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| Cyntoia Brown |
There is this young woman that was the victim of sex trafficking. Cyntoia Brown was the victim of sex trafficking at 16-years old. She met a man named "Cut Throat", who pimped her out, and sold her to a man named Jim Allen. She murdered Allen, while tricking with him at his home. Having thought that he was going to shoot him, she killed him and was convicted of murder. At 16, I didn't understand much. I wasn't sexually active, but many of my high school friends were and my two best friends were being abused by their boyfriends. One of which 33 years later has become empowered and one that is still stuck in the world of abuse. This young woman got out in the worst way, but now she has to get out the worst way.
I spent four years in prison, with women who were there, because of a man. I was there, because of a man. He wasn't my man, but he is now. I had to go to prison or he lost his career. I had to go to prison, because if I didn't he could. The same people who rail roaded me, could do the same to him and he could take my place. I met my girl, Ranya, who did a similar thing with a drug case and had given herself for her man. He had already did a bid and another would mean more years than she wanted him to do. Rita went with her man and has never been home, again, since going to talk to the police. She is slated to never go home, because Rita got LIFE. LIFE stands for never, ever going home, again without clemency.
There has been a law passed that is supposed to stop Cyntoia from getting such a hefty sentence. Only the State of Tennessee has said that she has to do 51 years, before she can be allowed to come-up for parole. It's not necessarily that she will go home when she is 71-years old. She will be eligible for someone to hear her and deliberate to see IF she can go home! There is a chance that Illinois will get a kind governor who will allow for clemency or a sentence reduction. The chances of that happening are slim. Most states are regulated by their voters, and most people do not care about prisoners. Reading this story, I discovered that Cyntoia had run away from home. An enlightened voter would think, "That's what she gets for running away." Bad choices don't make for wrongful punishment". She made a bad decision, but not onto losing the bulk of her life. Especially, when she was duly abused, manipulated and taken advantage of by a man. "Cut Throat" used her for his own causes, and she was a victim of his abuse and addiction.
Women are being victimized. We are being raped and sexualized and demoralized, everyday. I even think that Sarah Huckabee is treated badly some days. We are powerful, but it seems in the world of men, and women that want to prove they are equal to men, we get the shaft. Why should a woman in a vulnerable position be punished so drastically, when the man she murdered was also committing a crime? Prostitution is a crime. When you seek not only to hire a prostitute that is a crime, but then wanting a under-aged prostitute that is another crime. There should be some leniency for the child. With so many young women being sold it's so hard to say that she's not a victim of this new wave of crime in America. Drugs were used to make her submissive, and drugs can also impair your judgement. Why can't anyone in Illinois see that she shouldn't be in prison so long? Is it because she is a woman of color? Is it, because they don't believe her? How much time is enough time for a child?
Alicia Famiano is my friend. I left her in Huron Valley where she has been for 16 years. She killed a man that was sexually assaulting her. Never having been in trouble, before, she got LIFE. Remember, LIFE means forever. You will never go home. Her son and mother comes to see her, a lot. Her son is a brilliant child that is half-Black. Famiano is Italian. She used to plant our flowers in RTP, and she did a very good job. I used to talk to her and she was very calm. She felt that if she really thought about her situation she would lose her mind. So, unless pushed to her end, does she have a tendency to explode. Kind of like her case. She once told a woman, "Look at me, I'm here for being abused and fighting back. If anyone should be going crazy it's me. I should be losing my mind." I wanted to tell her that she was in RTP and she at some point had lost her mind, but I let her have her moment. I really like Alicia.
