SERVING TIME IN PRISON INCUBATES THE LYNCH MENTALITY

IN TEXAS, three white men allegedly came out of jail with a plan to kill a
black man. Prison air does that. The density of the confined space puts
pressure on the angry imagination. And we all know enough pressure will
bust any pipe.

When I was in prison, I once antagonized a black man because I didn't like
him and he didn't like me. We both understood that no logic had to inform
our hate. We simply could not stand the other's presence in our space.

He cracked open my skull. I stabbed him in the face.

In maximum security prisons, white or brown prisoners will often designate
two or three of the loudest black men on their tier to stab first in case
of a riot. I'm sure the plotting goes both ways.

Many Americans think of prisoners as one big homogenous criminal family,
but that is not the case. For example, different racial groups see the
world quite differently. The black prison population exploded with raucous
jubilee when the O.J. verdict was announced.

White supremacists just shrugged their shoulders. Their faces revealed an
inner conflict. They hated thinking that O.J. got away with murdering a
white woman. But because O.J.'s enemies were the cops, they were compelled
to congratulate him - at least in prison company - for beating the justice
system.

Being a racist in prison is a rather muddied business. In federal prison, I
knew one member of the Aryan Brotherhood who had a Jewish mother.

In California, the Aryan Brotherhood has for years teamed up with the
southern Mexican Mafia for wars against blacks or northern Mexicans. In
California prisons, Southern California Mexicans war with Northern
California Mexicans for myriad reasons, not least being that the nortenos
(northerners) are accused, by surenos (southerners), of being infatuated
with all things black. Rap music. Black lingo. Black mannerisms.

My own awareness of race came when I attended a predominantly white private
school in grades one through six. I'd sometimes rub my dark brown Mexican
skin and think, damn, if it weren't for this, I'd be one of them - my white
schoolmates.

But it was in prison that white and brown achieved a sort of parity for me.
There, a South Boston Irishman told me he used to assault black students
bused into his school. He liked me, he said, because when he was in the
Marines, he admired the way Chicanos were fastidious and respectful of
other persons' space.

Cramped cellblocks accelerate a man's bigotries. Once when I was locked in
my cell, I asked a guard for a roll of toilet paper. He said I'd have to
wait for two days. I wanted to lash out for being reduced to begging for
tissue, so I fantasized about violence - not directed at the guard but at
shutting up the inmate at the end of the tier who played his music too loud
or yelled to his friend at night when everyone slept. He happened to be
black.

The Aryan Brotherhood was the last major prison gang to form in California
prisons - after militant black and Mexican prison groups were established.
By the late 1980s, they were reportedly responsible for most of the
gang-related killings in federal prisons.

The three men accused of dragging James Byrd Jr. from the back of their
pickup truck are alleged to have ties to the Aryan Nation and the Ku Klux
Klan. But those men had also spent years hearing fellow prisoners fantasize
about throwing acid on the faces of unfaithful girlfriends or plotting to
kidnap and torture to death prosecuting attorneys.

Jesse Jackson has called on the president to go to Jasper on the
anniversary of the "conversation on race." He should also add America's
prisons to his itinerary.

According to newspaper accounts, the three white supremacists say they just
wanted to scare James Byrd Jr., but somehow the act unleashed a ferocity
out of proportion to the free streets.

I'm not surprised. Since my parole, my heart has betrayed me and responded
meanly to men on the streets - as if we were confined on an old crowded
prison tier, and the world seemed small again.

Former prison inmate Joe Loya wrote this commentary for San Francisco-based
Pacific News Service.

1998 San Francisco Examiner Page

Checked-by: (Joel W. Johnson)