Tyrone Lee Reyes-How Far Away from Humanity We Really Are (May 16, 2020)

To: The Carceral State Project
From: Tyrone Lee Reyes

What are your hopes and fears in the present situation?

What lessons could folks in prison give free world people about how to endure this crisis?

My hopes is that this will end soon. But it is my fear that it won’t anytime in the near future. I hope we will use this moment in our lives to change direction in which we was going before this crisis has beholden us in a state of panic. Now that we’ve had time to reflect, how will we continue? I fear that the majority of us has not learned anything and this was all for nothing. All I ask is that we go back to how it used to be: “reach one, teach one”. It’s time for all of our villages to raise our children again. This crisis has shown us how far away from humanity we really are. There’s no justification as to why we’re the greatest country on earth and we were so unprepared. I understand we do not have a President for the people, but we’re our own state and we should have done better.

It is my hope, that we will learn from this experience and become the Great Lakes State of the Midwest, like we’re supposed to be.

How to endure this crisis, is simple; cherish your family. There’s no secret that family in crisis mode, always come through for each other. However, let it be a building block. Because I hate seeing family go back to being dysfunctional after a traumatic event. Our future generation needs leadership and we’re obligated to give it to them.

From a personal points of view, I speak only for me; People in society needs to give others the benefit of the doubt instead of passing judgments every chance we get. I hear about all of the constant fighting on social media. Instead of talking to someone, people tends to talk to everyone via social media. I know it’s gotten out of hand and we will most likely never ever see any normalcy. It’s sad, but it’s the truth.

People in society and in prison needs to wake up, this is not something that’s happening just to be happening. In my heart, I believe this is a divine calling for us. Over the centuries, God has warned us time and time again, but we keep going against Him. This is a divine plague for us to wake up and understand we are not living accordance to His will. When are we going to realize God is in control of ALL things. Everything happens for a reason. This is a second coming of Noah and the building of the ark. Instead He is using this plague to get its point across. I am begging everyone to get right with God, because this is just the beginning of showing His disapproval of our sinful nature of doing what we want to do.

This is the best advice I can give my fellow brothers and sisters. I don’t ever want to see us have to go through this again. Get right with God and make amends with your love ones. Learn from our mistakes and teach others not to make the same mistakes as you’ve done. Be a positive example and start being a leader. Our future generations depend on us, if we done create a clear path now, they too will be blocked off from succeeding. Look out for one another, help others by picking them up, instead of pushing them to stumble. When one struggle, we all struggle one way or another.