This Is an Illogical Statement: Dangerous Trends in Anti-Prison Activism Author(s): Camille E.S.A.

Acey Reviewed work(s): Source: Social Justice, Vol. 27, No. 3 (81), Critical Resistance to the Prison-Industrial Complex (Fall 2000), pp. 206-211 Published by: Social Justice/Global Options Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/29767243 . Accessed: 04/05/2012 13:47
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This Is an Illogical Statement: Dangerous Trends in Anti-Prison Activism1

RECENTLY,

"SCHOOLS

NOT

the popular discourse surrounding the alarming rise of incarcerated America. Iwould like todiscuss, in general terms, some of the peoples in that thismovement poses to radical anti-prison work. I am speaking problems my critique can find some currencywith otherswho are generally in thehope that with theproblematic of theembedded liberal ideological apparatus, which dealing holds that thevery violence thatconstitutes social institutions ismerely a curable
excess.

Introduction Institutions are created and maintained by hegemony Hegemony is created and maintained by violence Hegemony is violence Institutions are violence School is an institution Institutions are created and maintained by hegemony Hegemony is created and maintained by violence Hegemony is violence School is violence Time is an institution Institutions are created and maintained by hegemony Hegemony is created and maintained by violence Hegemony is violence Time is violence Jail is an institution Institutions are created and maintained by hegemony

E.S.A. Acey is radical black feminist student, activist, and educator. She is currently a fourth site: http:// Web student at U.C. (e-mail: camil@uclink4.berkeley.edu; Berkeley her lifeplan is to keep on struggling, learning, and thinking. Her www.geocities.com/camillesname/); current academic interests include genocide, afrofuturism, and cyberculture. She wishes to extend her deepest gratitude toDylan Rodriguez and Jared Sexton for all their help. Camille year

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Anti-Prison Activism Dangerous Trends in Hegemony is created and maintained by violence Hegemony is violence Jail is violence School uses time Jail uses time Institutions use institutions Institutions are created and maintained by hegemony Hegemony is created and maintained by violence Hegemony is violence Violence uses violence Schools not jails Institutions not institutions This is an illogical statement.

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In the mid-1990s, "Schools Not Jails" (SNJ) (and othervariations thereof,such as "JobsNot Jails") was circulating inCalifornia as a popular rallying cry for anti prison movements, but more recently ithas grown into its own movement. As a

Meetings were closed and businesslike, and the focus shifted from progressive political education to effective campaign management. This movement did not explicitly tie itself to a history of social justice movements in theUnited States; rather, it seemed for thismovement that time began with Proposition 187 and would go on as long as therewere propositions to oppose.3 Most recently, the "Schools Not Jails" slogan was used in the failed campaign against California's Proposition 21.With stipulations such as the legalization ofwiretapping on those

bridge between emerging youth activism and anti-prison advocacy, this ideology seeks inpart to draw crucial links between the underfunding of schools and the ever-burgeoning prison-industrial complex. It is not at thispolitical location that movement. As one of the students who was politicized in the I seek to critique this was no space for era ofProposition 209,21 soon found thatthere my radical critique when "Schools Not Jails" ballooned into amovement. of government institutions

the level of political education around this issue would have been superb. was not thecase. Taking the lead from the"youth" organizers, a new However, this naivete permeated theorganizing. SNJ grew inpopularity because of its simplicity ? it is clear, catchy, and itfits neatly on a bumper sticker and straightforwardness or a tee shirt.For this reason, SNJ is also dangerous. This and other such slogans indicate a revolt against what science fiction author and literarycritic, Samuel Delany, has referredto as the "problem of 'complex rhetoric.'"4 This revolt, in the name of popularizing a limited leftist agenda, is waged at the expense of the

the police deem "gang members" and increasing penalties for "gang-affiliated" crimes, Proposition 21 set into law the practices that the legal system (in conjunction with theFBI and other federal agencies) has used against activists for with seasoned activists at the head of theorganizing, years. One would think that

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margins. Thus, I wish to speak from themargins and discuss how attempts at "mainstreaming" a leftistpolitical agenda problematize and often censure the project, precluding the development of a radical counter-hegemonic political slogan "education not incarceration" grew out of the link between university student anti-Proposition 209 activism and grass-roots high school student activism.6 In themid- to late 1990s, a number of studentwalkouts and protests were led throughout the state of California. The main emphasis of university studentswas on increasing access to theuniversity forpoor, working class communities of color and promoting more relevant curricula. High school students from those communities voiced concerns over insufficienteducational resources, declining economic opportunity, and the growing criminalization of theirgeneration. Often, many of theorganizations came together todevelop more The
language.5

comprehensive, radical critiques of these issues and strategies for political education. Though it is often believed thatSNJ is a variation on "education not incarceration," I would argue that that it is a corruption. During workshops or would often express theirextremely valid meetings with high school students, they belief thatthepurpose of high school was to "get you ready togo toprison." Under the SNJ regime, this staunchly anti-school critique, from those incarcerated in some of thecountry'smost egregious junior highs and high schools, was censored. Soon college students and graduates were employed (and developed theirown organizations) to effectively handpick and manage youth organizers. They gave media and policed any nihilistswho themcrisp, clean sound bites todeliver to the feel the urge to yell "Fuck school!" during an SNJ rally.However, armed might won't quit, the "Schools Not Jails"movement with inaccuracies and a slogan that ? thewillingness and embodied the oldest form of anti-intellectual nihilism

determination to be intensely ignorant. The liberal ideology behind SNJmay have been more fittingforawelfare state. With continual corporate downsizing andmassive global economic restructuring, a sizable and ballooning population has emerged whose bodies capitalism has discarded, and who (because of their youth, race, gender, imprisonment, and unemployability) often fall outside the scope of even the broadest Marxist analysis. Further, in collaboration with massive policing efforts,corporations and supranational organizations have succeeded inclosing down our streetsand public spaces.While the anti-welfarewarfare state shifts its resources to building global communication, our immediate communities have been ignored; in fact, the term "community" has nearly faded from daily discourse as a signifier for specific geographic locales. Urbanist Paul Virilio (1999: 41) describes thedanger of this new sentiment toward personal social interaction: if tomorrowwe love only our distant neighbor without being conscious of hating our neighbors because they're present, because they smell,

