When I was 13, I was arrested and sentenced to 90 days in a youth detention center (otherwise known as a YDC).
When I first arrived “up the road,” I hesitated when my turn came to undress, squat, and cough because I was menstruating and there was a male guard in the room. He wasn’t looking, but he was still there. Finally, a woman guard told me, “Come on, girl, I ain’t got all day.” That was the day I realized I was no one special, and it took about a decade to regain the little self-respect I had before that incident.
While detained, I surprisingly enjoyed going to the dentist. I had braces, so saying a band popped would get me an appointment onsite within two days. I valued my time in the dentist’s chair because he separated my character from my circumstances, and talked with me versus at me. In everyday life, it isn’t typical for black girls to be supported or esteemed, but this is especially true within the juvenile justice system.
One day, I asked him, “You think girls who come here get the help they need?”
I explained how a lot of the girls had real problems back at home and I wondered how being sent there was helping them. I kept it vague, fearing details would summon too many questions—including names. It took a while for him to answer, but he finally came around and suggested that I just worry about myself because some people will never learn—they’re set on their excuses.
I couldn’t look at him the same after that. I even started judging him for falling for my put-on. As a “delinquent,” you get used to being pigeonholed, but I was pretty good at climbing out of boxes. When I first met the dentist, for example, I changed his mind about me by simply asking which colleges he graduated from and sharing that I planned to go to Georgia Tech to be a computer software engineer. I didn’t really want to; it just sounded impressive.
He didn’t know that a few days prior to my visit with him, I was on lockdown for fighting. Again. I had a pretty bad temper, and it had played a big role in my being sent to the YDC. When two girls showed up at my doorstep strapped with belts, I didn’t call the police. I went outside and stabbed one of them. That’s how the prosecutor explained why my case didn’t qualify as self-defense.
Read the rest on For Harriet.