A' ight... we gonna make a wave like this because if we don't then how else shall we uplift each other and teach a truth to the people. Welcome to The Freedom Meridian. We gonna keep it earth and tap in with a sister I admire and respect through and through. We bout to kick it bout some deep shit that I think would change minds--I'm saying the incarcerated voice is right here and speaking to you in the flesh with love, care, and truth to those who seek it.

I am at the essence house and having an opportunity to sit down with Kwaneta Harris for an interview. She ten toes on her shit. I know when I leave here imma be rejuvenated.

Demetrius "Meech" Buckley

Kwaneta Harris is one of those sparks in our era we must experience. Her articles about abortion, censorship, and climate change demands a revolution on the page; it is alive with activism, love for the people, and a description of individual pain through it all. Harris has appeared in PEN America, TRUTHOUT, Lux Mag, Teen Vogue, Prism and many more publications. Standing tall with an entire industry on her shoulders is pressure. And she from da' way. My home girl putting Detroit on the map in the most intriguing way, and I had to touch down and ask her some questions about how she manages it all:

MEECH: Whaddup Doe', Family! First, how are you doing? I'm happy to be on the phone and kicking it with you.

KWANETA: Excited too, I'm a longtime fan, been keeping up with you and following you. I like the work you're doing.

MEECH: Thank you, Sis. This is different for me so we gotta do it different. I had to pull up on you. First, I wanna know about where this writing strength comes from and when did "it" tug at your core?

KWANETA: I've been writing all my life. I'm an only child, so I didn't have anyone to play with for my entertainment. So writing let me express things that I couldn't say aloud. I had childhood sexual trauma when I was 12... I was playing with my imaginary world in my head so much that my mother would punish me...you're always writing, you ought to be doing some math.

I wasn't able to write when I first got to prison because I was working in the fields. Here in Texas we pick cotton. It was completely different.

MEECH: That's a horrible experience. Having a prison job in the MDOC is a mandatory forced labor; reminds us of something of the past. But let me pivot to this connective topic real quick. There's a crime show wave (docudramas) that are all over the media. This is a subject we unfortunately have in common, being a part of a show without our consent. You expressed in one of your articles that the "media" operates as the carceral state cultural minister? (Your words). Why do you think this is so? From observation what are the effects of these True Crime Shows. And what are the risks in participating in these "true crime" mediums?

KWANETA: When I call the media the "carceral state cultural minister," I'm naming the powerful role it plays in shaping public perception of justice. These true crime shows aren't just entertainment; they're propaganda machines for the prison industrial complex, creating spectacle from our trauma while reinforcing narratives that justify mass incarceration.

The damage runs deep. For those featured, our lives become entertainment, our worst moments frozen in time. I've had six shows made about me without my consent, while you've had one. It doesn't get easier. We become defined by a moment, not by our growth or complexity. Our families suffer too, children bullied at school, parents unable to escape gossip, partners left to rebuild lives under a spotlight they never asked for.

Society absorbs these distorted narratives as truth. They reinforce stereotypes, especially about Black and Brown people, while treating crime as an individual pathology rather than examining systemic causes. These shows rarely follow up on the aftermath, the impossible reentry journey, the permanent barriers to housing and employment.

Look at Larry Miller, who went from incarceration to becoming Michael Jordan's global brand director and Portland Trailblazers president. His success was only possible because he kept his record hidden in pre-internet days. Now? Every Google search becomes a permanent sentence beyond your legal one. These shows ensure your punishment never ends, that your worst day follows you forever, making true rehabilitation (as defined by the state) nearly impossible in a society that defines you by your mistake rather than your potential for transformation.

MEECH: How do you feel about policies and voting certain people in to change these policies pertaining to the prison industrialization, climate change, and immigration laws?

KWANETA: I'm disheartened because as long as we have Citizens United, the Supreme Court decision treating corporations as people with free speech rights, allows unlimited political spending. Corporations will primary candidates to fulfill their economic wish lists. These will always be counter to the proletariat's well-being.

