Marlon Peterson’s Next Chapter: Fatherhood
I was drawn to Bird Uncaged: An Abolitionist’s Freedom Song earlier this year when browsing the biography section in Barnes & Noble. I picked up a copy and skimmed the inside cover to learn that I was currently living in a neighborhood in Brooklyn that the author, Marlon Peterson, grew up in. At first glance, this would be the extent of commonalities shared between Marlon and me. After I finished reading, however, I felt inspired by and connected to many of Marlon’s words and was compelled to connect with him.
I reached out to Marlon directly via Instagram to share my admiration for his book and the hope of connecting with him to learn about and capture him and his story. Marlon was, from the start, warm and willing to connect. His warmth and openness is something I admire greatly.
He shared with me at the time that a new version of his book was soon being released. This version would include an Epilogue which would consist entirely of a letter he wrote to his daughter, Maya. Written largely before Maya was born, Marlon’s book does not focus much on the relationship with his daughter. However, despite the Epilogue being just a handful of pages, it was clear to me from the vulnerability and love he expresses in his letter that Maya was a huge part of his life. It was also clear that becoming a father kindled many complicated and intense emotions in Marlon.
As a new father, Marlon is fearful not only of raising a child in a world that caused him so much pain, but also in how his past experiences and actions may impact his ability to be a good father and to be someone his daughter looks up to. Marlon grapples with the knowledge that one day, Maya will learn of this past, afraid that her innocent gaze of the world, and her world, may fade.
We are constantly fed stories of individuals who have committed crimes, but rarely are stories told of the traumas and experiences that may influence people - especially youth and young adults - to commit a crime, nor are many stories told of the traumas and hardships one will likely face during and after life in prison. Even more rare are stories that explore how these traumas and experiences intertwine with one’s loved ones, including their children.
Some may argue that the emotional and personal stories of currently and formerly incarcerated individuals are irrelevant because of their wrongdoings, and in some instances, because of the harm they have brought upon other people. To be clear, this is not a defense of any wrongdoing or harm. Rather, I firmly believe that deeming these stories and individuals in these circumstances as irrelevant is part of a larger problem. When a person is made to feel irrelevant, they often lose respect and care for themselves and the world around them. They lose their sense of humanity. They are deemed as “other.”
As previously mentioned, at first glance of his book, Marlon and I shared few things in common. However, the goal of my work is to continuously step outside of my own experiences, step outside of my own world to learn about, listen to, and work to understand the life and experiences of others. So often, we may hear these stories but actively chose not to listen, building walls out of our own comforts and biases. I can’t do justice to Marlon’s story the way he does in his own words, but what I can do is speak to the observations and feelings I had after reading his book, the reflections and moments shared by Marlon that I emotionally connected to, and why his letter and his relationship with his daughter, in particular, touched to me. In reading this, and hopefully, in reading Marlon’s book, I hope you too can take a moment to listen.
Marlon begins his book with a letter to his younger self:
“Dear Marlo',
The first thing you should know is that you were a beautiful, brilliant, bubbly Black boy. Your big black lips were just the right size. No need to hide them by folding them inwards. No need to hide your presence. You were talkative, and that was okay. It was your way of sharing your light. No need to hide your voice by playing small. Your smile...your smile was contagious. No need to hide it by masking it with screwfaces. Your ability to carry on big people conversations as an eight-year-old was a gift. No need to hide your maturity. It was one of the ways you learned about the world, even if you did raise your parents' phone bill to over $1,000 dollars by calling 1-900 numbers to play Jeopardy! You were a nerd. No need to hide your intelligence.
You should know that your 1980s Crown Heights, Brooklyn, neighborhood needed young Black boys like you to shine and inspire. Too many of you hid, in cages of your own creation, but mostly in cages created for you. Often the two were indistinguishable.”
The final sentences of this letter, along with the title of his book, shine a light on a symbolic thread that would weave Marlon’s story together: cages. As he describes in his letter, the cages that were created for and by Marlon - as well as many other young Black men growing up in his neighborhood - were often “indistinguishable.”
These cages would confine and suffocate Marlon’s ability to be emotionally vulnerable, see himself in a positive light, and open up to and accept love from the people around him.
It was in this confinement that Marlon felt the need to “move on” from the traumas he faced. In reality, “moving on” always meant holding on, pushing his trauma deep down into a place where he may not have seen it, but he certainly felt it. Marlon was in a space without space, without room to properly acknowledge, sort through, and heal from these traumas.
He would internalize how people and the world treated him, tearing down his sense of self-worth and his deservingness to be happy. It was in this space that Marlon would work so hard to be something he wasn’t, pursuing the person that he and others thought he should be, rather than being comfortable with who he was.
Like a caged bird, Marlon grew to forget the heights he could reach in an open sky, seeing only the low, grey ceiling and bars of his cage. He slowly lost his strength and will to fly. Without flight, without blue skies, silky clouds, and warm sunshine, he grew to feel a sense of irrelevancy.
