One of Bruce Jackson’s lines from “Killing Time: Life in the Arkansas Penitentiary” made me reread it at least ten times. He writes, “…they forget that the distance between guard and convict is greater than the distance between black and white. One’s friendship lines in an interracial group are often confused and ambiguous, but in the world defined by men with guns and men without guns, there is no ambiguity at all. The difference is absolute” (18).
At first, I rationalized his statement by telling myself that he is speaking strictly in the context of prisons, that this statement can seemingly be made because he has confined it to only reflect a prison and not society as a whole. Yet the more I read his statement the more I began to view …show more content…
It is well documented that, from almost any point of reference, one can discern that American society’s foundation is derived from placing white superiority and black inferiority as far apart on the spectrum as possible, especially through comparisons in wealth accumulation, incarceration rates, or even enrollment statistics here at the University of Michigan. Prisons are often deployed as nets to collect the ramifications of this structure, which implies that they can’t be viewed individually, as Jackson does. By allowing the prison to exist as its own agency, one severs it from being a representative of society. At the time of this writing, prison was, in fact, an almost direct representative of American society. It operated with a central command, which ensured obedience to a capitalistic society. The system, then, granted privilege to a small few (trustys), who were incentivized to subdue others by any means necessary in order to maintain power, even if it meant abdicating any commitment to a moral and ethical code. The necessity to ensure that prison is viewed as reflective of society stems from the necessity that each member of society takes responsibility for permitting a system such as the carceral’s to exist. The prison system does not exist in a vacuum, as Jackson’s comments suggest; rather, it portrays what the system doesn’t want its members to
At first, I rationalized his statement by telling myself that he is speaking strictly in the context of prisons, that this statement can seemingly be made because he has confined it to only reflect a prison and not society as a whole. Yet the more I read his statement the more I began to view …show more content…
It is well documented that, from almost any point of reference, one can discern that American society’s foundation is derived from placing white superiority and black inferiority as far apart on the spectrum as possible, especially through comparisons in wealth accumulation, incarceration rates, or even enrollment statistics here at the University of Michigan. Prisons are often deployed as nets to collect the ramifications of this structure, which implies that they can’t be viewed individually, as Jackson does. By allowing the prison to exist as its own agency, one severs it from being a representative of society. At the time of this writing, prison was, in fact, an almost direct representative of American society. It operated with a central command, which ensured obedience to a capitalistic society. The system, then, granted privilege to a small few (trustys), who were incentivized to subdue others by any means necessary in order to maintain power, even if it meant abdicating any commitment to a moral and ethical code. The necessity to ensure that prison is viewed as reflective of society stems from the necessity that each member of society takes responsibility for permitting a system such as the carceral’s to exist. The prison system does not exist in a vacuum, as Jackson’s comments suggest; rather, it portrays what the system doesn’t want its members to