After college, I moved to Michigan and enrolled in a master’s program for social justice while working full-time. Toward the end of the program, we were required to read A Place to Stand, Jimmy Santiago Baca’s bracing memoir of life in prison. That book knocked the wind out of me. I had heard stories about innocent men going away and their harrowing experiences of life behind bars. But even though Baca did in fact commit the crime that sent him to prison, I couldn’t stomach the life he described. As I read about the violence, the abuse, the pressure of always being ready to defend oneself, all I could think about was Dalin.
Dalin and I never became close over the years. He was pursuing a rap career, and studio time required a lot of money, so in order to fund his passion, he sold drugs. It was a bad time to start that kind of a career. Around the time my cousin was emerging from teenager to adult, President Clinton signed an act that called for mandatory minimums for multiple drug offenses, and police departments around the country started cracking down on nonviolent crime. In Black neighborhoods, it was impossible to be a young man of Dalin’s build and not get pulled over by the police on a regular basis. He was strip-searched in the streets. He was assaulted by officers who enjoyed his humiliation. And he was arrested…a lot.
When I came back to town for the holidays, it was not uncommon to hear Dalin was behind bars. But in years when he could join in the festivities, he was a doting father, thoroughly enjoying the spunky antics of his daughter, who was just learning to walk and talk. When Dalin was home, nothing else mattered—we bowed our heads and thanked God that we had one another.
When I heard Dalin received his third strike, I wasn’t sure how to take the news. This wouldn’t be just a short stint. This meant a mandatory ten years away from us—the equivalent of my entire high school and college career plus two more years of adulthood. How could anyone process spending that much time in prison for a nonviolent offense?
By the time I enrolled in my master’s program and read A Place to Stand, Dalin had already been away for a few years. As I turned the pages filled with solitary confinement, violence, and hallucinations, I kept asking myself: Is this what Dalin is experiencing? Is my cousin learning these rules, fighting to survive the politics of prison? Does he spend his days trying to avoid violence from fellow inmates or guards? Does the staff keep his mail from him as punishment? What is happening to him? Is this what it’s like for everyone inside?
I hadn’t reached out to Dalin since he went to prison. I wondered about him, but I wasn’t sure how to ask about his incarceration. I knew my cousin’s crime wasn’t violent, but I didn’t know if we were going to talk about it. Could I ask my aunt how he was doing? Did people visit him? Was this a family secret, or was it okay to talk about openly? Every now and then I got up the courage to ask my father about Dalin, but the answers were usually short. I let the subject drop. I think my father knew more than he was telling me.
After reading A Place to Stand, though, I decided I wasn’t waiting anymore. I would reach out and try to start a relationship with Dalin. I wasn’t going to wait for his release, or keep my childhood hope that one day life would bring us together. I would step into the chasm between us and hope he would join me there.
I researched how to send a letter to someone in prison, and then wrote it painstakingly. My handwriting has never looked better. I told Dalin about life since the last time I had seen him. I was married now and living in Michigan. As a hobby, I had started researching our family history, so I told him the things I had discovered about our grandparents and great-grandparents. How our great-grandfather was missing a big toe; how even though he could have passed as white during the war—with light skin and blue eyes—his draft card listed him as “colored.” I told Dalin I was thinking about him, but I didn’t include the words I love you. I was afraid he would laugh. I knew I deserved it.
Even as I sealed the envelope, I wondered if the note would reach him. Then I wondered if he’d bother to respond, since I hadn’t talked to him in years. I didn’t know, but I had to try. I put it in the mail and waited. I waited so long, I almost missed his reply.
Weeks later, the post office clerk set the letter on the counter between us. My hands trembled as I picked it up and walked to my car. What if he was offended and just wrote a one-word response? What if the letter was just a monologue handing me my ass for not writing a long time ago? My eyes watered as I read the first line. “Yo, Cuz. Yeah I was surprised to get your letter, but we family so its all love.” And then, having absolved me, he went on to respond to everything in my letter, concluding with details about his life inside and hopes for his future after his release. Turned out he already knew about our great-grandfather’s missing big toe. Apparently he’d asked about it when he was a little boy, but no one had ever satisfied his curiosity. I smiled, imagining tiny Dalin boldly asking about this missing body part and being completely dismissed by the adults. That sounded accurate, but also like an era that was long gone.
I don’t think I’ve ever felt more overwhelmed by another person offering me mercy and love. I was so excited. I would finally get to know my cousin. I sat down and immediately started the next letter.
