dear (baby) mama,
excuse me miss. yes you miss sitting there in the third row of the audience. can I talk to you for a minute? you been psssting at me for the last 5 minutes trying to get my attention. waving me over for a while now so you can tell me about your son/baby daddy. about how you want to know when he's getting out. how much his bond gon be. whether his probation gon be revoked today. so now that I've got a minute there are a few things that I want to say to you.
I see you in here every day. you and your homegirls or your auntie and nem. ya'll come in like the prison paparazzi looking expectantly over at the men in the box. locked up. ya'll come with crumpled up papers in yo hand explaining to me bout how he was doing time upstate when he got that subpoena and that's why he didn't appear for his court date. ya'll show me pictures of the 3 year old he got at home as you rub your belly with another one on the way, telling me that you need him out now. you want me to ask the judge to lift the protective order so he can come back home to stay by you cause what he did last week, he didn't mean it, ya'll was just playin.
but ma'am, I'm getting real tired of running back and forth between you and him. truth is, he's my client, not you. but more than that, ma'am did you ever stop to think what your running to and fro, picking up this and that is doing to your son/baby daddy?
you were here just last week when the judge questioned lil Johnny's girl gang in front of the whole court. as the two older Black women approached the bench to plead their nephew's case, the judge asked where were ya'll when lil Johnny was getting into trouble? where were ya'll when he was running the street and smoking weed all day and night? every week, I get mothers and girlfriends and aunties in here crying to me to please let little Johnny go. if ya'll let lil Johnny be a man and made him take responsibility for his own life, ya'll wouldn't be here begging me to show him some mercy now. I know the real reason ya'll want lil Johnny out, It's cause lil Johnny runnin up your phone bill with them collect calls from the jail now, huh?
now miss, I saw you chuckle when the judge said that but maybe you need to take his words to heart. next time your man/child comes to court for a status hearing, how bout you not trail behind him and let him handle his business on his own? and if you do decide to tag along, when the judge finds out that your man/child's drug test is dirty, why don't you let the judge figure out what to do with your man/child on his own, instead of approaching the bench and telling the judge all the shit he's done and in the next breath asking the judge to let him go.
or when I call man/child on the phone to find out if he's done what he needed to do to help investigate his case or get into an alternative sentencing program, how bout you not pick up the phone in the other room and yell that he did what he was supposed to do. those people didn't call him back.
and when he does get out, let him find his own job, instead of scouring the want ads for him and putting in job applications at the places that you think he might like to work. instead of letting him come spend the night every night at the place where you the only one paying rent, make him go home to his mama house. or better yet, you and mama join forces and make him get his own spot.
I know it's not my place, but miss, I see way too many young Black men each and every day sitting back there in orange and way too many Black women like you looking longingly over at those men. and it clicked for me. I've been thinking of a way to say this so here goes...
damn (baby) mama! can your man/child be a man and do shit for himself?
please and thank you!
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