A review by just_one_more_paige
Bird Uncaged: An Abolitionist's Freedom Song by Marlon Peterson

challenging dark hopeful informative reflective medium-paced

4.0

 
I know for sure that the one and only place I've seen this book is on @thestackspod IG feed. That put it on my radar, but it wasn't until I was shelving books a few weeks ago at the library and it caught my eye on the shelf that I spur-of-the-moment decided to go ahead and check it out. And here we are, after I read it in two sittings, because it was just that compelling. 
 
In this short memoir, Marlon Peterson takes the reader through his experiences growing up the son of a Trinidadian mother and a deeply faithful Jehovah's Witness father in 1980s NYC. From the daily violence of the school and neighborhoods to his very intimate and personal experience being sexually assaulted and raped as a young teen, he gives the reader an unflinching look at the many ways his years growing up shaped him to make the decision to participate in an armed robbery that resulted in two murders. At the age of nineteen, he was convicted, and spent his next ten years in prison. While incarcerated, Peterson became absorbed with social justice activism, education, and abolitionist efforts that would define not only those years of his life, but the direction of his work and life after prison as well. In these pages, Peterson unflinchingly lays out not only his choices and their consequences, but also the variety of cages, both self-inflicted and externally applied, that exist within the reality of American society. And he lays out with deep emotion his reasons, with many credits to the original authors of these ideas alongside his own interpretations and philosophies, why incarceration is neither rehabilitation nor justice. 
 
Oh my goodness. Peterson's narrative voice is visceral and piercing. Starting as early as the dedication page, it just stops you right in your tracks. It is at times repetitive, or a bit choppy and jumps around, but the conversational stream of consciousness and the emotional intensity of his words is a highlight and, once you're adjusted to his style, you cannot help but be deeply affected. Some other literary high points include letters (some to his younger self, one to his rapist, one to "freedom") and quotes that open each chapter, which are in turns tender and heartbreaking and, at all times, incredibly expressive. It is so clear the role that they have had in his personal journey of healing. The inclusion of his own words, poetry and journaling, are exquisite. In particular, the poem he wrote inspired by Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings is stunning, extraordinarily illustrative, a true resistance in words (one of the only forms within his control during his incarceration). 
 
Thematically, of course, this is a very potent and passionate reading experience, with a number of moments and topics that could be potentially triggering to readers, so please be aware of that going in. However, if you are in a place to be able to handle it, it is well worth it. Peterson writes with a very accessible philosophical voice and I want to list out a few of the points he makes (or at the very least, explores) that I was particularly struck by. I'm going to just bullet point my thoughts here, as I jotted down so many reactions while reading through this (honestly quite short) memoir that I'm afraid I don't have the capacity or capability to make them all into a flowing paragraph of any worth. So, here they are: 
 
- Peterson takes numerous predatory “normal/everyday” moments and interrogates why they are normal and everyday, despite their inherent and consistent harm and toxicity (things like violence against women, fighting, gun violence, gang activity, etc.) It's a searing condemnation of the need to take your own pain out on someone else, the longing for belonging and community and safety, and (unavoidably a primary cause) the patriarchy and white supremacy. 
- The concept of disconnecting from feelings in the face of so much daily fear/trauma/unhealthy external expectations (the face you show the world versus the pain you mask), in order to maintain sanity, both prior to incarceration and then reiterated even more strongly as a survival tactic in prison, is terrifying. And explains quite a bit about why/how people make the choices they do. 
- Prison as a crime against the people within. It preys on the mind in a way that, as mental wellness/illness cannot be seen, it also cannot be quantified, and therefore the system can never be held accountable for its crimes, cannot have justice searched for against it. And this applies to all those within the system, both people who are incarcerated by it *and* those who are employed by it. 
- So much gorgeous focus on the saving power of imagination, as a coping mechanism, as escapism, as a breeding ground for hope. 
- The removal of Pell Grants for people in prison is infuriating. Retribution and punishment do nothing to help with “rehabilitation,” plus this further reduces the chance for people to make different choices or work towards a future of greater opportunity, of redemption and contribution and purpose. “Incarceration doesn’t rehabilitate; people do.” 
- Peterson really asks and explores, profoundly, the concept of being defined by one’s worst moment. He comments on, once incarcerated for that worst moment, it is extrapolated onto every decision made and every potential action taken, always with the worst assumptions at the forefront. And he includes how that affects a person's internal and self-views as well, and how that encourages growth and “rehabilitation” (spoiler: it does not).  
- Even after prison, there are myriad mental cages, the feelings of being trapped, stuck in only negative self talk and self awareness, because how does one balance being both a perpetrator and a victim? 
- Addressing the specific issues of toxic masculinity and patriarchy, as it complicates all these things even more for Black women, was an important acknowledgement. Along these same intersectional lines, I would also have liked at least a nod towards trans populations in prisons. 
- Related to the above point about trans populations, there are a few other intersectionality misses (specifically Peterson questioning if concentration camps could ever rear their heads again), that I felt like did dismiss/ignore the experiences of many peoples who have, or currently are, experiencing realities just like that. However, I will say that, despite that, he does acknowledge his own learning journey, and how it continues and his understandings/beliefs evolve with time, so there is space allowed for continuing the journey, which is key. 
 
