That Time I Went to Jail - "Storytelling" With Ol' AD

A Night in Jail and the First Arrest

Well, here's a story you might not know about old A .D. I did spend a night in jail one time when I was in college. The story goes like this. I was a little bit of a rebel in college. Well, I guess you could call it a rebel from a Christian perspective, but from the world's perspective, I went right along with the flow.

I was a drinker. I experimented with drugs and things like that. I really thank God for the forgiveness available in Jesus Christ. I remember there's one particular time, actually the very first and the very last time I actually paid a drug dealer for drugs.

Every time after this, I always would buy drugs through other people. So I would give somebody else some money and they would go to the drug dealer. But anyway, only time I ever did that, I was smoking some marijuana and I was doing it in kind of a wooded area near my school.

And you know, we smoked up and I was pretty high and we were coming out of the wooded area and lo and behold, there was a bicycle cop waiting for us. He must have seen us in some kind of a security camera because he was there.

He knew we were in there. He knew what we were doing. And so he was a white guy, patted us down. I was the only one who had any drugs on us. So I was arrested and that was that. And so I remember when we were in the squad car, I don't believe it was him.

I think he passed me on to another officer. And my memory is that that officer was not white. But anyway, he was giving me advice and he said, hey, look, we're going to take you to the jail. You're going to spend the night there.

And it's in kind of a bad area. So just don't talk to anybody, you know, keep to yourself and you'll be fine for your own safety. Now, I don't know if he was trying to scare me or if he was serious, but I was already high and for whatever reason, you know, whenever I was doing marijuana, I would always get super paranoid.

I really didn't like it that much. I don't even know why I was doing it. So I was already paranoid. And this guy is telling me that it's for my own safety not to talk to anybody. I'm not going to lie.

That was a scary ride. Anyway, so we get to the jail, I'm processed, fingerprinted, all that. I am a criminal. I am shackled and all this. And they put me in the drunk tank. And when I get in there, there is an older, seemingly homeless Hispanic guy in there and he's weeping.

And so when I see him, I am immediately relieved because I'm not scared of older Hispanic guys, obviously. And so he starts talking to me in Spanish and it's very jumbled and I only understand, you know, some of Spanish.

I could usually understand most of what somebody's saying, but he was obviously drunk and not making much sense. And he was talking about his mother and it was all very, very sad and a weird experience.

But you know, again, I felt totally safe and comfortable. So I, in a lot of ways, I thank God that that was the first person that I saw. Seriously, have I told you how much I thank God for his forgiveness lately?

The Second Cellmate and the Credit Card Theft Charge

The next person that was thrown into the drunk tank with us, and mind you, this is probably about one to two o 'clock in the morning, the next person is a tall, sort of preppily dressed black guy. When I say preppy, I mean he was wearing like Abercrombie and stuff like that.

And you know, I immediately breathed another sigh of relief because I wasn't scared of black people either. And so I was happy to see this guy. And it turns out he went to the same school as me and he was in there for, I don't know, some kind of stealing a credit card.

I don't know. He said he didn't do it. And so, you know, we were just chatting a little bit. We didn't really talk too much. But eventually he was taken out and brought to another cell. I'm not really sure what happened to him.

But nice guy. I really liked him. The third guy who was put in, this was the final guy that was put in, was a very, very country white guy. I'm talking country. When I saw him come in, I was terrified.

Now, that is a bias. That's a prejudice that I had. I saw a Hispanic guy. No fear. I saw a black guy. No fear. And then I saw a white guy in jail and my mind starts racing. What did this guy do? He looks scary.

Terrified me. Seriously, it terrified me. And so I kind of kept to myself. And unfortunately, this was the kind of inmate, I guess you could call it, who was super talkative. And so he kept asking me questions.

What are you in for? What are you in for? This and that. Blah, blah, blah. And so we started talking. It got a little more comfortable. And obviously, I wasn't taking the officer's advice to keep to myself.

But anyway, we were talking and he asked me what I was in for. I explained it. And he said, oh, man. Well, you know. And I said, well, what are you in for? And he told me. He looked me dead in the eye.

And he says, attempted murder. And at this point, my fear and my heart rate is starting to go up. And it's saying, wow, I was right. I am terrified of this white guy. I was right all along. When I first saw him, I was terrified.

But you know, I was still talking to him and I asked him to explain, well, what did you do it? And he said, I didn't even do it. And I said, well, why are you in here? If you're arrested for attempted murder, why are you in here if you didn't do it?

And he said, all I did was tie a black guy to a chair and beat him up. Oh, that's all you did. Well, you should just get right out of here. I'll testify for you. I was in jail with an attempted murderer.

Now, well, I remember thinking to myself, I wonder if he's just saying this to scare me. I wonder if he's just as scared of me as I'm scared of him. And maybe he didn't really do it at all. He doesn't really seem big enough to tie somebody to a chair.