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Trends in Anti-Prison Activism

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because they're noisy, theybotherme and they summonme, unlike my distant neighbor who I can zap.. .so if tomorrowwe startpreferringour distant neighbor at the expense of our neighbor, then we would be
destroying the city....

This idea has helped to change attitudes toward social responsibility and to facilitate a staunchly anti-"handout" mentality. Hope in quick-fix liberal-demo? cratic programs is quickly decaying among thepoor. As anti-prison activists,we must struggle to understand thisperiod as a time of crisis, because only in a time of crisis do we begin to deconstruct our relationship with language and time. Time and Crisis In his appropriately named essay, "TIME," San Quentin inmateEddy Zheng said: "After I was sent to prison to do a life sentence, it forcedme to thinkabout time...." I would even suggest that institutions require that you not only think

Examining the relationship between popular anti-prison rhetoric and the expressed realities of prison life reveals a huge divergence in political locations. Activists often speak about the "state" without specifically defining what they mean by it. Similarly, they think about the "state"? and by extension "state ? in termsof locality (ofteneven pointing to specific buildings). At every power" moment thatpower iswielded, it is established, exercised, and reasserted through the invocation of ideological institutions. These institutionssubsequently help to violently enclose space?whether throughtheact of land grabbing or ghettoization. Therefore, when formulating a radical understanding of, and opposition to, state power, it is necessary for us to locate and deconstruct the iterative space from which power flows, recognizing and continually addressing the fact that space (and, by extension, spatial metaphor) is in constant flux. A metaphor for the liberal-democratic ideal is the idea of a working body? a healthy body with all theorgans functioningproperly. Some popular anti-prison discourse is similar to the complaint of a sick patient: particular institutions are

Iwanted to go. There weren't any set guidelines or routines. I didn't feel a sense of time."We need to think critically about the implications of this difference between institutional and street time for radical prison work beyond thewalls.

their "crime" indicated that theywere resisting some clock or were being wholly ignorant of it. In "TIME," Eddy also says: "Time took on a whole new meaning when Iwas locked up at theage of sixteen. When Iwas on the street I didn't really care about time. Iwas free to do what I chose to do and go where Somehow,

about, but also do time.That iswhy ifyou go into almost any prison in theworld and talk to any inmate, you will find that theywere probably not where time dictated they should have been at the event of their crime. They were probably was "supposed" tobe atwork or in school or inbed, catching some sleep before it time to get up and go back to school or work or the unemployment office.

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saying, "this institution(or thisorgan) is in theway of society (ormy body) being fully functional. I need another one." In particular, education is proposed as an well organ thatcan be transplanted into the"sick" society so as to somehow make it again. This is unproven; more often we find that new institutions installed alongside the old ones do damage more quickly and efficiently.However, this ? the method of activism continues to be employed because of the myth of time holds time that"heals all wounds" and the time that"will tell."Time is the skin that all these faulty organs in.Hope relies on time; however, the trickof time is that while you arewaiting foryour hope, the current social order is reproducing itself. In developing our critique,what we need to reveal isnot only thefaults of thebody, modern society cannot be saved. As radical but also thatthebody is itself thefault; make people realize this?that activists, our aim thereforeshould be to anti-prison we must induce a sustained attack in thebody, where with the (sticking metaphor) the only time is emergency time,where the only time is now. Sometimes we are blessed with being able to choose the time and the arena and themanner of our revolution, but more usually we must do battle wherever we are standing. ? Audre Lourde

NOTES
1. A version of this essay was presented at ICOPA IX (Ninth Meeting of the International Conference on Penal Abolition): New Questions, New Answers, onMay 12,2000, in Toronto, Canada. 2. Proposition 209 was the California proposition that effectively ended the application of affirmative action policy in university admissions and state hiring practices. 3. Proposition 187 was an "anti-immigrant" proposition that, among other things, banned certain government agency spending on "illegal immigrants" and their children.

4. In an interview with Kenneth James, Delany (1994) goes on to say: "Our country values of a necessary 'common' sense and 'simple' language. It's part of our whole democratic notion?part vision of democratic workings. What this means, however, is that to speak orwrite a complex rhetoric were ? to speak outside theAmerican tradition. This is is to speak against theAmerican grain, as it one reason difficult discourse initially raises our suspicions and distrust." 5. For an excellent discussion of radicalizing (1999) discussion Movement' Era." 6. In themidof "mainstreaming" feminism in Chapter a leftist political agenda, see Joy James' Feminisms from 'The 4, "Radicalizing

and late 1990s, a number of student walkouts

and protests were led throughout

the state of California.

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Samuel Silent Interviews. Hanover, NH: Wesleyan Shadowboxing: Representations Martin's Press. University Press.

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of Black Feminist Politics. New York: St.

Smith, Neil

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Virilio, Paul

Geographical Politics

"Contours of a Spatialized Politics: Homeless Scale." Social Text 33: 55-81. of the Very Worst. New York:

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