Subject: Oppression, the New Mundane
When I first came to this jail, I was a fish out of water. I was stunned by the jailer’s ever present blank stares as they performed their jobs like automatons. In a voluntary community, giving commands to another human being, putting one’s hands on a stranger, and subjecting one to a needle without consent is foreign, to say the least. That’s not how my community operates. The people with whom I chose to surround myself operate on a strictly voluntary basis ¨C nothing is done except with explicit consent.
Here in jail, I am a “cart-runner” (someone who delivers food trays to the various cell blocks). During the course of this duty (performed under coercion/threat of a smaller cell and even greater isolation from comforts of the outside world such as visitors and deodorant), I walk past all different parts of the jail.
When I first came in, the most horrifying experience was being injected with something in a needle at the medical center. I acquiesced under the same threats mentioned above, though I did not actually wish to be injected with anything. I was appalled by the way the jailers would casually lean on the desk or table bored and stone-faced while subjecting complete strangers to an involuntary injection, naked search, or body groping.
Now that I have passed the medical center about 100 times, even I peer in on the freshly captured inmates with the same nonchalance as the guards. When I realized this today, I felt guilty. Where was my empathy for today’s victims? Where was my sense of moral righteousness?
Perhaps my new attitude comes from a desire to be happy, something that can only be achieved by pushing the constant reminders of oppression out of my mind. To continue recognizing ever present coercion for what it is make me miserable for the remainder of my sentence. I’ll chalk it up to learned ignorance. Let’s called is “survival ignorance” 😛
