I’m not sure where in the process of starting to discuss Craig’s time at camp that I thought about the fact I had to ask about race. Not “should” but “had” to ask. It was conscious but wasn’t something I was looking forward to, mainly because then I knew I’d have to write about it.

This is a difficult topic for me. The fact is, I don’t actually know the best way to do it because of my personal feelings on race relations. I just feel that talking about race always comes off as, not inappropriate, but just lesser when it’s from a middle-aged white guy. Because, you know, I don’t have to deal with many of the issues like people of color – any color – have to deal with. I’ll never be stopped for a DWC (driving while colored) or a similar offense. It’s likely I’ll never be beaten or choked or killed by a cop because of the simple fact that someone with a badge anticipates what I might do – and let’s be clear, it’s not based on what I’m doing at the moment but what they fear I may do at some point, you know, if I was a person of color. Sure, white people act crazy and react poorly too. And not all of the incidents we see blow up on TV are the cops’ fault. All races have equally bad people and some of them might even deserve it. But come the fuck on. Don’t tell me I don’t have a built-in safety net simply because I’m a short, pudgy, middle-aged, white guy. Seriously? I believe I’m fairly open-minded, at least as well as most, and yet I have an almost infinitely impossible time believing you will change my mind on this.

Some people may say it’s because I am too liberal. Some may think I’m just a pussy. Others may decide it’s just a sensitive fucking topic and it’s OK that I’m struggling with how to approach it. Whatever the case, I knew we’d have to deal with it here, knew I’d have to write about it, and now, here we are talking about it.

Race.

Where we’re from in the Park, as I was growing up and how I remember it anyway, I always thought there was a fairly broad mix of people. Lot of working class stiffs, guys who go to the plant and do their job, many second- and third-shift laborers, or doing whatever they can find. Pay their bills best they can, get the kids through school – at least high school anyway – and then out of the house, and just try to find a few times a year they can have some fun without getting bitched out by the wife or mother-in-law. Yeah, I know. It sounds like a fucking Bon Jovi song. But hey, the shit fits.

It’s not a middle class picture, at least not the way I saw it growing up. It was hard. You worked just to get by. Made do. Retirement only happened when you started collecting Social Security because, you know, not many people actually made enough to save money for that time in their life – if they even thought about what retirement would be like. And in many cases, those kids you got through high school? They were your retirement; they were supposed to take care of you when you got old and couldn’t work, just like you took care of them when they were too little to work. You didn’t move much back then either. Instead, you got to know your neighbors, and either you liked them and had fun times with them almost like an extended family, or you didn’t. Just not a lot of middle ground in any of your affairs, really. And guys said what they meant. Their word meant something. You did what you’re supposed to, and took care of business. But the funny thing about that broad mix of people is that it was a broad mix of the same people. Some Germans. A few Poles. Irish. Probably Russian. Dutch. Greek. Swedish. Italian. French. It was a whole fucking lot of Caucasian people, and not a lot of blacks or Hispanics or Native Americans or Asians or much of anyone of another culture let alone color. Growing up in the Park, there were a lot of divisions, like white trash and trailer trash and druggies and the rest, all of which segregated to within their own. But it was still a whole lot of white. There wasn’t much division based on color, other than someone saying, “I want to get something from Farm & Fleet but I don’t want to go out to West State.” Outside of that, having to go to the other side of town, you didn’t hear much of people talking about race. Because, you know, most of the blacks lived on the west side of Rockford, and if you’re from the Park, which is north of Rockford, you tried not to go there if you didn’t have to. You just dealt with the shitty white people instead.  At least how I remember it.

When you’re in prison, you don’t have a choice. You are going to see the differences in race swiftly, harshly. It’s a fact you can’t get away from.

As we were talking, I had to ask Craig whether his views or opinions on race – or more specifically, how he interacted with other races – had changed because of his time inside. You’d expect that there’s a chance that being in prison, where race became such a pressurized, hyper-sensitive subject, that it could make someone feel differently than when they went in. For him, he said it really didn’t.

“Short answer, no it hasn’t changed my views or opinions. I’ve always had the idea that people are people. Good people, bad people, smart, dumb, big, small. There are some predispositions, whether economic or physical, like one-legged people aren’t faster runners than two-legged people, generally. But overall, people are people.”

