Race...Again (2)

I’ve been thinking a lot about race once again. It seems as though there is always something going on that puts this country’s bipolar response to our racial make up front and center. Recently we’ve had an elderly NBA team owner spout some of the dumbest things I can recall hearing. And why? Because he was jealous that the surgically enhanced tart he was bedding (thank you Viagra!), 50 years his junior, was posting Instagram photos of herself with Black athletes.

            Not to be outdone, we had a Black congressman refer to a Black Supreme Court Justice as “an Uncle Tom.” We can’t even have a legitimate conversation about immigration and our borders because – for so many on the right – it boils down to skin color. The left is no better. Like so many friends from my prior life who toil away in academia (the proverbial salt mines!) they talk of racial equality yet work at institutions, attend churches, and live in neighborhoods devoid of any racial diversity.

            Not so in here. You want a front line experiment on the effects of race in America? Come to a prison. On its face, race matters. We naturally gravitate toward our comfort zone and we find comfort in what we know. If we live segregated lives, we apply those memories when we are thrown into a new, uncharted area – that’s race relations in prison.

            One of the worst things “inside” is watching how race ends up separating men, how it leads to violence. But I also know our preconceived notions of race can be overcome. What’s inside matters a hell of a lot more than one’s color.

            So last week I found myself in the midst of a racial dispute. On one side, “Tan Chris.” If ever a guy deserved an ass kicking, it would be TC. Simply put, he is an arrogant prick. He also makes blatantly racist comments. On the other side is a 32 year-old muscular vet, Kemp. Kemp did two tours in Afghanistan. One of the results of his service was a 20% disability rating for injuries (a purple heart recipient) he suffered.

            Anyway “TC” makes it a habit of launching racist jokes daily. He sleeps across from me, and each day I hear him mutter some disparaging remark, always directed at color. The other day, he told me he didn’t like the turnover in the building. “All that’s coming in are more of them,” he said. To which I replied that in “my experience” it was always “white guys” who - 1. don’t wash their hands after using the bathroom; 2. don’t regularly do their laundry; 3. are disrespectful. In fact, I told him, it was the young Black guys who always showed me the most respect.

            “I figured you’d side with them,” he said. My retort: “I hate everyone equally regardless of color.” Back to Kemp. The other day, he catches old TC muttering about Blacks. And, it pisses him off. So he approaches TC and tells him, “If you have a problem with people like me, then I have a problem with you.” Now Kemp would pulverize TC and I’d love to see it happen except … except beating up a guy solves nothing.

            So I pull Kemp aside and ask him to refrain from knocking the a-hole into next week. And Kemp, a guy I’ve helped some with college and other stuff, he smiles and says “ok. I’ll do it because I respect you.” He adds a “But.” “But, if that racist MF keeps it up, I’m not promising anything.”

            So it goes in here. It’s all ignorance really. One ignorant guy making stupid comments about people and pretty soon there’s turmoil. Maybe prison isn’t that much different from the world “out there.” Maybe one of these days race won’t matter.

Another Investigation

They raided the shop Thursday morning. Both investigators, the Major (in street clothes) and a half dozen COs walked into the furniture shop and took all six office workers into custody. All six have – change that, “had” – access to computers. Wednesday night on a “tip” (i.e. an inmate dropped a note) a factory worker in 1A was shook down. In his possession were notebooks full of parley slips. And, the slips were all typeset. There were hundreds of tickets for NBA and NHL play-offs, NASCAR, and Major League Baseball. The guy had an OTB operation running out of his locker.

            They took him into custody and he did what an inmate is never supposed to do: he told on his business associates. Those associates were all the computer guys at the factory. Now they’re all together in the hole.

            The hole. There’s a lot going on in DOC right now about solitary confinement. Virginia has been under the watchful gaze of church groups, Amnesty International, and the ACLU for its liberal use of solitary confinement. These groups, supported by scientific and medical research have argued that solitary confinement for long stretches causes long-term psychological harm. For some sociopathic, violent inmates, solitary confinement is the only option. For most, however, the hole is pure punishment.

            Most guys in here will puff their chests and tell you that you haven’t done “real time” until you’ve (1) been to a “major” (a high custody facility) and (2) been to the “hole.” I did my 4 ½ months in receiving with the psychotic murderers, and rapists, and child predators; I witnessed firsthand the packs of gang bangers robbing, rolling, and beating other inmates; I saw the after-effects of stabbings and rapes; I did enough “time” to meet test #1. I have no desire to notch, as a completed goal, item #2.

            The same day the VCE shop guys got locked up I had to walk over to 7 building. No, I wasn’t “in trouble.” I was delivering worksheets and a test to one of our college guys sitting in the hole for dirty urine. The warden allows guys doing their hole time to stay up on their classwork – provided it’s on paper; no hardback books allowed in solitary.

            My buddy DC, once one of the most notorious convicts in the Virginia prison system, pulled over a dozen straight years in solitary. There were times, he told me, when he thought he was losing his mind. Being alone in a small confined space begins to play tricks with your mental state. Doing hole time back then was serious. There weren’t cameras anywhere. Officers would come along at different times and pop your cell door and beat on you. DC was a boxer; he got his shots in, but six on one and he usually came up short.

            The hole today is different. You get outside once a day (weather permitting) for rec. You’re put in a “dog kennel,” a twelve by twelve fended-in enclosure, just enough room to walk around, do some calisthenics, and get some fresh air. Every three days you get walked down the hall to the shower.

            Where the hole gets you now is the idleness. You aren’t allowed any electronics – no TV, no radio or CDs. Books are limited; stamps, envelopes, and paper and pen if you already possess them. You give up all your commissary – food and hygiene products – and live on the 3 trays they give you plus small tubes of toothpaste, a state toothbrush, and bar soap. You sit in a cell, with no view of the world and no sounds, and you sleep, you sleep the days away.

            One of our other college students, “Wes” was back there for fifteen days at the beginning of April. He came out ten pounds thinner (he only weighed 160 to begin with). What did he do? He typed a sexually charged letter to his girlfriend on a work computer. They found it, fired him, threw him out of the college building, and left him sitting in the hole for over two weeks.

            Every week you see guys with officers in tow pushing carts with all their belongings toward “7.” It’s a long walk with 900 pairs of eyes fixed on you. No matter what guys tell you about toughness and “manning” up, it isn’t fun.

            There’s no honor in prison on either side. The officers – many of them anyway – are as dirty and corrupt as those they’re paid to police. We have a new investigator who is busy locking guys up; all the while, we know about the tobacco he used to sneak in and the furniture he had built – for free.

            And then there are the inmates. Most end up getting caught due to their own stupidity and arrogance. “Cubby” – he was using heroin two to three times a week. Wes – he forgot to put a stamp on his envelope. The letter came back, was opened, read, and Wes was walking to “7.” The shop workers – they used their work computers to run book even knowing that they watch every keystroke.

            Investigation? This isn’t the Warren Commission at work. We, collectively, are our own worst enemies. So the gambling and the drugs, the store boxes and the Google numbers, the guys who run the hustles change but the hustles keep going and the officers, running their own hustles, keep playing along. Another week, another investigation, and a few more in the hole.