Racism is real.

Supposedly in this culture my being a white male gives me some privilege.  I am white, six feet tall, with an athletic build.  Statistically those three things make me more likely to succeed.  Obviously though I had been thrown under the bus and found myself absolutely surrounded by inner city blacks who really didn't like white people because of their situation.  Through reading I had some knowledge of their situation.  I was watching it go down with my own eyes, at least a certain part of it anyways.  I didn't have any experience of city life yet, but in prison it was happening to me too.  I might not have been black, but the stigma of being a felon was just as limiting on my future.  I’m not saying they are equal things, being black and being a felon, but it lets one know what it feels like first hand to have certain things made unavailable simply because of a label.  If you don't believe me just check the committed a felony box on a job application and go looking for a job. 

Cats name was Rat.  I never figured out why they called him that.  He was like 5'4'' maybe, but built.  He still had the wide shoulders, and as is typical of black people he had the muscular build and six pack.  If you randomly selected one hundred blacks, and one hundred whites in prison the physical difference in appearance is startling, and I mean that by not taking skin color into consideration.  There will be like eighty black guys with a six pack, and maybe ten white guys with one if you are lucky.  What is crazy is that in terms of lifestyle they do absolutely nothing different.  There were so many blacks with six packs who never ever did a damn thing.  It makes them appear much more intimidating to a pudgy looking white guy.  Rat though lifted weights.  He was athletic and could back it up.  It's crazy how good at basketball some of those small guys can be.  Even though he was short he still carried himself, and didn't have a small man's complex about it.    The dude was intelligent and we had conversations a few times.  I didn't consider him a bad guy. 

This other dudes name is Sergeant.  He hasn't been in for very long yet.  He's in Six House.  He’s still learning.  His head is shaved.  He's one of those white boys on upper hill that finds it easy to be openly racist.  He doesn't know the rules on lower hill it seems.  He hasn't learned his lesson yet.  I don't like racist people so he and I didn't ever talk much.  I don't associate with racist people.  I have no respect for them.  It’s just not that difficult to wrap one’s mind around. 

Rat was one of those rare gangsters that had a job in maintenance.  Like I said, he was smart and new how to play the game.  He didn't always like being in the ghetto either, and a maintenance job was a way out temporarily.  A job on a maintenance crew came with several perks.  Just because he was in a gang didn't mean he liked constant noise.  No intelligent person would like the circus.  There weren't any guards at the maintenance building usually.  Part of that job was having some freedom.  The civilians were called maintenance supervisors.  There were four or five crews, and each had a supervisor.  Some jobs were more serious than others like plumbing and electrical.  Sometimes we would be sitting around the trucks waiting or whatever and there wouldn't be anyone around except inmates.  It's just me, Rat, and Sergeant at the back of a truck.

Rat is sitting next to me on the tail gate.  Small talk.  He's gangster talking, which Sergeant isn't quite familiar with yet.  He didn't understand everything being said.  He's kind of sneering that Rat is talking that way.  It quickly escalates.  Rat is on edge.  Rat asked him point blank why he shaves his head.  Dude is trying to act hard at this point because a 5'4" gangster who is smarter than he is; is calling him out.  Dude says right back, "Because I don't like black people."  Rat jumps off the tail gate and says, "What you mean to say is, you don't like niggers."  Rat started approaching him. Sergeant looks over at me as this happens like I was going to help him.  He even made it obvious as he backed away from Rat, looking at me like I should help him. 

I didn't do shit.  Wasn't going to either.  I was hoping Rat would beat his ass.  His parole board hearing was coming up though.  He couldn’t afford to clown on this white boy.  Sergeant had it coming though.  Say stupid shit and you got it coming.  I wouldn't have let Rat get jumped either had Sergeant had a bunch of white boys around.  Being on lower hill I knew exactly what it was like to be the only person with a certain color of skin.  That feeling is a real thing.

When I was in 1 House there was a dude named Epps who hated white people.  He did not hide that fact either.  He was an officer in the Nation of Islam church.  Always running his mouth.  Always adding to the cacophony.  He was bitter like me, but too wrapped up in his own shit to see it.  It's called the shadow effect.  It's a well-documented psychological phenomenon.  It's when the thing you dislike about someone else is true about you and you just can't see it.  Don’t want to see it.  He was racist and didn't want to realize it on an emotional level.  The truth to him was painful.  That is how it was with most of them.  They don't realize it is each of us alone that decides who we are.  Instead of taking personal responsibility for his own situation in life he blamed others.  I understood his plight, but he happened to be quite racist about it. 

I can only take so much.  I had already made it clear to him that if I could not say overtly racist shit neither could he.  No one calls me a honkey, or cracker, or any of that.  He made sure he used those words just never directly at me.  He'd say it when coming around a corner, or as I was coming in the bay.  He liked to do it just to push my buttons.  He liked to call me a Europe.  A European.  Since he was given the African label, I was given European.  He had it right too.  The European culture that American culture came from was disgustingly racist.  Sexist too.  Just straight up bigoted.  Still is.  Epps was acting like it was me that made those decisions.  These guys were just like me; really smart in some ways and totally ignorant in others.  It was a genius title, but I wasn't the white man holding him back.  He had me confused with some other white people. 

