Sterling writes: "I do not like prison. No one should. It is a strenuous,
unceasing effort to cope with the ordeal of being incarcerated at a federal
prison. I find myself identifying with the title character from
Shakespeare's 'Richard II' when he laments his own effort to adjust to
confinement by wondering, 'I have been studying how I may compare this
prison where I live unto the world.'"
Jeffrey Sterling, the CIA officer sentenced to 3.5 years for leaking info to
NY Times reporter James Risen. (photo: AP)
I Was a CIA Whistleblower. Now I'm a Black Inmate. Here's How I See American
Racism.
By Jeffrey Sterling, The Intercept
13 September 16
I do not like prison. No one should.
It is a strenuous, unceasing effort to cope with the ordeal of being
incarcerated at a federal prison. I find myself identifying with the title
character from Shakespeares Richard II when he laments his own effort to
adjust to confinement by wondering, I have been studying how I may compare
this prison where I live unto the world. I do my best to resist the thought
that prison is a reflection of our society, but the comparisons are
unavoidable. Unlike Richard II, my studying has not been so much a
comparison as an unhappy realization.
From the moment I crossed the threshold from freedom to incarceration
because I was charged with, and a jury convicted me of, leaking classified
information to a New York Times reporter, I needed no reminder that I was no
longer an individual. Prison, with its one size fits all structure, is not
set up to recognize a persons worth; the emphasis is removal and
categorization. Inmates are not people; we are our offenses. In this
particular prison where I live, there are S-Os (sex offenders), Cho-Mos
(child molesters), and gun and drug offenders, among others. Considering the
charges and conviction that brought me here, Im not exactly sure to which
category I belong. No matter. There is an overriding category to which I do
belong, and it is this prison reality that I sadly compare unto the world:
Im not just an inmate, Im a black inmate.
Thinking that you know about something and actually experiencing it are
completely different. Previously, my window into prison life was informed,
in part, by the same depictions in movies, TV shows, and books that the rest
of America has seen. And unfortunately, as a child I heard firsthand so many
stories about prison life from people I knew that it seemed commonplace. I
expected there to be a separation of the races by some accounts
necessary racial segregation because that is what I saw, read, and
heard. My expectations and naiveté could not prepare me for actually living
in it, however.
I didnt have to be taught the rules of prison society, particularly in
regard to racial segregation, because they are so ingrained in just about
every aspect of prison society that they seem instinctual. Even though there
is no official mandate, here, I am my skin color. Whenever, in my stubborn
idealism, I refuse to acknowledge being racially categorized and question
the submission to it, the other prisoners invariably respond, Man, this is
prison.
These distinctions are maintained even when Im watching TV, because there
is no integrated TV watching in prison. I am not welcome to watch in the
white, Hispanic, or Native TV rooms. So I spend a lot of time in the
black TV room. There are no spatial advantages or disadvantages to this
segregation, because all the rooms have one or two tables, one or two TVs
that offer the same channels, and the occasional pigeon flitting about
indoors.
For me, the black TV room is a place of solace for reading, writing, being
frustrated by Sudoku, and generally escaping from the everyday pain of
prison life. However, even as an escape, its very existence constantly
reminds me of the pervasiveness, pointlessness, and harmfulness of
separation along racial lines. It is a reflection of America outside these
walls. What I see in prison is sad, but what Im seeing from prison is
worse.
Since arriving here last June, and from the black TV room, I have seen news
reports on the racially motivated shooting of black parishioners at the
Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, and seemingly
unending and routine instances of black citizens, including Philando Castile
in Minnesota and Alton Sterling in Louisiana, falling victim to excessive
force and being killed by law enforcement officers. I have also seen reports
of law enforcement officers being killed in attacks no less horrific. The
sadness I feel at what has been happening outside these walls was already
festering inside me before I became an inmate; when I entered prison, I was
still reeling from the death of Michael Brown in the St. Louis area, which I
proudly call home.
Watching these tragedies from prison, and especially from the black TV room,
has been a profound experience. Throughout the days when the shootings were
being covered and commentary on the news channels was ongoing, both TVs in
the black TV room were constantly tuned in. As the events were unfolding on
the news, I was struck by the uncommon silence in the TV room. Accentuating
the uneasy silence was an air of frustration and a palpable lack of surprise
and shock not only from the others, but also from myself. I, for one, did
not know what to say. And that silence was impacted by another burning
question I had no answer for, especially being in prison: What am I, or
anyone else here, to do? A possible answer came in the form of a comment
from one of my fellow viewers that was as stark in breaking the silence as
it was in defining where I was and what I was seeing. Man, this is
America, he said.
