July 27, 2008
Opinion: “Inmates and Segregation”
To be honest, it didn't look like racial segregation. I was standing among long rows of metal bunk beds in a room where 36 men of different races — black, white, Latino — live together more or less peaceably. But the setting was a dormitory for minimum-security inmates at the Sierra Conservation Center, a prison in Tuolumne County near Yosemite, and in such places, unwritten rules apply.
One of the rules is that each bunk must be shared by two men of the same race. The bunks are close together. A white inmate could probably shake hands with a black inmate in a neighboring bunk without either man having to get out of bed. But that's a horizontal matter. Vertically, prison politics require that each bunk be occupied by two men of one race. Beside someone of another race, yes. Above or beneath, no. I didn't ask about diagonal.
Well-meaning Americans have long debated how best to encourage racial integration. Should government be aggressive in bringing it about quickly? Or should we rely on social evolution to achieve it more slowly and organically?…
LINK - LATimes.com (The Los Angeles Times)
