The Tattooed Prisoner and Little Netta
By: Mike B.
Tags: Toys, Children, Selflessness, Compassion

The Tattooed Prisoner and Little Netta

The scene is called Joker’s Social Experiment. The Joker is the chief architect of a scenario in which people are on boats trying to flee a city. He ironically is the reason they are fleeing the city in the first place (because he threatened to destroy it). There are two boats featured in the scene and the Joker gives each boat a detonator to destroy the other or else he’ll blow them both up … and they only have a few minutes to determine a course of action. What an experiment! To The Dark Knight movie writers: Bravo — WOW!

During the experiment the Joker and Batman are in a tower battling each other as people in the boats contemplate blowing each other up. In my first blog, Please Throw your Detonator out the Window, I focused on the boats representing the positions people have on issues in our society and the detonators as words we use and things we do that set off divisive bombs of negativity and hate which ultimately lead to destruction. While the title encouraged us to throw our detonators out of the window, if you read the entire blog, I ended with encouraging us to instead use our detonators to set off Fruits of the Holy Spirit bombs of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control in our conversations and interactions with one another, no matter which boat(s) we may consider ourselves in.

I now turn our attention to four characters in the scene, the actions they took, and how they relate to our lives today.

The Joker is an agent of chaos. He supplies the bombs and detonators to people on boats, enables them to make a choice, and if they don’t comply he takes action himself to blow things up. He directly (or indirectly through his supporters) sets things in motion that put people against each other and even within themselves. The really wild part about the Joker’s actions is that he does things just because. In the movie, Alfred mentioned some people just like to watch the world burn, and the Joker himself said he’s like a dog chasing a car who wouldn’t know what to do with it if he caught it. This is destructive behavior. Let’s not be like the Joker.

Joker, The Dark Knight

Batman is trying to stop Joker and appears to be one of the heroes in the scene. He claims to do things in the name of righteousness and goodness, but deep down he too is doing it for sport and is destroying the city and others in the process. He has no rules, no jurisdiction, considers himself to be above the law; does whatever he wants because he thinks he’s right and that his means are justifying the end (e.g. the technology used to track Joker). But who is holding Batman accountable for his actions? Who is calling Batman out? Batman can’t just do whatever the hell he wants. This is destructive behavior. Let’s not be like Batman.

L. Fox with Batman’s sonar technology based computer system that can spy on the whole city, The Dark Knight

Now, let’s talk about the guy (I don’t know his name) holding the detonator in the boat of civilians. He thinks his life is more valuable than the life of prisoners on the other boat; he thinks he’s good and other people are bad and therefore feels they deserve to die. He’s arguably the most evil and dangerous in this scene because his “would be” actions were not random; they were calculated and he used reason and logic to justify destroying others because he felt his own life mattered more than others. Let’s not be like this guy.

Guy on civilian boat, The Dark Knight

Now we arrive at the Tattooed Prisoner. He’s the one who literally and figuratively diffuses the situation and ruins Joker’s Social Experiment. He’s the one thinking about others ahead of himself. He’s the one who does the thing no one else has the courage to do in throwing the detonator out of the window. His selfless behavior is something we should all model in our everyday lives. Let’s be like the Tattooed Prisoner.

Tattooed Prisoner on prisoner boat, The Dark Knight

When I think of the Tattooed Prisoner’s selflessness I can’t help but be reminded of the memory of my late cousin, Little Netta, and the story of her selfless actions when she celebrated her sixth birthday. She was born December 27, 1974 (two days after Christmas) and at her sixth birthday party she gave away her gifts to children after learning they did not receive gifts for Christmas. Simply amazing.

Little Netta is the nickname of Jeannetta L. Robinson. She was the granddaughter of Ms. Jeannetta Simpson-Robinson, and great-granddaughter of Claretta “Mother Freedom” Simpson, community leaders and co-founders of Career Youth Development, Inc (CYD), a non-profit, multi-service, social service agency that offered more than 30 programs to Milwaukee’s poor families to help them through drug addiction, gang activity, parenting, academic challenges and many other challenges for over 40 years. CYD’s slogan was “Love in Action” and it could not better summarize the philosophy of Ms. Simpson-Robinson, Ms. Simpson, and the kindness of Little Netta through her actions.

Little Netta and Cheryl Robinson

On April 4, 1984 Little Netta and her mother, Cheryl Robinson, were tragically murdered. My grandmother, Ms. Simpson-Robinson, decided to create an annual event in Little Netta’s memory called Lil’ Jeannetta Robinson’s Toys for the Children that Santa Forgot but God Remembered through Your Gifts of Love. She loved long titles! The first event was held Friday, December 27, 1985 (on what would have been Little Netta’s 11th birthday), and continued for 28 years. The event provided toys to approximately 20 children in its first year and grew to providing toys to more than 2,000 children annually.

Ms. Jeannetta Simpson-Robinson

Ms. Claretta “Mother Freedom” Simpson

I share this background with you because my dad, brothers, and I have decided to once again honor the memory of Little Netta by planning to bring this event back next year to help children. You can consider this entire blog an official SAVE THE DATE for December 27, 2021. We’ll be leaning on God and the love and support from the entire community to execute on our vision. I have a vision for the event being something that ultimately takes place nationwide, but we’ll start one event in one city (Milwaukee) next year and go from there.

Little Netta’s compassion toward others at such a young age serves as an example for all of us.

Let’s be like Little Netta. Happy Birthday, cousin.

-Mike Brown