From T-Bone (Letter 47)

T-Bone is a massively-built spiritual ex-Marine, who uses fighting skills to stop prison rape. T-Bone’s latest letter from Arizona prison: 
The last few weeks have been pretty serious. Firstly, the Blacks and Mexicans almost had a riot because of bad talk and drugs.

A new guy came here from somewhere (nobody knew where) and started saying that a black guy owed him money for drugs. Then he said that the black guy was a rat. To squash the beef, the gang leaders made the two go into a cell to fight. Then we had a sit-down. The two were ordered to leave the yard or get smashed. After they left, the guards locked the yard down.

As soon as the yard reopened, a second incident happened. A black guy came onto the yard and said a white guy who works in property had stolen his sweatpants. The black guy came and asked me for help. I went to the white guy, who said that he wanted to fight the black guy, because he didn’t want a jailhouse-thief jacket [reputation]. All of the whites grouped together, and demanded that the two go into a cell and fight. The black guy didn’t want to. He came to me for help. I told him to apologize. He did. Everyone said it was cool, and that was the end of that.

So now the outstanding issue is just plain old evil racism. The whites want to be the first in line to do everything: chow, store, rec… And they are willing to fight over it at any cost. Now the yard is open, there is supposed to no longer be a line rule, but the whites want the blacks to go to the back of the bus, so to speak, because they have the Mexicans backing them up. 






Shaun Attwood  

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