And he wasn't really that big. He was kind of a skinny guy, shorter than I was, and I'm not very tall. But anyway, we sat there, just kind of talked a little bit. And that was that. And then early in the morning, probably like five or six in the morning, if I remember correctly, we were both taken in to see the judge.

The Judge, Bail, and the Real Attempted Murder Charge

And the judge was going to set our bail or whatever it was the next steps. I remember I saw the judge, yes, ma 'am, no, ma 'am, that kind of thing. And very respectful. And eventually she said, OK, well, here's your court date.

We're going to release you on your own recognizance. That's that's that. And so I was going to go free that night and no bail, nothing like that. I just had to make sure I showed up to court. Wonderful.

Then I got to sit while the other guy was was arraigned, essentially, and that guy was told that because he could get a life sentence for what he did or what was accused of anyway, he could not go free.

And he or she would not set bail at the time. He really did it. He really was arrested for attempted murder. I couldn't believe it. My my initial reaction, based purely on skin color, was exactly right now.

That's the end of that story. I remember the white guy looked at me and he said, you got off lucky. Yeah, because I didn't attempt to murder somebody. Anyway, I remember walking home that that day. It was probably five o 'clock in the morning.

It was freezing cold. I remember and I had a long walk and it was a long walk through a bad area to get back home. And I remember I had asthma at the time, too. It was a hard walk to do. And I remember I was wheezing a lot.

Pretty stupid to smoke weed while you have asthma. Anyway, I remember thinking on the walk home, I wonder why I had the reaction that I had based on skin color. I do have sort of, or at least I did, a kind of a prejudice based on skin color that I was engaged in.

Now, what I could have done is said, well, hmm, my initial reaction was to be scared of the white guy. And it actually turned out to be correct. The white guy was probably the most dangerous person I was in prison with or sorry, jail in with.

I could have just said, well, what I'll do from now on is just assume every white person is super dangerous. Now, that could have been my reaction. The whole point of telling you this story is that, yes, everyone does have prejudices and biases.

But the question is, do you act on them now? Is that a sin? I'm not so sure if it is or isn't. What I mean is, is it a sin to keep your guard up based on how someone appears, whether it's, you know, their skin color, how they're dressed, what kind of hairstyle they have?

Maybe they have some face tattoos. Is it a sin to keep your guard up around certain people based on the way you generalize? That's the question. Because here's the thing. We all have to generalize and categorize and make groups in our minds.

And it doesn't mean that everyone that has those certain traits fits that certain thing. But this is how we survive. I mean, this is how, you know, we go through life. You know, if you were walking in a dark alley and you saw someone that, you know, had baggy pants and tattoos on their face and, you know, maybe dreadlocks or maybe, you know, nose rings and earrings and just kind of look all crazy, whether they were white or black, it wouldn't matter.

If you saw someone with all those traits, would you be more scared and keep your guard up a little bit more than if you saw a little old granny walking down the street with a nice poodle and a nice, you know, I don't know, doily shirt?

Is that even a thing? I don't know. But is that a sin to automatically keep your guard up over certain types of categories or generalizations that you make? I don't know. I mean, I think that's debatable.

But what matters is if you act on those generalizations, if you treat people differently based upon those generalizations. So I don't know. I mean, I think that's debatable, but that's, you know, what's definitely a problem is if you act upon it.

Let's just all agree on that. But my stereotype in that time served me well because I kind of kept to myself and I kept my guard up a little bit more than I had with the other people and it actually ended up being correct.

So is an internal generalization a sin? I personally think it's debatable. But it definitely is if you start acting on it and treating people partially with it. So if you go in your mind, hey, that time when I was in jail, there was a white guy and he was the most dangerous person.

Therefore, I don't want to be hanging around white people anymore. That's definitely a sin. You know, kind of like when people say, I'm scared of all cops because of what a few cops did. That is a sin.

Why This Story Matters for a Future Video on Racism

Anyway, the point of me telling the story is more than just story time. I honestly just wanted to tell this story because we're about to review next week or maybe the week after because I'm taking a little time off here in the next few days.

We're going to review a video coming out of Southern Seminary, I believe. And it talks about how do you know I'm racist? And this is going to become something that I'll reference in that video. So remember this story?

Anyway, I hope this was helpful. God bless. You know, the other thing about this story is I remember right before I had smoked, I had peeled a pomegranate and I had all the seeds out of the pomegranate.

And I put it in my refrigerator. My plan was after I had gotten high, I was going to go eat that pomegranate. And I love pomegranates and pomegranates are very refreshing. I remember sitting in jail and thinking, wow, I really want that pomegranate.

I really, really want that pomegranate. I hope nobody eats my pomegranate. Nobody did. And when I got home that morning, I ate that pomegranate and it was delicious. Anyway, kids, don't do drugs. I'm not trying to make light of drugs.

I didn't really ever smoke marijuana too much after that. I did do a lot of other harder drugs and yeah, really stupid. So don't do that. It's not worth it. And, you know, at the end of the day, it's against what God says for us to do.

Anyway, I hope this was helpful. God bless.