The Cost of Truth-telling
As we close out the year, we honor Demetrius Buckley, an award-winning writer whose humanity and courage inspires us all.
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In October, the Detroit Free Press published a video released by the Michigan Department of Corrections in 2024 to settle a Michigan Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by investigative journalist Dan Moritz-Rabson. The troubling video exposes a level of dehumanization that anyone reading this newsletter should brace themselves for.
The video features award-winning writer and poet Demetrius Buckley, affectionately known as Meech, being brutalized by correctional officers at the Richard A. Handlon Correctional Facility in Ionia, Michigan. While it is easy to turn away from the abuses incarcerated people are facing every day, it is important to allow yourself to witness what happens to Meech at the hands of not only the correctional officers, but also by the larger system at work.
We all know prisons are not the solution, and these behaviors by correctional officers will continue as long as prisons remain the default answer to community harm. Prisons are the catch-all for every social issue this country refuses to address, but we resist the system’s attempt to bury those who bring their abuses to the light and fight for a change in how incarcerated people are treated.
See the canister shoot orange chemicals to force Meech into a fetal position—just so they can apply power, just so they can make him obey their commands. Let your ears sit with Meech repeatedly saying, “I don’t understand.”
In this special newsletter, our final one of 2025, we honor Meech for continuing to write stories and for continuing to create poetry that reflects himself and the population he’s a part of. Regardless of the risk, regardless of what his physical body endures, regardless of his constrained liberation, Meech keeps moving forward. Because the truth is more important than his safety. And that’s the sacrifice so many of our creatives at Empowerment Avenue feel.
As Demetrius shared with us:
I’ve learned that prison isn’t about helping the incarcerated with their past traumas. The Department of Corrections is big business. My biggest fear is admitting this fact, where I am today, standing by myself in some facility, alone in individual response toward institutional abuse. I don’t know if I am doing the right thing for myself. I just hope my struggles help other incarcerated people who may be subject to similar abuse.
There’s a linked philosophy there: because we have caused harm, there’s a belief that we must write our wrongs. It becomes a sense of obligation.
For all our writers creating under immense pressure from prison administrations—whose abuses of power, coercive tactics, and mistreatment aren’t always caught on camera—Empowerment Avenue stands with you. Not just as an organization, but as people in collaboration, committed to supporting you through all of it.
How to Support Demetrius and Other Incarcerated Creatives
This moment calls for our collective commitment: to bear witness to what Meech has endured and to reject the comfort of simply looking away. Share his words (he recently published a piece with The Vera Institute about how he holds onto his joy during the holiday season) and speak his name.
If you are part of a community that values justice for all underserved and neglected communities, then this is an opportunity to ensure justice is actually practiced rather than just proclaimed.
May we all meet Meech’s courage with our own.
I am a legal proofreader and trust me there are civil rights attorneys in this country at it right now. Civil rights is not going away.