I’ve never felt so ambivalent about a Civil Rights memoir. I read this book free and early, thanks to Net Galley and Public Affairs. It’s for sale now.

At the outset, Peterson describes his early years as the son of Trinidadian immigrants living in Brooklyn. His family belongs to the Jehovah’s Witnesses, and so that is an angle I haven’t encountered before. He describes his brilliance as a student, and the glowing future that has been predicted for him, scholarships, fine schools, and a ticket to the top. It doesn’t happen that way, though. He is involved in a robbery that becomes a homicide, and he wants us to know none of it was his fault.

What?

This is what concerns me throughout most of the book. He describes the limitations on young Black men in America, the limitations of poverty; the racist assumptions; and the “toxic masculinity.” He is sexually assaulted as a youngster, and he considers that an element in his decision-making, the trauma of his past informing the crimes he commits later. He talks about this at length, but I’ll tell you what he doesn’t talk about much. He doesn’t talk much about the near-rape in which his was the pivotal role. He asks a “chick” out, and he and his friends are planning to “run a train” on her. But she is alarmed when she realizes that there are other men in the bedroom where they’re making out, and she gets away fast. He doesn’t recall her name, and he wants us to know he wasn’t that interested in her, anyway. She wasn’t “the pretty one,” she was the friend of the pretty one. And I keep wondering why he includes this if he feels so badly about what he and his homies nearly did to her. He pleads ignorance; he was a virgin. He just wanted to lose his virginity. He had believed she would welcome a roomful of men lining up to use her.

Uh huh.

There are also a good number of solid aspects to this memoir, most of them having to do with the dehumanizing American prison system. There’s not a lot that I haven’t seen before, but obviously, the system hasn’t been significantly altered as a result of the other memoirs that have seen publication, and so there’s a further need for stories like his. He speaks of how, while doing his time, after a visit from his mother, he kisses her on the cheek, and the guards swarm him to check the inside of his mouth before his mama is out the door. I’m guessing that after that farewell, the woman is out the door in a matter of seconds. What would it hurt to hold him there for 30 seconds, let the parent get out of the room, and then check him? It’s little things like this that increase the alienation felt by those that are incarcerated. Other countries don’t do it this way, and you have to wonder why the U.S. has to be so ugly about it. He leads a program and conducts protests while he’s inside, and is successful in making small changes. Other men learn from his work and are improved by it, and that’s something to be proud of.

But back to the robbery. He keeps reminding us that he was only nineteen years old, and I cannot, for the life of me, think why he considers this a mitigating circumstance. Ask a youth psychiatrist or counselor when men are at their most dangerous, and they will tell you that the teenage years are the worst, hands-down, because young men haven’t developed impulse control. And Peterson himself points out, later in the book, that when ex-cons get out of prison after spending a long time inside, they don’t go straight because they’re rehabilitated; they go straight because they’re older, and have outgrown that nonsense. It’s inconsistencies such as this one that weaken the narrative.

Toward the end, he pulls it together and claims responsibility, and he does so eloquently. But it makes me wonder why he didn’t go back and rewrite the earlier passages. Because there are a lot of red flags back there, things that those of us that have worked with at-risk youth know to listen and look for. For example, there are a lot of passive references to his crimes, things that “happened” rather than things that he did, or things that went differently than he expected; there’s an awful lot about his trauma, the environment, and allll the “toxic masculinity,” but thefts, robberies, and the homicide for which he was the lookout man but “didn’t even have a gun,” are given relatively little ink.

I’m carrying on quite a bit about this, but I have seen glowing reviews, and he’s gotten awards for this book, and nobody is talking about the red flags, and so I feel it’s important to mention them. The fact that the book ends with much more accountability is what’s kicked my rating up to four stars.

Read this book, but do it critically. There are lessons here that are intentional, and others that aren’t.

Read this book, because the conversation about policing and incarceration are all part of the bigger conversation about the value of Black life and the inherent toxicity of white supremacy. Our justice system is a weapon and it must be dismantled. America is obsessed with putting Black people “in their place” and often time that means a prison cell or a premature grave or a neighborhood without resources or a city without water or...
•
•
Read this book because it’s good. I do feel that Peterson’s editor let him down because the book can be clunky at times. The ideas are there but the flow isn’t always. Its worth reading because those ideas are a glimpse at where we can refocus our values, toward the people that white America tells us we should throw away.

I thought I would be able to share my thoughts in a nice polished, academic way, highlighting the key themes and ideas expressed, as well as an analytical review of his writing and quotes and notes that I wanted to share. However, I cannot write that type of review. This book hit straight to my heart. I've probably highlighted 75% of the book, wanting to remember his words exactly and the emotions I felt when I read the passages.

I grew up with people like Marlon in my neighborhood. He could've easily been my brother, my cousin, my friend, or even myself. Growing up in Black neighborhoods, the life he details is accurate. I can remember growing up on the Southeast side of Cleveland, Ohio and many of my homeboys was Marlon. His circumstances growing up in Brooklyn, with immigrant parents, is a background that many people I grew up with experienced. Just like Marlon, we could have all been the one to go to prison... we were only a choice away.

Historically redlined, Black neighborhoods did not have vast options for the youth. Your parents worked, maybe 2 jobs. You were a latchkey kid, and you learned how to make dinner by 10 years old. The choices and odds making it out of that neighborhood is slim. Even if you made all the right choices, the color of your skin will create obstacles that you could never imagine happening to you. So when Marlon decided to skip school one day, and finds himself in court being indicted on murder charges, people often wonder how did it escalate to that? Truth is, it doesn't take much to go to prison in a Black neighborhood. All you have to do is just exist. Marlon chose to go left instead of right one day and found himself on the receiving end of a decade long sentence. However, Marlon chooses to beat the odds in prison and discovers his true potential as a prison abolitionist and educator/advocator of Black lives.

