Ex-convicts say California penitentiaries house
racism, religion. rhetoric and revolutionaries
By Jim Stingley and lack Jones
(C) 1971, The Los Angeles Times
LOS ANGELES—“The same
kind of crap happening in the
prisons has been happening for
years,” the Black ex-convict said
with rising fury. “Then, they
called us ‘troublemaking
niggers.’ Now, they call us
‘revolutionaries. ” ’
In the south-central Los
Angeles headquarters of an
organization of former inmates
trying to steer Black youngsters
away from drugs, six other men
agreed on one basic point: “If
you’re Black, your ass is in
trouble from the day you go in.”
But in Oakland, a 37-year-old
Black warehouseman who
recently finished ten years in San
Quentin for murder told it dif
ferently :
“The young Blacks in there are
spouting rhetoric because they
think this is the thing to do, you
know. To hear these guys talk,
everybody’s wrong except the
convicts.
“Well, I know better than this. I
know that most of the things that
happen to a convict is because the
convict does it to himself.”
Some ex-convicts who were
asked for their views of what is
happening behind the walls of
California’s prisons were in
terviewed singly. Others were in
groups.
Some are in their late 20s or
early 30s, aged only by grim
years in one penitentiary after
another. Others are “old cons,”
who survived by keeping their
mouths shut and staying away
from flareups of trouble in prison
yards and cellblocks.
One is a White man, a San
Francisco artist who went to the
California training facility at
Soledad on a narcotics con
viction. Then, because of various
violations, he landed in several
camps and the California state
prisons at Folsom and San
vjuenun.
They agree on some things and
differ widely on others.
Not surprisingly, the younger
Black ex-convicts generally
express intense resentment over
racism they say they’ve seen on
the part of guards and White
inmates, or over the fact that
many of them have served longer
stretches than Whites imprisoned
on similar charges.
“To be a man and speak out
about injustices means you are a
militant,” said one young Black,
complaining that the parole
board adds time for anyone who
“doesn’t say the things they want
to hear.”
Of those interviewed, none
volunteered any claim to in
nocence of the crime for which he
was committed—except for one
man who said he was returned to
prison after 16 days of freedom
for a strongarm robbery he didn’t
pull.
lilt; Dldt& wdiciiuuocinaii
distinguished between himself
and other inmates: “To start
with, I wasn’t criminally
oriented. I just happened to get
into a hassle and committed a
murder.”
Nor did any of them suggest
prison should have a country club
atmosphere. In essence, most of
the complaints centered on the
prison system’s failure (or
reluctance, in their view) to
rehabilitate inmates, really train
them for outside jobs, or to
eliminate racism.
Who is really a revolutionary in
prison?
“That’s just someone who is
opposed to the injustices in the
institution,” responded a 30-year
old Black who spent 8% years in
San Quentin, Soldedad, Folsom
and other institutions.
At Los Angeles’ Central City
Community Center, a state
financed halfway house where he
is on the work-furlough program
awaiting his parole date, he said:
“The counter-revolutionary
body (prison administration)
wants to keep all the antiquated
methods going. They don’t want
any change. You say anything
about it, they write in your jacket
(personnel file) that you’re a
militant and move you from
institution to institution.”
A member of the Inner-City
Bricks—ex-convicts banded
together for an antidrug program
at the Central City Community
Mental Health Center—said in a
group discussion:
“If you try to learn much, they
say you’re a militant. They check
on everything you read. You tell
the psychiatrist that Lincoln
didn’t really free all the slaves
and he’ll put that that in your
jacket. It will cost you another 12
months.”
Another: The bulls (guards)
don’t worry about the Muslims
any more. It used to be if you
wore your hair short or shaved,
you were classified a Muslim.
Now they see that’s a religious
thing. But if you wear a natural,
you’re a militant, a Panther.”
A 49-year-old veteran of San
Quentin and Folsom now on the
work-furlough program said:
“Mostly, it’s the young
prisoners, bringing on a new
awakening of all the Blacks. The
young guys can see where the
older ones have been under the
same treatment for years. That’s
what it’s all about.”
The Oakland warehouse
worker: “The Panthers started
coming about ’67, ’68. They had
this big shootout in Oakland that
led (Eldridge) Cleaver to skip the
state. Some of the guys involved
in that shootout came to San
Quentin.
