I have only just started reading your post, but your words about being an abolitionist because you detest crime were so clarifying that I wanted to at least start the work of transcribing your words so that as many people as possible could read them. Of everything I've read by scholars and journalists, nothing ever was that clear and concise a description of what abolitionism is about. I look forward to reading and helping to transcribe as much as I can of your work.
An inmate is likely not going to commit suicide, or fails to commit suicide, during active relative program engagements, as the Sound Mind Streamer is a 24-hour a day in-cell program accessible to all inmates by simply turning on their TVs. Especially the younger "all-night program" inmates.
The Content: (music appreciation, creative writing therapy) The primary content is TYPE BEATS instrumental music. This urban perspective music induces creative writing of letters, short stories, raps, song lyrics, etc.
The sonic stylings are generated from the spiritual sources of constructive behavior of innercity youth, even more so for inmates who draw, paint, do beadwork. The expanded arts and crafts that require an artistic focus music backdrop.
This music also provides the soundscape for urban and ethnic dancers within the prison population, where bodies in motion from exercise and dance become meditative, creative, and promotes a new return to constructive attributes of persons. (innercity youth)
When inmates know that other inmates are also tuned into the Sound Mind, it becomes a social environment where no one person feels along, with a low spirit.
To supplement the music appreciation therapy, The Sound Mind Streamer will also feature morale building, educational and informational movies, documentaries, and other ethnic urban perspective visual images of:
a) prominent LGBTQ community leaders (ancient and modern) b) screen savers and wallpaper visuals (relative content, nothing lewd)
ZERO COST TO THE STATE: The free user content is sourced as an open invitational for content donors.
This method ensures that not even the Inmate Welfare Institution Fund will be tapped for funding.
The Sound Mind Streamer drags the oldest California prison into the future for presentation of content and programming, specifically for the constructive engagement for a new generation of a condemned population.
Plan of Action: 1. Pitch Sound Mind to interested condemned inmates, an almost impossible feat due to the multiple separate exercise yard groups and housing locations.
2. Pitch Sound Mind to prison officials, including the religious department, mental health department, education department, and the media center.
3. Pitch Sound Mind to perspective content donors.
4. Create condemned LGBTQ spirituality group to produce and present the launch of The Sound Mind Streamer into active continuous play/timeline programming on a SQTV media center channel.
5. Launch The Sound Mind Streamer.
Lead by creation
Floyd Smith #K-72700 San Quentin State Prison San Quentin, CA 94974
The Sound Mind Streamer (Program Development Proposal)
[Picture of author. He is wearing glasses and has his eyebrows raised. A tiny smile is on his lips.]
By Floyd Smith
Sound Mind 1. The Vision: (ethnographic/urban LGBTQ perspective) a) To create an innerprison streamer of music, movies, documentaries, sporting events, and ethnographic visual content for the engagement of, and for, the spiritual uplift, for the influx of a younger demographic of the condemned population. URBAN LGBTQ.
b) The Sound Mind Streamer is the first ever innerprison content broadcast generated through the San Quentin Prison Media Center cable TV line that is generated from condemned population.
c) The Sound Mind Streamer is also produced and programmed by the first ever LGBTQ spirituality group on condemned row, citing an equal opportunity to participate in spiritual programs within the prison, free from sexual discrimination.
The Program: The Sound Mind Streamer is an in-cell program where any and every inmate at San Quentin State prison can participate by turning their TVs to the designated channel, so that no inmate is denied access to programming.
This program is a paradigm shift from LGBTQ inmates either not having programs and/or being forced to participate in other programs on a "tolerated" basis, or a proselytizing agenda for future conversion into groups that view LGBTQ experiences as "an ABOMINATION", "INFIDELS", and other social subculture demeaning labels existing antithetical to LGBTQ nature.
Production Team: This is not a group setting for people to sit around and talk about how gay they are or to solicit empathy.
The Sound Mind Streamer production team is made up of a cross section of the condemned population to collect related content, building timelines for the presentation of content: 1. LGBTQ persons 2. PFLags, Friends, and parents of 3. Straight allies of
The team's primary function is to provide content that generates dialogue beyond eight people sitting in a group room hidden from the very prison population that requires clarity. This model is "service provided based," specifically for the "crowded closet" community who won't participate in a group setting of old program models.
