Mark Olmsted
Aug 22, 2017 · 1 min read

No one in prison is privileged, period. And no one has much choice — you are pretty much required to hang with your racial group. And yes, it affords some protection from potential conflict from other other races, but if you do something that causes an issue with someone from another race, the shotcallers settle it and whomever is deemed at fault is punished by their own — beaten up in a bathroom or worse — but white on white, black on black etc. Otherwise you have a race riot — which no one wants, even though it does happen.
As a white inmate I had nominal “protection” from other races, but as a gay HIV-positive person, often had to worry about other whites. Within each group there are hierarchies — those lower on the pecking order always deal with others in their own group far more than those in other races.
Re-imagining being sorted into a gang, basically, as “privilege” is frankly ludicrous. Privilege, by definition, is not earned or obtained. It is something society accords you based largely skin color.
The idea of racial superiority was something the white inmates held onto — that even in prison, they were inherently “better” than the other races. It was not an idea that I heard from the black or Latino inmates. Equal yes, better no.

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    Mark Olmsted

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    Author, "Ink from the Pen," about my 9 months using creativity as the ultimate survival tool behind bars.