
On Being Jewish in State Prison (2009) - jacobr
https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/intelligence-report/2009/david-arenberg-reflects-being-jewish-state-prison
======
captainmuon
I always find it unbelievable that they let these kinds of hierarchies arise
in prisons, especially in American prisons (from what I've heard, European
prisons have it too, but to a much lesser degree). Someone told me they allow
it on purpose to help keep order. Maybe it is also a consequence of overfull,
understaffed prisons.

It's probably naive, but one thing I would do if I was in charge would be to
aggressively break up any kind of hierarchy or authority among inmates - not
least to prevent prison from turning into a "crime school".

Edit: some people suggest these gangs arise due to the size of prisons and the
large inflow of new inmates [1], whereas in the old days (-1950s) prison used
to organize itself according to some kind of convict code.

[1]: [https://www.politico.com/agenda/story/2015/05/end-prison-
gan...](https://www.politico.com/agenda/story/2015/05/end-prison-gangs-break-
largest-prisons-000034)

~~~
wallace_f
>It's probably naive [...] not least to prevent prison from turning into a
"crime school".

I am very confident the type of people working in SV could make a huge impact,
if only running prisons was like software development.

But the goal of US prison is not to solve difficult problems. It is simply to
benefit the US prison-police-state-complex.

The other problem is it would be like when designing, your functions, or
people, don't do what they're supposed to do and have a mind of their own. For
example, an HBO documentary on death row inmate Troy Kell noted he was being
punished for heroin overdose[1]. Thing is, he is in solitary. How does a guy
in solitary become a heroin addict? Well, like the article mentioned, the
drugs come in through the guards. Sometimes this, and things like Abu Ghraib,
the Stanford Prison Experiment and regular police killings make me wonder if
the authorities here are any better than the guys inside.

1 - [https://youtu.be/UEl7zsOE2Sk](https://youtu.be/UEl7zsOE2Sk)

~~~
kbenson
> I am very confident the type of people working in SV could make a huge
> impact, if only running prisons was like software development.

> But the goal of US prison is not to solve difficult problems. It is simply
> to benefit the US prison-police-state-complex.

See, that's why they couldn't make a real impact. The whole system is set up
with the wrong incentives. From the SV/startup perspective, it's like one of
your suppliers being the nephew of your biggest investor and a stipulation of
the investment. Sucks to be you if they do a shitty job and cost you money, or
make it hard to achieve goals. They know they have leverage over you, so
you're stuck.

Prisons could kill large amounts of people that enter them, and release people
as sexually molested PTSD wrecks that have little normal economic recourse and
new ideas and connections about how to make money in extra-legal ways, and
society still wouldn't care enough to change things. This is obvious, because
_that 's what prisons do in the U.S._ and _we haven 't changed jack-shit._

I don't have high hopes for change. A decade ago there was a lot of media
attention and articles about how California used to be the shining example of
the U.S. prison system (in the 1970's), with extremely low recidivism rates,
and inmates leaving prison with a skill or craft they learned inside and able
to find gainful employment. Nothing came from it during two terms of a
Democrat president after that, I doubt we'll get change from a Republican one
now, especially with his particular rhetoric on crime. Until we as a society
get past "Justice == punishment" and focus quite a bit on rehabilitation,
we're cutting off our nose to spite out face.

------
sleazy_b
Pretty great article. I wonder how common this man's experience is;
specifically that his identity as a Jew is defined in some way by oppression.
I was raised as a Jew in New York and hardly saw any overt antisemitism (the
few times I did as a child I remember quite clearly), but unlike the author of
this article I was always aware of it. I think for me my identity as a Jew was
reinforced by the perception that there were people who would want to hurt me
because I was Jewish, regardless of whether I identified myself as such.

~~~
jabashapa
YouTube is proof of how rare anti Jew behavior is in the US. It happens but
very rarely and always involves uneducated poor people.

I dare someone to deny me service or try to lynch me. I will sue using the
courts and physically defend my house and family through the glorious
protection of the second amendment.

~~~
nkozyra
> YouTube is proof of how rare anti Jew behavior is in the US

Can you expound on this?

~~~
frandroid
Probably from the comments on specific videos...

------
beebmam
The US prison system is far beyond fucked up. It destroys humans instead of
rehabilitating them, a great majority of which could without a doubt be
rehabilitated.