The Need: Researchable facts conclude that San Quentin State Prison has been designated for the housing and programming of LGBTQ inmates, yet they are the most undeserved in program opportunities designed for LGBTQ perspectives, awareness, education, and information on the prison's general population mainline. It is totally non-existent for the condemned population.
The Sound Mind Streamers in-cell program provides engagement programming without LGBTQ inmates being spit on, beat up, jumped, having urine tossed on them, and/or systematic ostracisms within the institution.
Okay, so, maybe I was just a kid growing up on the streets of Compton, California, not afraid of nothing due to being numb to violence and danger. But I did have one fear: letting my homies know I could sing and play drums in church and direct the choir. That could get you beat up.
Mama would say, "Boy, God has not given you the spirit of fear, but of a sound mind. Get your head right, and getcho lil' narrow ass out there and be who God made you to be."
Then Mr. Grant would say, "Awwwhh, the Apostle Paul, Second Timothy, Chapter One, Verse Seven: For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind."
Rest in peace, Mama. I'm being who God made me to be. Here comes the sound mind of your seed.
Sound Mind 12. Divine Urban Serenity No lewd or pornoz please
Google Kehingle Wiley arts and images
Kehingle Wiley is more than an artist. His work reflects the exact cultural expression we want to display on screen of The Sound Mind Streamer. So imagine Kehingle's work below as a still visual. When inmates put their headphones on, they will hear Chill Type Beats. Yes, each art piece paired with each instrumental urban perspective. Google Chill Type Beats.
Imagine Two Spirit Art. Now imagine images, photos, and art of eunuchs from every culture: India, Korea, Greece, Africa, Arabia, etc. Now imagine each image paired to the Type Beats that represent each culture of the origin of the visuals.
All free access content that inspires, uplifts spirits, and expands cultural diversity and awareness, which adds a new power up mentality for viewers.
The images of the iconoclast Kehingle Wiley alone allows for a new generation of incarcerated inner city youth to view themselves in the fine arts. The Sound Mind Streamer expands this cultural diversity through direct exposure.
===
Sound Mind 13. The Origins
Today I learned that my mother passed away. All of the death row mental health staff have gone home. There is no priest, pastor, Native American chief, no Imam here to consult my low spirit. The last person I want to talk to is this cop that keeps banging on the cell every twenty minutes with a metal beeping device.
I can't tell other inmates that my mother abandoned me when I was 13 years old. After a full childhood of physical abuse and neglect, I'm remembering every second of it as I write this body of work. They don't create TV shows about what I need to experience right now.
And just like that, it dawned on me that it was my mother who made me direct the church children's choir. It was my mother who couldn't stop hugging me when I was called up to sing with the choir of my older sister's middle school graduation. It was the only time she ever hugged me. Yes, in public. Willowbrook Jr. High, 1999 graduation.
She introduced me to the love of her life, Mr. Grant, a legendary music teacher in Los Angeles, California. He managed groups like A Taste of Honey and taught band leader Rickey Minor. It was Mr. Grant who mentored me about music appreciation and how my hip hop generation would carry on our cultural traditions of the fine arts when we've lost our minds.
My mom would say things like, "Music sooths the savage beast." And Mr. Grant would say, "Awwh, Congreve, music has charm to soothe the savage beast." Music therapy for a new generation requires inclusive ethnographic related content which is engaged with respect and value. They even used music to help us face fear.
Sound Mind 10. (Interested in donating content? Leave us a comment.)
The primary focus for the supplementary movies, educational, and informational documentaries and short films is two-pronged.
1. To provide viewers with liberated factual content that reflects the constructive development, evolution, and presence of inspirational LGBTQ urban perspectives/experiences from around the world.
2. To lift the spirits of and boost the morale of LGBTQ incarcerated Americans and all Sound Mind viewers who are contemplatively reality driven to expect better quality from self. Knowing that The Sound Mind Streamer is a special engagement environment specifically designed for them, open, closeted, allies, and the interested, self-contained with ZERO COST to the state.
