Shock Corridor
"Justice ... is so subtle a thing that to interpret it one has only need of a heart." — Jose Garcia Oliver
Back in the 60s, during the struggle for civil rights, I, like many other African-Americans, took to the streets of America's cities in pursuit of justice that to this day is being denied to people of colour.
The ravages of institutionalised racism and bigotry are so pervasive that — quoting here, Chester Himes, from his book My Life of Absurdity — when, "One lives in a country where racism is held valid and [is] practiced in all ways of life eventually, no matter whether one is a racist or a victim, one comes to feel the absurdity of life". Mr Himes is right.
As an activist, yes, even from this prison cell, I am aware of how insidious the socialised mental disorder so casually referred to as racism is.
To this very day it is not fully understood for the mind- and heart-crippling disease it has always been. It should also be noted that the symptoms of this disease are easier to see and treat when housed in those forms that are familiar, ie, Hitler and David Duke were easy to spot. Then again, some are more subtle.
Nevertheless, when you know all the symptoms, be they overt or covert, no matter how well the carriers and practitioners try to disguise them, you know they are sick the moment they open their mouths.
Racism can so victimise you that unconsciously you can become a perpetrator yourself, not unlike some (not all) children who were victims of sexual abuse unfortunately sometimes grow up to be child molesters themselves.
Many years ago at an "open to the public" Black Panther meeting that was designed to raise awareness about racism's more subtle nature, a film was shown entitled Shock Corridor. It depicted a mental hospital wherein its insane denizens were allowed to interact with each other in a narrow, but lengthy corridor.
I could clearly see several variations of insanity conditions unabashedly represented in that so aptly named corridor. But the image of insanity that stuck in my mind's eye was that of the only person of colour therein.
As the story unfolded, we saw that prior to being placed into that facility, he had bought a home in a neighbourhood in which his bigoted neighbours did not approve of his presence because of his race.
Those neighbours over a period of time, while dressed up in the traditional white sheets and pointed/hooded caps of the klu klux klan, repeatedly shot up his home, burned towering crosses on his lawn and savagely beat him. Eventually, they burned his new home to the ground. Shortly thereafter, understandably he had a mental breakdown.
As I viewed the screen, the scene in the corridor became still and quiet as the man of colour began to break the silence with incoherent shouts. I could understand some of what he was saying, though not verbatim. What he said went something like this: "Hurry, we must hide our daughters and wives because the n ... rs are coming to rape them! ... ". He said this over and over again as he ran from one end of the corridor to the other as if sounding an alarm.
I remember thinking at the time that the film had shown me as vivid an example as I had ever seen of how diabolically contagious the disease we know as racism can be. Surely, the madness depicted on that screen, in that corridor, was one of racism's many personifications.
If I could have my way today, all public officials and political appointees would be subject to a full psychiatric analysis before taking a seat or post of public office in America.
You see, if this had been a prerequisite a couple of years ago, William Clay of the US House of Representatives, would not have referred to "Uncle Clarence Thomas" with such connoted disdain in the June 23 issue of the Louisville Defender. Representative Clay's characterisation of Thomas is very accurate. Indeed, in the absence of the late esteemed Justice Thurgood Marshall, Thomas and others have made the US Supreme Court nothing more than another heartless "Shock Corridor".
[The writer is a prisoner on death row in the United States. He is happy to receive letters commenting on his columns. He can be written to at: Brandon Astor Jones, EF-122216, G2-51, GD&CC, PO Box 3877, Jackson, GA 30233, USA.]