Basically, he said, it comes down to you room with who you room with. Sure, it’s human nature to want to be around people like you, not only by race, but education, humor, common interest, maybe even other divisions. When we’re put in a group setting and get a chance to be exposed to everyone in that group, people normally gravitate to people like them, generally speaking, he said. In the end, it depends on the individual person whether race is an issue or not. For some, race is a big issue, constantly, all the time. To them, race is everything. And there are those who fall in this category in every color of the rainbow. To others, race is what it is. Who gives shit? The hard part is getting people with differing views to understand and accept, or at least be OK with, on a daily basis, the other perception.

And let’s be honest: considering the clientele, behind bars probably isn’t the right place to try to teach acceptance.

Once he was incarcerated, Craig tried to understand how the system worked. Over time, he found the system in Arizona, where he started and ended his stay at camp, was different than that of many, if not most, states. Definitely different than any of the others where he spent time inside. As he said, they handled race in a different way. For example, in Texas, you bunk with whoever you’re put with. It could be someone who’s black, white, Mexican. They tell you to sleep, and you sleep. They tell you to eat, and you eat. Just get over it. In Indiana, there were no race divisions that Craig could recall. But in Arizona, where he started his stay at camp and spent the majority of his 18 years inside, it wasn’t quite the same. In fact, it was exhaustively different.

“What Arizona did over the years, in my talking to people, I found out, quite a long time ago, it was inmates against the faculty and staff. Staff was outnumbered, so it was manipulated by the administration to establish racial lines so that races would fight with each other but not with the staff.”

Yup. You read that right. He said that the people in the know, they set it up so that, in their estimation, they would have the least amount of issues by making it so that most of the problems would be solved internally, with each race taking care of itself.

“Now, you won’t find documentation of this. It took years of ‘this is how things worked’ to keep the argument between the inmates, because then they’re not fighting with the staff. Then the staff, if something goes down, they can think, ‘We only have to deal with the whites,’ or only the blacks, or the Mexicans, or Asians. It’s a smaller group to deal with.

“So it was somewhat sanctioned by the administration and racial lines were established. If anything they just allowed it happen, if not instituting it.”

That’s crazy if you think about it. But maybe that’s the liberal me saying that. In my mind, to start out, the fact that the administration would allow that to happen where races could become factions against each other just to make the job easier, that’s, I don’t even know. It’s lazy. Bullshit. Do your fucking job. Keep them safe, which I understand is never easy or reasonable considering they’re the worst of the worst. I mean, we obviously have to keep in mind we’re talking about arguably the bottom of the barrel of human beings on the Earth here. They did things that we as a society said, “No, no, no mutherfucker, that’s not acceptable. Because of what you did, you have to be set aside, you have to pay a penance.” And that’s what they’re doing. Yet, the administration lets them dictate how they live, who they live with, how they relate with the outside world simply because it’s afraid to deal with the issue of race? That’s nuts in my opinion. Obviously the other states Craig stayed in thought so too.

Here are the facts: A two-man cell in an Arizona prison is approximately 10 feet by 9 feet. That’s 90 square feet. Go measure that area in any portion of your house right now. Step it off. I just did. I just stepped off nine 9 feet by 10 feet in my office at home. This is where I normally write and often where I drink, and sometimes where I even think or do good deeds or do actual work, in its loosest definition. It wasn’t even three-fifths of the room. I still have about 2,500 square feet of space in my house that I can go do anything else in if I choose to. That’s because I have my freedoms in place since I didn’t violate our state or nation’s governing structure. But if I had broken any serious rule of law, I’d be spending all my time in a space much less than the office I choose to work in when I want to. Think about how much space you have now and how much you’d have if you were sent off to camp.

In a two-man cell in Arizona, there is a bunkbed, a desk, and toilet/sink combination. That’s it. Remember it’s 90 square feet. Bed. Desk. Shitter. That’s all. Well, there’s that and your cellie. Yeah, you and another human being sharing that same space. Now think about that. If you’re married, how well would you fare if you and your significant other were all smashed, with all your belongings, into a room the size of a large throw rug? It’s barely two dining room tables of space and you have all your shit, all your life’s possessions at this point locked into this space. You may love your partner, be deadly in love with him or her, and yet, you might have a bit of an issue spending that whole time in such as small space with them — tiny house people be damned. I know I sure would. Being in a relationship, you can, for the most part, come and go as you please. Being in prison, you often find yourself in a 23-1 situation, where you’re locked in your cell for 23 long, grueling hours every day and you get one hour out for recreation. Now, really think about that. If you’re not going to work, to a meal, or recreation, you’re in that room, locked in that fucking room with the other person who you didn’t pick to share your space with. Someone you didn’t have a choice in choosing, someone who was told to you that you should live with, because, you know, you broke the law and someone else gets to dictate the rules. Even if it was your beloved other half, 23 hours a day is a long goddamn time to be stuck with them. Right now, on the outside, you can say, “Honey, I’m heading to work in the other room,” or “I’m going to get some chores done outside,” or “I’ll be in the garage,” or “Hey babe, I’m going to the bar, and I’ll be back in 2 hours.” You have tons of ways of breaking up that time, but in camp, that scenario is singular. You are either out working or on the rec yard, or you’re in the cell with your, by all intents and purposes, best friend by default.

