Guest Post:

Real Men Wear Beige “One man’s jailhouse journey through the chaotic realm of concrete and steel”

By Donato Alfredano

As an author, my inspiration comes from life altering events.  As you might imagine, the more intense and profound the event is, the more compelled I am to write about it.  My first book, titled “Be Strong, Be Tough, Be Smart” tells the story of raising my son who was diagnosed with autism at the age of four but then went on to become a PhD, working with NASA and other space science institutions.  His story of triumph and inspiration is a shining example of the term “life altering.”

But not all life altering events are happy ones. You know what they say… ”Life’s a bitch.”  For me, maybe more like a roller coaster.  Yes, it only took a few bad choices and a tempestuous lifestyle to
land me behind bars.  In my new book, “Real Men Wear Beige,” I strive to shine a light on the realities of incarceration and provide my readers with an insider’s perspective on prison life, with a strong focus on humanity and veracity.

We are all impacted differently by the books we read and we are all affected by different components of the same story.  Aside from being absorbed or intrigued by the book as a whole, there are three impressions I hope readers of Real Men Wear Beige will be left with:
So, you paid your price to society.  It’s all behind you now… right?

Try to imagine it.  You’re being plucked out of the polarizing world of stagnation and insanity, known as prison, and dropped into the free world, the real world, full of relative stability, free choice and diversity. 

The good news is that you’re home, you’re free, and you’ve paid you’re price to society.  The bad news is that nobody else sees it that way.  To them you’re still a felon, an ex-con and an underdog.  In Real Men Wear Beige, I strive to explain my rude awakening as I trudged through the obstacles that my new title of convicted felon afforded me long after my release from prison.  In today’s world of the explicit and unforgiving internet, finding employment, renting a home, and many other everyday affairs become a battle and a block wall for a newly released inmate, especially in terms of acclimating and becoming a productive member of society.  You supposedly paid your price to society and should be able to start with a clean slate, right?  Wrong, in actuality you will wear the proverbial anchor of injustice around your neck for… well… ever. 

But they’re just jailbirds, felons and thugs. Right?

OK, but there is a human side.  Prison is all about people.  In Real Men Wear Beige, I’ve proclaimed “prison is a microcosm of the best and the worst that society has to offer - from the dregs to the divine.”  I’ve strived to exemplify the diverse personalities of many of the interesting and often peculiar individuals I encountered throughout my jailhouse journey. In other words, I attempted to understand them and examine their attitudes and convictions.

But why… what’s the point?  The answer is simple:  There is a “disconnect”, an animosity, and a blind spot in our society that makes reasonableness and reformation practically impossible to achieve in our broken prison system.  We are essentially incapable of recognizing inmates as real individuals who made some bad choices for which they have been held accountable.  No, not every inmate is innately fiendish and immoral.  Undeniably, prison houses the child molesters and murderers, but the absolute majority of inmates are real people who are just trying to slog their way toward the light at the end of the tunnel.  Here’s a thought… how about treating people for who they are, not what they did?

But you get a “fair and reasonable” sentence. Right?

Not always. Americans are finally beginning to realize that our “not-so-perfect” sentencing process may warrant a second look.  Mass incarceration and the overwhelming impact it has on families, economic livelihoods, and the quality of life for children growing up without mothers and fathers, is beginning to cause many to re-think their preconceived notions of what constitutes a “fair and reasonable” prison sentence. Prison reform?  Call it what you like, but re-thinking mandatory sentencing laws and the criteria used by our court system to determine what is actually fair and reasonable are a good starting point. In Real Men Wear Beige, I’ve pointed to an implicit lack of discretion and diversity in the sentencing process, resulting in the one-size-fits-all approach to prison sentencing in the USA. It’s about time we make an effort to fix it.  After all, “The vilest deeds, like prison weeds, grow well in prison air.  It’s only what is good in man that wastes and withers there.”  Oscar Wilde

Donato Alfredano, 
Author, Songwriter, Educator

Be Strong, Be Tough, Be Smart

also by Donato Alfredano

with Giada Star