===
Sound Mind 11. The Short List
The following list of movies and docs that we are asking donors to send us for viewing by way of DVD. Email Billie Mizell, San Quentin State Prison for direct donor instructions and information, or to leave comments.
*primary related
1. Judge William Thomas - first gay black man federal judge 2. * Moonlight - Oscar winner for best film 3. * The Wound - South African foreign film festival 2017 4. * On The Street - homosexuality in Africa 5. The Imitation Game - Allan Turning 6. * Glen Burke - baseball legend, black gay man, Oakland A's 7. Black is Blue - 2015 San Fransisco black film festival 8. American Dreamers - 2015 San Fransisco Latin film festival 9. Viento Parte - 2015 San Fransisco Latin film festival 10. His Wedding Dress - 2015 San Fransisco Latin film festival 11. Alaska is a Drag - 2015 San Fransisco black film festival 12. * Pose - FX TV series by Ryan Murphy 13. * Tough Guise - hip hop documentary 14. * Dakan - first West African gay film 15. Dancing Boys of Afghanistan - doc (PBS?)
Please use the above list as a baseline model for your content donations.
The following is a list of public servants whom I've personally reached out to on this matter and, even more specifically, after I too was spit on through the gate, had to sternly and effectively physically defend myself against condemned inmate self-appointed gay taskforce. A correctional sergeant who exposed his erect penis to me through his uniform while propositioning me for sex in return for program advancement, who still works here, by the way. And I was forced to spend a total of 12 years in a single-man cage for exercise yard participation in a filthy dark area of SQSP that is both totally covered and wrapped away from direct sunlight.
Yes, I just said I spent 12 years with NO SUN because I'm open about being gay. Yes, the only one, out of 4,232 inmates, and not one of these people have done anything to prevent and end the ongoing abuses.
1. Facility Captain Avila = "Opening a non-designated yard here is too complicated." 2. Facility Lieutenant Torres = "I'll have a talk with Sergeant Rodriguez." 3. Warden Ron Davis = "I'm not opening another condemned yard." 4. Governor Jerry Brown = NO SHOW 5. Barbara Boxer = NO SHOW 6. Barbara Lewis = NO SHOW 7. Maxine Waters = NO SHOW 8. Jackie Spiers = NO SHOW (but please get well soon, great servant) 9. CDCR Director Kernen = NO SHOW (retired) 10. PREA Officer De Young = "Insufficient evidence that employee misconduct occurred." 11. The ACLU c/o LGBTQ division = Failure to respond 12. GLAD = Failure to respond 13. Kamala Harris = NO SHOW 14. Flying Over Walls = Community failure 15. SQ Law Officer = Covered up employee misconduct
I ask my young fam, why was other inmates throwing water on him. He said,
"The first one wasn't no fuckin' water, and they don't want no gay homies over here, my nigga."
Then I heard a hawk up and a spit. Then three more spits. And I said,
"You ain't got no fucked up case?"
The young man said,
"Nawh, they don't let us in Badger and Donner. We get dumped and gotta go to Alpine. That's why you be hearing those whistles on the yard and in the chow hall because the dropouts made up they own gang. And gay homies get rushed by them too. Yeah, we're the only ting that everybody's enemies agree on."
In protective custody program for being openly gay.
Condemned officer Torres passed by. I asked if the young man could get some dry clothes, a T-shirt and new boxers that I had, and a towel to clean the urine, water, and spit off of him. Officer Torres said,
"I'm the condemned beeper. That's a reception center inmate. He needs to ask Desk Officer Redd."
Desk Officer Redd said,
"His councilor will be here in a minute, and I don't have laundry. He can get it when he gets to his new unit. Alpine, where 'it' belongs."
