“Are we going to continue to think only of ourselves… or are we going to fight for a better future?”

Letter from a Prisoner:

May 8, 2017 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

Editors’ note: This correspondence refers to a letter from Carl Dix of the Revolutionary Communist Party, in which he called on prisoners to speak to the situation facing the youth in Chicago. The latest print issue of Revolution newspaper also includes a letter to prisoners on the situation in Chicago, “There Is a Role for You to Play in Turning This Shit Around” (available online here).
Last night I received the letter from Carl Dix. My response to this letter is to tell the youth out there that whatever beefs you have with whomever you have them with are short-term. What do they get you anyway? Killed? Incarcerated? As a teenager myself I had a lot of the same beefs. With opposite gang affiliates. With people of other classes. With people I just didn’t like for whatever reason. Violence never got me anything but violence. It got me targeted by the police and eventually it got me a 24-year prison sentence. I’m almost through that sentence and all I can think now is that I wish I’d had a way to obtain some clarity on things, a way to understand things in a deeper, more meaningful way.
All I ever wanted was destruction, because I believed that was all the world was worth, all that I was worth.
Through communism I’ve found that to be fake. We can hope for more because more is achievable. It won’t be easy, or even pleasurable, because nothing worth having is that simple. To get to the place we want to be, to attain the pleasurable, we must be willing to sacrifice in the short-term. Maybe we won’t even see the benefits, maybe our children won’t, but their children could, and their children, and generations beyond them. Are we going to continue to think only of ourselves, only of today and tomorrow, or are we going to fight for a better future? Fight is the imperative word. It’s not easy but if enough of us come together, the outcome will be worth it.
A Comrade in the Struggle