The PIC is a perfect example. Private prison corporations donate millions to campaigns, then those elected officials pass "tough on crime" legislation that fills beds and shareholders pockets. Climate change policies follow the same pattern. Fossil fuel companies fund candidates who block meaningful regulation. With immigration, detention center corporations profit from policies criminalizing migration. The fundamental problem is treating public welfare as a market: prisons, healthcare, education, these shouldn't be profit centers. But our political system is designed to protect profit over people. Voting matters, but we need to understand its limitations within a system where money dictates policy.

But I have hope in grassroots organizing, community bail funds, mutual aid networks, immigration advocacy groups working outside electoral politics. Change happens from the bottom up, not the top down. We need both electoral strategies and community-based alternatives that model the world we want to create.

MEECH: I agree. And this kind of points to those coming up in the next generation; they new lawmakers and policy writers: our children . Let's talk parenthood. I remember reading an article of yours about parenting from prison and trying to connect with your children though teens aren't fans of letter writing. What was your topics in the letters? And does that loving nature carry over into your inside relationships with other's incarcerated?

KWANETA: My letters to my children were filled with mundane questions that felt like lifelines. I craved to know the everyday details of their lives, their friends names, their favorite foods, their shoe size. Those simple things parents normally know became precious treasures I had to beg for. Teens aren't great letter writers and the disconnect was heartbreaking. I wanted to know what music they were listening to, what shows made them laugh, what teachers they liked, all the small things that make up a life I was missing.

That loving nature does carry over into my relationship with other incarcerated women. Inside, we create family where there is none. I find myself asking the new women the same question about their children, their lives before, their simple joys. We share photos of family milestones we missed, trade stories about our children's accomplishments. We celebrate each others kids birthdays and comfort each other through the painful silences when calls or letters stop coming.

The mother in me recognise the child in everyone here. Many women are still traumatized children themselves even those in their fifties. I've learned about seeing someone's vulnerability and holding space for it, exactly what I wish I could do for my own children during the separated years.

MEECH: We talked a little about movies, but I may have asked you in a weird ass way. What movie influenced you at a young age? One of those movies you and your friends quote lines from? Do you use movies to communicate an experience?

KWANETA: Black movie classics shaped my understanding of the world and still gives me language when words fail.

Imitation of Life - taught me about passing, privilege, and the complexities of racial identity before I had a vocabulary for those concepts.

Sugar Hill - showed me Black power in ways my neighborhood didn't.

Purple Rain - was liberation, possibility, breaking boundaries.

New Jack City - gave us a vocabulary. my friends and I still say - "Pretty mutha f**a - when someone's being arrogant.

But The Color Purple - remains the soul language of Black women experience:

All my life I had to fight

You told Harpo to beat me?

I just lay there and let Mister get on top and do his business.

These lines capture generations of survival. In here, movie references become shorthand for complex emotions. When a woman returns from a devastating chaplain visit, sometimes all you can say is:

But I'm here Celie

And she knows you're telling her she'll survive this too. When dealing with a particularly cruel guard, a whispered:

Harpo, who dis woman?

Can break tension with needed laughter.

MEECH: You are a reader of books, mags -- you love to read. If you have any in mind and are able to share, what book(s) have you read that has been banned or blacklisted? Or do you know any books you'd like to smoke over, a book that is on the restricted list?

KWANETA: I read so much it's hard to distinguish which book I should share. I just read Usual Cruelty by Alec Karaskatsanis, All Our Trials by Emily Thuma, Cannibalism Capitalism by Nancy Fraser, and How to Sell Out: The Hidden Cost of Being a Black Writer by Chad Sanders.

But the Banned book that has stayed with me is 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene. I memorized it over twenty years ago when I stole it off my second husband's nightstand. I used those methods to survive my abusive second husband, my egocentric colleagues, and perverted CO's. Its the most banned book in prisons. It teaches strategy, and the system doesn't want us strategizing. It wants compliance. Greene's laws about concealing your intentions, keeping people dependent, controlling the options. These are the very tactics used against us by the system itself. The powerful use these methods openly while preventing the powerless from even reading about them.