Later that night, I asked my young friends upstairs why gay homies get threatened like that. One inmate said,
"That's them old ass niggaz. We can't do nothing 'bout they politics. We don't give a fuck what a nigga do. If we did, homie, we wouldn't fuck wit chu foolz down there witchall. Told us you was gay too, but they can't tell us what to do. Feel me? So all I can say is, they don't allow them over here or in Badger, my nigga. I don't even know how he made it over here, but that wasn't no lil' nigga spittin'. That's J-Cat shit, my nigga."
That upset me, and it happened six times while I was in Donner Station and nobody did nothing about it.
If that's not a reason for our young LGBTQ family to stay in the crowded closet. I want to conclude with a more reviling reason why so many people are conditioned not to be open.
CDCR Title 15 Section 3375.2, Administrative Determinant #26 (SOR) Sexual Orientation. "Inmates bisexual or homosexual orientation may require special placement."
Now, hummmmmm. Opine with me, if you will. Exactly what that means for our youths in prison?
a. Other subculture groups of inmates have the same policy and disposition as the department regulations. b. Assaults, being spit on, and being drenched in human urine isn't even responded to with the basic human dignity for a clean and dry set of clothing. c. And in spite of SQSP being designated as facility to house LGBTQ inmates, in 2018-2019, people don't feel safe enough to live open. No one? NO ONE?
I am someone, and I wrote a program called The Sound Mind Streamer, which guarantees the eradication of words and systematic ostraca that exists antithetical to LGBTQ values, morals, self-worth, and spiritual wellness.
And so far Lt. Sam Robinson hasn't approved this message.
[Colored photo of author. He's wearing glasses and is giving the camera a nervous smile.] Ear Hustle The Dialogue of Xzyzst
Tonight I was handed a letter sent to me from a kind soul from the Netherlands. She asked if I had heard a recent episode of the very popular San Quentin State Prison's podcast called Ear Hustle (episode title: Down Low).
I had not, so it was great to see the brief header from the website. The print out leads with the following words:
"Of the thousands of incarcerated at San Quentin State Prison, no one is openly gay. NO ONE."
So now there is a bit of a rumbling in my spirit, as I have been housed in San Quentin's condemned row for over 20 years and living as openly gay ever since I was 12 years old.
I will note here that the Ear Hustle people invited the death row population to join their podcast. I wrote them back, as did others here. Yet when they broadcasted the death row episode here in the prison, the host of the show played as if no one from the row contacted them. We all laughed at the sanitized death row episode they did manage to broadcast. In fact, not everyone featured in that episode are actually on death row, which many of us found to be systematically interesting.
For me, people talked about how the death row episode ended with two voices of someone who sounded pretty ethnographically gay, and it was if a mainline inmate was chosen to replace the voice of, well, me. Let me add to my note here that just before the release of Ear Hustle's death row episode, I received a letter from an organization named Flying Over Walls. The letter prompted me to contact Ear Hustle because there was interest of doing a LGBTQ San Quentin podcast. And yes, I wrote Flying Over Walls, added my story, and NO ONE contacted me. NO ONE, not even Ear Hustle.
That leaves my spirit to rumble over reading the Ear Hustle header, that out of 4,232 inmates at San Quentin State Prison, NO ONE is openly gay?
Please allow me to provide some clarity on this matter. Yes, in 2018-2019, there is a "crowded closet" within SQ, and it is created on a systematic level. Here is what I mean.
Every inmate passes through a reception process before they are endorsed by a facility. San Quentin's reception center units are Badger Station, Donner Station, and Alpine Station. Alpine is the protective custody unit for gang dropouts that require sensitive needs programs and present a security concern. More about this later.
In Donner Station, portions of that unit now houses condemned inmates. I was there just a few months ago and had an opportunity to engage with the new generation of inner city youth being massively incarcerated. One day, out of nowhere, I heard a slash like a large water slash. In front of the cell I was in, I noticed a young gay black boy standing in the holding cages, waiting to see a councilor and be endorsed to go to a prison program, soaking wet.
RSS
The Content:
(music appreciation, creative writing therapy)
The primary content is TYPE BEATS instrumental music. This urban perspective music induces creative writing of letters, short stories, raps, song lyrics, etc.
The sonic stylings are generated from the spiritual sources of constructive behavior of innercity youth, even more so for inmates who draw, paint, do beadwork. The expanded arts and crafts that require an artistic focus music backdrop.
