Angela Davis coined the term, "Walls Turned Sideways Are Bridges", regarding people incarcerated. We somehow think by building walls it will keep everyone safe not only do we think it will keep everyone safe somewhere in our mind we think that it helps. I don’t know if we ever realized that most people behind the walls will eventually come home, at least one time in their lives, (let us not focus on the recidivism rate right now, there's a reason for that) however how will they be once they reenter society when they have been behind walls without access to the real world prior to coming home. Let us image in our own lives, how we continuously put walls up to protect our emotions and mental state after a breakup, friends you told your intimate secrets to, that talked about you behind your back, co-workers that conspired against you so that you weren’t next in line for that raise or your so called boys who got up on the witness stand and pointed directly at you and said you did it. Most of us build up walls but is that truly effective? When we build walls we keep all kinds of things out of our lives, new friendships, new relationships, new careers and new opportunities. When you turn those walls sideways, bridges can be formed. Men and Women who are incarcerated need to become accumulated to entering the world again and to bridge the communication with their family, jobs, education, housing, etc., prior to being released. I wholeheartedly believe that this will make us safer and less recidivism will occur. Walls are designed to keep people and things out; bridges are designed by definition for the purpose of providing passage over the obstacle, usually something that can be detrimental to cross otherwise. If we keep building walls instead of bridges we will have more people in this world with harden hearts, instead of hearts filled with forgiveness. Harden hearts makes us angry, compulsive and to have an I don’t give a care type of attitude. Image all the possibilities if we were to turn those walls sideways and make them into bridges instead, how much further along would we be?
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