Orange Jumpsuits
by Carisa Wilsie
I stared at him across the table. I was in my black pants and dress shirt. He was in an orange jumpsuit. I used my hands to take notes. His hands were shackled to the table. My skin was white. His skin was black. I was there to evaluate his mental health. He told me I couldn’t understand. I told him he was right—there was no way I would ever understand—but I wanted to try for the purpose of trying to help him. So he started his story.
This wasn’t the first time I had been here. It wasn’t the last either. I worked in two separate juvenile detention centers for boys in Alabama over the course of two years. After reading their files and hearing their stories, I noticed a striking pattern. The white youths had multiple chances, multiple offenses, multiple instances of messing up before they were placed in the detention centers. For the majority of the black youths, there was only one offense, and sometimes it was what many would consider typical teenage behavior. But here they were—sitting across from me in an orange jumpsuit shackled to the table.
It hurts me that the criminal justice system can look so different because of skin color. I’ve heard the argument that they committed an offense, so they are in the wrong. But even when I do something wrong, I’m treated better only because I’m white, and that’s not ok. It’s just not. Period. Often as I dug into the lives of these youths, there was a tremendous breakdown in the family and society—single mothers, absent fathers, kids raised by grandparents, living in poverty, community violence. This would have provided a tremendous amount of struggle for any family, but these things plus other factors our society put into place refused to let the families get their heads above water. I’ve learned from my time in the juvenile detention centers about how much our system has set up our neighbors who are People of Color to fail BEFORE an offense is ever committed.
The real hurt for me as a psychologist is the mental health ramifications that develop for the youths with whom I’ve worked. To look in the faces of those young boys—hurting, crying, confused, lost, isolated, angry, and worst of all, defeated. That’s where it hits me hard. These emotions follow them deep into their lives. These aren’t policies. These aren’t hardened criminals. These are kids. These could be my kids if my kids had black skin. Think on that for a minute.
The real hurt for me as a Christ-follower is that this is not what God intended. We are the ones who messed things up. Did you know there was a Slave Bible? Parts of the Bible, which we believe is God-breathed and the message of eternal freedom for all people, were omitted from the slaves. The Slave Bible was used as a way to teach slaves to read in addition to teaching them the Gospel. But it excluded passages that could lead to ideas of liberation or rebellion, such as the Exodus story. Ninety percent of the Old Testament and 50 percent of the New Testament was missing. That Bible was missing the important verse we all know from Galatians 3:28, "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus." As we’ve been reading through our Bible this year canonically, how would we have learned about God if 90 percent of the Old Testament was missing? Or the life and teachings of Jesus and the first church after the Holy Spirit descended if 50 percent of the New Testament was gone. That’s hard for me to swallow. It sounds like we’ve been part of the problem for a long time. A copy of the Slave Bible was recently on display at the Museum of the Bible:
https://www.museumofthebible.org/exhibits/slave-bible
I wish I had an easy solution to this, but I don’t. But I’m learning and talking to others. I’m listening...really listening. I’m voting. I’m using my expertise to help our youths in Oklahoma get steps closer to equality within our systems. I’m checking my own biases about People of Color. I’m admitting my own racist actions. I’m encouraging others to do the same. We can’t change things if we don’t.
If you want to learn more about these topics, I highly encourage you to watch the film or read the book titled Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson or The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander. After reading these books, we can FaceTime or have coffee in a park while social distancing to discuss what we are both learning.
Author Bio
Carisa Wilsie, PhD, is a licensed psychologist and orphan care advocate. She is involved in state efforts to better the lives of children with compromised beginnings in Oklahoma. She does life with many bright, compassionate and encouraging people who hold her up. She is a wife and also a mother to three who were born out of her heart through adoption. Most importantly, she is a Christ follower and strives every day to live out her unique calling. Thoughts shared here are based out of personal opinion and experience.