Systemic Racism in Prison

A few days back, I sat in my cell listening to two white prison guards outside my window hold a conversation about systemic racism in prison. One of them outright refused to acknowledge systemic racism might exist, claiming that it was all fake news, misinformation, and propaganda conjured up by leftwing Democrats, while the other mostly agreed, though he did finally concede that if systemic racism does exist in government “even a little bit” then it “definitely doesn’t exist in American prisons.”

I chuckled when I heard that. Not because I think any kind of racism is funny, but because two seemingly sane people could believe such nonsense with so much evidence to the contrary.

Later that night I tossed and turned as I replayed their conversation in my mind. The more I considered it, the more I didn’t like the idea of people thinking the system I’d been held captive in for more than 26 years was anything but racist. I tried to devise a way to prove how institutional racism does exist in prisons across America, but finally realized that I needed more information.

The next morning I asked several prison guards whether they felt as if institutional racism existed in American prisons. Almost all the white guards believed it did not, stating things like: “the system is fair” or “the system treats everyone equally.” A few of the younger ones did disagree with their coworkers, but when I asked them to elaborate, or give me an example they couldn’t.

On the other hand, the black guards all held a different view. Most of them believed that institutional racism does exist inside prisons and in all other forms or government. And when I asked them to describe the racism in prisons, or give me some examples of it, they almost all pointed to the fact that the majority of incarcerated individuals in America were black, yet the majority of America’s population is white.

I find this to be a compelling argument, but I think it points to systemic racism in other areas of government. America’s prison population is overwhelmingly black, but I believe this imbalance is mostly due to systemic racism in our policing and judicial policies.

Next I walked the prison yard and talked to incarcerated men of all races, hues, religions, and sexual orientations. Almost everyone felt that institutional racism exists in prison. Even the few hardcore white racists I reluctantly approached believed it, and (surprisingly) one of them pointed me in the direction I needed to go.

“Have you ever wondered why they classify us as White, and the Blacks as non-White?” he asked me. “It’s because they don’t consider them human.”

This hardcore racist’s horrible words gave me pause. We prisoners have been called “Whites” and “non-Whites” for so long that we’ve all (guards and prisoners alike) grown accustomed to the idea of it. But after taking the time to really reflect on this stunning revelation, I realized how screwed up and racist this system of classification truly is.

Imagine if we applied this logic to any other part of the world. We’d have lions, and non-lions. Which means the beauty of tigers and leopards and cheetahs wouldn’t exist. We’d also have baseballs and non-baseballs. Which means the diversity of basketballs and footballs and soccer balls wouldn’t exist.

Here in Michigan prison we have Whites and non-Whites, which means the beauty and diversity of Blacks and Hispanics and Asians doesn’t exist. Here they’re just non-Whites.

This was the proof I’d been searching for.

Now I needed to figure how to present it in a way the system couldn’t refute. I started with what I knew. The prison system has always been very heavily divided racially, and for good reason as far as the government is concerned. Divison of any kind makes us incarcerated individuals easier to control. In prison we have white jobs and black jobs; white religions and black religions; white gangs and black gangs; and every six months we hold elections to elect White unit-reps and non-White unit-reps to our Warden’s Forum. These were things I knew existed, but couldn’t prove existed because there is no paper trail for such.

Someone then suggested that I scour all the many government forms to see if what I needed might be there. So I did, and he was right. Plenty of government forms list incarcerated individuals as either White or non-White. None that I could find list a Black man as being Black. The Program Classification Report, and the Program and Work Assignment Evaluation Report, and the Prisoner Time Disposition Sheet all have this little box on them marked “Race.” And in that box on every filled out form I examined dwelled either a W for White, or a NW for non-White. Here is the proof that Institutional Racism really does exist in American prisons, or at the very least, in Michigan prisons.

Imagine having to go through life as a non-White. Imagine having your whole existence predicated on someone else’s existence. A Black man in prison can’t just be a Black man, he has to be a non-White man. He cannot take pride in his heritage or skin color unless he acknowledges the White man and his skin color first. How do you expect him to rehabilitate himself and grow to be a better human when the system doesn’t even acknowledge his existence as a man, but as a non-man.

Surely this system of labeling a Black man as a non-White came into being many decades ago, when Black men weren’t assigned any real worth as people, yet here this archaic classification system still exists today, in plain sight, yet no one sees it for what it is: Institutional racism at its finest.

My name is Jerry Metcalf and I wish to make the world a better place, if you do too, please join me on social media.

Jerry Metcalf
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