2002-11-03 - 10:26 p.m.
The first of November always seems to have a Halloween hangover. That's the way it feels on the morning after Halloween when all the decorations suddenly seem a little tacky and foolish, and you know you ate too much candy. And pumpkin pieces litter the streets. It seems to be a favorite juvenile delinquent activity to steal pumpkins from people's porches and smash them in the street. It always looks like a great debauchery has occurred in the night.
It is the end of another weekend primarily devoted to work on the notebooks. This one was brightened considerably by the fact that my mother and sister came over and helped us all of Saturday afternoon. It is amazing how much more four people can get accomplished, not to mention the whole fun factor. We laughed and joked and told stories and the time flew by. But today has dragged along in a grey haze....because it is cold and wet outside....and because we had to pay bills.... and because I strained my back on Saturday, lifting some heavy boxes of paper. I keep trying to ignore it and feel better, but I don't. Skootie proved herself to be a saint once again by going out and obtaining Chinese food for our dinner while I stretched out on the heating pad and watched the latest installment of fear and loathing on Sixty Minutes. Someday this project will be done and I will be an interesting person again, but right now I am just trying to hang on.
But what I really sat down to write about was Friday night. We had the privilege of hearing Dr. Angela Davis speak at the university. And just the fact that she was here was something close to miraculous, because this is a little midwestern commuter school full of students whose big educational goal is to get a better job. Radicals and activists and idealists are in short supply. So I was shocked when, after the administration refused to allow Dr. Davis to speak here, the students rallied and had a petition drive and managed to make it happen. I have never been to a university event that attracted such a large and diverse crowd. Probably less than half of the crowd was from the university, and the rest came from the community.
Dr. Davis talked about abolishing the "prison-industrial" system. We have over two million people incarcerated in this country, and a lot of big businesses make a profit from the labor or the upkeep of this system. There is also a racial bias in the prison system, as most of the people who wind up there are minorities. She also talked about how the sexual abuse of women in prison has been an accepted, state sanctioned practice.
I admit that I have not given the subject of prisons very much thought. I suppose, like many people, I have been more afraid of crime and anxious for the police to get all the offenders "off the streets." But, as Dr. Davis pointed out, most people are not in prison because they did something horrible. Most people are there because they broke a law, and this country has thousands of laws. Some things that would get you a jail sentence in one state would only be a misdemeanor in another. And for these infractions, mostly victimless drug-related activities, people are reduced to a form of slavery. It is chilling to me to think about what this says about our society.
Dr. Davis asked how many people had seen the inside of a prison and I held up my hand. But I know it was only a fleeting glimpse. Many years ago, my (then)husband and I, our two-year-old, and a couple of our friends were traveling in our van, like a lot of hippie type kids were doing in the seventies. We were going through Colorado and thought we would try to see if we could visit with a guy from our hometown who had been busted for drugs there and sent to the state penitentiary. We found our way to the big stark penitentiary with the ten-foot barbed wire fences and armed guards posted at all the towers. When we stated that we were there to visit someone, we were allowed in and told to check in at the front desk. We had no idea what we were doing, and I guess we just thought you could visit someone in prison like you do in the hospital. When the desk clerk saw us (and I'm sure we looked plenty scruffy) he called for guards and we were separated (men and women) and locked into small windowless rooms. After a long time, a female guard came in and told us that if we were to be allowed to see our friend, we would have to submit to a strip search. We were separated from the guys and had no chance to change our minds or find out whether they were going through the same thing. We submitted to the search. This woman made us completely disrobe, searched our bodies, every seam of our clothing, the baby, and everything we had with us. Of course we were not so foolish as to bring any contraband in with us, but.... in her very thorough search, she found, in the bottom of my friend's bag....some SEEDS. Yes, just a half dozen or so little pot seeds that had worked their way out of a baggie and into the seams of the backpack. The woman guard was gleeful, overjoyed to have found something, and went rushing out with the seeds. And all I could think of was: OH SHIT: Here we are, busted for trying to smuggle drugs into prison. I think my young stupid life flashed before my eyes right about then. We waited a long time before the guard came back and told us to get out. That's right, just get out. We walked out of the room and saw the guys coming out of another room nearby, looking just as scared. Needless to say, we did not get to see our friend, and at that point no longer cared. We ran out to the van and hightailed it out of there as fast as we could. I will never know exactly why they decided not to bust us, but I always reflect on what a ridiculous thing it would be to have a criminal record because of that incident. And I will never forget how totally frightening it was to have your life fall into the hand of an entity that could so easily crush it.
I was inspired by Dr. Davis' speech, and by the example of her life, because she has devoted her incredible presence and intellect to helping the most forgotten people of our society. And I was inspired by the energy of the crowd around me, an enthusiastic and engaged group, many from the African-American community. I was so proud of the university for defying the shamefully racist tradition of this city and bringing in someone who is not only black but radical and outspoken. We all need to hear what Angela Davis has to say and I am glad so many people realized that.
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