Preface
When we talk about a colorless correctional culture which creates,
causes chaos and confusion inside Arizona prisons we have to closely examine
the culture, the leadership and the ideologies included in their immediate span
of control as well as their out sphere influence on all decision making
processes and actions.
Governor Doug Ducey has ordered a full investigation in the
Kingman riots. What this investigation will NOT reveal is the social and
political inequities that exist under the direction of a white dominant power
group that runs the department of corrections in Arizona. Whether we want to
admit it or not, there is a colorless correctional culture within the prisons
causing chaos and confusion leading to frustrations and violence.
Is there such a thing as a colorless culture? I doubt it, but on
the other hand, it depends on what you mean by culture. If you word is used in the normal sense and set aside
from the socio-political ideology and focus on dialects, idiolects, beliefs,
symbology, iconography, behavior, ritual, kinship and so forth, the answer is
no. However, keep in mind the temptation to maintain political correctness in
our thinking.
Rather strange that it does exist but not as described as above
but rather based on a complicated amalgam of various perverted and extreme customs
and traditions adapted on lessons learned in history and extended to be imposed
in political and social influences of those in power, the answer is yes. There
is a colorless culture inside our prisons and it influence much of the vitriol
in our society.
In prison management, culture is a dominating feature that can
work for the system or against the system. Culture can unite or divide the
prison population and also draw a hostile line between administrations and
populations. The culture is incontestably very powerful and very influential.
Ignoring culture would be dangerous and reckless indeed. Keep in
mind, we are not focusing on skin tone or genetic exchange of races. We are talking
about the physical aspects of culture that influence body language in
communications and management practices. How it impacts daily living and
compliance of policies and procedures developed not from state statutes or
guidelines but mostly from random and arbitrary ‘lessons learned’ historical
data.
It is more broadly expressed as the “us versus them” ideology that
exists inside prisons. It can lead from correctional officer’ relationships
with prisoners as well as prisoner among prisoner relationships.
The manifestation of a culture within a prison is dynamic and forceful
that is very complicated and often misunderstood. It is not a matter of how
much whiteness there is, or how much blackness exists but rather color is only
a minor element of the product unless it is a matter of discrimination in which
case, these colors may override any civility or manners and dominate or
negatively impact behaviors if offense is taken or disrespect is shown to one
race or the other.
There can be markers of whiteness or blackness in daily
interactions if the overall culture demands it be a contributing factor to how
the rules are enforced and perceived. One could immediately see how
discrimination impact this in an extreme form and manifest dissention or
division. One needs to be cautious not to delegate any authority or empowerment
and inflict willful or coincidental discriminatory practices that may divide
the prison into color lines. It creates tension and resentment that festers over
time.
In such a case, the color line -- which is used to divide society
into two groups that are by definition exclusive, 'whites' and others’ becomes
a point of agitation or aggravating circumstances. The awkwardness and
inadequacy of all existing blanket terms for these others, such as 'minorities'
or 'people of color,' stem from the repression and confusion involved in the
very notion of whiteness or colorless.
To some extent, cultural whiteness in Arizona, may dominate events
politically and culturally. It depends on demographics, geographic perception
and the associated treatment applied to ‘others’ not white and of color. Thus
if the demographics are opposite, a reverse perception may apply.
Arizona whiteness does exist. Arizona whiteness runs the
government and the current prison system. It emerged decades ago and never
relinquished control of the prison system as it imposes its will freely and
clearly with tacit approval of the executive, legislative and judicial
branches. It has been years since a white person ever directed the largest
state agency and no change is expected in this transfer of power any time soon.
Therefore, the Arizona whiteness is in charge of the penal and
criminal justice system and is the main provider for the sentencing and
punishment of criminals incarcerated and kept there for an extensive amount of
time compared to other states suggesting that non-whites are less moral than
whites.
One might say, Arizona whiteness is a conservative whiteness
leading to an ideology that suppresses the other colors and downgrades them in
separate classes by race. Inside prison, this is a dominant event in the
classification of housing, jobs, credit or good time and length of sentencing
or time served. It extends all the way to the approval of parole and clemency
appeals. Today, there is no formal juridical equality for color unless you are
a member of the colorless race, the white race.
It is, besides, the ambiance of the modern corporate office, where
niceness rules -- or rather, is the means of rule of political correctness. In
the white-collar workplace everyone must act white: quiet, polite, cheerful,
emotionally masked, sensually numb, perpetually busy, and willing to tolerate
any humiliation as long as it's done with a smile.
