jail on the hill. 30 years apart, julien, tommy and i all inherited the same legacy, poor, black, young in a racially hostile country. one of us escaped, the other remains trapped, yet another took his own life. it breaks my heart to know that all over america countless black people, countless poor people, without the power to decide their own fate, are cuffed and carted up a hill to be disappeared from public view. inside, they are stripped of their dignity and denied their humanity. the cumulative cost is enormous. in lost dollars, in lost opportunity, and lost lives. if we allow this cruelty to take place away from our gaze, we compromise our humanity. if we're able to look at it as it is happening and do nothing, we become inhuman.