That Bird Has My Wings: The Autobiography of an Innocent Man on Death Row

by Jarvis Jay Masters

We were too young and innocent to be afraid of the strangers who entered the house throughout the day and night.

it is sad childen should not be worried abot this, keep their innocence

How were we to know our lacking everything was any different from children’s lives in other households?

This is the environment they knew as ther norm

had a serious stutter up until the age of ten or eleven, way after I had been taken from my parents. So we didn’t console one another with words as much as by our togetherness.

Biological effect from the environment and parenting choices/style-literte language, no adult conversations

old white woman lived in a house behind us. Every morning she would put food out for us.

Why did she never call cps?

Like the foul smell, the cockroaches were also natural to us.

Normalized to the environment. They did not know anything different

removing a shield

Did they ask him if he was okay with the removal of clothing? Did they tell him what they were going to do before doing it?

But I had a bad stutter.

Living environment hindered his cognitive and literate development

In school, kids told ghostly stories about someone who knew someone who almost got caught by “them.”

Us vs. them dichotomy