No, Prison Did Not Turn Me Into a Racist
...But it did turn me into even more of a misanthrope
Every so often, someone asks me whether my experiences in prison turned me into a racist. Indeed, that is often the experience of going to prison. As anyone who has ever been to prison knows, prison is the most racist environment on the face of the earth. Prison politics are heavily racialized, and each race has their own TVs and their own tables in the chow hall. In hardcore prisons, inmates are verboten from even talking to anyone outside of their race - if they do, they will get smashed for it. Almost all inmates are extreme racists. Some of the only inmates I've ever encountered who weren't racist were the white inmates who are "on black time". But, as you would probably expect, the white inmates who are "doing black time" are almost entirely yo-boys and wanksters.
One thing that's especially forbidden among inmates is selling weapons to any inmate of another race. It's considered "arming the enemy" because, if a race riot erupts, then the other race be using those weapons that you sold them. In hardcore prisons, race riots happen all the time. Any time an inmate attacks or kills an inmate of another race, it will start a race riot unless they're given a "greenlight" for it by the shot-caller for the particular race.
There's a memorable scene in the 1989 Spike Lee film Do the Right Thing (one of my favorite movies) where the black protagonist points out to a racist white guy whom he works for that "all your favorite people are so-called niggers". The white racist responds: "it’s different". That scene is very accurate. In prison, I constantly encountered hardcore racists who absolutely hated black people, but absolutely loved black culture. They'd constantly rant about how niggers are all worthless subhuman parasites who deserve to be exterminated, then they'd go listen to black rappers and watch black movies, never remotely seeing any irony in it. Fucking idiots.
I also often encountered inmates who hated black people, but had sex with black women. To the typical inmate, women are just disposable objects that they can use for sex and money. The typical inmate has multiple baby mamas sending them money every week, which they, of course, spend on K2. Baby gonna starve this week, but daddy gotta have his K2.
The reprobates that one encounters in prison think that they represent the white race, but, in reality, they are the dregs of the white race and the human race. They are worthless white trash.
One of my old cellmates summed it up perfectly when he said that prison is what Black Lives Matter thinks America is like. Before I came to prison, I didn't know any racist people in real life (and I grew up in the deep south, which, according to popular belief, is just a bunch of racist rednecks). Despite what the media would have you believe, the vast, overwhelming majority of Americans are not racist. Americans are, generally speaking, among the least racist people in the world. Prison is the only environment in America where most white people are racist, and prison is certainly the only environment in America where white people actually hold conclaves about how they're going to get rid of all the niggers. I'm very thankful that I actually wasn't often invited to any of the whites-only inmate indabas, as I think they knew that I'm not racist and that I was not going to take part in any of their white power bullshit (nor was I going to fight on behalf of any white junkies who don't want to pay their drug debts).
Prison staff members tend to be just as racist as the inmates. Most white and mestizo prison guards hate blacks, and most black prison guards hate whites and mestizo. Prison staff members, generally speaking, are just inmates who haven't been caught yet.
I wouldn't expect prison to not be extremely racist. You're stripped down to the bare basics and, as such, people inevitably revert to tribalism and gang mentality (which, if you were already in a gang, is just second nature). And, for those who aren't ever getting out, what do they have to lose? Their career prospects?
With all that said, prison did not turn me into a racist, nor did prison turn me into a hardened criminal. I told myself that I would never let myself turn into the degenerate plankton that I was surrounded by in prison. I lived up to that promise that I made myself. Even in a hellish environment like Terre Haute FCI, I never let the convict mentality poison my brain. Fuck that. My goal was always going home, not having bullshit meaningless prison power, which is the equivalent of being king rat of the sewer.
Did prison change my worldview, though? Absolutely. When I was in prison, I often said that there are no friends in prison. However, what a corrections officer once told me is perhaps more accurate: "There are no friends anywhere." There are no good people, and there is absolutely nothing worth liking about people. Prison is just a microcosm of society at large. Prison is human nature in its purest, rawest, most unadulterated form. Once you've experienced prison, you will never see the world the same way again. Prison is, as alt-righters would say, something that "redpills" you. Before I ever went to prison, I didn't think that my worldview could possibly get any more nihilistic or misanthropic. I was wrong. After experiencing prison, I now have seen firsthand what humanity really is. Human "civilization" is a complete sham - just the same dog-eat-dog prison pecking order dressed up in a shiny exterior to appear more palatable. Prison simply strips away that shiny exterior so that one can see the world as it really is. In the world at large - just like in prison - the only people destined to rise to the top are the most ruthless, heartless, amoral psychopaths, hence why the world is run by ruthless, heartless, amoral psychopaths. The only real difference between the people running the world and the inmates running prisons is that the latter don't pretend to be anything other than vicious, predatory criminals. They aren't nearly as skilled at dressing themselves up in "civilized" clothes.
In conclusion: no, prison did not turn me into a racist. Not even in the slightest. Prison simply turned me into even more of a nihilistic misanthrope than I already was, which I truly didn’t think was even possible. So it goes.
sad. Sorry to hear that