Brian Nichols and the Influence of Place What happened, A Native Atlantan Speaks "

Whether People want to recognize it or acknowledge it, Brian Nichols has become a symbol for some, of a prison system system gone terribly wrong in the United States and especially the south. For some in the south prison has replaced the lynching and for me personally as a woman, as a black person, and as an American and world citizen I look upon the strange case of Brian Nichols of a man who refused to by lynched, there is a saying among some if I’m going to prison, I’m going to make sure it’s for something not shoplifting, not rape, not robbery, not car jacking, but something really worth saying I’m going to prison for; and for some there is no crime that they can be tempted into committing that will lead to their loss of freedom, except one that I know of and that is the use of illegal drugs but otherwise the same folks will not and cannot be convinced to commit a crime.

Personally I believe that Brian Nichols was one of those individuals. I do not believe that prior to the charges of rape, that he had been or was a criminal despite what the media trys hard to dig up. Trust me in a world where men value bragging about their exploits. Nichols so called crime record is a church boys record. I think he was a man trying to do the best that he could do to live in today’s society. Unfortunately he fell prey to several things, the most damaging was the lifestyle of Atlanta and it’s attitude towards men.

For some reason Atlanta has suffered some sort of strange role reversal among blacks and maybe others but Atlanta is still largely segregated so I can only speak of Black Atlanta. The role reversal revolves around men and women. Women are literally willing to support men, they don’t even have to be very goodlooking, just a man. In many cases the man keeps the house while the woman works, to further aggravate this situation. There are a large number of women who are on the prowl for a mate, any mate, someone else’s mate is fair game. What this results in is a large number of kept men who cheat on their keepers resulting in a lot of anger, misunderstanding, and frankly a very paranoiac society where trust, love, fidelity, and the positive emotions of life have been replaced by jealousy, envy, materialism, and a very disjointed society. As for materialism, Atlanta is one of the few place where you will see a black individual who knows 100% more then many of his white counterparts. ( as for women supporting men, there is a vary famous jeweler and watchmaker who said that Atlanta is the only city worldwide where sales for men are more then for women)

Into this atmosphere emerges Brian Nichols, from the Nations Capital, where I’ve lived also where a high value is placed on intellect versus material things, meaning intellect can be a means to success versus Atlanta where affiliations and organizations are a means to entry to a better life. Atlanta is like a secret society, I liken it to the underground societies of Ivy League colleges. In Atlanta the way to employment is not the submittal of a resume but the acquaintance of an important individual.

Back to Nichols, he walks into this environment. What he finds is that his tall handsome good looks, strong muscular body, and well spoken manner is a commodity, he is the commodity. Where in other parts of the country men buff up to get women, just a women, most women, the goal is met when a woman is obtained just for her feminine virtues. Nichols finds that his life long commitment to fitness is a commodity that can result in a high priced beamer and a town home and in a backdrop of a world where you are valued more for what you have, the brief time that he has spent in this city without, lets him know that he had better take this commodity offered to him, by a VP of the organization that he is working in as a security guard, though he later became a well paid company man on his own, the fact remains that he was in a subordinate position which if he knew would have led to his serving a life time sentence in jail may have resulted in his suing the company he worked for, for sexual harassment versus taking the manna that was offered to him.

Now here walks a man who is now working for a better life with his own job which is supplemented by a high paid executive, in a town where it is my personal opinion that even Hallie Berry found difficult as it related to the predatory nature of women in Atlanta (dirty south), and he does what some men will do he takes pleasure in what is offered to him over and over again, but he still continues to date the same high paid, I’ll supplement your rent executive, who may have been an attractive women herself, but let’s face it for some men the very act of being cared for by a woman decreases the woman’s value. This continues on for years and years his cheating, her taking him back etc. etc. etc. Finally the relationship blows up with his getting another woman pregnant, from what we’ve observed since this incident, a very loud mouth woman, who even claimed that Nichols broke out of jail to see the baby she had had. I really don’t think that was the case but maybe he did manage to see the baby, who knows, but honestly he had a thirteen year old he had only seen once in his life so obviously there was not enough care for his offspring to justify that being the reason why he broke out of jail. What happened after the pregnancy came up I don’t know I do know that it ended up in the breaking up of a long term relationship.

Now we get to the rape charge, first of all he is charged with raping her for seven hours and doing several other things to her. The most obvious point that must be made is she slept with him for close to ten years and if he raped her, which I seriously doubt, could not justify to me the desire to see someone you have slept with for so long in jail for life for one crazy upset night. If she were raped by a man she had slept with for so long, I see a restraining order, I see a request for transfer to another state and I see moving to a new place but I don’t see wanting to see him in jail for life.
Flashback:
I am riding the bus to San Francisco and I manage to sit next to this heavenly looking tattooed guy from where he got on somewhere before Texas to New Mexico or Arizona. As we are talking, he tells me that he has just gotten out of jail. He starts to tell me a story of something like this I got a girl pregnant in Mississippi or Louisiana I can’t remember where. I married her, but I cheated on her, I think he said he even moved out, he then said that her father told me one night I was going to jail, the next night I was in jail and I stayed their for three years. (Dirty South)

As a woman I have had very different experiences with men which for me just resulted in my never wanting to see the person again, but a lot has to happen for me to want to see anyone in jail for life , especially someone I’ve been intimate with. As far as I can say the accuser was trying to exact some sort of vengeance form Brain Nichols in exchange for her gifts.

Now let’s move back to the society of Atlanta cliches, underground affiliations etc. And look at that a man has been charged with a crime that he may not have committed by a very high powered woman in a society that overvalues position and affiliation, he is given no bail, even though he is being charged with a “he say she say crime”. He has once lived with this woman which after a certain amount of years qualifies for a common law marriage, which it could be argued this could have been resolved with the way domestic violence incidents are often handled. Brian Nichols honestly had no chance of a fair shake in this town. He was not a member of any of the fraternities and societies that run the town, he was not a college graduate which the black middle class puts such an importance on. What did Bill Cosby say? How are you going to be a doctor speaking like that, where other people value a worker for whatever he does blacks place an inordinate amount of importance on an “education” anyway he did not have a complete one. He was also a so called loner which meant could not use the winning ways of personality to have groups of people behind him in his corner. So he went to jail and the key was thrown away in the “Dirty South” . He was a victim of the southern system. A VP of a major corporation versus Brian Nichols “Black Man”.

He could not handle the above reality and finally in the end became the person he was being portrayed to be. “A criminal” which he is now officially but the ultimate question is could a little amount of fair treatment avoided this? I think it could have.

Finally the above are just my speculations until full details of the case are released such as did Brian Nichols have an existing restraining order against him regarding this woman. We can only speculate this. Finally Mandelas and Kings are few and far between, and everyone’s is ready to be a Malcolm X if given the chance.

Right now I have no more to say. Maybe I will continue my examination and speculation another time maybe I won’t.