This music also provides the soundscape for urban and ethnic dancers within the prison population, where bodies in motion from exercise and dance become meditative, creative, and promotes a new return to constructive attributes of persons. (innercity youth)
When inmates know that other inmates are also tuned into the Sound Mind, it becomes a social environment where no one person feels along, with a low spirit.
To supplement the music appreciation therapy, The Sound Mind Streamer will also feature morale building, educational and informational movies, documentaries, and other ethnic urban perspective visual images of:
a) prominent LGBTQ community leaders (ancient and modern)
b) screen savers and wallpaper visuals (relative content, nothing lewd)
ZERO COST TO THE STATE:
The free user content is sourced as an open invitational for content donors.
This method ensures that not even the Inmate Welfare Institution Fund will be tapped for funding.
The Sound Mind Streamer drags the oldest California prison into the future for presentation of content and programming, specifically for the constructive engagement for a new generation of a condemned population.
Plan of Action:
1. Pitch Sound Mind to interested condemned inmates, an almost impossible feat due to the multiple separate exercise yard groups and housing locations.
2. Pitch Sound Mind to prison officials, including the religious department, mental health department, education department, and the media center.
3. Pitch Sound Mind to perspective content donors.
4. Create condemned LGBTQ spirituality group to produce and present the launch of The Sound Mind Streamer into active continuous play/timeline programming on a SQTV media center channel.
5. Launch The Sound Mind Streamer.
Lead by creation
Floyd Smith #K-72700
San Quentin State Prison
San Quentin, CA 94974
(Program Development Proposal)
[Picture of author. He is wearing glasses and has his eyebrows raised. A tiny smile is on his lips.]
By Floyd Smith
Sound Mind 1.
The Vision: (ethnographic/urban LGBTQ perspective)
a) To create an innerprison streamer of music, movies, documentaries, sporting events, and ethnographic visual content for the engagement of, and for, the spiritual uplift, for the influx of a younger demographic of the condemned population. URBAN LGBTQ.
b) The Sound Mind Streamer is the first ever innerprison content broadcast generated through the San Quentin Prison Media Center cable TV line that is generated from condemned population.
c) The Sound Mind Streamer is also produced and programmed by the first ever LGBTQ spirituality group on condemned row, citing an equal opportunity to participate in spiritual programs within the prison, free from sexual discrimination.
The Program:
The Sound Mind Streamer is an in-cell program where any and every inmate at San Quentin State prison can participate by turning their TVs to the designated channel, so that no inmate is denied access to programming.
This program is a paradigm shift from LGBTQ inmates either not having programs and/or being forced to participate in other programs on a "tolerated" basis, or a proselytizing agenda for future conversion into groups that view LGBTQ experiences as "an ABOMINATION", "INFIDELS", and other social subculture demeaning labels existing antithetical to LGBTQ nature.
Production Team:
This is not a group setting for people to sit around and talk about how gay they are or to solicit empathy.
The Sound Mind Streamer production team is made up of a cross section of the condemned population to collect related content, building timelines for the presentation of content:
1. LGBTQ persons
2. PFLags, Friends, and parents of
3. Straight allies of
The team's primary function is to provide content that generates dialogue beyond eight people sitting in a group room hidden from the very prison population that requires clarity. This model is "service provided based," specifically for the "crowded closet" community who won't participate in a group setting of old program models.
The Need:
Researchable facts conclude that San Quentin State Prison has been designated for the housing and programming of LGBTQ inmates, yet they are the most undeserved in program opportunities designed for LGBTQ perspectives, awareness, education, and information on the prison's general population mainline. It is totally non-existent for the condemned population.
The Sound Mind Streamers in-cell program provides engagement programming without LGBTQ inmates being spit on, beat up, jumped, having urine tossed on them, and/or systematic ostracisms within the institution.
Mama would say, "Boy, God has not given you the spirit of fear, but of a sound mind. Get your head right, and getcho lil' narrow ass out there and be who God made you to be."
