You mentally rerun the scenario over and over again. Maybe you missed something. There must have been some way that you could have changed the outcome. You refuse to believe that the situation was hopeless. After a while, it starts to feel like maybe it was.
I am feeling that way right about now. As you may know, I have been trying to start a math club for nearly two years. I’ve met every hurdle thrown at me. I found an outside sponsor (one with a graduate degree in math, too), found a space to use, and generally figured out the logistics. Yet, each one of my proposals has gone completely unanswered.
That’s not even the worst part of it. If I were to walk out to my dayroom, you would see a bunch of guys crowded around an Xbox. Yes, you read that correctly. Math is bad, but Xboxes are good. I fail to see the reasoning.
Maybe it’s because the staff likes whoever wrote the Xbox proposal more than me. That sounds credible. However, after listening to what staff members generally think about inmates while working in one of the administrative buildings for over a year, I discredit this hypothesis as unlikely. They think that all of us are stupid, disgusting, and otherwise scum. None of us is special.
An alternative might be that the staff wants to give us real incentives. They have come to their senses and have realized that creating an environment of learned helplessness is counterproductive to their mission. They want to promote integrity and create safer communities. Sounds good until you ask what that really means and what the data shows. Then, you notice the discrepancies. What did the Teamsters Union think during previous legislative sessions about us getting more access to education programs, for example? Not WADOC, but the Teamsters union, which represents staff? I’ll wait.
I think the most likely reason is that it is an easy way to placate us. They don’t care what we are doing so long as they don’t have to do their jobs. They have an interest in keeping us ignorant. We just need to shut up, watch our TVs, play on our tablets, and, I guess, play our Xbox now.
I have been known to be wrong. If I am, then I make my sincere apologies. Have fun convincing me, though! Until then, I will continue to figure out how to get this thing started. Anyone wanna help?
Header image by Kamil Switalski on Unsplash.