Non-white is all that resists smiling self-adaptation to one's
assigned yet ever-changing role as a component in the smooth positive flow of personal
relationships.
This obviously creates a fallacy that offensive in nature. Fact is
whiteness or colorless people can be equally misunderstood because of these
assumptions created and ignoring behavioral norms and power relations, are
questionable especially when imposed only on people of color. When applied
within major institutions in our society this impacts the workplace, prisons,
the school, the mall and other sites.
All these institutions teach possessive individualism; anxious
competitiveness; rigid emotional control through 'niceness'; narrow or institutional
and instrumental rationality; ready acceptance of isolation, boredom, and
meaninglessness; the sacrifice of a lifetime for merchandise and security.
Most of them also implicitly associate these qualities and
attitudes both with white or light skin, and with success and self-esteem. One
can see, when distorted, the facts gets lost and the color plays a big part
whether we are united or divided. Now, create this curmudgeon with prison life
and you have instant conflict.
Skin privilege is fading in the community but not inside prisons.
One would expect the reverse to occur since society’s working class is steadily
including more whites than before. Now, a much larger majority of the prison
populations inside Arizona are white too. Nearly half of all high-school
graduates without college degrees today work in jobs that pay scarcely more
than the minimum wage and it is likely this continuum of lack of success
applies when they are released from prison as well.
The fact that the prison population now consists at least as much
of white as of black and brown people is concealed by the fact that inside
prisons, the whites hold better positions of authority and power than the black
and brown poor.
This is to say that poor whites continue to receive considerably
better treatment than poor blacks or brown and are not subject to correctional
officials (police) harassment and other subtler forms of prejudice as well.
This can be challenged by a document search of the prison
disciplinary and inmate employment systems. What has changed? The appearance of
border patriot militiamen and Nazi skinheads in our society and inside our
prisons. These groups continue to define whiteness and its privilege on old,
skin- and religion-based terms.
The perception inside prison is because the administration is
largely white and the majority in power the obvious conclusion of those of
color is that if you are white, you are a partner in charge as the
administration is mostly white. Strange but strong enough of an influence to
cause hate and offensive behaviors to be encouraged and condoned by a colorless
culture inside our prisons.
This is a colorless culture cultivated and grown in an obsessive
form inside prisons. These types of disruptive individuals group up when incarcerated
and draw support from each other better than the other races.
Whether deliberately or coincidental, they [whites] are better-off
and unlike those of color who face stronger opposition to programs and work
opportunities. Opportunities in the type of job assigned, as these jobs are
less sophisticated, hours are longer and less paying work and diminished
security as they struggle to maintain their position inside prison.
An underlying influence on riots and prisoner frustration that
will never be revealed by any investigation ordered by the Governor of Arizona.
The fact is, nobody will touch this subject the way this paper is written
because it would reveal a reality that is grossly distorted and covered up by
those influencing the criminal justice system in Arizona as well as the
contributing factors of private prison organizations soliciting cheap prison
labor from the state prisons to sustain their own market and profit making
schemes.
In naming characters and situations in this part of the story, the
words imagination, creativity, vision, sarcasm, comedy, parodies and satires
are stretched way beyond the imagination.
One should take this writing with the grain of salt it is written
with and a comedic view can be taken, but what appears to be a comedic
significance, within the cultural control of this time period and environment,
keep in mind as that what may be the truth since the takeover of the White
Monkeys in Phoenix, Arizona.
White Monkeys, in charge of a domain spanning across the entire
state and inflicting their unlimited power on matters that may determine life
or death. One may occupy their minds and
see what they want, then, evoke a smile but rather a sad one as it reflects the
reality and sorrow of tomorrow.
To render a story in various forms and color, or in this case,
colorless, of an epoch beyond the scope of vision and powers of any novelist or
writer, this story will try and express a little of its arrogance, selfish
spirit that exists and undoubtedly,, at the back of his mind in penning this short story and fictional
tale.
This story cannot and should not be summed up with a snapshot or
brief synopsis of ideas and concepts gleaned from the existing methodology used
to run Arizona prisons. Without any further notions, it is written in a
fictional style describing the who, what where, when or how what the future
will be.
Everything in this story is relative. There are no longer
absolutes and factual innuendoes. Each line written is placed in the content
and context of fiction and placed for the sole purpose of provoking the mind to
think, to create, to envision and to solve potential problems discussed,
revealed, and implied in a setting that could in fact be anywhere, applied to
any overcrowded shoddily run prison and any demographic condition imposed by
regional and cultural influences.
