Women inmates, and children, watch Pope Francis leave Palmasola prison, in Bolivia, after his visit on July 10, 2015.

As a literary activist I often find myself inside prisons talking to men and women who reside behind bars. I remember visiting a facility in Utah and being overwhelmed by the color of the inmates. For a moment I guess they saw my blackness as being something associated with privilege. I imagine things have changed. Black men are still being captured as much as during those John Brown/Nat Turner- Freedom days. What some may call the New Jim Crow is simply the changing same.

For several years I’ve spoken about the need for President Obama to visit an American prison. I knew this was something no US President had done. I felt it was a way of placing prison reform and the plight of people of color who are incarcerated on the top of the national agenda for social change.

Prisoners are invisible until there are prison riots. This is unfortunate. When will there be another Attica?

If one believes Babylon is falling there is then a tendency to stand around and do nothing.

We cannot wait for a celebrity prisoner like Martha Stewart to make us want to talk about prisons. We can’t place all our attention or focus on the “outdoors” and police brutality. Nor can we talk about unjust laws and the black nets that trap and scar the sufferers. Prison is hell and the Devil lives elsewhere.

Too many sufferers coming out prison are going to show the signs of mental illness. A caged human being can slowly grow fur on a daily basis.

In September when the Pope goes into a U.S. prison the cameras will follow. One wonders how the “indoor” black men who are Muslims will receive him. How will the media respond if the Pope decides to wash the feet of black men? Might this be a reversal of the Help?

Meanwhile, our Obama will visit a prison in Oklahoma. Look for him to be surrounded by a number of white inmates. I was hoping the Brother from the White House was going to a prison in Maryland to talk to people from Maryland and DC. I wanted him to sit down in the middle of a circle of black man and talk about fatherhood, work, and reflect on the blackness of the times.

I want Obama to give us the “image” that defines his presidency. A strong image that might lift the embargo of hatred and violence against black lives. It’s not a far reach to see how for almost eight years Obama has been “imprisoned” while being in the White House. I want a black man who lives in the White House to walk into a prison and walk out the same day. I want that Mandela walk. That cool swagger that says – my soul is forever free and no chains or bars can hold a black man down. If only so many more of us could walk on water…instead we struggle to swim against the high tides of white supremacy and those who make the rules.

Tide gonna change. Tide changing now. A prisoner, a pope and a president walk into a bar…

(Photo Credit: Reuters/ NY Post)