I cannot and will not accept that viewpoint, so I wanted and needed to know
that outside the black TV room and outside the prison walls, the rest of
America also found it unacceptable. I ventured out to see how the news was
playing out in the other TV rooms. With the pretext of going to the ice
machine (funny how we cant watch TV together, but we can use the same ice
machine), I passed by the white TV room. Those TVs were not tuned to the
news reports of the shootings. Instead, one was playing ESPN, the other
COPS. I didnt make it into the Hispanic or Native TV rooms, but it became
clear that the America of the white TV room, at least, was not the same as
the one that was playing out in the black TV room, both on and off the
screen.
Comparing prison unto the world has been no more complex than comparing one
TV room to another. The black TV room and the prison society that allows and
perpetuates it have not been providing me with a window to America they
have provided a lamentable mirror. That mirror is reflecting the reality
that racial segregation, particularly tacitly, is all too American. The
America one sees and experiences depends on what TV room the color of ones
skin mandates.
In prison, I see that mindset of latent and allowable racism creating and
being typified by racial segregation. On TV, I see that very same mindset in
tragic action outside the prison walls through the use of racial profiling
throughout the country, racially motivated voter ID laws, politicians
stoking racial anxieties for votes, a criminal justice system that engages
in racially disparate application and enforcement of the law, and much more.
Such all-too-American, misguided practices foster, if not encourage,
societal segregation and incite the dangers that necessarily accompany it. I
can argue that the Charleston church shooter, the white law enforcement
officers who have killed black citizens, and the black men who have killed
law enforcement officers acted out of an animosity fueled by this same sort
of prison mindset. What I have seen of the America I was a part of is the
unfortunate and natural extension of what Im living in prison.
Call me naive, call me a dreamer, and Ill wear those monikers proudly
because I still believe, even from prison, in this country and what it is
supposed to stand for. Has that been my personal experience and what Ive
been seeing from prison? No. As merely one example, during my time in the
CIA it became clear, in the organizations words and actions toward me, that
they saw me not as an American who wanted to serve his country but as a big
black guy. But my dreams of America are far more enduring than a prison TV
room mentality. There is a black America, there is a white America, there
are many Americas. The greatness and promise of this country lies in
equality reinforced by our differences rather than defined by them. My
America is not a prison. For now, Im confined to the black TV room at the
Federal Correctional Institution in Englewood, Colorado. When I am free, I
dont want to feel that Im merely going from one prison to another.
Error! Hyperlink reference not valid. Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.
Jeffrey Sterling, the CIA officer sentenced to 3.5 years for leaking info to
NY Times reporter James Risen. (photo: AP)
https://theintercept.com/2016/09/13/i-was-a-cia-whistleblower-now-im-a-black
-inmate-heres-how-i-see-american-racism/https://theintercept.com/2016/09/13/
i-was-a-cia-whistleblower-now-im-a-black-inmate-heres-how-i-see-american-rac
ism/
I Was a CIA Whistleblower. Now I'm a Black Inmate. Here's How I See American
Racism.
By Jeffrey Sterling, The Intercept
13 September 16
do not like prison. No one should.
It is a strenuous, unceasing effort to cope with the ordeal of being
incarcerated at a federal prison. I find myself identifying with the title
character from Shakespeares Richard II when he laments his own effort to
adjust to confinement by wondering, I have been studying how I may compare
this prison where I live unto the world. I do my best to resist the thought
that prison is a reflection of our society, but the comparisons are
unavoidable. Unlike Richard II, my studying has not been so much a
comparison as an unhappy realization.
From the moment I crossed the threshold from freedom to incarceration
because I was charged with, and a jury convicted me of, leaking classified
information to a New York Times reporter, I needed no reminder that I was no
longer an individual. Prison, with its one size fits all structure, is not
set up to recognize a persons worth; the emphasis is removal and
categorization. Inmates are not people; we are our offenses. In this
particular prison where I live, there are S-Os (sex offenders), Cho-Mos
(child molesters), and gun and drug offenders, among others. Considering the
charges and conviction that brought me here, Im not exactly sure to which
category I belong. No matter. There is an overriding category to which I do
belong, and it is this prison reality that I sadly compare unto the world:
Im not just an inmate, Im a black inmate.
Thinking that you know about something and actually experiencing it are
completely different. Previously, my window into prison life was informed,
in part, by the same depictions in movies, TV shows, and books that the rest
of America has seen. And unfortunately, as a child I heard firsthand so many
stories about prison life from people I knew that it seemed commonplace. I
expected there to be a separation of the races by some accounts
necessary racial segregation because that is what I saw, read, and
heard. My expectations and naiveté could not prepare me for actually living
in it, however.
