The purpose of this post is not to make further accusations of Zimmerman's guilt, or to blame any particular person or institution for the events that occurred, or even to decry racism. Rather, it's to publicly share some of my own experiences and knowledge that happen to be relevant to the larger conversation of race in the United States.
As part of this growing public debate, one of the programs on Ithaca Community Radio 88.1 happened to broadcast an interview with Michelle Alexander. Her book's title, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, explains her thesis: the prison system in the U.S. places a disproportionately large segment of the black population, and hold them there as an inferior caste. The initiation of the "War on Drugs" (and the coining of this term) is associated with the Nixon administration, part of the "Southern Strategy," although it was under the Reagan administration that the "War" became more aggressive, seen by the passing of the Anti-Drug Abuse Act in 1986. Since then, incarceration rates have been steadily rising, to the point that the United States now has the highest incarceration rate in the world (more than .8%): around 2.2 million Americans are in jail (for reference, there are 313.9 million Americans in 2012), accounting for around a quarter of the world's prison population. According to a PEW Center study conducted in 2008 (apologies for the dated data), the United States led the world in proportion of the population imprisoned, with 750 inmates per hundred thousand residents. For reference, per hundred thousand residents, Russia had 628 in prison, Belarus had 426, Poland had 236, England and Wales had 148, Turkey had 112, France had 85, and Denmark had 67 (statistics for China and North Korea, unfortunately, were not available). Most of the people imprisoned in the United States are black men; in 2010, the incarceration rate among men was about 6.7 times higher for blacks than for whites, while among women, the incarceration rate for blacks was about 2.8 times higher than that for whites. Also in 2008, whereas 1 per 106 white men eighteen or older were imprisoned, the the statistic is 1 per 36 among Hispanic men, and 1 per 15 among black men. About half of the people currently in prison are serving terms for nonviolent crimes, primarily drug offenses, and non-whites make up two-thirds of those imprisoned for drug offenses. Even though arrest rates for drug crimes are ten times higher among black youth than white youth, one study in 2011 found that white kids are actually more likely to use drugs, and 80% more likely to develop an addiction. The point of all of these statistics is this: a lot of people are in prison in the U.S, a large proportion for drug offense, and most of them are black men.
I'm feeding you all of these facts to make the rest of this post relevant. Four years ago, during my last semester in High School, my government class visited Five-Point Correctional Facility in Romulus, New York. As many of you know, I keep a journal, and I made certain to take detailed notes the evening after my return. The following is a copy, almost verbatim, of what I wrote. I have simplified the writing for clarity, broken the narrative into paragraphs, and removed the names of all of the inmates. Other than that, following is my journal entry from Wednesday, December 17, 2008.
Went
to prison today. Got up and ate without making lunch, listened to the radio and
read a little of E.B. White's One Man's Meat.
At school, Senior breakfast: I had forgotten. I stored my backpack in my locker, met in
Student Activities. Peter Slothower,
Mark Thompson, and Will Troy were all on the bus trip to Ovid, lasting about
one hour.
Ran
into facility in rain. Gave up coats,
shirts tucked in, hands stamped, given directions: double file on the right side of
yellow line drawn on the floor. Two officers with us. One was short with a crew cut, and gruff; the
other was tall, mean, and authoritarian.
Mostly, the former spoke. They
had batons and keys; no officers carried guns, for fear that the prisoners
would be able to wrestle them away. Batons were optional, and if a correctional
officer felt safer without one, he did not carry one. The first officer showed us the arsenal, near
the entrance. All the keys were kept
there, near a board indicating the positions of all 180 correctional
officers. The arsenal also controls all
the gates in the prison (no keys). The
prison was built in 2000. There are 1500
inmates, 1200 cameras, 500 microphones.
Walked next to Mark, and was glad he was there: he's a big guy. Prisoners are allowed to receive two packages
per year, or one television. They buy
items from the Commissar with their 3¢/hour wages. Visitors are allowed, but it's a Class D
Felony to give any object to the prisoners.
Often, drugs are placed in easily-concealed balloons, that are furtively
swallowed. If the swallower is unlucky,
the balloon bursts while still in the stomach, and the inmate can die from
overdose. The officer mentioned a case
in which a balloon of heroin "cooked" an inmate's insides, killing
him instantly one month before his release date.
Shown
big case of confiscated weapons manufactured secretly by inmates. They from pens, pencils, toothbrushes, razors, electric tape,
pipes, anything inmates can get.
