Today at the Angola Crafts Fair I bought two plants from the prisoner who grows the flowers for prison beautification. “I grow their flowers for them, and they let me grow a few plants for myself on the side to sell,” said he. If this does not sound eerily familiar to you, then you do not know enough about slavery.
Axé.
coldhearted scientist وداد 
Heartbreaking.
This is why visiting at the prison is so tiring, I suppose. Although visiting at the Crafts Fair is the least tiring of all visiting modes.
There is also visiting prisoners at home when they have gotten out. Often it is also heartbreaking. (Poverty is *really* not a good thing, and there is so much to know about it that many people never guess or see.)
I bought a painting from a prisoner there. He was white, and earned his ticket into Angola via manslaughter. Did you look up the plant vendor’s record?
Slaves were innocent prisoners, but the people inside Angola committed serious crimes. I don’t think that it’s fair to reduce the struggle of the real slaves by comparing them to old convicts paying their debt to society.
Gosh, Pistolette! I had not imagined that any of these people were criminals! I thought the police went and picked up random people on the street and put them in Angola! I thought they might even be after you! And slaves were not ‘innocent prisoners,’ they were barbarian savages we saved through religious conversion. We taught them our languages. We put up with their ingratitude when they ran away.
Sorry to be so ironic. I guess you are one of those who do not know very much about the criminal justice system or about slavery. And this blog is not a 101 course on these matters. If anyone else feels like explaining, be my guests.
***
Here’s a post from a kinder person than myself for the “oh did you know they were criminals” crowd.
Manslaughter is *far* from the most heinous of the crimes people at Angola and in other maximum security state prisons have been convicted of. And try looking at a *rap sheet* some time – you then get to see what they’ve been suspected of, too, and some of it can really make your hair stand on end. And I am quite wicked since I am trying to get some rather grisly murderers off death row. My attitude is bad. I feel that a worse murderer is in the White House.
Anyway this post is about slavery, working for yourself on the side, renting yourself out, and so on. You can learn something about this if you read, for instance, the narrative of Frederick Douglass, which is available for free on the Berkeley sunsite.
And, for those who persist in believing the prison system is *not* a modern parallel to slavery and Jim Crow, there are Keith Ellison’s comments right here. And then there is the question of ‘prison industries’.
Zero, prison reform is another story, and I agree America needs a lot of it. But don’t give me that intellectually condescending BS. Just because I don’t agree with you doesn’t mean my education is lacking, it just means you need to get over yourself.
Something I massively dislike about liberal discourse is its passive aggression and guilt tripping – all to make people mouth middle of the road pieties.
“The fact that you realize Angola was a plantation and still works like one, and notice the way in which the criminal justice system works to perpetuate inequality, etc., is mean to memory of the poor suffering innocent actual slaves.”
Reminds me of something someone said a few weeks ago on a radical feminist site. Because nobody there (she assumed) had ever had a relative killed, nobody could know what it was like, so nobody could oppose the death penalty / other violent revenge fantasies, because that might hurt the feelings of the departed’s relatives.
All of this is very egocentric and it reencodes respect for bourgeois privilege as “sensitivity.”
Prof Zero I would say you are right about the prison system in racist white settler societies like the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and apartheid South Africa.
They are politicized institutions that control populations of people who are deemed threatening and undesirable.
Prisons are operationalized by a governing system that legislates and polices to keep a disproportionate number of Blacks and Latinos locked up.
At this very moment, one out of every four Black men are in the judicial process somehow. Either being arrested, being processed, held until charged, on bail/parole, or locked away.
What this translates to is that there are more Black men in prison than in college. The number for Black women is significantly lower in these terms.
And don’t forget that the vast majority of people on death row, are Black men.
In all, racial politics still describe the prison system, the fastest growing demographic in prisons are Latinas.
So when we look at the prison system as a whole, there is more than just a passing resemblance to the system of slavery.
Both institutions are driven by values that describe the content of the Other. Moreover, in the context of your post, both systems are aimed at profitting off the description and managing of the Other.
In the state of Washington Blacks make up less than 3 percent of the population but they are more than 45 percent of the prison population!
And when you add brown folk, well then you could assume that whites were the minority in Washington state.
Not true of course.
I guess we could take the naive route and explain this in terms that evoke justice and criminality, etc.
But it is not so simple. The Jena 6 case is just one recent illustration of the bias built into the judicial system. And a racist bias is what I am pointing too.
Crime is a construction. And what ends up being criminal is a matter of malleable invention.
Still, the liberal and middle-liberal habit is to believe that we are far removed from the structure of slavery. It is the myth of progress shared with the likes of Bush and Cheney.
What that myth does not hide is that the prison system profits handsomely off of prisoners.
Angela Davis points to this when she makes the connection between slavery and the US prison system.
Why would small towns seek to attract huge prisons as a means of development? In fact, why would private companies seek to get in on the profits?
Well, because it is very profitable. Jobs, income, development are the ‘values’ hidden beneath the prison system.
In fact, the US model is being sold in other settler societies like Australia and South Africa. Not only the model, but the same private companies who are in the business of prisons here are opening franchises there.
The racialized prison system of the US is a globalizing commodity too!
In effect, prisons in the US are part of an ongoing racist system, derived from slavery, that is aimed at gatekeeping, and influx-control (movement).
And boy is it profitable.
Onward!
Ridwan
“In fact, the US model is being sold in other settler societies like Australia and South Africa. Not only the model, but the same private companies who are in the business of prisons here are opening franchises there.”
This is wild. Frightening.
And yes – it was Angela Davis who pointed out the structural similitude slavery/prisons long ago. Among others.
Great post, Ridwan.
