OF EXILE ,ARREST AND THE COMMODIFICATION OF AN AMERICAN FAMILY
My father lay motionless, his eyes darting across the ceiling. He returned that afternoon, in 1999, from the courthouse with the news that, after two weeks of testimony, the all white jury returned with a guilty verdict for my then nineteen year-old brother, on trial for attempted murder. There was nothing I could say or do to comfort anyone in the family. This was not a television episode where the heroes of justice swoop in to save the day. He was guilty of the crime — I don’t pretend to understand and much less defend his resort to violence. But the sentencing aspect of a first time offense was the shocker. The calvary that arrived was in the thankless form of a public defender. Life in prison without parole. Within two weeks time my unit, as a family, became a statistic. The stories of low-income families that suffer from the emotional, financial and social stigma of having an incarcerated family member, lacks representation in all forms of media. No longer held together by the social bonds of family barbecues or weekly religious practices but now connected by the shared identity of criminal, prisoner, the surveilled.
The violence of isolation, the amount of money spent traveling, . We don’t dare demand to speak of it, right? My assumption is that when it comes to fair media representation, families of inmates are guilty by association. They are stigmatized and often the object of ridicule by prison guards, for their effort to maintain a relationship in such a solitary environment. In many ways, one could look at this experience as a microcosm of the state of our world today. Specifically the human body, as it exists in the United States, is a living example of an organism that is created to do nothing, apparently, but to consume, regurgitate and at some point cease to exist. Within the prison walls of capitalism and corporate surveillance we don’t hesitate to check-in, like, repost, comment or emoji our way through life. Our existence is monitored and catered to, based on algorithms designed to give us what we want. It is a fundamental form of existence. Built into our psyche, the way in which we view ourselves and carefully monitor each other.
French philosopher, Michel Foucault, wrote about power, in relation to the prison system — setup to rule over the body and mind of those that break the established social rules. Foucault referenced it as the discipline project — an analysis he did on Bentham’s panopticon structure: an octagonal structure set in the center of a prison yard, with the idea that the prisoner felt surveilled and would self-regulate their behavior. Designed at the turn of the 18th century, where punishment was a more public spectacle. Mutilation of the criminal was meant to be a deterrent, but the barbaric act no longer reflected the civilized society it had become and so the invention of a prison was born. Surveillance of a person by the state become the new norm.
Due to a number of laws, passed by California Legislator and voted by its citizens, California was forced to to reduce its prison population. My brother, as of two weeks ago, became part of that reduction. New rules will govern his life as technology and the way media interacts with the individual body today has quickly evolved. Although the social stigma of being an ex-con will be his new identity and I wonder which new identity we will take on.
