Dreadlocks nowadays are considered widely fashionable..Rastas grew dreadlocks in part as a defiant act against the mainstream culture. In Jamaica cops were known to attack and shave off dreadlocks. While Rastas saw dreadlocks as natural,the culture looked at them as dirty. Outside of a reggae band that a resort might hire,the only way a Rasta was going to benefit from the lucrative tourist culture was to sell tourist marijuana which is illegal in Jamaica.
My decision to dreadlock came inside a Denver County Jail Cell.. I was in the cell for failing to pay a traffic ticket. I had forgotten about the ticket,but when I remembered the circumstances as to why I didn't pay the ticket initially I remembered,it to be a time when I had to choose between paying the ticket or to provide groceries for my then wife and infant Rose. I chose groceries. I'm not going to make any excuses for not paying it later,I will say in the years between the time I first got the ticket,I had gotten divorced and had moved to Minnesota.
I had returned to Colorado to witness a Denver Broncos victory in the Super Bowl against the San Francisco 49ers. Broncos lost 55-10. Denver is not a nice place when the Broncos lose a Super Bowl. It's especially not nice when you have a warrant out for your arrest and you're going door to door canvassing for Greenpeace where it was commonplace for people to call police about a "suspicious black man" walking the neighborhood.(One of the perks for working for Greenpeace was that one could canvass anywhere Greenpeace had an office in nearby Boulder,that was how I was going to pay for this Super Bowl trip)
As a black man with no college degree and with limited practical skills,there were 2 things I felt I could never do 1. Get fired from a job and 2. Land in jail. I had already experienced the first.
Being in jail really seemed like the end of the line for me. There was no chance of returning to school,Mom who would have assisted me in returning was long gone,and my Dad who had been negligent in paying child support when I was younger had long given up on me from the time I dropped out of college and ended up in the Gospel Outreach Jesus commune.In Dad's eyes now,I was a bad investment.
I was paying child support,however working a job that didnt pay much meant that child support didn't amount to much and the amount of child support taken from an entry level job. Greenpeace was an interesting job with interesting people,but from the beginning,you knew canvassing wasnt a lifetime job and now I had a jail record going forward.
Not long after leaving Gospel Outreach,I discovered Reggae music for myself. It took some listening to get accustomed to the off rhythms of the music,but once I got through that I found myself increasingly drawn to the essence of the music. It was at its heart speaking about my heritage,my African heritage as well as my personal one. It told me to be proud of it. I could relate to its Biblical imagery,but unlike the repression I had experienced in G.O,this seemed to speak of Liberation. There were songs of political protest and yet calls for Peace and Love similar to the hippies of the '60 and 70's Speaking of hippies,there was a lot of open praise for marijuana in the music. All this had a way of speaking to who I am.
Now I'm in jail I am the person Bob Marley,Peter Tosh and Lucky Dube speak of in their music.
I was sentenced to 30 days and I would get 10 days off for good behavior.Because this was my first offense and deemed low risk,I was assigned to work in the kitchen. One had to be deemed low risk to work in the kitchen because there were knives in the kitchen. That didn't stop a couple fights from breaking out in the kitchen. One of the fights broke out over music. Being in the kitchen gave us privileges other prisoners didnt have like the ability to listen to music on the shift and everyone who worked in the kitchen could listen to the radio station of their choice for a half hour. For some,a half hour of Spanish music was too much, The favorites were hits by Janet Jackson or Lionel Richie. There was a noticeable groan in the kitchen when it was my turn for the radio and I turned the station to KBCO in Boulder. For some in Denver,Boulder conjures the image of rich white people.This is not the impression you want to give to folks who already had a strong sense that jail was a new experience for me. Chances were if folks didn't like my choice in radio stations,I'd have to give up part of my time or be willing to fight. I didn't like my chances in a fight and I was still hoping to get the 10 days off for good behavior.
Bob Marley would speak of a Natural Mystic in the air..that day the Natural Mystic took flight in the Denver County Jail as the announcer introduced the Denver County Jail to an hour of Bob Marley. Though this music was new to everyone but me,the rhythms offended no one.
For me this was almost like being released. I might have been washing dishes in the Denver County Jail but for a moment there were no bars.I guess I could have been written up for dancing in the kitchen,but no boss did and the other prisoners just looked at me.
After the shift was done and we're back in the jail living room,a couple prisoners approached me with questions about Rastafari and reggae music. The discussion delved into Bob Marley,Marcus Garvey, One Love and Malcolm X. From that day on it seemed like some sort of shield was placed over me. I had one prisoner warned me of various traps that could get one in trouble either with the cops or other inmates.Another said he wanted to be the first to inform me that Nelson Mandela had been released from prison in South Africa..
I knew then that as soon as my time was up,it was time for me to Dreadlock.
The prisoners in the Denver County Jail were the first to know of my intention.
It was a Denver County prisoner who stated it would be an honor to be the last person to cut my hair.
Denver County Jail was the last place where I had a haircut