Peterson, takes us on a coming-of-age story that is gritty and grimy. We learn about his family and how they influence him and support him. We learn about his educational journey and get a feel for how Marlon grew up. Marlon tells of his frustrations as a young Black male who constantly gets his manhood challenged on a continual basis, and how believed his faith was failing him. We learn about his lack of purpose that he struggled to find as a young adult. He takes us through his decade long prison sentence, highlighting lessons learned along the way.

We learn about Marlon Peterson, the man who has overcome his adversities and circumstances to build a life of justice, liberty, love, and truth. Marlon has a passion for social justice, for prison abolition, for educating, and for advocating. This book really opened my eyes and allowed me to reflect back on my childhood in the 80s and 90s and realize that we were all a choice away from succumbing to our circumstances. It was fascinating to learn about the inner workings of prison, how both the prisoner and the family members do the time with them. How jails/prisons are profiting off Black labor once again, and how reign of power among the COs impacts individuals in custody. Furthermore, White supremacy hurts and destroys and Peterson makes it clear that we need to abolish the patriarchal society that is the foundation of this country.

I'm so glad that I was able to read his book, and it's one of the best memoirs I've read since Kiese Laymon's memoir, Heavy. I see as well that Kiese was an influence on him, and that is amazing to learn. Our young brothers need to stick together, just as much as our young sisters. Together we can grow stronger. Together we can make change! 5 stars.

Marlon Peterson’s 𝘽𝙞𝙧𝙙 𝙐𝙣𝙘𝙖𝙜𝙚𝙙 is a beautifully, comprised melody America needs to learn for memory. It is an abolitionist’s song about freedom, healing, transformation, and justice that can not only change the lives of the incarcerated, but also the vision of America’s prisons and criminal justice system. 𝘽𝙞𝙧𝙙 𝙐𝙣𝙘𝙖𝙜𝙚𝙙 serves as a blueprint for anti-violent activism, education, and prison abolition work with Peterson leading the charge with his powerful, emotional, and endearing plea to release us from the cages blocking our songs.

In this abolitionist memoir, Peterson details his coming-of-age story in Crown Heights by Trinidadian immigrants in the 80s and 90s. The narrative is shaped by years of constant violence, trauma, and secret pain that a young boy and man must carry around with a heavy, damaging, yet proud mask of toxic masculinity. At 19, Peterson is arrested and charged in a felony robbery-murder case and served 10 years. Peterson warns us, “In life you get to choose your choices, but you don’t get to choose your consequences.”

Peterson was advocating inspiration, safety, and worth in a place conditioned to operate like a slave plantation and a perpetual hell on Earth. Instead of becoming the savage prisons intending on making inmates become, Peterson knew he had to scheme the system trying to cage his potential and purpose. Peterson was “somebody’s beautiful bird” and he had to sing his song. Yet, we needed to hear it, too, though. What prison binds you? What song are you holding back? Peterson explains, “What these policy punks don’t acknowledge is that prison is filled with humans who have the capacity to be just as brilliant as we can be dangerous—just like you.“ He doesn’t request your sympathy, but he wants you to identify with the experience of being caged. Make moves to being uncaged and write your own freedom song. Your happiness matters, too.

This freedom song might not break the Billboard Top 100 charts, but I’m quite sure it will top the 𝙉𝙔𝙏 Best-Sellers List this spring. Get your copy in April!

Dwelling in the Rotten Apple, you get tackled/or caught by the Devil’s lasso, sh*t is a hassle” -Nas, The World is Yours

Marlon Peterson’s compelling memoir Bird Uncaged: An Abolitionist's Freedom Song walks us through the tumultuous life of a young Black man navigating masculinity, violence, vulnerability, education and incarceration. Peterson, the youngest child of a Trinidadian immigrant family, grew up in the 80s and 90s in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, which was perhaps one of the more dangerous times in recent memory to grow up in Brooklyn.

One thing that this book reinforced is the ways in which systemic racism and poverty help to create conditions conducive to inner city crime, violence and mass incarceration. From the streets, to the schools to the prisons, every step of Peterson’s life is affected by systems which disppropiatenly affect Black and Brown people as well as the poor.

Yes, personal choices matter. But in the case of Peterson and many other young men of his time, his choices are affected and severely limited by the system which he was born into.

This book also highlights trauma, and the ways in which the trauma of Black youth is often overlooked. Bird Uncaged helps to pose the question: Do Black boys get to feel pain, be scared or be vulnerable?

On the positive side, Bird Uncaged also tells the story of Peterson's redemption in how continuously worked to reinvent and educate himself and eventually become a writer and youth development advocate. Truly an astounding read that serves as a reminder of the support that our Black youth need, both interpersonally and systemically.

Marlon Peterson's "Bird Uncaged: An Abolitionist's Freedom Song" is a story of the author's life from his childhood through the duration of his incarceration, and a brief look at his life after freedom. When Peterson is around 19, he is convicted to 10 years in prison due to his participation in a robbery in Manhattan in which two people die. Some of the root causes of many of Peterson's actions, which he acknowledges and reflects upon, are trauma and a culture of masculinity that he experienced in his childhood and teen years. One point that this book makes clear is the power and value of providing opportunities for those who are incarcerated and the stark reminder of the trauma that lives beneath the surface of many people who languish in America's prison system. This is really interesting read about Peterson's life, the criminal justice system, and the need for and power of abolition.