I don’t know if he ever got it. He died in prison just a few weeks later.
It took hours of calling the prison officials through tears before they told my family what happened. Dalin and some of his friends had been in the yard one day when rain and thunder broke out above them. The men were residing in an honor program, in a separate part of the facility. Though the general population had received the warning about the impending storm, those living in the honor program had not. As the storm grew worse, turning into heavy rain, the men tried to come back inside, but it was too late. Lightning struck and Dalin was gone.
A few days later, we sat waiting for Dalin’s wake to officially begin. Pictures from his childhood scrolled across large screens, and I placed my hand on my Bible with his letter tucked into the front. To this day, it is a constant reminder of who my cousin really was—funny, merciful, hopeful, connected to our family history, and wanting to come home. I glanced at his handwriting and cried.
Seven days later, I was standing in church when the anger hit me. The pastor was “opening the doors of the church”—the moment in a service when the minster invites people to become members of the church or recommit their lives to Christ. The Sunday after Dalin died, a young man, about thirty years old, came down front. He spoke with a minister for a couple minutes, then, as was customary, the pastor shared a little bit with the congregation. The young man had just been released from prison. He’d learned about Christ while inside but wanted to make another commitment to God as he started his life again. The church roared in approval, and the man’s ten-year-old daughter raced down to the front and into his arms. It was so beautiful. And it pissed me off.
I didn’t understand why Dalin hadn’t gotten another chance. Just days earlier I’d watched my aunt tell her granddaughter that her father had died, that he was never coming back home. She would never race into her father’s arms again.
As the rest of the congregation rose to its feet, praising God and encouraging the family, my legs started to give way. Fury flooded my body. All I could do was lean into the wooden pew and cry. God, why did you take him? Who else was I going to blame? My cousin hadn’t been killed in a fight; he was struck by lightning, and I believed in a God who controls nature. A God who could have saved his life. What the hell?
My anger didn’t scare me. The Bible is filled with stories of God handling anger from people far more important than me. I needed to let someone have it. God was there.
But when I was done fuming at God, having cycled through my grief, I still had some questions: What was the state’s responsibility to those who are incarcerated? How many unjust interactions with police had Dalin experienced? How did I feel about laws like mandatory minimums? The questions kept piling up. As I began to study the criminal justice system in relationship to the Black community, I was forced to ask one more question: What did my theology have to say about Black lives that don’t look like mine?
Dalin’s death challenged me to expand my understanding for racial justice. I could talk all day long about the injustices within the Church, but I needed to be able to speak to the realities of Black life beyond my own privileged experiences—my private white Christian education and ministry life. Most of all, I had to reject the notion that my cousin’s life was somehow less valuable because he did not meet the “Christian criteria” of innocence and perfection.
Even as I write these words, I am bracing myself for the reaction of those who will not care, those who will tell me that Dalin’s death is his own fault. They will spit out the words drug dealer, just as they spit out the word criminal. Maybe they’ll call him a thug, a nigger, or tell me that the world is better without him in it. But the one word that will go unspoken is the word black. Underneath all the other hurtful words, this is the one that whiteness really wants to spew.
Whiteness has never needed much of an excuse for our deaths.
Accused of looking at a white woman. Resisted arrest. Scared the officer. Thought he had a weapon. Had a criminal record (that the officer knew nothing about). Looked suspicious. Looked like someone else.
It doesn’t really matter. At the end of the day, Blackness is always the true offense. Whiteness needs just a hint of a reason to maintain its own goodness, assuring itself that there’s no reason to worry, because the victim had it coming. He was a drug dealer. A criminal. A thug.
We don’t talk about white drug dealers this way. We don’t even talk about white murderers this way. Somehow, we manage to think of them as people first, who just happened to do something bad. But the same respect is rarely afforded to Black folks. We must always earn the right to live. Perfection is demanded of Blackness before mercy or grace or justice can even be considered. I refuse to live this way.
All those years ago, I learned in church that Jesus understood the poor. Because of Dalin, I realized that Jesus also understood the accused, the incarcerated, the criminals. Jesus was accused. Jesus was incarcerated. Jesus hung on a cross with his crime listed above his crown of thorns. It doesn’t bring Dalin back. But it matters to me that my God knows what Dalin’s body endured. Suddenly racial justice and reconciliation wasn’t limited to Black and white church members; it became a living framework for understanding God’s work in the world.