For much of his youth, Marlon would have a lower regard for himself, and in turn, for people around him. It is in this space, at the age of 19, that Marlon was arrested for his role in a violent robbery attempt that left two people dead. While Marlon was not directly responsible for the deaths of the two individuals, he would go on to serve over 10 years in prison for his connection with the case.
While in this physical cage, Marlon would sink deeper into the emotional cages formed during his youth. He would isolate himself, but in addition to closing himself off from those he was incarcerated with, this isolation would, for a long time, close him off from receiving love and support from his family and friends as well.
Writing would become an important part of Marlon’s healing while in prison. It would become a medium for him to express himself, and a key that, while slow turning, would help to free Marlon from these cages. “My writing became the place I ran to when I had good and bad news. It became my best conversant,” Marlon says. “It held my secrets, which was an improvement from keeping everything inside.” Writing this book would pave a path towards healing and provide a space for Marlon to reclaim his story.
To be clear, it was not prison that helped Marlon along this journey towards healing, towards breaking down the emotional cages while confined to the physical ones. “Most people like to believe the illusion that prison is the intervention that stops crime. But it’s not, it’s getting older, having a sense of usefulness, believing in something you want to live for,” Marlon says. It was people, and writing, that helped Marlon regain a sense of relevancy, humanity, and purpose.
Time would pass, and Marlon would be released from the physical cages that confined him. However, the emotional cages, in many ways, would become fortified.
“I believed that the possibility of love, companionship, was an obstacle to freedom,” Marlon says. “This belief system, the need to control, though of good use for me in prison, would haunt me for years after my release.” Despite his physical freedom, the prison that Marlon has had the hardest time identifying and abolishing is the one that has convinced him that he does not deserve to be happy, that “happiness is a fleeting moment, but never a movement.”
To heal from our past, we first must go back in order to move forward. For Marlon, writing this book helped him to reach back to, forgive, and love his younger self.
In time, Marlon would find the courage to admit that “there were reasons - not excuses - but that there were reasons for that fateful day in October 1999,” that there was deep trauma associated with living in a community where “guns are easier to get than sneakers” as he explains in his TED Talk.
Unhealed trauma, in many ways, is like a fracture to a bone. Fractured bones will heal, but without proper care, there is risk of that bone healing in a way that permanently impairs its function. The only way to properly tend to a bone that heals in this way is to break it again. In this sense, reliving and experiencing pain is not only necessary, but inevitable in the processes of proper healing.
We typically don’t feel these fractures in stagnation. Rather, we feel them when living, in allowing our bodies to experience and work through the gravity of the world. Marlon would feel these fractures after the birth of his daughter, Maya.
Alongside all of the love, joy, pride, and optimism he felt when first becoming a father, he also felt fear, shame, and doubt. As Marlon says in his letter to Maya, “Maybe you were communicating the details of the love you required from me: to protect you from the worst parts of myself, from this world. Or maybe you needed me to know that I was perfect in your eyes, and not the man who inconspicuously struggles with brokenness.”
“maybe you needed me to know that I was perfect in your eyes, and not the man who inconspicuously struggles with brokenness.”
Children are born without cages, born as pure physical and spiritual manifestations of their parents. In many ways, the purity and love that Maya reflects onto Marlon is helping him heal while he continues to heal himself. However, it is that same purity that Marlon, as a father, wants to protect and is fearful of tarnishing. “I hope I don't pass the worst of me on to you, my love,” he says in his letter. “I don't want to hurt you like this world has hurt me and people like you, and people like your mother, and people like your uncles, and people like your aunt, and people like my father.”
As the conclusion to his book, Marlon’s letter to Maya is not the ending, but, in many ways, the start of a new chapter in his story and the story they will share together. Just as Marlon works to build Maya’s wings, she too is helping to restrengthen his, helping him to fly, to be free. The doubt, shame, and fear that Marlon feels in being a father - and, especially, the ability to openly express these feelings - are not signs of brokenness, weakness, or ineptitude. Rather, they’re signs of the strength, love, and capability to be an amazing father.
I could see and feel the shared love between him and Maya during our time together. I could see it in how carefully he carried her stroller up the stairs to the studio as not to wake her while she was sleeping. I could see it when he turned on one of her favorite songs - Calm Down, by Rema - when she woke up, dancing with her to make her feel more comfortable in an unfamiliar place. I could see it in how he would adjust her dress when it wrinkled. I could see it when she would turn or look towards him when she was confused or uncomfortable. I could see it in the way she mimicked his facial expressions and mannerisms. I could see it in how much Marlon smiled around Maya, despite smiling being something he has had to relearn. When Marlon smiled, Maya smiled, too.
While Marlon and Maya’s stories are continuing to be written, they do not have to wait for a happy ending. “Maybe what you were communicating to me in those first ten minutes of life is that happiness doesn't have to be next. Happiness can be now,” Marlon says in his letter. “We can expose the worst of us in order to embrace the best of us. We can abolish these cages, the ones that were built for us and the ones we made ourselves.”