When They Call You a Terrorist: Chapter 8 Summary & Analysis

Back in 2006, soon after Gabriel is taken to the fire camp prison, Patrisse wakes up to Cherice telling her that Monte has been arrested again. Patrisse is in college at the time, studying philosophy with a focus on Abrahamic religions. She’s also working at Cleveland, running a program with Mark Anthony on trauma and resilience. Monte has been out of prison for three years but unable to find stability, and Patrisse has turned to spirituality and chosen family for support. As an ex-felon, Monte is unable to find even low-wage work and is ineligible for government housing. There are over 4,800 barriers to re-entry in California. “You can have a two-year sentence,” explains Patrisse, “but it doesn’t mean you’re not doing life.”

Monte moved back in with Cynthia, but, as a poor paraplegic in a wheelchair, she was unable to make sure he was managing his illness. Like many people with schizoaffective disorder, Monte stopped taking his medication and started to behave erratically again. Patrisse and her family tried to convince him to get help, but all of his experiences with doctors had been in prison or in hospitals. He was stabilized and hastily kicked out of these places because he was a poor Black man to be “contained, controlled” instead of healed.

Cherice tells Patrisse on the phone that Monte is in the hospital, though she doesn’t know the details. Patrisse feels very afraid. Paul joins them when they visit Monte at the hospital, and Patrisse recites a prayer in Yoruba for Monte that translates to “Warrior for justice, protect my brother.” The police guarding his room nonchalantly describe how Monte had gotten into a fender bender with a white woman and, after she called the police due to his yelling, they tased him and shot him with rubber bullets. Patrisse explains that he is mentally ill, confused about why police officers always assume Black people are high.

Patrisse is angry to learn Monte has been charged with terrorism—a charge that can be used when someone says something threatening that makes you fear for your life. When she talks to Monte, his words are slurred, and he cries uncontrollably—begging for medication—the start of the depression that comes after mania (a typical cycle with this disease). Monte is then imprisoned and classified as a threat to officers, which infuriates Patrisse, since Monte has never hurt a living being. Meanwhile, police have beaten and harassed him for years. Monte is locked in solitary confinement for 23 hours a day, a condition that is known to trigger mental illness. And, with no advocates, this is exactly what happens to Monte.

When Patrisse visits Monte for the first time, he again asks for his meds, saying that they have only been giving him Advil. (There is evidence that prisons have used medicine as a weapon, withholding treatments for AIDS, Hep C, and more.) Patrisse doesn’t understand why the jailers would do this when they are the ones who diagnosed him, have his records, and would benefit from a more stable Monte. After she approaches the sheriff about it and he blows her off, she realizes that it is probably cheaper for them to just strap Monte down than to offer him proper care. 

Patrisse and Cherice go to visit Monte several times over the next three weeks but are turned away because he is “not fit to be seen.” Patrisse’s friends and family turn out for Monte’s hearing, but before it begins, the bailiff tells them flatly that Monte is in very bad condition, strapped to a gurney, face covered in a spit net. Patrisse is shocked and enraged—why are mentally ill poor people who have never hurt anyone treated this way in the U.S.? Even those who have caused harm should have had appropriate interventions. Healthcare should center the patient, not the money. Patrisse is furious that people see Monte, with his big heart and broken brain, as disposable.

Patrisse demands to know why Monte isn’t getting treatment, but the bailiff doesn’t answer. There is a sudden disturbance—Monte is wheeled in in a full psychotic episode, talking to himself. Patrisse is shocked by the “stunning betrayal of human dignity.” When white men in the court laugh and look at Monte like he is a freak, Patrisse feels shame, but tries to stay centered. When the judge walks in, she is confused and asks why Monte is in the courtroom. No one answers, not even Monte’s public defender. The judge admonishes the police officers, the DA, and Monte’s public defender, and postpones the trial date. As the police nonchalantly roll Monte out of the courtroom, he lets out a final scream of “Mom!” As they leave, Patrisse is angry, asking the DA how he could have let that happen, but he just shrugs.

Cherice starts sobbing and says she feels guilty, which confuses Patrisse, since Cherice has done everything to take care of her kids. But she realizes this is part of being a Black mother—existing between rage, grief, and guilt as the world tries to kill your children. She can’t remember Cherice ever being relaxed with her kids, laughing with him, going to the movies, or telling them to do their homework. Patrisse worries that Cherice is “collateral damage in the battle to elevate personal responsibility over everything,” feeling she is at fault for Monte’s struggles rather than state budget priorities, low wages, police, and lack of access to food. In the face of her mother’s misplaced guilt for having a baby young, being poor, and not keeping mental illness out of Monte’s brain, Patrisse hugs her and tells her it’s not her fault—but she isn’t sure it sticks.

