It’s about 5:30 AM and the lights have been turned on in the dormitory. Sometime at this point, most Correction Officers will yell out, "Time to get up!" A few inmates are usually already awake and have been to the toilet area to use the toilets, wash up, get hot water for a cup of coffee, or just to sit on their bed or locker box to wait for "Chow—call" which is a call to go to the dining area in the food service building. This can come any time from a little after 6:00 AM to some time after 7:00 AM. The chatter between inmates is usually at a minimum at this point in the day because people aren’t just quite awake yet.

There is a ritual of waiting in line for a toilet or a sink to wash up in. En these old buildings, most of the time there are sinks and toilets that do not work. Many inmates try to wait until work call and try to use the toilets at their work assignment. Each dorm seems to always have their resident loud mouths who will be running their heads just as soon as their eyes open up. These are the ones who usually make fun of someone or something through some form of ridicule.

A favorite is the general insult that will be tossed about by two or more loud mouths who will criticize some of the inmates who do not get up in time to wash their face or brush their teeth before going to the dining room for breakfast. They call such persons "John Waynes" who get up with their boots on and jump right in the saddle to ride the range without splashing water on their face or brushing their teeth. If some tough guy is offended, he will usually retort with something like, "You bitches are like a bunch of old women running your head about somebody’s business. Unless you bitches want to kiss some man, quit worrying about whether he brushes his teeth or not, or washes his face." This will usually cause some mumbling and grumbling by the hecklers, but the toughest guy usually has the loudest mouth and wins out in the long run.

After completing our toilet, however we choose, we mill out in the hallways waiting for the call to chow. Of course we have our coats and hats on so that when the doors open, we can take right off for the chow hall. When we cross the grounds to get to the food service building, we usually have to stand in line outside the building waiting to be served our breakfast tray in the cafeteria—style serving line. There are usually "line—jumpers" who will maneuver their way to the front of the line when the Officers are not looking.

While moving through the serving line, there are inmates who are putting the food portions on the trays and sliding them down to the dispensing area like an assembly line. At the end of the line, there is a civilian food service supervisor who is supposed to see that the proper portions are on the trays and to hand them to the inmates in the line. After leaving the line, inmates move to the milk-dispensing machines to get milk for cereal bowls or cups to drink. There is always a huge line at these machines and usually a wait when they run out of milk. There is a single spigot for coffee at the coffee making machine. Not many inmates bother to wait for coffee.

The breakfast menu is varied throughout the week. The menu reads delicious, if you will. The finished product served is often different from what is listed on the menu. All in all, I believe that the breakfast served is quite adequate for nutritional concerns and there is good taste there also. This morning was scrambled eggs, dry cereal, toast and butter, with half a small glass of orange juice. To me, that is a good breakfast. Many of the inmates will steal more trays by sneaking back in line when the guards aren’t looking. And most of the guards are not looking because they are too busy chatting with other guards in little clusters they form while supervisinq security for tne breakfast being served.

When you have your tray and have gotten your coffee and or milk, you are directed to a row of tables, where an Officer will tell you which table to sit at while filling up each row. Four inmates are seated at each table. Sometimes you know the people at your table and sometimes you don’t. I usually prefer to sit down, eat my meal, and leave the area as soon as I can do so comfortably. In other words, I don’t rush through my meal, but I don’t tarry or linger there either.

When I return to my housing unit dorm, I finish preparing my area for porter cleaning after I have gone to work. This means having my bed made, having my foot-locker box put up on the foot of my bed, with everything I own taken off the floor and put on my bed. This has to be done before leaving for work call at 7:30 AM. When I return to my dormitory area at around 10:30 AM, I can put my foot-locker back on the floor, along with my shoes and laundry bag.

Time to close for a bit and get ready to crash; it’s close to midnight now. Have a good day, my friend. My best to you, Steve and your families. Hope to hear from you. Later! Peace, love, and hippy beads! Smile? It’s a "late night" here because of Martin Luther King’s birthday holiday tomorrow. That means we stay up later than the usual 11:45PM limit.

I was beginning to become worried about my understanding about the racial issue here in prison. It wasn’t anything like "black and white" at war, because most of the whites are too meek and frightened to resist black aggression and abuse. In here, with the population ratio being 3 out of 4 being black, makes white people the minority. Blacks are permitted to attack whites in gang-style. And the gang isn’t simply some national gang membership, but simply the brotherhood of being black. One of the worst humiliations any black inmate can suffer is to be beat up in a fight with a "white boy."