The final chapter of this memoir was full-on *feels.* It came hard and fast and was exactly the perfect fierce, furious finish this book deserved. Peterson unshakably calls out America for its falsities and dual realities, while offering what growth into real Justice could look like, if we were just willing to acknowledge the hypocrisy and try to create something new, more inclusive and universally beneficial, in its place. He advocates that we all deserve that kind of freedom, one with no cages, no “prison identities,” whether they be ones we create or those created for us, and calls for us to commit to the education and activism to get us there. 
 
Y'all I spent more time highlighting and transcribing passages while reading this than any book I've read before. This was, as I said, incredibly accessible in its philosophical explorations and narrative voice, and Peterson's personality comes across so strongly through all his words. So, that being said I have a lot of pull-quotes below. Take a peek. And then go read it yourself! 
 
“I wish someone told me that simply moving on was not freedom from the harm felt and seen.” 
 
“Who taught us that there was no sense behind our responses to being treated senseless and empathetically? Survival of the oppressed isn't always logical to the oppressor when observing the oppressed. None of our people are monsters - none. The moment we describe people as monsters we shift human behavior into the realm of the unexplainable. Every act of violence can be explained…” 
 
“Racism is always working, ain’t it; even when you don’t have the data and language to articulate it.” 
 
“By puberty I was committed to notions of manhood that were determined by how much pain I could keep to myself.” 
 
“I had no purpose, and while that's normal to most teens, a purposeless existence in the midst of serious traumas and real concerns about safety can be a poisonous concoction.” 
 
“I was committed to my own demise in the pursuit of safety…” 
 
“Feeling unnecessary is a terrible thing.” 
 
"In life you get to choose your choices, but you don't get to choose your consequences." 
 
“Jail is a miserable place filled with people living through miserable situations, miserable guilt, miserable abuse, and miserable shame. It was hard not to want bad things to happen to people as irrelevant as you.” 
 
** “America harms and sells the lie of the American dream to everyone, including those of us not incorporated in the framing of this nation - women, people who are Black, Brown. America's inability and unwillingness to acknowledge its first lie - the American dream - prevents it from creating a new nation, a new document that is inclusive of the humanity of everyone.” 
 
“You have to be fully aware of your capabilities - good and bad - to understand your power to create a better self-image.” 
 
“But most people like to believe the illusion that prison is the intervention that stops crime. But no, it's getting older, having a sense of usefulness, believing in something you want to live for.” 
 
“We were a medley of people who were usually insecure and rarely certain. We were a community of healers, warriors, jesters, and teachers. We were people broken by experiences, surviving the best way we knew how. We were you.” 
 
“Though some of the world's greatest thinkers, healers, and leaders have spent time in prison, in real time incarcerated people aren't allowed the grace of possibility and purpose.” 
 
“Broken people break people, even those whom they love…” 
 
“Prison is never experienced in a vacuum. Never.” 
 
“Everything about prison and jail is designed to compel worthlessness. […] Feeling good about yourself when you are walking with daily depressions is a revolutionary act in a cage designed to deplete. The shame of the act committed, the guilt of the conviction, the anger of the daily humiliation, the hurt of being abandoned by loved ones, the hurt of abandoning - all of it was so heavy.” 
 
“Prison are flippant with people's humanity, aren't they? They treat people like an illness or a disease. So you get why feeling good about yourself in prison is labor.” 
 
“Whenever you place people together you create possibilities of growth.” 
 
*** “Abolition is a politics of creationism. Wanting to end policing is wanting to create thriving communities that do not need an armed state security force that has no true legislative and judicial accountability. A world without prisons is a root-reckoning of the community problems that preface the prison problems… [...] Abolition is wanting to live without fear. Have police succeeded in establishing societies of safety? Has parole? Probation?Deportation? No. No. No. No. And, no.” 
 
“America’s refusal to listen to what Black people ask, plead, strategize, and demand is the core of the American sickness. Justice is undoing all that is needed to acquire redemption from brokenness.” 
 
*** “But, America believes in armaments more than it believes in its lies of white racial superiority, more than the possibilities of the people here, more than it believes in life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. And in my experience, people cling to weapons when they are scared. I don't know if I live in a terrified nation, but I know that this nation is terrified of people who look like me, which makes people like me terrified of this nation. All of this fear suffocates space for love. Love for others makes you want to undo behaviors that hurt.” 
 
“Prison offers no rewards for being selfless and contributing to humanity and community. Prisons leech time and dignity.” 
 
“Prisons can do this thing where [...] Living with the memory that you were the purveyor of some great harm toward another person or people can have the unintended effect of blinding you to the injustice of being treated unfairly. Critiquing a system for injury can feel sacrilegious and incongruent with accepting guilt for your personal transgressions.” 
 
“America the blighted that loves the brutal bravery of its beginning more than its ideals of justice for all.” 
 

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