entire human race for that matter. In 2002 Los Angeles lead the murder rate in the United States of America with more than 600 and some odd murders. This is not Tienamen Square (China). I can stand at the steps of the Whitehouse dressed in red, with my homies representing Rolling Twenties Bloods, with my middle finger in the air, saying to all of the politicians, .fuck you, you are not representing my vote properly,. without being run over by tanks or shot down by the army. My 1st Amendment rights protect me, Freedom of speech, the right to assemble, and the right to advocate for change. Constitutional rights cannot be suspended even during a state of emergency or wartime. Free your mind if I.m not the only person who thinks that no one should be without food, shelter, or proper medical care. The homeless problem in L.A. is ignored. People are sleeping on bus stops, under freeway overpasses, in the middle of sidewalks also in the L.A. River. Free your mind, if you love the women of the world the same as I do, for their true beauty, intellect and sincerity. As men we must accept the women of the world as our equals. There is nothing more beautiful than a woman that has her confidence intact. .Kind words are the key to the world, use them right and they will open many doors.. Plato said, .the feeling of wonder is the mark of the philosopher; philosophy has no other beginning than this.. Free your mind if you are tired of the police shining bright ass spotlights in your face, and on your house, always asking stupid ass questions like .Where are you going? Or do you live here.. Free your mind if you are tired of always hearing the police chief talk shit about the gang members. He compared us to Al Queda, and called us terrorist. If that.s true, Raphael Perez proved that Hitler.s Nazi Gestapo is operating in full effect in the name of the Los Angeles Police Department.

If Tom Ridge and the Office of Homeland Security ever interrogate me about being down with the Rollin Twenties Neighborhood Bloods, before they realize that I am bound by blood, to all of my blood brothers from coast to coast through blood, that is what makes a family of many become one, and I am sworn to silence or death (on the .B.). I.ll plead the first, fourth and fifth Amendments of the United States Constitution. The First Amendment protects the right to advocate for change, the rights of groups and individuals who advocate for changes in laws, government practices and even the form of government. The Fourth Amendment protects, the right to be free from .unreasonable searches and seizures.. The Fourth Amendment is supposed to protect your right to privacy. Without a warrant police officers/gov.t agents are not allowed to search your home or office. Police officers or government agents are entitled to frisk you. A frisk is a pat down outside of your clothes. The Fifth Amendment protects the right to remain silent, in the face of questions posed by any police officer or government agent. Then I.ll say, .am I under arrest? Or am I being detained?. they.ll say .no.. I.ll say .am I free to go?. They will have to say, .yes, you are free to go.. My last words to them will be, .alright then Blood 20 minutes..

A great rule of philosophy is that, we must agree to disagree, they must agree that I am within my Constitutional rights. Free your mind, if you are a slave just the same as I am, yes I said a slave. I am no longer bound to shackles and leg irons on my person, but I am aware that I do wear them on my mind. I am socially enslaved to a culture of murder drugs and destruction. I am mentally enslaved to dislike others that look like me for their differences. Willie Lynch made a speech on the banks of the James River in the year 1712. He had a strategy to control black slaves, by making them not trust one another. The last part of that speech said, .my plan is guaranteed, and the good thing about this plan is that if used intensely for one year the slaves (themselves) will remain distrustful forever. I still walk through the hood walkin. that walk, talkin. that talk, you know what that talk is, .what.s up Blood? What that Rollin 20.s .B. like? The parting of company used to be made by words like, alright then Blood. Now it ends like alright then Blood I love you 20 minutes. I hang in the hood on a street corner talkin. with the gang members and transients, but I belong in a sidewalk seat at a coffeehouse (like Starbuck.s), discussing intellectual topics like existentialism, the existence of God, or the theories of knowledge, having educational debates about people like Karl Marx, Denmark Vessey, Nat Turner, Malcolm X, and Mussolini just to name a few, but I guess I.m stuck here 27 years and counting, breaking the chains, seeking liberation, and freeing my mind of the discontent and resistance that in my world is known as gangbangin'.