The number of folx incarcerated, lives destroyed as by-products of these imprisonments (more times than not, absolutely meaningless incarcerations) and the lives destroyed for the sake of creating these states of konfinement is mind boggling.
This damage is not a temporary stasis of the social order, it is a permanent and ongoing infirmity that has been deliberately created. Rarely, if ever, do people consider the meaning of it all. Few have glimpsed the inner mechanix of the society which they inhabit, much less the vacuum of a prison cell. Prisons, as architecture and operation go, are isolated vacuums. They are cut off utterly from the human world and have become, essentially, black holes. Black holes whose event horizon is hopelessly obscured by their own gravity and darkness.
There is no animal such as release or parole from any prison, be it poverty, abuse or incarceration. You may physically leave behind a physical prison of chains, keys and concrete, but the state of having been there and whatever damage it has caused is something you carry forever. This prison, the actual prison they created, is no bigger than your hat size and weighs more than the architecture itself.
There are so many myths created by the media and entertainment industries about prisons; They, on the one hand, have been over dramatized in films such as "Death Warrant" and over romanticized in other films such as "An Innocent Man" and "American Me", but they have been unilaterally under demonized, unlike their occupants.
You cannot convincingly and effectively capture the collective suffering of years in a two hour film - You cannot communicate the emotive content. The only film to have touched on the after death of prison is "Shawshank Redemption" and it succumbed to glorifying the reward of human perseverance in the face of tribulation - There are no rewards at the end of a prison term even the effects of release from suffering are traumatizing in their own right.
The reality of it is that most people who have been to prison either die there, die a fugitive or die in a state of poverty and social excommunication.
Mainstream society believes (because they are told to) that prisoners weasel out of sentences, sometimes impossibly long ones, with good behavior and con games. This isn't how it worx. Society also believes that folx who go back to prison are either just fuck ups or losers who refuse to do what is necessary to stay in society...and folx, I'm here to tell ya, this is not how it worx.
Example: when I was paroled, I has a job lined up prior to my release, an address, a wife - in short, a "Home". Six months later my employment was terminated, not because I was a bad employee, but because somebody in the company did not like my tattoos - Never mind the fact that we never worked together, we didn't even work in the same neighborhood. Never mind that I kept my ink sleeves covered up with shirtsleeves. The mere fact that I had them was enough. What's interesting to note is that I had been hired with full knowledge of my ink.
It should be taken into account that unless you are financially secure, employment is a requirement of parole; if you are not employed, you can be put back in prison.
That was in '95 and my wife, who had originally gotten me the job, and also worked there, quit. Almost immediately, she had a new job. I got one around December of '96...fourteen months later. To put this into context, had I not been married and my wife willing to pay my way, I would have been put back in prison because some nosey prick didn't like my ink.
I got a job with an activist group whose tactix rang of extortion and classism. So after a falling out a week later with my "mentor" concerning these tactix, I walked.
Then I got a job at a convenience store via a friend. This same convenience store, just a couple of months prior, wouldn't even consider hiring me. That job ended in disaster when I was attacked by three folx working with law enforcement (no shit). After being found not gulty 9 1/2 months later, I got another job via another friend that was neither adequate enough for the state, rent or food.
The store where I was attacked did not fire me, they just never called me back to work; therefore I couldn't even get unemployment benefits...Meaning? If I couldn't find a job, I'd become luggage to the state or a beggar. Either way, parole would be on shakey ground.
I'm certain that some of you may get the idea that this is a "woe is me" thing. It's not, it's a reality check thing. There are a million arguments espousing how, of course, this is "no fault of society's" or how I'm "not the only one who's had a rough time of it" and ultimately these arguments end with "you should have thought about that before you committed the crime" or some other hackneyed and maligning nonsense designed specifically to remove all guilt from the members of society and place it squarely in the lap of anyone who has a problem. Believe me, I've heard it all from pencil pushing closet drag queens, government ficticials and your standard, run-of-the-mill-I-don't-even-know-I'm-a-fascist geeks, but this is exactly how society handles the P.R. on all of its fuck ups - blame the viktim and hide the problem.
I'm sure there exist equally as many as many arguments to explain why it is that when I was "released" from prison I had no idea how to cash my own paycheck or why, since having learned, I've forgotten because I didn't get enough of them to actually warrant remembering it. It isn't part of the training you get as a 16 year old in the state prison; nor do they teach you in the youth authority; it's not "legal" to work when you're that young. Guess I should have thought about that before sommitting a "crime"...
But really, it's all good, it's how society wants to stack the deck against the oppressed and then blame them for being inept or incapable.
Woe is me? Hardly; "fuck you" is more like it. If you believe, even for a second, that I believe you believe me, or even care, you are sadly mistaken. I know you don't believe me or care; if you did, the motivation for tracts like this would go down the toilet and I would be minus a job, as would others.
And honestly, when we get down to it, when we're on our knees lookin' up ol' Lady Liberty's skirt at the cold hard facts of existence, I personally don't give a shit what you think.
I really don't want to work for an anti-human system whose boot heel remains eternally on the back of my neck, waiting for any excuse to throw me into bondage again to "silence" my type. I have never been silent or silenced, just at times harder to hear. You can't silence conscience without correcting the problem.
I don't give a fuck about your mainstream values and rules, your Sunday brunch or KKKomunion wafers. I couldn't care less about law and order and I can't honestly say they quality of life would have been enhanced by compliance with the rules of your game...Because when everything is said and done, I at least know what it is that I am made of and I know most assuredly that what I am made of doesn't smell quite as offensive as you do.
Don't for a moment believe that I am alone or the only one - an anomaly - that has tasted leather because I know this; There are many more in my boat than there are in yours and all of your propaganda and bright lights can not change this one obvious fact; WE (all of us, black, white, punk, anarchist, grrls, boyz, us) have tasted the truth and managed to smile occasionally in spite of it.
The only lasting thing your materiality and your bullshit social edicts have accomplished is the wanton creation of suffering, strife, and prison walls; walls that ultimately don't keep us from you, but you from us. Protected, you hide in your own finite contrived worlds where you peer through the glass at all you fear and resent.
Something you should remember though...We don't respect you, We don't fear you...We hate you.
PS - All of my brothers and sisters currently kept in kages in your Death Kamps, lost in the streets and viktimized and abused in your name, send their regards: FUCK YOU.