That’s where race really comes into play. Maybe the officials in Arizona got it right. It’s sad that I’d even think that, but when you realize just how different people are, maybe the fact that they’re different is enough reason to keep them apart, and to keep them from sharing a certain space.

Craig quickly began to understand the cultural standards and habits of others of a different race. When you put two people of different races in the same cell, it’s just a matter of time, a problem waiting to happen.

As Craig said, “I don’t have any problem living next to a black person. But I don’t want to live with them. Honestly, there are things we do as whites that drive blacks absolutely nuts too. It’s normal for us, but to them it’s annoying. I don’t specifically know white things that bother blacks. One that bothers me with blacks is they don’t shower every day, and it makes sense because of their skin composition. Showering every day dries their skin out way more than white people. They only shower and soap two times a week. Same with their hair. Their hair has a different structure to it, and it can’t withstand being washed every day. Instead of washing, they grease it. Then they lay their head on something, and it leaves a greasy spot, like Vaseline. When they sit in the same spot all the time, that greasy spot on a wall, that’s just gross.”

May not seem like much, but when there’s nothing else to take your mind off things for 23 hours a day, that could be enough to throw everything out of equilibrium in the cell. Small things tend to end up exploding into horrible things.

“It actually comes down to, and I’ve known guys getting in fist fights over this in a two-man cell, ‘Would you stop breathing so loudly?’ Teeth sucking, or clicking. It’s the smallest thing, idiosyncrasies, wears them out because they can’t get away from it.”

So what does this do for us?

If you’re out here, not locked up and not under the thumb of the government, then you get to choose. You can let some of that petty bullshit get to you and feel you have to do something about it, or you can walk away. You have the freedom to walk away and just say it’s ridiculous. You don’t have to like it, but you don’t have to make it bigger than it is. In a cell though, that’s when everything actually is bigger than it really is. That’s why letting the separation of races happen in Arizona, even if not sanctioned, was one of the most difficult things to deal with, Craig said. Sure, it may help prevent small issues, little dramas. But over the long haul, the big picture wasn’t as rosy. The administration allowing – or at worse ignoring – the race situation exploited it to make it a powder keg everyone — meaning the inmates — saw as infinitely ready to explode.

“You now have a situation of a possible race war. If something happens across racial lines, it’s not just two people. If something happens, say, with a white versus a Mexican, it’s all the whites versus all the Mexicans. We actually governed ourselves on that. The unwritten rule: substantial issues go to the hierarchy of the decision makers. My people talk to your people. If it’s not a big issue and your people take care of the issue to my satisfaction, it’s done. Bleeding, hospital, dead? What makes you happy?”

My first thought when I heard Craig start talking about this was that this isn’t the goddamn United Nations. Or is it? It’s kind of fucking crazy and definitely not logical in our everyday sense, but the system they have in place was oddly organized.

Negotiations happen. The leader of one group would say that they’re not going to do that, or that’s amusing, or we can do that, and if it was acceptable to the other group, then that’s what would happen. That process only reverted to a few people, not everybody. We’ll talk about that more later on, but at least for a time, Craig was one of those shot-callers, the ones everyone else on the yard looked to for answers and guidance.

Sometimes, the issue was too big and you couldn’t have a proxy take care of it. It had to be handled between the individuals themselves. Craig mentioned one example between a white guy and a Mexican while he was at Fort Grant in Arizona. The decision-maker let it be known that these two individuals will make repercussions happen, but there was a stipulation: it would be these two and only these two.

Now, it happened like that, but not without some handwringing.