"Buck-fifty" = 150-stitch gouge across the cheek from one of
these weapons. The smallest one was maybe an inch long. It had been used against a bunkmate; when the officers had come to the scene, there was blood all over the floor. We heard about the
razor-wire fence. Microwave-like beam
picks up anything approaching, even birds.
Some unfortunate birds get shredded mid-flight.
We
were showed the mess hall. They feed all
180 men in 45 minutes. Go down cafeteria
line, sit in next open place, 10 minutes to eat. Given prison chow at 11:00 served by inmates
who were being paid 37¢/hour. The chow
consisted of noodles in meat(?) sauce, corn in mysterious brown sauce, applesauce, a cup of grape juice, and two slices
of white bread. The state spends $1.50
per prisoner per day on meals, and will leap at any opportunity to reduce this figure by ever so small a portion of a penny. The servers,
all black, yelled at us: girls first.
Peter was called an angel face, and Clifton a pretty boy. One guy asked me what I was studying. I was speechless. Grade? 12th.
Graduating? Definitely. Good.
Apparently, diabetics would get served first, as would those with
allergies. None of us students finished
eating within the time limit. Threw
compost in the yellow bin, and foam and plastic in the grey. If inmate placed their waste in the wrong
bins, they would need to reach into the bin, and throw it in the other. We were shown the tear gas riot control
system installed in the ceiling of the mess hall.
After
the mess hall, the housing block. Four
blocks (A-D), all identical. Central
glass "bubble" in the center of each a surveillance mechanism. Two bunks per room. The roommate system is hated by the
inmates. The inmates leered at us, especially at the
girls, but couldn't bite us through the glass windows of their
thick cell doors, although some had pressed their faces right up against the glass, and snarled at us as we passed. One guy wailed about one of the student's shoe size, then started to yell about help. Many heckled us. One guy told me stay in school, work hard,
don't do drugs. Shown a room. About the size of mine, but designated for
two, and includes toilet, sink, and shower with clear curtain. Row of cassettes, 2 TVs. Little cage outside to smoke, etc. Highly heckled there, too. After dark, the prisoners would be checked on
every hour by having flashlights shined in their faces.
Education
section. Normal-looking classroom with
motivational posters. Dickens film
running in one, no classes in session at that time. People who we passed in halls wore olive
green trousers, usually green top, but not all (gang affiliation). Met six inmates in the classroom. Not friendly at first: yelled at us. They can't touch us. Yelled at to place our money, watches, etc.
in a box, declare how much, and name. We
were put in a circle and given name tags; stand feet together, hands at sides,
looking at feet. Suddenly: Get
down! Hands behind heads. Like riot conditions, minus screaming, tear
gas, pools of HIV-infected blood on floor, pain of batons, gunfire. At least a couple of the girls were crying. Get up.
Then, the inmates softened.
Gathered us in groups of 4-6, each with a couple inmates (each group
pulled up chairs). My classmates were
Mark, Will, and Clifton. The inmates
were friendly. Asked to tell age, grade,
family, aspirations, problems, sports, drugs and alcohol use. Nametags: 1st name only, surname initial if
more than one person with the same first name.
Then, inmates introduced all of us to the everyone else by our vices and
virtues, and themselves by their crime and time. Confidentiality for everyone. Shown tools: Communication, Education, Family,
Responsibility, Religion, Environmental Change, Recreation. Real believe among inmates in toolbox to keep people out of prison.
The
youngest of the group told his story, starting from birth, moving one year at a
time (his first time presenting in front of visiting students). Born a heroin addict because his mother took
heroin while pregnant. Mother abandoned him,
put in a foster, adopted. Beaten. In
1st grade, told "was brilliant" by teacher, but abused even more by
his adopted mother, who changed his name, and hated Puerto Ricans (like him). Drugs, gangs, fights, changes of school. This was his 4th time in prison; he had been sentenced for robbery. (Many girls were crying by this point.) One of the other inmates, who wants to be a
youth preacher, told two of the confused girls in the group, going through
identity crises, that they were special.
There
was a bathroom break (I followed close behind Mark). Guard snapped at me: did you piss on my
seat? ...no. What did you hesitate? I think you did! No go back to the officer. There was a strange jumping inmate.
Next,
in the classroom, there were demonstrations on inmates and roommates,
"prison justice," group phone use.
25 guys share 2 phones for 2 hours.
One "click" is 30 minutes.