A new hearing date is set. Patrisse and Cherice meet with the public defender and fire him after he says, with no concern, that Monte could be sentenced to life in prison and that he has no plan to fight it, that this is what Monte wants. (This is Monte’s third strike after breaking and entering while manic and supposedly hiding a weapon in his cell while in prison, though he claimed it wasn’t his.) Patrisse makes the public defender tell Monte that they will hire a different lawyer. Then, using the organizing skills she learned at the Strategy Center, Patrisse starts a campaign to raise funds.

Patrisse has faith they will find a way, the very same faith that led slaves to run away and Black civil rights protestors to sit down at a whites-only lunch counter. They have two weeks to hire and finance a lawyer, but it’s difficult because this is before social media and digital fundraising infrastructure. Monte hears about a lawyer named Peter Corn, and Patrisse meets with him. He makes her uncomfortable and charges $10,000, but they don’t have another choice. Alton has money but doesn’t share it, and Paul and Jasmine keep distance from the case due to overwhelm, so it’s up to Patrisse and Cherice to raise the funds. Patrisse refuses to be intimidated, though that’s what the system wants.

The Strategy Center taught Patrisse how to plan and win campaigns. (Just last year, she helped them win a fight against the school district for fining parents $250 each time their kid was late.) Donna taught her how to live a life centered on faith. And her chosen family taught her that nothing could break a community centered on love. Patrisse tells Peter they will get the money and then coordinates community phone banks and letter-writing. In 10 days, they raise $6,000. After Patrisse pushes her to, Cherice asks her parents for the final $4,000, which they eventually provide.

When Patrisse meets with Peter, his law partner tells her that he once prosecuted Patrisse’s uncle, which reminds her that “for these folks, this is all a chess game.” But Peter is a good lawyer and is able to get Monte’s second strike struck from the record, preventing life in prison. Monte will have to serve six years, though, and there is no mention of medical treatment. Patrisse feels something like gratitude and visits Monte in prison every month of his sentence, glad that they mostly keep him on the right balance of meds.

Before Monte comes home, Patrisse and Mark Anthony organize a re-entry team for Monte made up of their chosen family. When he is released in October of 2011, Alton, Paul, and Patrisse drive three hours to pick him up. Patrisse notices all of the prisoners working at the prison, how they are an enslaved workforce, laboring for both corporate America (by making products for companies) and the state of California (by maintaining the prison they’re kept in). Monte emerges from a van, greeting his family and then asking if an older Black man with no one to pick him up can ride with them. As they drive home, Monte comments on the beauty of the scenery he has missed.

They stop for food and then drop the older man off in Hollywood—he doesn’t know where to go, like so many prisoners with lengthy sentences. Then they drive to Cherice’s new Section 8 apartment for a barbecue. Chase greets his father half-heartedly—there’s no way to make up the time they lost. They have a calm night and, before Patrisse leaves, Monte asks if she can help him find a job. Little does he know she has been working on this with the re-entry team and has a janitorial job lined up with a social justice non-profit she has been working with. The re-entry team members will make sure Monte gets to work on time.

Several weeks later, Monte tells Patrisse he’s going to be fired. She calls the ED of the organization, who says Monte isn’t cut out for the job and won’t budge even after Patrisse tries to tell her that they will adjust his dose, and that this is what it means to work with mentally ill people. Monte becomes very depressed, and Cherice can’t support him since she’s also supporting Chase and Bernard. Jasmine and Alton now live in Las Vegas and convince Cherice to bring Monte and join them—housing is much cheaper, and there are good jobs. Patrisse accepts that her mother is leaving but also feels that the war on gangs is a “forced migration project” and “ethnic cleansing”—people of color out and young white people in.

Monte moves to Las Vegas but hates it and returns to LA against Patrisse’s advice, moving in with Cynthia.  Less than a year later, Cherice calls Patrisse to tell her Monte is off his meds and is destroying Cynthia’s home. Mark Anthony and Patrisse drive over there (they now live 45 minutes away in Central LA in an artist’s village) and find Paul holding a crying Monte in his arms, broken furniture and plates everywhere. Monte is calm now, but Cynthia rightfully won’t let him stay there. Patrisse can tell that Monte hasn’t slept in days and takes him home with her and Mark Anthony to rest.

Cherice and the re-entry team meet the others at Cynthia’s, and they all try to convince Monte to go to the hospital. He associates hospitals with prison and has a flashback to his time in LA County Jail (when the only water he had access to was a toilet), and he starts drinking out of Patrisse’s. Watching him like this steels Patrisse’s resolve to get him to the hospital. Since Monte responds better to men, they call in more male support. Mark Anthony and the other men calmly convince Monte to go to the hospital, telling him they love him and want him well. Mark Anthony goes into the hospital with Monte to get him settled. They have navigated this with no police—“this is what community control looks like.”