If "white" people attempt to unify for protection, they are immediately labeled as white racists. Most whites will avoid physical confrontation with black aggressors at all costs, because they fear being mobbed by groups of blacks if they stand up for themselves in an altercation with some black person. The authorities in here tend to look the other way when irate blacks assault some white boy because of fear of political repercussions with the outside community. Blacks have unity in the prison and outside community.

This factor is what led me to the thinking that this anti-white unity was everywhere; inside the prison and in the outside community, as well. Fortunately, I was able to have some soul-searching conversations with some responsible black people, from inside as well as outside of prison. I had asked some serious questions without being adversarial; in fact, I was genuinely humble in my search for acceptable answers. I told my black friends that I was seriously, for the first time in all my life, starting to feel a racial prejudice against blacks.

I explained that my problem wasn’t superficial with simple anger stemming out of hearing blacks heap abuses on other white people in here, but for deeper reasons. I cited the revisionist historians who increasingly--with literary impunity-—besmirch the white man in history while elevating the black people to superior, rather than equal, levels of talents and skills and the behaviors thereof.

Also, I have become increasingly aggravated over watching a continuous bombardment of dramas depicting the white man as despicable in their treatment of black people; even to this day and age. I keep getting the feelings that all this is an "over-kill" measure to teach young people to hate white people in general. I’m even starting to hate white people when I watch dramas like those prepared for Martin Luther King, or Alex Haley’s Roots with Kunta Kinte and all the marvelous, kind and decent black people in the movie with him.

Most notable for me was that I did not see one "nigger" in the whole movie. There were an abundance of rednecks, peckerwoods, honkeys, and even "pink bitches" in the movie. I’m beginning to feel as though these efforts at propaganda are so successful that I find myself not only resenting white people, but I’m even beginning to hate them. I can imagine what effect as well as affect this propaganda is having on the young in our society, white and black alike. For the longest, there has been an effort-—which I applauded——to encourage black people to develop a positive self-image. But there is something wrong when the methods are calculated to make white people feel negative about being white.

White is the only race that is not permitted to be proud of itself; its culture and heritage. All other races are permitted the luxury of seeing themselves in most favorable lights; not so for the white people. I listen to young white people here in prison try to deny being of the white race. All of a sudden, many will claim to be American Indian, part black, or Italian who pride themselves in not being part of the white race any longer for some reason they’ve fashioned for themselves.

I, myself, have 1/8 black, 1/8 native American, 1/8 Pennsylvania Dutch, 1/8 French, 1/4 German, and 1/4 English in my bloodline. But I cannot claim any of them proudly because I am the ultimate "mixed-breed." I have tried to compensate this deficiency with entertaining the concept that I belong to the "Human" race. But that kind of thinking isn’t very vogue at this point in time.

So when I brought this before my venerable black friends, the one from the outside community reminded me that it needs to be remembered that the element of blacks I experience in the prison sebting are generally the so-called "scum-of-the—earth," and should not be held up as prime example of the black race in general. He clarified that it was not only the black scum-of-the-earth, but the white scum-of-the-earth which made up the majority of prison populations around our country.

He allowed that there were very decent human beings of both primary races (being white and black). He said that the teachings of many black leaders who have become prominent did so through the strategy of non-violence. King learned much to teach from the style of Ghandi.

Unfortunately, there are those who will translate the strategies into violence because it is more inflammatory and exciting than non—violence. He said these people have fashioned a "Martin Lucifer King" philosophy to expedite their own agendas, just as many white spiritual leaders have used the teachings of Christian love to exercise hatred and evil. This is no fault of the Christian philosophy, but rather the flaw of the opportunists who fashion themselves as worshippers of the Lord God. So don’t snub the positive teachings about decent blacks such as those you mentioned in "Roots," but rather realize that there are those personalities among the black peoples of this earth, just as there are those of the white race, and any other race you might consider. He concluded that I wasn’t wrong in my understanding, but that I wasn’t right, either. He offered that I continue to seek the "larger picture" in all that I let into my heart.

He’s right. I thanked him and told him that the one serious effort I had made in that direction was that I saw "nigger" as a behavior, rather than as a person, white or black. That was a step further in the right direction. He agreed with me and encouraged me to continue to communicate my thinking to others who may make good use of my light. I told him about writing you, and he wished us well in our endeavor.