no longer prison numbers

"You become fatalistic when you strive against a monolithic evil. You know that whatever you achieve is pyrrhic, that the system will flourish despite your efforts. And yet, what binds you, what keeps you going, are these relationships. How can you walk away? How can you do nothing? If you stand with the marginalized and oppressed, those whom James Cone calls the "crucified of the earth," and are defeated, have you failed? Or do you succeed by being willing to make that journey; to show them that they are not not forgotten, not alone? And while the writing of the play was miniscule when set against the vast injustice around us, it was not miniscule to us. The play made human those who had been rendered, often for decades, in human. My students were no longer prison numbers."

~~ from Our Class: Trauma and Transformation in an American Prison by Chris Hedges