You will see elements of God, free trade, slavery, corruption,
extortion, coercion, ethics and a caste system like no other system described
before in such an epoch based situation.
The reader will, admittedly, find some parts dull and some very
boring and certainly expecting a more exciting or unpredictable conditions to
dwell in, however, having experienced an earthquake and tornadic environment
before in my life, you will not find yourself standing still and always
grasping for more facts or knowledge in what is expressed or written.
The White Monkeys are people, a group of ordinary people who
cannot be rushed, trusted and perform actions that are extremes. Saved by the
grace of the devil, they survive with caustic, defensive humor, ill-tempered
and resentful of interference, improvident and wasteful characteristics but
endowed, skilled and possessed with a certain genius for recovery and
collateral damage control.
The insolent characteristics of these White Monkeys will bear
thinking about political will and ambitions. They certainly don’t suffer from
any inferiority complexes and are indifferent to what other people this of them
or anyone else.
No other peoples seem to be so arrogant, so sure of themselves and
so blatantly narcissistic in behaviors, they keep their secrets well and incidentally,
might be some of the best group of White Monkeys to not have public mouths to
blow or trumpet their mistakes, their ambitions or their greedy lustful insidious
personalities.
This group is a rare breed and strong enough to keep quiet about
themselves and stay under the radar to draw any heat to their schemes and mind
games related to the business of managing people inside of prisons. The epoch
we are passing through is one which favors error, misjudgments, negligence and
malfeasance in any executive position of the agency heads and member of the
executive team.
There was never a time
where real deterioration of humanity, compassion and kindness fibers had any less
of a chance to existing than by this group of White Monkeys. This is
contributed to their climate or tone that is so changeable so ill-tempered to
any kind of good character, so formative of a pseudo true grit, and yet, so
unhealthy for so many who deplore them.
What follows in this preface should be kept, read and reminded
often in the light of these remarks that set the tone, culture and direction of
the White Monkeys in charge of our prison system today.
In the present epoch, every special selected, recruited, and hired
eunuch survived recent attacks on their abilities and political will. Each has
survived and potently is a permanent fixture of this executive team called the
White Monkeys. Their span of generations, makes them less self-conscious and
insufficiently qualified for such positions as they follow the temper, the ill-mannered
directions or their chosen leader.
In the end, it is hoped, prayed and wished that each one of these
White Monkeys find their own demise and wither away like a mudslide in the
monsoon seasonal spirit the rains bring to Arizona at least once a year with a
vengeance that is God-bearing cold and sudden. It is hoped they not be
sufficiently self-conscious to see the storm coming.
Their demise should be based with darkness as the background with
more or less a fixed quantity of suffering and chaos that will each one questioning
their plight and asking themselves if the evil they performed on others was
worth living. A question they never asked themselves before as they lived their
lives without ever asking whether their lives were worth living.
It is believed this will happen in a manner best seen to be formed
of shape and sizes as well as colors of the past and present harm inflicted on
people with the intense lack of self-conscious manner it was done. Their pain should be very absorbingly intense
from day to day thereafter. Even if they don’t believe in a future life, they
should have great faith that this pain and suffering will never disappear and
haunt them forever.
There will be times of contemporaries, karma and destiny kind of
temptations and frustrations. There will be a definite doubt their actions were
deserving of punishment and eternal maltreatment by others to address their ill
wills and corruptive behaviors. There will be times of insufficiently justified
introspection and retrospection. Their conscious may suffer some setbacks and
their hearts may be broken. Their spirit will be challenged as they attempt to
progress beyond this point of suffering and humiliation.
What is sad, and this is said with humility and compassion, there
will be times during this epoch they themselves will progress into doom or
hell, with their sense of property and pride as well as their desires to
provide for their progeny, with no end of success in the end. Everything happens
for a reason under the stars of heaven and because of an eventual demise of
power and replaced by new generational leaders, their owing respect and
recognition will not be happening and everything this group of White Monkeys
did, past and present, shall require re-valuation with no desire for
redemption.
And since there is a hop, a prayer, a wish they seemingly be
punished severely forever, there shall be little consideration for future
properties, ownership or wealth and less the life before their end, determined
to live now and forever in the pits of hell and damnation. Human nature does
not change on points so evil and unnecessary in the destruction of human
beings, incarcerated, chained, dehumanized and devaluated for the sake of
dominance, control, power and profit.