Then Mr. Grant would say, "Awwwhh, the Apostle Paul, Second Timothy, Chapter One, Verse Seven: For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind."
Rest in peace, Mama. I'm being who God made me to be. Here comes the sound mind of your seed.
Divine Urban Serenity
No lewd or pornoz please
Google Kehingle Wiley arts and images
Kehingle Wiley is more than an artist. His work reflects the exact cultural expression we want to display on screen of The Sound Mind Streamer. So imagine Kehingle's work below as a still visual. When inmates put their headphones on, they will hear Chill Type Beats. Yes, each art piece paired with each instrumental urban perspective. Google Chill Type Beats.
Imagine Two Spirit Art. Now imagine images, photos, and art of eunuchs from every culture: India, Korea, Greece, Africa, Arabia, etc. Now imagine each image paired to the Type Beats that represent each culture of the origin of the visuals.
All free access content that inspires, uplifts spirits, and expands cultural diversity and awareness, which adds a new power up mentality for viewers.
The images of the iconoclast Kehingle Wiley alone allows for a new generation of incarcerated inner city youth to view themselves in the fine arts. The Sound Mind Streamer expands this cultural diversity through direct exposure.
===
Sound Mind 13.
The Origins
Today I learned that my mother passed away. All of the death row mental health staff have gone home. There is no priest, pastor, Native American chief, no Imam here to consult my low spirit. The last person I want to talk to is this cop that keeps banging on the cell every twenty minutes with a metal beeping device.
I can't tell other inmates that my mother abandoned me when I was 13 years old. After a full childhood of physical abuse and neglect, I'm remembering every second of it as I write this body of work. They don't create TV shows about what I need to experience right now.
And just like that, it dawned on me that it was my mother who made me direct the church children's choir. It was my mother who couldn't stop hugging me when I was called up to sing with the choir of my older sister's middle school graduation. It was the only time she ever hugged me. Yes, in public. Willowbrook Jr. High, 1999 graduation.
She introduced me to the love of her life, Mr. Grant, a legendary music teacher in Los Angeles, California. He managed groups like A Taste of Honey and taught band leader Rickey Minor. It was Mr. Grant who mentored me about music appreciation and how my hip hop generation would carry on our cultural traditions of the fine arts when we've lost our minds.
My mom would say things like, "Music sooths the savage beast." And Mr. Grant would say, "Awwh, Congreve, music has charm to soothe the savage beast." Music therapy for a new generation requires inclusive ethnographic related content which is engaged with respect and value. They even used music to help us face fear.
(Donate Content Now)
By
Floyd Smith
Sound Mind 10.
(Interested in donating content? Leave us a comment.)
The primary focus for the supplementary movies, educational, and informational documentaries and short films is two-pronged.
1. To provide viewers with liberated factual content that reflects the constructive development, evolution, and presence of inspirational LGBTQ urban perspectives/experiences from around the world.
2. To lift the spirits of and boost the morale of LGBTQ incarcerated Americans and all Sound Mind viewers who are contemplatively reality driven to expect better quality from self. Knowing that The Sound Mind Streamer is a special engagement environment specifically designed for them, open, closeted, allies, and the interested, self-contained with ZERO COST to the state.
===
Sound Mind 11.
The Short List
The following list of movies and docs that we are asking donors to send us for viewing by way of DVD. Email Billie Mizell, San Quentin State Prison for direct donor instructions and information, or to leave comments.
*primary related
1. Judge William Thomas - first gay black man federal judge
2. * Moonlight - Oscar winner for best film
3. * The Wound - South African foreign film festival 2017
4. * On The Street - homosexuality in Africa
5. The Imitation Game - Allan Turning
6. * Glen Burke - baseball legend, black gay man, Oakland A's
7. Black is Blue - 2015 San Fransisco black film festival
8. American Dreamers - 2015 San Fransisco Latin film festival
9. Viento Parte - 2015 San Fransisco Latin film festival
10. His Wedding Dress - 2015 San Fransisco Latin film festival
11. Alaska is a Drag - 2015 San Fransisco black film festival
12. * Pose - FX TV series by Ryan Murphy
13. * Tough Guise - hip hop documentary
14. * Dakan - first West African gay film
15. Dancing Boys of Afghanistan - doc (PBS?)
Please use the above list as a baseline model for your content donations.