We were standing in line to be counted, and he's running his mouth looking right at me talking about Europeans.  He was pissed off about how he was being treated at his job. You see the problem with this cat was that he was ranked in the most racist church in prison.  Merely out of principle, they will all take his side over some racist shit.  I'd seen the call go down before when I was in that bay with Miniman.  Wouldn't have mattered what the reason, it would have made it quite unsafe being anywhere after picking a fight with this dude.  It's not only that there are other guys in that church, but that those other guys are also all in various gangs.  It goes from messing with one guy to potentially hundreds instantly.  He knew that fact too.  Racist as he was he was not an idiot.  He was doing the same shit as me to get out.  He played the power game too.  He had a job in admin too, and knew how to talk white when he needed to. 

My eyes flared.  I was so sick of this dude running his mouth.  The whole bay is quite for count.  I am looking right at him like I was daring him to take a step forward. I say, "I'm not a fucking European.  I'm a fucking redneck. I was born in Missouri."  Silence for a couple seconds, then laughter.  Some other gangsters snickered at him.  Even other blacks got tired of listening to his shit.  I would have tried to beat the racism out of him had he moved towards me.  It's easy to run your mouth when you have hundreds of cats behind you.  I was so pissed I would have risked it.  I would have risked my safety for a few months for the chance to stomp that guy’s ass.  I did the next best thing though, and made him look stupid.  Checked him in front of everyone. 

It doesn't take much looking into the matter to realize those blacks had legitimate reason to be pissed off in life.  They were thrown under the bus, and kept ignorant just like me.  As racist as those church organizations were they did make those guys more aware of their situation in life.  The racial tension was always high.  It was always in my face.  As if I had any more to do with being born white than they had in being born black.  I didn't want to be in there either. 

The worst ever was when I was on work release.  You absolutely cannot fight, or get any violations for that matter while on work release.  They won't let you out if you do.  The stupid prison staff let a racist movie air over the cable.  Mississippi burning or something like that.  Idiots.  A well respected white boy got worked over in 5 House because of it.  There weren’t enough whites in those bays for that kind of movie to be watched simultaneously by hundreds of blacks.  I found out after the fact that the white boy had been told if he swung first; it would be all in.  Being in work release I was no longer in the know. 

The chow hall was two big open rooms with a divide wall in the middle.  Half of the wall was a counter with drinks and condiments.  There was always milk and some kind of crazy kool aid drink that stained the shit out of the plastic cups. I never drank that nasty stuff.  If it did that to the cup what was it doing to my insides?  The other half of the divider was the dishwasher's station.  The guards station was at the open end, and everyone had to go by it to get out.  At the far ends were single entry doors, and then in the middle were double doors that everyone left through.  The guards always acted like everyone was passing shit around during chow.  It wasn't really a station, but an open area where the two rooms connected.  The guards always set up shop at the corner tables.  The lines formed along the outer wall, so from the guard station the whole room can be seen clearly.  The tables are all bolted down including the seats; four seats to a table.  They controlled the length of the lines via their walky talkies.  There was some politics in which houses go when, and to which side of the chow hall which houses go to avoid conflicts.  The guards were always clueless though. 

I was coming back from working in a town called Blackwater.  I was at the end of the line about fifteen feet from the corner.  There were probably thirty or forty inmates in front of me.  The row of table’s right next to the line, right by the narrow slotted window where the trays appear, were filled with white boys. I could feel the tension in the room.  I knew some racist shit had gone down but I didn’t know exactly what.  I found out after the fact that all the cats in line standing along the wall were the blacks from that bay in 5 House.  They were trapped between the brick wall and a row of about twenty white boys.  The dude they rolled stood up and just drilled a cat right in the face.  Before I could blink the whites were all on their feet throwing down on those gangsters.  Those cats didn't know what the fuck was going on.  Guards came running in and started spraying mace on the cats who wouldn't stop fighting.  One guard took a shot to the face.  Once a guy is maced he is no longer responsible for landed punches.  Everyone knows this.  Rookie guard spraying mace like that with so many fighting was a dumb thing to do.  When the guards came in most everyone was burning out.  Gangsters were jumping over the counter into the kitchen area trying to get away.  Some white boys managed to escape because the guards let them.  The guards knew what was up. 

I felt like such a bitch though.  I had to just stand there.  Cats who had had my back were sticking up for one another, and I wasn't able to return the favor.  Had I gotten that four or five year out date that would have been me in there throwing down.  I could have let it all go if even for only for a few moments.  I would have gotten my opportunity to go to the hole for a while too.  Instead I had to stand there and hope they didn't notice me.  I was ashamed.  I had to get out though.  I put my head down.  I didn’t really eat.  The fumes from the mace were still in the air.  The food was even worse to me knowing I would be out soon.  I didn’t care about my pride that time; I was going to get out.