This blog is not about Cyntoia, but about women that I know. Women that have been victimized by men that let them take the blame, because they were cowards. I had a man that told me years ago that when you are an addict, a woman is a commodity. He said that when he was broke, he could always send his woman out on the street to make money to buy drugs. God forbid she ever got tired, he said that he would punch her in the eye, "There was something about the eye", he said. Once he hit her in the eye, she was always willing to go out in the street and make his money. As a survivor of the Oakland County Jail, I know how relentless a man would be that wanted to sell you for money. At 10, I wore a pair of shorts and a t-shirt that had a man staring at me all the way down the street. Believe me, I get our worth to men. When we agree to sacrifice our freedom for love, sometimes it's not by choice. Sometimes, we are beat down to the point that we haven't a choice and that's when it gets bad.
What if we get tired, and the man has told us that it's no good. We can't just walk away. If you walk or run, I'll be right behind you. Sometimes, and this is sad, women just want a man to "act right". She'll stay, as long as he stops beating me. As long as he stops making me use so many drugs. If he, if he, if he? That's who he is and that's what you have allowed him to be. My brother beat me so bad, the first time he discovered he could and I almost killed him. To this day, my mother can't forgive me for stabbing him. When I was younger, my father used to beat her all the time. He beat her, even after he left and moved in with another woman and her children. She fought him back with all she had. As a child I saw her, and I fight back, now! I would never tolerate that from a man, but I would allow one to lie on me and send me to prison and forgive him. Both in my opinion are forms of abuse, but when is murder acceptable. For me, it never is, but at time it's a "Life or Death" situation and you are forced to make a split-decision. In your eyes, it's "do or die". When someone dies, someone has to pay? Why? If you make a bad choice, and break the law, you lose your rights; right?
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There is a precedent in America that women can be victimized and physically tormented without repercussion. Men rape us at alarming rates, kill us in alarming rates and abuse us, too. When we fight back, then we become the bad guy. It was the anniversary of "The Burning Bed" last week. A woman whose abusive husband refused to let her go, she burned him up, while he slept. For women, that may be the only way to get any kind of peace of mind. When a man tells you that he'll never let you go, but refuses to allow you any solace it's hard. You feel trapped and sometimes think that taking your own life is the only way to recapture who you were before them. I know that Oakland County Sheriff's Department employs abusive men. So, women of Oakland County are at risk. Then they are selling them in the jail's clinic and putting them at risk even more. They have women judges giving them lighter sentences for their prostituting. And giving no action to women like me who don't want t be a prostitute. Beauty is painful!
I remember, Mrs. Dudley saying that the women in jail were growing. She had been working as a turn-key for 45 years. She said that at one point there was only 90 women in the Annex. Men took up more than 75% of the Annex. Now, women have not only taken over the Annex, but they have been forced to open the second floor. Laws have been changes, such as "Driving with a Suspended License" that lock women up. Shoplifting, simple assault (fighting) and minor drug offenses and uttering and publishing, have become reasons for women to be locked up. Crimes that when Mrs. Dudley first became a deputy, weren't crimes that sent women to jail. Take away women in jail for those offenses and the jails would be empty. Getting caught prostituting, gets you 90-days and is the most prominent offense that women commit in Pontiac. Women are now a commodity and the idea that they can make deputies money is key to many criminal arrest in Oakland and Wayne Counties. As a woman being targeted in this County, the police have been able to abuse their power to a degree that they put me in jail for doing nothing.
Judges rarely make choices based on what they want to do. They answer to those who helped put them in office, and if they have secrets. Someone doesn't want Cyntoia out of prison. It could be for lots of reason, but what I do know that it is unfair. Not only is she subject to abuse by a male-driven judicial system but a female, homosexual incarceration system. It's not the men in jail that are now subjecting her to sexual abuse, but female guards that insist that she has sex with other women to get by. Plus, we don't know why she left home and it could be worse than the prison system. There has to be a call for justice that includes the men of America. The women can't fight this battle alone. They have to open up a discussion about how women are done wrong, because they aren't able to protect themselves from the abuse that men have the potential to inflict. Moreover, when we ask for help, we have to be able to get that help and not be afraid or ashamed that we made a bad choice. The "Good 'ole boys Club" has got to close and the "Loving Men's Club" has to open up. I pray that a man will hear my call.