Next, another inmate told story about his "mask." Began with father beating him. Had to be perfect, mother couldn't protect,
hated his father. One girl meant everything to
him, she became pregnant in a motel, scared her, did everything to keep parents
from finding out. One day, she was bleeding
badly, he drove her to far-off hospital, but the girl lived. A few years later, still fighting and smoking
drugs, and angry. Fight with a hotel
manager. In brawl, friend got hit in
throat with ashtray. Arrested later for
murder.
Another
story: beaten by drunk parents. Smoked,
fought, killed girlfriend, eventually.
Chains of shame, pain guilt.
Married: prison hard on a relationship.
Parents seemed to age so much.
Brother died, godfather died.
Couldn't hug them, because in "chains." Again, lots of girls weeping at this
point. Always emphasized by other
inmates: don't feel sorry for him, feel sorry for the victims and their
families. That was the end of the
educational section: received belongings back that we had deposited at the
beginning. Officer, rhetorically: why
did you give belongings, and accept nametags, even though we had been told to
give nothing and take nothing. Inmates
told us again about tools to use. Main
theme: make the right choices.
That is the end of the journal entry. There are a few other details I'll add, based entirely on my memory. One of the inmates' narratives, that of the man planning to become a preacher, I heard secondhand: he was imprisoned for murdering the man that had raped his wife. Among the prisoners allowed to speak to us, all were convicted of murder or robbery; rapists, pedophiles, and other sex-offenders, as well as arsonists, were not permitted to meet school groups. Although the seclusion of sex-offenders is fairly obvious, there was no explanation for why arsonists need to be kept away from school groups. Another anecdote concerns the mental state of some of the prisoners: one inmate had been sentenced there because he had chopped his parents up, and thrown the pieces in a sack. There was also purportedly someone there who had eaten his victims. The next concerns gender: maximum-security prisons are all-male or all-female. Prisons for men are far more numerous; however, compared even to the worst maximum-security prisons, maximum-security prisons for women are hell. The last is about race: based on my estimate, I'd say that 90-95% of the inmates in this prison were black.
To return to topic which which I began this post, racial prejudice is a very real problem in this country. Some voices on the far left, most notably those of historian Howard Zinn and his followers, argue that the race problem is nothing more than a distraction from the real problem, which is the class system. I do not know whether this is correct or not. I do know for certain that there are a filters in my mind, as well as in the minds of many other Americans, that discriminate based on race, sex, age, physical attractiveness, body weight, and many other irrelevant factors. Try as I can, I cannot be "colorblind." I am ashamed of this, and try very consciously to overcome this, but find that prejudice, and the disposition to be judgmental, are embedded deeply in my psyche, and lack a simple on/off switch. Fast judgment can sometimes be very useful; for those of you interested in the topic of the human capacity to make wise split-second decisions, I highly recommend Malcolm Gladwell's Blink. Blink, however, also discusses the downfalls of "thin-slicing" as the author calls this technique of the human mind's passing judgments based on relatively little information:. Sometimes, such low-information judgments can lead the American public to elect to national office the candidate who "looks" most fit for the job: the result is President Warren G. Harding. At other times, such judgments can lead to police officers shooting an unarmed and defenseless man to death for no other reason that the fact that he "looked" threatening, i.e. had black skin.
The only philosopher I know who ever stood up and argued on behalf of prejudice wrote at the end of the 18th century, and had the following to say in defense of the ancient institution: "Prejudice is of ready application in the emergency; it previously engages the mind in a steady course of wisdom and virtue, and does not leave the man hesitating in the moment of decision, sceptical, puzzled, and unresolved" (Edmund Burke, "Reflections on the Revolution in France," The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, vol. 3).
(Burke, in this same essay, also, incredibly argues on behalf of superstition.)
This passage fills me with disgust. W.E.B. Dubois believed that the problem of 20th-century America would be the problem of the color-line, and the line is still marked and uneffaced in 2013. It will take more than a black president to rub it out; it will take a new way of thinking, a new mindset. A mindset that I know that I do not at this moment have. It's a weltenschauung, a worldview, that needs to be constructed, though, and it's not enough to start with our children: we need to start with ourselves.
I know I don't ordinarily ask this, but if you've read this post from a link on Facebook, I'd appreciate it if you could share this link. I'm hoping to further the widen the debate on our prison system, and would accept criticism if it meant spreading knowledge about as important a topic as this one.
~JD
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