Can
you imagine a world in which complex systems of power and oppression work
together, almost undetectably, to dictate methodically who it is that ends up
facing violence, living in poverty, and ultimately serving time in prison? What
if I said that this is largely how the prison industrial complex functions
within the United States? And then what if I said that looking at only the
prison system is only the tiniest sliver of the entire picture? In Captive
Genders: Trans Embodiment and the Prison Industrial Complex, Bo Brown makes
this connection by stating:
“There’s a medical industrial
complex, a prison industrial complex, a business industrial complex – it’s all about the wealthy getting
wealthier. It’s all connected. So you have to look
at that. I’m working toward a world in which we don’t really need a prison
industrial complex, a world
that treats people like human beings, a world that doesn’t create a War On Drugs, a world that doesn’t destroy the
education system and determines that the people
who are somehow classified as ‘uneducable’ or the wrong color or the wrong
class will be tracked to
prison, because there will be no jobs available to them, etc. A more equitable world, a more humane world, a
world that’s not about money – that’s the primary
thing – a world that’s not about slavery” (Stanley 328).
While
the façade of each of these entities that Brown mentions are very visible
within American society, the impacts that they have, often exclusionary,
violent and cyclical, go largely unnoticed and uninvestigated. One way to
investigate these systems in a way that makes the patterns of violence more
visible, or to understand them on a level that makes clear their process of
enslavement, is to examine these systems from a perspective that is often on
the receiving end of their violent acts; from the perspective of those who
identify as trans.
Trans folks face uniquely difficult
circumstances in almost every aspect of American culture; frequently being met
with violence and often even named as violent themselves. Issues are raised
over which bathrooms are
legally accessible to whom and if it is legal for businesses and medical
professionals to deny
services and employment to trans folks, among other things. In this way, society
limits the ability for trans folks to find success, or to even exist without
being challenged, in everyday life tasks.
With this difficulty in mind, it is
easy to see how a pipeline to prison is created – when one doesn’t have access
to necessities, employment for example, when it is illegal for you to exist, prison
becomes society’s solution. Once imprisoned, you become a commodity
of the state – a part of a cycle that iterates over and over again until it
becomes so engrained it is undetectable.
In this way, America is systematically
enslaving its marginalized populations while simultaneously concealing this
process by placing the title of “illegal,” “violent” or “dangerous” onto
individuals. The only visible blame becomes actions or circumstances that
individuals are cornered into, rather than the state, which, is creating the
corners and the blockages that keep communities in them. Dylan Rodríguez
illustrates how this process becoming visible can contribute to informing
radical political beliefs:
“we usually become radical political
workers not simply because we have
personal grievances with corrupt
and unjust social systems, but rather because we encounter the mundane, insistent, nourishing, and
contentious influences of some community of activists,
teachers, survivors, and intellectuals” (Stanley 324).
Through this process it is clear
that individuals who experience daily acts of violence and imprisonment from
the state, both subtle and outright, have perspectives that can clarify and
inform those who might not be able to see how the prison industrial complex, or
American society as a whole, functions from their position in society. I think
it is important that we start listening and making changes.
Works Cited
Stanley,
Eric A., and Nat Smith. Captive Genders: Trans
Embodiment and the Prison Industrial Complex. AK Press, 2016.
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