Dan Simmons
Race and Prison
I was born two years before Brown v Board of Education and raised in the midst of the Civil Rights and Black Power movements. At the time of the sit-ins, boycotts, and Freedom Rides going on in the Deep South, Jet magazine, more so than mainstream media, brought to my attention the fundamental issues surrounding these struggles that were going on in my name. Jet brought the images of Emmett Till, Viola Liuzzo, and the Birmingham church bombing into my household. Also the advent of the Black Power movement, emphasized by the presence of the Black Panthers in my own neighborhood, helped in shaping my understanding of the society I lived in.
However, being raised in the Bay Area my personal exposure to overt racism was minimal when compared to the southern experience of that same era. As an adolescent my encounters with racism were limited to police harassment, the discouragement of educators, and minor public annoyances.
I was made aware very early in life that strolling in the wrong neighborhood could cost you a smack upside the head by the servers and protectors and, depending on the mood of the police, a possible trip to juvenile hall. In the predominately black schools I attended I have had, on two occasions, white teachers condescendingly inform me that college was not a realistic option. Also, like all young African-American males, young and old, I've experienced white females hugging their purses and locking their car doors when I've gotten into their comfort zone. That was pretty much the extent of my personal experiences with racism, and it did not come close to preparing me for the type of racism I later witnessed and was a part of.
I was arrested in 1983 for armed bank robbery and sentenced to the California Department of Corrections (CDC), and sent to CTF (Correctional Training Facility) Soledad, and to San Quentin Prison to do my time. For 8 years I witnessed first hand how a group of people, the California Correctional Peace Officers Association (CCPOA), used a classic racial divide- and-conquer approach as a means of control and self-aggrandizement. This organization used racial conflict and, in many cases, instigated and orchestrated it to transform itself into the most powerful union in the state. Their political action committee's use of the rhetoric of violence and fear enabled them to engineer the most massive prison expansion in U.S. history, building over 20 new prison facilities.
In the decade that I entered the prison system racial violence was the deadliest in the history of CDC. The violence was system wide; every institution in CDC was embroiled in racial conflict. Administrators used segregation, which is legal in California prisons, as a means to exploit differences and encourage a perpetual atmosphere of tension and apprehension. The divisions between African-Americans and Mexicans and to a lesser extent African-Americans and whites were non-negotiable. Your ethnicity determined who you rode with; you got down with your own, no exceptions.
On the streets gang violence is usually intra-ethnic, blacks killing blacks and Mexicans killing Mexicans, with the rare inter-racial conflict. In prison the authorities managed to equally encourage gang and racial conflict. There was black v brown, white v black, compounded by Bloods attacking Crips (black v black), and Sureño killing Norteño (brown v brown).
If you are one of the rare breed of race neutral people I can "guaran-goddamn-tee" you that after doing a penitentiary stretch you'd be doing some serious re-assessment.
Racial awareness becomes an immediate necessity upon arrival on Fish Row. Fish Row is where new inmates are isolated from the mainline convicts until they are evaluated and given a permanent housing assignment. Here is where I discovered that everything is predicated on ethnicity and affiliation; cell assignments, access to laundry, job assignments, and more, were dependent on what group was calling the shots. Every major ethnic group had their own barber, T.V. room, shower area, chow hall area, area on the weight pile, etc. It was unwritten law that infringement on another group's territorial right was punishable by the swift administration of violence: the segregation was total and all-encompassing.
Coincident with your racial education is your gang recruitment; the first thing other inmates want to know is where you are from. Gang membership/affiliation is a protective necessity, you can be a lawyer, banker, or a thief, but unless you want to lock up in Protective Custody (PC), you will affiliate with one group or another. You won't have to find them, they'll find you. My being from the Bay Area and meeting old friends there that were involved with the BGF I naturally became associated with them. By my association with these individuals I was later designated by prison staff as a full fledged member, although I never took the required oath.
My introduction to racial violence began swiftly in Soledad when I was transferred from Fish Row to my permanent cellblock, G-Wing. For good reason G-Wing was known throughout the prison as Gangster Wing; every gang was duly represented. Although the races were segregated by cells, the tiers were not segregated, so you had a bunch of dangerous, violent, race proud, white, black, and brown individuals living side by side. Here is where I learned that the old cliché "tension so thick you could cut it with a knife" was not hyperbole. A few days after getting there, in the midst of unlock, before my cell was popped, they started "rocking and rolling" on the second tier. This was the first time I experienced gunfire in an enclosed concrete and steel area.
Terrified is not a strong enough adjective to describe my emotional state. The level of violence I saw through my locked cell door was something I had never witnessed before. It was stunning and made me very, very grateful that the ensuing lockdown would interrupt my descent into this abyss. I was also puzzled by the lack of an immediate guard response. How could they allow inmates in a closed, confined area to get totally out of control for what seemed like forever before intervening? At this time I was unaware that racial conflict was a means to an end; more prisons = more jobs. Also, it was beneficial in the suppression of solidarity among prisoners. In this context the use of race as an anvil and gangs as a hammer was hugely successful.
Shortly after the two month lockdown was lifted I experienced first hand how CDC/CCPOA set the stage for events to occur. I was on the yard in Soledad Central waiting in the phone line with a few associates. Normally on the yard would be a strong guard presence. There was not a presence that day, which indicated to everyone that it was "on."
As we expected, a group of Mexicans, some with shanks, attacked the blacks, some who also had shanks. We fought back and suddenly everywhere there was chaos, weapons and fist were flying and people were screaming. It seemed like forever until the obligatory gunshots were fired and the orders to "GET DOWN!" could be distinguished from the mayhem. The baton wielding "good ole boy" goon squad rushed the yard and for hours beat, stripped, and searched everyone for weapons.
In the course of defending myself I had sustained a minor knife wound so I was escorted to the infirmary, stitched up, and then hauled off to the hole. I spent the next 13 months in the SHU (security housing unit) inside the infamous O-Wing, where the racism was amplified even more. My racial consciousness had become total and complete. By the time I was transferred to San Quentin my interest in understanding others was zero.
Any residues of racial understanding, or issues concerning solidarity, were invisible on my radar. The hate generated by constant life threatening conflict instilled in me a total and complete disregard for "Others." The California Department of Corrections and the CCPOA had completely altered my behavior towards others, and made the focus of my racial identity first and foremost in my thinking.
The impact of my prison experiences has had a lingering, pervasive effect; for years afterwards Latinos were the targets of my enmity. The divisions CDC nurtured and controlled managed my very being, I saw through a color coded prism. Even now, knowing how I was manipulated, I still in certain situations become very race conscious, responding in a defensive mode. For the rest of my days that's probably how it will be.