~~~
threatofrain
It's also a place where unfortunately people feel that criminals morally
deserve whatever happens to them there, including rape.

------
civilian
I kind of lost all sympathy with him when he advocated violence for opposing
views. Live by the fist, die by the fist. He's living his own Hell, where his
own vices are coming back to torture him.

~~~
evanwise
I usually lose all sympathy for people when they advocate genocide, but you do
you.

~~~
civilian
The author is a communist, and communists killed more people than the Nazis
did. The difference was that it was "self-genocide", and had a few more
ideological layers involved.

Still, I would rather meet communists with words, rather than throw them out
of helicopters. Don't you see how that's more reasonable?

If Nazis or Communists are actually taking action like
fighting/murdering/jailing, then I will join in the fight against them. But
while they only use words, even though their words are disgusting vitriol,
using force against them only helps their cause and cheapens our own.

~~~
evanwise
First of all, I don't think the author claims to be a communist anywhere, just
that his parents were, at one time, members of the communist party. Second of
all, popular estimates of the death toll of communism are ludicrously
exaggerated, sometimes outright fabricated, and often include a lot of
questionable cases. The Black Book of Communism, where the infamous 100
million figure comes from, includes Soviet soldiers that died in WW2 and
vastly inflates the number of people who died in gulags and famines, among
many other inaccuracies. The gulag figure is orders of magnitude bigger than
the number of people who were even sentenced to forced labor in first place.
It is widely regarded as complete trash by serious historians. This is not to
discount the very real human suffering under dictators like Stalin and Mao,
but to compare famines resulting for incompetence to the deliberate
industrialized slaughter of 11 million people is just stupid.

On the subject of fighting Nazis, I'll leave you with a quote from Hitler
himself, perhaps the pre-eminent expert on Nazis: "Only one thing could have
stopped our movement – if our adversaries had understood its principle and
from the first day smashed with the utmost brutality the nucleus of our new
movement."

------
bjourne
I find it hard to feel sorry for him. He clearly brought the prison sentence
on himself. On the other hand, it is not right that anyone should suffer
discrimination.

~~~
michrassena
Regardless of our feelings toward any individual and their punishment, it's
necessary to look at this problem from an organizational level. Groups of
prisoners seeking out individuals with some attribute, including those having
committed the most heinous crimes, is a sign that the prison as an
organization is not fulfilling its duties. First and foremost, a prison is
about control. I don't see it as a place that should allow anarchic dog-eat-
dog behavior while someone bars the door, but rather the authorities have a
monopoly on violence. They set the ground rules for behavior. Otherwise, what
is the whole apparatus of guards and administration for?

------
yohann305
I remember seeing an HN post a couple years ago about a startup focusing on
education in jails. Anyone has more info on what's the name of that startup
and what its up to?

------
potbelly83
What state was the prison in?

------
powertower
When I read these types of articles, there is always an underlining irony
present there...

Out of all the diverse groups of people in the prison, only the racist whites
(Nazis) would tolerate and give protection to this person - yet this person's
entire write-up is predominantly against this same group of people.

A further explanation is provided to the reader that picks up on this: while
these Natzi-people must truly hate him, they only truly protect him because
there exists an even deeper more-menacing underlining racism within them.

All the other groups, are just fine, nothing more than a structured response
to the racism.

While low on details, the story ends with the realization that while white
discrimination is an evil unlike any other discrimination, it does allow the
strong to find their true roots.

This story would be told quite differently if this person went to prison in a
Muslim country.

~~~
charlesism
I have an alternate theory: gang members in jail act like assholes.

------
jabashapa
Im a Jew and this sounds like bullshit to me. I wonder if anyone interviewed
his fellow prisoners to see how real his was.

This prison culture exists but his view is tainted by being a total outsider
to it, and it appears, a desire to gain sympathy by exaggerating.

He sounds like a rich kid in prison getting manipulated and bullied because
he’s not able to defend himself or attract allies.

The fact that he claims to have dealt with nazis in America outside of prison
makes me think he’s a huge liar.

There are no nazis in America. There are racist poor idiots in prison and
outside that wish they were nazis. The few that try anything violent get
locked up in prison like the common criminals they are. Other violent crime is
a massively bigger problem.

Trust me, I’ll be the first one ready to fight if anyone starts killing Jews.

That tiny tiny tiny rally in Virginia was organized by agent provocateurs
probably from Russia.

