Excerpts from "True Notebooks" by Mark Salzman

So I just finished this book by Mark Salzman, which is the true story of how he got guilt tripped into starting a writing class at a juvenile hall in California. The majority of his students have been charged with murder. The following excerpts stood out to me. The first is just a series of dialogue, while the second was written by one of the inmates.

“You preachin’ to the choir,” Toa said. “I got dealt shitty cards just like you, but it’s how I played em got me in here. Whatever you into, you in it by choice.”
 “So you sayin’ we deserve to get locked up for life for one mistake we made?” Victor asked, getting heated up.
 “I’m sayin’ if you want the benefit, you gotta face the consequences. Same goes for society. They want the benefit of lockin’ kids up and throwin’ away the key? They playin’ they cards wrong. They gonna face the consequences.” 

"Amerikkka hasn’t been the America we were promised. For centuries Amerikkka has been spitting in our faces and making this world a much better fucked-up place. Instead of colleges, more schools, and programs to help those who need help, they spend all our money on more penitentiaries and everything else to keep us away from perpetuity. Instead of dealing with the problem, they figure keep us away in solitary for a long time will solve the problem but it just creates more habits. They have been hiding our history for years and teaching us false information about the past and our ancestors. Fuck Amerikkka. Treat us with disrespect, switching the situation against the world. Now we hating." -Dale

Anger

People have said to me in the past that I’ve no reason to be angry. Like people who come from intact families and weren’t ever abused or anything don’t have problems. This always frustrated me to no end, because who is anyone else to judge my life from the outside and come to a conclusion that I’ve got nothing to be angry about?

But for as long as I can remember I’ve held this deep-seated anger, this rage, and only certain circumstances bring it out. I don’t quite know if some activating event triggered the rage, and it’s been with me ever since. Or maybe it’s just always been there, the way that some people are just innately drawn to liking school or painting. Maybe I’m just wired to have passionate emotions.

One thing that’s for certain, my parents were ill equipped to handle me. Despite fulfilling all my survival needs and trying their god darn damndest, they were just completely clueless when it came to supporting me emotionally or validating my ever-changing feelings. And how could they know? How could they possibly become in tune with what I really needed, if I was always pushing them away? Years of isolation signaled to my parents that I was better off working independently, and now, I don’t know who to be more angry with. My parents, for their flawed perception and lack of persistence? Or myself, for always being too afraid to ask for help.