The Audacity To Love

As many of you know, one of the artists I collect (in fact, the artist who got me into art collecting) is Halim Flowers. Halim's backstory is incredible: he was convicted of felony murder as a juvenile in DC  after an accomplice shot a man during a home invasion of a rival drug dealer (Halim was not the trigger man and had already left the house when the killing occurred). He was sentenced to life in prison, eventually being released after twenty years thanks to a law targeting life sentences handed out to juvenile offenders. Since then, he has become a very successful artist showing internationally (his solo exhibition was featured at a Paris gallery this month).

Some people who promote Halim have described his story as "going to prison for a crime he didn't commit." I understand why they might say that, given confusion over what "felony murder" is,* but it isn't really true (and to be clear, I've never seen Halim say this or in any way try to skirt responsibility for his actions).

In any event, Halim has published a letter to "Face", the alias he went by on the streets as a kid (so-named because of his babyface). 

It's powerful reading. What impacted me the most is, again, how it doesn't try to avoid accountability, but also doesn't adopt the cliched narrative that prison was necessary to make him the man he is today. Rather, the theme of his letter is that none of this needed to happen. He didn't have to partake in crime. He didn't have to do the home invasion. There were, always, people who loved him. There were, always, people who wanted him to be the man he was always meant to be. He could've been that guy from the get-go.

The letter resonated with the post I wrote a few weeks ago about the American parents grieving their son who died after volunteering to fight for Russia against Ukraine, as part of a misguided tankie-ish "anti-imperialism", and also last year's article in Mother Jones about the mother of the UC-Santa Barbara mass shooter. These cases are all about the terrible maelstrom where unconditional parental love slams into commission of terrible crimes. You'd think something would have to give -- either denial of the crime, or abandonment of the love -- but the reality is that in many cases both persist and coexist in a terrible, chaotic symphony.

Those of us lucky enough not to be directly connected to the principals still can experience a pale echo of this. Halim's life, even after he was implicated in a serious crime, is precious -- the tremendous beauty he has created since his release is testament to that, though I don't want to say one has to be an artist of his talent for his life to matter. The man Halim's accomplice killed, even though he was also involved in the drug trade, is also precious -- we don't know what he would have done with his life, but I have no doubt he also had people who loved him and who he loved in return. The impossible necessity is to hold those truths together at the same time.

In my post, I wrote about

a nineteen-year old man arrested in Berkeley for attempted murder after stabbing someone during a fight outside a bar (as it happens, a bar I periodically frequented). When I read that, I was hit with a wave of despondency -- in part over the senseless of the stabbing, but in part as a sort of third-party grief on behalf of his parents. Didn't he know he had people who loved him? Didn't he realize how much him doing this would hurt them? How awful they must feel, and how alone, given that (understandably, and reasonably) the bulk of the community's care and concern will be directed at the victim and his family, not the perpetrator.

Part of what makes Halim's letter so powerful is that -- without being saccharine or wide-eyed -- just seeks to suffocate the problem it identifies in love. The audacity to keep loving, and the wherewithal to understand that one is loved, could alleviate and avert so much pain. In the overwhelming majority of cases, the love is already there, like a precious resource waiting to be tapped.

* Simplified, "felony murder" is the charge when a murder occurs in the course of a dangerous felony you're taking part in. It is not the same thing as "the felony of murder", which is confusing. In Halim's case, only the triggerman could be prosecuted for first-degree murder, but all accomplices to the felonious home invasion could get hit with a felony murder charge.

Image: Halim Flowers, "Audacity to Love (IP) (Blue)", silkscreen (ed. 10), 30" x 22" (2023). This print was executed shortly after October 7, and features the colors of the Israeli and Palestinian flags (there is a color-swapped white version as well). Even -- or especially -- in that moment, the audacity to love is an essential prerequisite to healing and providing for a just future.