~~~
arkades
> There are no Nazis in America

My first memory of Jewishness in America was my local synagogue being burned
down, with swastikas spray painted on the sidewalk out front.

In JR High I was mocked for being a Jew - for my people having killed Jesus.
Also for being chubby and smart, but Jew was easy to throw into the mix. My
uniformly Catholic teachers pretended not to hear it.

Russian provocateurs may have organized the rally, but it was Americans that
showed up to carry torches and chant about blood and soil.

When I spent a summer in Raleigh NC, one person told me I could not be a Jew,
obviously, because I had neither horns nor tail.

You’re welcome to play No True Scotsman, but if you think anything short of
throwing people in a gas chamber is nothing but bullshit you need to pull your
head out of the sand.

~~~
mikestew
_My first memory of Jewishness in America was my local synagogue being burned
down, with swastikas spray painted on the sidewalk out front._

Were those Nazis that committed those acts, or wannabes? I think that is
parent's point. How many of those "Nazis" can name a single plank of the Nazi
platform? (And I'm sure that more than one can do just that, but not even a
majority.) In other words, are they Nazis or more like the character Otto in
the movie _A Fish Called Wanda_?

Otto West: Apes don't read philosophy. Wanda: Yes they do, Otto. They just
don't understand it. Now let me correct you on a couple of things, OK?
Aristotle was not Belgian. The central message of Buddhism is not "Every man
for himself." And the London Underground is not a political movement. Those
are all mistakes, Otto. I looked them up.

But at the end of the day, IMO, it's all just semantics. Some people
irrationally hate Jews, some have a distaste for blacks. Whether or not they
fit a particular label or not is a distraction from the fact that there are
violently hateful people out there, and there weren't Jews they'd find someone
else to hate that isn't like them.

~~~
arkades
> Were those Nazis that committed those acts, or wannabes?

Does it matter? If you throw up a symbol of the Nazis while burning down a
synagogue (that is to say, performing one of their most memorable policies),
what distinguishes a wannabe from a real Nazi? Enumerating the policies which
Hitler campaigned with?

~~~
mikestew
_Does it matter?_

That's my underlying question. There was more to the 30-40s era Nazi platform
than just hating non-white Christians. But now it's "don't like Jews? Nazi!"
and the haters pick that up by spraying symbols, and then we all play along by
pulling out the fainting couch. Do we do anyone a service by acting like
dealing with ignorant, hateful white people is the same as defeating Hitler
himself? Personally, I think we'd do everyone a great service by ditching the
labels, a label the wannabes _hope_ you pin on them, and just call it like it
is: un-American white people who don't buy into the melting pot ideal that has
made the country what it is.

~~~
rhcom2
There definitely is an overuse of the word "fascist" and "Nazi" but if you're
chanting blood and soil, reading the Daily Stormer and advocating for the same
violence the original Nazi's were, then I think it is absolutely appropriate
to use that label, to me anything else is downplaying the threat of those
ideas.

~~~
mikestew
_to me anything else is downplaying the threat of those ideas._

Fair enough. My perspective comes from growing up in Indiana, probably one of
the last places left that still had the occasional KKK rally. And frankly were
it not for what they advocated, it was kind of pathetic. A dozen or so middle-
aged rednecks pissed off about how it's not 1954 anymore, wearing Halloween
costumes. The protesters would outnumber the participants. And there frequent
calls to just quit protesting. Let them have their little get-together with an
audience of...no one. I think that would be a lovely idea.

Keep an eye on them, that's for sure. If they commit a crime, investigate it,
prosecute them. But otherwise quit giving them press, quit giving them labels
that they _like_. Because calling them Nazis gives them credibility they don't
deserve, IMO. They're surrounded by people that think they're assholes, so
they only have the power we choose to give them. They can't pass any laws,
they'll never get anywhere near a majority (underlying racism in the current
political system is a long way from these nutters). Unlike the U. S. South of
last century, the police generally aren't on their side. So keep a close
watch, keep them contained, keep the amount of press proportional to the
participation. If it's the "million Nazi march" on the Mall in D. C., then the
NYT and WAPost should most certainly report. But if it's twelve sad, old guys
in funny outfits, could we not make it tomorrow's headline?