What's telling about prison banned book lists is what they reveal about institutional fears. Books on Black history, CRT, and strategy are disproportionately banned. They don't want us contextualizing our experience within historical systems of oppression. Knowledge is power, and censorship is about maintaining power.

MEECH: I wanna ask you for some advice, some info I can pass down to the younger brothers coming inside. Is rehabilitation real? A lot of programs inside of prison are in place to program the incarcerated to be completely docile. If we are stripped from our manhood, our pride, our ego, how can we ever fight for ourselves, our family, if we are constantly following another's regime?

KWANETA: No, their version of rehabilitation isn't real. This conditioning, especially for Black men. As I mentioned before, you can't begin to explore this without historical context. The prison rehabilitation model is rooted in the same logic that justified slavery and convict leasing that Black people, specially Black men, need to be controlled, disciplined and made docile.

Look at the language: corrections, reformatory, penitentiary - all suggesting something fundamentally wrong with us that needs fixing.

The programs treats symptoms - addiction and anger - without addressing not cause (systemic oppression, intergenerational trauma, economic abandonment).

Many of the programs are indeed designed to strip manhood, pride and ego to literally emasculate Black men. But you have to provide historical constructs. Its important to help develop critical thinking skills that allows them to recognize the difference between institutional narratives and historical reality. First, they must understand how stereotypes serve power structures.

Additional advice for younger brothers coming inside:

Dominant cultures benefit from population that don't question established narratives. When people accept information (Brainwashed Emasculating Programs) without critique, it's easier to implement policies that will not serve their needs.

They must learn to distinguish between compliance and surrender. Sometimes you must comply to survive, but never surrender your inner self.

Maintenance of Racial Hierarchy: These narratives that position Black men as *dangerous* to White society, especially White women, creates fear that justify violence, legal oppression. This is the foundation the programs are built on.

But WE do need a healthier concept of Black manhood. The number one non-medical killer of Black women isn't car accidents like other groups. It's Black men. This statistic highlights the complex interplay of historical trauma, structural racism, and internalized narratives. Ain't no damn program addressing these aspects. The people who create these programs aren't steeped in our history or culture. It's as the Chinese call it when they do it to the Uyghurs, re-education. Personally, I feel it's a form of cultural genocide and indoctrination to both Uyghurs and incarcerated Black men.

The solution is to self-educate on topics like toxic masculinity, patriarchy, capitalism and healthy relationships--priceless. But it's essential to approach these topics with understanding of how they intersect with race and America's history (addiction) of controlling Black bodies and minds.

My brother, when you help others navigate these mandatory programs, the key is teaching to understand the required material while maintaining critical awareness of its limitations and biases.

Remember: Our people perish for lack of knowledge.

Lastly, remember the system wants you to believe your incarceration proves your unworthiness. Reject that, your worth is inherent, not earned through "good behavior" or program completion.

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Kwaneta Harris is a former nurse, business owner, and expat, now an incarcerated journalist and Haymarket Writing Freedom Fellow. In her writing, she illuminates how the experience of being incarcerated in the largest state prison in Texas is vastly different for women in ways that directly map onto a culture rooted in misogyny. Her stories expose how the intersection of gender, race, and place contribute to state-sanctioned, gender-based violence.

Harris’ writings have appeared in a wide range of publications including Solitary Watch, Cosmopolitan, Rolling Stone, The Marshall Project, Scalawag, Prism, The Appeal, and Teen Vogue, among others. She writes on Substack at Write or Die.

Demetrius Buckley’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in the Michigan Quarterly Review, where he won the 2020 Page Davidson Clayton Prize for Emerging Poets, Apogee, PEN America, and RHINO. He is the winner of the 2021 Toi Derricotte & Cornelius Eady Chapbook Prize. He is an inaugural inside editor of Freedom Meridian at Apogee Journal.