I didnt have to be taught the rules of prison society, particularly in
regard to racial segregation, because they are so ingrained in just about
every aspect of prison society that they seem instinctual. Even though there
is no official mandate, here, I am my skin color. Whenever, in my stubborn
idealism, I refuse to acknowledge being racially categorized and question
the submission to it, the other prisoners invariably respond, Man, this is
prison.
These distinctions are maintained even when Im watching TV, because there
is no integrated TV watching in prison. I am not welcome to watch in the
white, Hispanic, or Native TV rooms. So I spend a lot of time in the
black TV room. There are no spatial advantages or disadvantages to this
segregation, because all the rooms have one or two tables, one or two TVs
that offer the same channels, and the occasional pigeon flitting about
indoors.
For me, the black TV room is a place of solace for reading, writing, being
frustrated by Sudoku, and generally escaping from the everyday pain of
prison life. However, even as an escape, its very existence constantly
reminds me of the pervasiveness, pointlessness, and harmfulness of
separation along racial lines. It is a reflection of America outside these
walls. What I see in prison is sad, but what Im seeing from prison is
worse.
Since arriving here last June, and from the black TV room, I have seen news
reports on the racially motivated shooting of black parishioners at the
Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, and seemingly
unending and routine instances of black citizens, including Philando Castile
in Minnesota and Alton Sterling in Louisiana, falling victim to excessive
force and being killed by law enforcement officers. I have also seen reports
of law enforcement officers being killed in attacks no less horrific. The
sadness I feel at what has been happening outside these walls was already
festering inside me before I became an inmate; when I entered prison, I was
still reeling from the death of Michael Brown in the St. Louis area, which I
proudly call home.
Watching these tragedies from prison, and especially from the black TV room,
has been a profound experience. Throughout the days when the shootings were
being covered and commentary on the news channels was ongoing, both TVs in
the black TV room were constantly tuned in. As the events were unfolding on
the news, I was struck by the uncommon silence in the TV room. Accentuating
the uneasy silence was an air of frustration and a palpable lack of surprise
and shock not only from the others, but also from myself. I, for one, did
not know what to say. And that silence was impacted by another burning
question I had no answer for, especially being in prison: What am I, or
anyone else here, to do? A possible answer came in the form of a comment
from one of my fellow viewers that was as stark in breaking the silence as
it was in defining where I was and what I was seeing. Man, this is
America, he said.
I cannot and will not accept that viewpoint, so I wanted and needed to know
that outside the black TV room and outside the prison walls, the rest of
America also found it unacceptable. I ventured out to see how the news was
playing out in the other TV rooms. With the pretext of going to the ice
machine (funny how we cant watch TV together, but we can use the same ice
machine), I passed by the white TV room. Those TVs were not tuned to the
news reports of the shootings. Instead, one was playing ESPN, the other
COPS. I didnt make it into the Hispanic or Native TV rooms, but it became
clear that the America of the white TV room, at least, was not the same as
the one that was playing out in the black TV room, both on and off the
screen.
Comparing prison unto the world has been no more complex than comparing one
TV room to another. The black TV room and the prison society that allows and
perpetuates it have not been providing me with a window to America they
have provided a lamentable mirror. That mirror is reflecting the reality
that racial segregation, particularly tacitly, is all too American. The
America one sees and experiences depends on what TV room the color of ones
skin mandates.
In prison, I see that mindset of latent and allowable racism creating and
being typified by racial segregation. On TV, I see that very same mindset in
tragic action outside the prison walls through the use of racial profiling
throughout the country, racially motivated voter ID laws, politicians
stoking racial anxieties for votes, a criminal justice system that engages
in racially disparate application and enforcement of the law, and much more.
Such all-too-American, misguided practices foster, if not encourage,
societal segregation and incite the dangers that necessarily accompany it. I
can argue that the Charleston church shooter, the white law enforcement
officers who have killed black citizens, and the black men who have killed
law enforcement officers acted out of an animosity fueled by this same sort
of prison mindset. What I have seen of the America I was a part of is the
unfortunate and natural extension of what Im living in prison.
Call me naive, call me a dreamer, and Ill wear those monikers proudly
because I still believe, even from prison, in this country and what it is
supposed to stand for. Has that been my personal experience and what Ive
been seeing from prison? No. As merely one example, during my time in the
CIA it became clear, in the organizations words and actions toward me, that
they saw me not as an American who wanted to serve his country but as a big
black guy. But my dreams of America are far more enduring than a prison TV
room mentality. There is a black America, there is a white America, there
are many Americas. The greatness and promise of this country lies in
equality reinforced by our differences rather than defined by them. My
America is not a prison. For now, Im confined to the black TV room at the
Federal Correctional Institution in Englewood, Colorado. When I am free, I
dont want to feel that Im merely going from one prison to another.
http://e-max.it/posizionamento-siti-web/socialize
http://e-max.it/posizionamento-siti-web/socialize
