The Strip Search

"They've been stripping us our whole life. Not just in prison. That's where it became official. They strip you before you ever catch a case."

First, they strip our culture.

Tell us our language is slang. Our music is noise. Our hair is unprofessional. Our style is threatening. Our history isn't important unless it's packaged for consumption.

We learn early: what's ours isn't valuable until they say it is.

Then they strip our identity.

Label us before we can define ourselves. At-risk. Troubled. High-potential but lacks focus. Angry. Aggressive. Distracted. We become a category before we become a person.

Teachers see a problem to manage, not a mind to develop. Neighbors see a threat, not a kid. Police see a suspect, not a son.

We start moving different. Talking different. Performing safety so people don't see us as dangerous. Performing intelligence so people don't write us off. Performing calm when we're anything but.

The stripping continues.

They strip our religion, our spirituality, our connection to something bigger than survival. Tell us it's superstition unless it fits their framework. Commodify our practices. Commercialize our beliefs, and then charge us for access to what was always ours.

They strip our rights.

Not all at once. Just enough that we don't notice until it's too late. Stop and frisk. Curfews. Surveillance. Probation. Parole. Registries. Restrictions. We're free, but only within the boundaries they set.

And if we end up inside? That's where the stripping becomes ritual.

"Remove your clothes.
Turn around, squat, spread your ass cheeks and cough.
Lift your arms.
Right foot.
Left foot.
Open your mouth.
Stick your finger in your mouth and trace the outside of your gums.
Get dressed.
Next!"

They strip our names. Give us a number. Strip our autonomy. Tell us when to eat, sleep, move, speak. Strip our complexity. Reduce us to a file, a risk assessment, a case to process.

We learn to turn off. Go somewhere else in our head. Make it not real.

But here's what nobody tells us: even after release, the stripping doesn't stop.

You're out, but now they strip our opportunities.

Check the box. Explain the gap. Justify your existence. Prove you've changed. Prove you're not a risk. Prove you're worthy of a chance you shouldn't have to earn.

They strip our narrative. Turn our story into a headline. A statistic. A cautionary tale. We become what happened to us, not who we're becoming.

They strip our time. Make us pay forever. Fees. Fines. Restitution. Conditions. We're free, but we're never done paying.

And all the while, they're stripping our hope.

Telling us what we can't do. Where we can't go. Who we can't be. Making us smaller so we fit inside their expectations.

The system counts on us internalizing this.

It counts on you and I believing that the stripping is inevitable. That this is just how it is. That fighting it is pointless, so we might as well comply.

And for a long time, we do.

We accept the stripping. Adjust to it. Build a life inside the boundaries that were drawn for them. We survive, but we never fully live.

But here's the truth they don't want us to know:

The stripping only continues if we allow it.

Not because we're weak. Not because we didn't try hard enough. But because we were never taught that we could stop it.

We were conditioned to wait for permission. To follow the rules. To perform the role they assigned us. To let other people define success, failure, and everything in between.

But at some point, we have to make a choice.

We can keep letting the world strip us of our identity and our future, or we can start building ourselves back on our terms.

Not by asking for permission.
Not by waiting for acceptance.
Not by performing until someone finally validates us.

By deciding that our lives are ours to build. Our story is ours to tell. Our future is ours to create.

This is where the real work begins.

Not escaping the system. Not proving them wrong. Not waiting for the stripping to stop.

But recognizing that nobody's coming to give us back what was taken. We have to rebuild it ourselves. Piece by piece. Choice by choice.

That's what going from a DIN to an EIN stands for.

It's not about a number. It's about authorship.

It's about deciding that the world doesn't get to strip us anymore, because we're too busy building.