“They’d say, T’m a Black
r
panther. Hey Man, we killed four
or five pigs. Well, you know,
you’ll have guys who are not
anything. But they’ll follow the
strongest guy. Suddenly you got a
lot of sympathizers—penitentiary
Panthers.
“Now, where all the Black
Muslims wanted to do was sit in a
corner and talk to Allah, the
Panthers wanted changes now
and by any means necessary.”
The White artist: “At first, I
wouldn’t say they (the Blacks)
were Uncle Toms. They were
going about their business and
they weren’t militant. There
wasn’t all that ‘kill whitey’
business.
“But just in the past four
years—since they started having
all this Black Power—it just
started snowballing. They have
all these people start hollering
and screaming about what you
have, what you don’t have, what
vou can set.
“So today there’s no talking to
them, no going down the middle
at all. They keep reading all this
‘Black is free’ and ‘Black is
beautiful’ stuff, you know. Okay,
maybe on the outside, that’s
something else, but when you get
into a institution and get bolted
down, that makes it bad. They
band together. They start
believing their own stuff.
“Walking down the tiers with
them, they won’t get out of the
way. You got to get out of their
way. Now that’s never happened
before. There used to be some
respect.”
What about racism in prison?
Some of the bitterest Black ex
convicts say:
“You got White inmates that
are Nazis and guards feel the
same way. I remember this one
guard broke down and cried,
man, the day that Lincoln Rock
well (American Nazi leader) got
killed.”
“The orientation for guards is
the same wherever you go—‘keep
the Nigger in his place.’”
“A Black’s life is threatened
constantly all the time he’s in.”
But the Black who at 49 is an
"old con,” said, “I could single
out the officers who had those
deep southern feelings and be
kind of careful. Many Black
inmates automatically feel
they’re not going to get a fair
shake, because all they see is
White guards.”
And the Black warehouseman
in Oakland, asked if he had ever
been mistreated by a White
guard, replied:
“I never experienced it per
sonally. I’ve never seen it done.
Now, I have seen convicts swing
on an officer and the officer
protect himself, then hear the
convict holler‘brutality.’But as
far as an officer just arbitrarily
picking out somebody and
messing over them, no. I’ve
heard stories, but I was there 10
years and I never saw it.
“There is discrimination in the
joint. But it’s not on the large
scale it’s blown up to be. There
are jobs Blacks can’t get.”
The 49-year-old Black “old
con,” who last April went from
Folsom to the relatively pleasant
California Institution for Men at
Chino, contended, “Relations be
tween White and Black prisoners
are getting better."
He said that change is partly
because of group counseling
sessions instituted in the mid
1960s, sessions he said began to
bring out the feelings of Black
rage, but which also led many
Blacks and Whites “to realize
their own racial feelings.”
Members of the Inner-City
Bricks were not so certain that
White and Black inmates have
begun to come together.
“Maybe at some institutions,"
said one. “But that’s because
there’s so many Blacks being
sent up now, Whites aren’t so
ready to fight. It’s a balance of
power thing.”
If one thing stands out in the
complaints of Black ex-cons
along with the hatred many feel
for White guards, it is the in
determinate sentence system
under which prisoners, without
specified release dates, can be
held for additional months for
infractions or inability to con
vince the parole board of their
“rehabilitation.”
A slick White can say all the
right things and slide past the
board, some of them say, while
the Black who is afire with pent
up feelings of racial
discrimination cannot.
“If a Nigger is clean for five
years inside the pen, they just say
you are too sneaky to get
caught," one angry Black said.
“The average White guy on
second-degree murder gets two
and a half to five years,” said
another, ‘"nie average Black on
the same charges does seven to 12
years.”
The 49-year-old Black “old
con”: “Things have been
building inside ever since guys
started getting longer sentences.
Especially the younger guys
can’t get adjusted to doing that
big time. It’s brought out a lot of
hostility.”
What about the general con
ditions and training facilities?
“Conditions are worst in the
(maximum security) adjustment
centers. At Quentin, I had rain
cornin'right in my cell,” said one.
Other comments:
“What training? There's a long
waiting list for something like the
welding shop and what they teach
you is outmoded. They got a
textile shop. You know how many
textile mills there are in
California where you might get a
job when you get out? One."
L.A. Times-Washington Post
News Service
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