All the white guys thought that they weren’t going to let their white guy go by himself to fight a Mexican because the Mexicans are known to have a tendency to ambush in a large group. And low and behold, the Mexicans expected there to be a large group of whites – perhaps from their viewpoint, it was the same mentality? – so basically all the whites and all the Mexicans showed up on opposite sides. And what do you think happened? Yup, a lot of bravado, big dicks swinging in the wind, but because of what the shot-callers said in their final decision, there was no action by the group. The two who were supposed to handle the situation, did. The mobs backed down and were just there in case something happened, in case the despised other race did what it normally does. As Craig put it, “So we were there, kind of like the Cold War, in a mutually-assured destruction standoff while these two pounded the crap out of each other.”

Useful.

But again, this is where the organization falls into place. The group think. That’s the issue with letting races self-segregate. You have white here, black there, Mexican over there, maybe Asian or Native American depending on where the yard is located. The divisions stood out, that was easy. And it was too easy to subjugate them all into one criminal crockpot. Look at how bad that Hispanic group is, for example. They’d think, “Those Mexicans, they’re worthless.” Everyone not Mexican talks shit about Mexico. It’s an ‘Us vs. Them’ mentality, and in the prison environment, it’s even easier to assume that all of ‘them’ are pieces of shit. They do drugs, they steal, they rape, they whatever. And each group has its own detractors, its own stigma that the others exploit to create their superior place within the mob situation.

Individually, that left people two choices. They could either join the mob think, take on the hate, the despising of the other races, or they could remember where they were.

Craig said it succinctly, that they, “had to remember they are the worst example of their group – just like we are the worst example of our group.” His thinking was that in this pressure cooker where you don’t get many choices on what you can decide for yourself, how you looked at other human beings was one thing they couldn’t take away from you. It seems it may fall back to your dignity and how well you believe in yourself, how well you respect your life. If you start buying into the thought process that all Mexicans are a piece of shit, well, in this place, the same can be said of whites, or blacks, or any race. You have the worst representatives there to judge any group in society. They are convicts. None of them are above any other.

At a certain point, not too far into his incarceration, Craig started to wonder what kind of an example he was setting. He wanted to – and to his estimation, he believes he was able to – avoid the whole ‘All blacks or Mexicans or whatever group are horrible’ argument because he kept it at the forefront of his mind that every single person there in prison was the worst example our society has to offer. The worst for that group.

It wasn’t easy. Sometimes, people, or groups, handed him reasons to be aggravated because of what appeared to their accepted societal norms. His example: how Mexicans who are actually from Mexico view things.

Here’s how he relayed it:

“It’s completely different than what American culture considers to be the norm. A good example: Mexican men, their place in society is established by how many women they have had sex with, thus making their reputation. Equally they are the biggest defenders of their sister’s and daughter’s chastity. Wait, you are out banging everyone in town to make you more of a man, but that’s someone’s sister or daughter? They’re a stud/slut in American terms, so how’d he get a good rep but she gets a bad rep for doing the same thing? It’s something I have a difficult time with.

“Also, in Mexican culture it’s your responsibility to prevent me, to stop me from taking something from you. It’s your fault if you don’t stop me from doing it. Not that stealing is wrong; they think, if you don’t stop me, it’s ok for me to take it. I find that an odd concept. That’s just the way they are. That’s because of corruption in law enforcement in Mexico. It’s well known law enforcement is as much criminal as the criminals. It’s not right, it’s just the way it is, which is unfortunate.”

In that entire context, Craig believes it goes back to, you will find what you’re looking for. That goes across all categories, but since we’re speaking of race, let’s stay with that.

“If you want to see bad in a particular race, that’s all you’ll ever see. Look for the good, there’s plenty out there. Blacks have gotten a bad rap. The only blacks you hear about on TV are ones arrested. Well, no that’s not all (who are out there). There are plenty of businessmen, average Joes, living the American dream. They come home, pay bills, they’re not out running around town. You never hear about that, the 100, 1,000 or million of them. You never hear about them, only the ones that get in trouble.

“For myself, I have that viewpoint of you find what you are looking for. The representatives I’m forced to live with, they are the worst of that group, and I’m the worst representation of my group, and that keeps it in perspective. Look for the good, and you’ll find it. Be cautious of the bad ones. But mostly what I dealt with was co-workers, guys I knew, lived next to, just decent people of all races. I didn’t want to fall into the ‘being a racist’ cast because a lot of it’s not true. There’s good and bad for any group, a good one and bad of anything.”