“So when we look at the prison system as a whole, there is more than just a passing resemblance to the system of slavery.
Both institutions are driven by values that describe the content of the Other. Moreover, in the context of your post, both systems are aimed at profiting off the description and managing of the Other.”
Yes.
Ah – and of course, I ought to have noted explicitly that condescending liberal faux ‘sensitive’ discourse is precisely the discourse of Da Whiteman!!!
P.S. In high school we learned that it was rude to ask convicts what their charge is, and I never do. And I don’t know the plant vendor’s name. But he is in his 28th year there and that sounds like a life sentence … common at Angola. This could be murder, rape, or also a third nonviolent drug offense. “My” recently released prisoner had a life sentence (then commuted to time served) for possession of heroin (several arrests for this after coming back from Viet Nam addicted; no other arrests/convictions). He’s a decorated veteran. So support him, he’s a troop!
Prof Z. I hear you on this. I always use the powder cocaine and crack cocaine example to explain in my classes on racism that not all crimes are created equally.
When you think that a crack cocaine conviction on average can be three times more severe than powder cocaine.
The populations that are the target of crack cocaine policing are poor and more likely Black and Latino/a.
We have prisons full of people who are there for drug-related offences. People of color and the poor.
I am hardly in two minds as to why the face of prisoners are predominantly of color.
How many of the Enron execs are in prison now? How many white men in their fifties who appear rich were profiled by police after Enron?
None. Crime is not a rich white pathology.
I was at an airport in San Diego where a Black child was playing too close to the exit gate. Her father was about a two meters from her.
The gate attendant complained to him and was quite rude. He protested at her manner. She called the cops.
In what seemed two minutes cops appeared and started speaking to the father like he was a threat to national security.
The entire demeanour of the cops, who were white, was telling. And I say that as someone who makes a living studying race.
The one officer kept threatening the father who had brought his daughter to his side. She and her brother were both under the age of 12.
The father kept asking what law had been broken.
The cops ignored his question and kept berating the man like he had done something severe and illegal.
And all the while the father remained calm though clearly agitated. He said “I have rights” to which they threatened him with arrest.
“Sir, I am warning you” it is in your interests to keep quiet. He asked “why should I, have I broken a law?”
The whole scene reminded me of apartheid South Africa where white cops spent large parts of the day keeping Black folk in check.
It is degrading and one lives in fear. In these circumstances it is hardly hard to find innocent Black folks on the wrong side of the ‘law’ … and often in circumstances that most whites can avoid.
Peace,
Ridwan
“It is degrading and one lives in fear. In these circumstances it is hardly hard to find innocent Black folks on the wrong side of the ‘law’ … and often in circumstances that most whites can avoid.”
Precisely. And it is why I am so tired of hearing questions like, “Have you ever thought that some convicts may actually be guilty of some crimes?” Gosh! Duh! It is really difficult not to get sarcastic.
Although the unperturbed response is better: reader, if that is the best question/comment you have, then in fact you do do not know very much about the criminal justice system or about slavery.
Thanks, Ridwan, for filling in some of those gaps.
Prof Z. the answer to your response here and my response is to be found in the ISP address of this anonymous comment on my blog today. It is to be found under my “The God’s are Still Crazy” post.
It reads:
“Anonymous said…
> Geez, tonight is one of those
> nights when a rightly aimed cap in
> the ass of whiteness will do me
> just fine.
Wow, a professorship, a blog, writing proper English … and you still have the simple impulses of a street thug. Nice.”
How far have we come then?
Peace,
Ridwan
Well at least that person hasn’t come very far.
[Just out of curiosity: ISP or IP address? Remember those can be deceptive … and the writer could be in one country and have logged into an account on a machine elsewhere.]
Why are trolls always anonymous? … Why are people so literally minded? … Why do we constantly have to go back to racism 101? …
[Anyway I just tried to rescue a blog friend from some literally minded attackers, caught some sarcasm, responded by citing books, and am just waiting for someone to say it is not fair of me to cite books because the fact that I can is a result of privilege and that I need to learn this.]
So the troll returned to leave more venom and hate. I have made the descision not to allow anonymous comments on my blog.
It really is so strange that this episode has made me feel absolutely disgusted.
And yet, one is supposed to be prepared for dealing with racism.
But most times it still stings.
Onward!
Ridwan
I think one can be prepared for racism expressed in certain forms but it is harder to be prepared for abuse, especially when it catches one by surprise. The goal of abuse is to destabilize. And to unload the venom they feel. That is why the recipient gets disgusted (at best – worse is to internalize the sting).
Anyway, no anonymous comments is a good idea.
As you say – onward! (Actually, I really like the ways you sign off: onward! peace, and struggle – they’re really useful for when you’re feeling embattled, as I often am; they keep one from miring down.)
What has happened to me? How did I redeem myself from nausea? Who rejuvenated my sight? How did I fly to the height, where no more rabble sits by the well?
Did my nausea itself create wings for me and water-divining powers? Verily, I had to fly to the loftiest height, to find the fount of delight again!—
I should restate the anonymous part … I think people can leave messages that are anonymous, etc, but I am not going to allow messages from this person (there is no point).
So anyone can leave messages like in the past.
I will just delete anymore nonsense that I deem counterproductive …. and there has not been too much of that over the past year.
Best wishes to you.
And indeed, Onward!
That’s the ideal policy … although I found that disallowing anonymous comments did a lot to cut the c*** over here. It seemed that the cloak of anonymity allowed people to vent their “unstable rationality” (as you put it on your blog, in another context) in yet more violent ways.
I like the concept of allowing people anonymity, though. Meanwhile I’ll try to fly again to the height … and feel delight … 🙂