(Just saw the wrong spelling. Not my transcription. Not to say I type perfect)
Hi xzyzst, Jules here checking on your material. Proud of you. x Ju
Yes, I just said I spent 12 years with NO SUN because I'm open about being gay. Yes, the only one, out of 4,232 inmates, and not one of these people have done anything to prevent and end the ongoing abuses.
1. Facility Captain Avila = "Opening a non-designated yard here is too complicated."
2. Facility Lieutenant Torres = "I'll have a talk with Sergeant Rodriguez."
3. Warden Ron Davis = "I'm not opening another condemned yard."
4. Governor Jerry Brown = NO SHOW
5. Barbara Boxer = NO SHOW
6. Barbara Lewis = NO SHOW
7. Maxine Waters = NO SHOW
8. Jackie Spiers = NO SHOW (but please get well soon, great servant)
9. CDCR Director Kernen = NO SHOW (retired)
10. PREA Officer De Young = "Insufficient evidence that employee misconduct occurred."
11. The ACLU c/o LGBTQ division = Failure to respond
12. GLAD = Failure to respond
13. Kamala Harris = NO SHOW
14. Flying Over Walls = Community failure
15. SQ Law Officer = Covered up employee misconduct
—XZTZST (exist)
"The first one wasn't no fuckin' water, and they don't want no gay homies over here, my nigga."
Then I heard a hawk up and a spit. Then three more spits. And I said,
"You ain't got no fucked up case?"
The young man said,
"Nawh, they don't let us in Badger and Donner. We get dumped and gotta go to Alpine. That's why you be hearing those whistles on the yard and in the chow hall because the dropouts made up they own gang. And gay homies get rushed by them too. Yeah, we're the only ting that everybody's enemies agree on."
In protective custody program for being openly gay.
Condemned officer Torres passed by. I asked if the young man could get some dry clothes, a T-shirt and new boxers that I had, and a towel to clean the urine, water, and spit off of him. Officer Torres said,
"I'm the condemned beeper. That's a reception center inmate. He needs to ask Desk Officer Redd."
Desk Officer Redd said,
"His councilor will be here in a minute, and I don't have laundry. He can get it when he gets to his new unit. Alpine, where 'it' belongs."
Later that night, I asked my young friends upstairs why gay homies get threatened like that. One inmate said,
"That's them old ass niggaz. We can't do nothing 'bout they politics. We don't give a fuck what a nigga do. If we did, homie, we wouldn't fuck wit chu foolz down there witchall. Told us you was gay too, but they can't tell us what to do. Feel me? So all I can say is, they don't allow them over here or in Badger, my nigga. I don't even know how he made it over here, but that wasn't no lil' nigga spittin'. That's J-Cat shit, my nigga."
That upset me, and it happened six times while I was in Donner Station and nobody did nothing about it.
If that's not a reason for our young LGBTQ family to stay in the crowded closet. I want to conclude with a more reviling reason why so many people are conditioned not to be open.
CDCR Title 15 Section 3375.2, Administrative Determinant #26 (SOR) Sexual Orientation.
"Inmates bisexual or homosexual orientation may require special placement."
Now, hummmmmm. Opine with me, if you will. Exactly what that means for our youths in prison?
a. Other subculture groups of inmates have the same policy and disposition as the department regulations.
b. Assaults, being spit on, and being drenched in human urine isn't even responded to with the basic human dignity for a clean and dry set of clothing.
c. And in spite of SQSP being designated as facility to house LGBTQ inmates, in 2018-2019, people don't feel safe enough to live open. No one? NO ONE?
I am someone, and I wrote a program called The Sound Mind Streamer, which guarantees the eradication of words and systematic ostraca that exists antithetical to LGBTQ values, morals, self-worth, and spiritual wellness.
And so far Lt. Sam Robinson hasn't approved this message.
Ear Hustle
The Dialogue of Xzyzst
Tonight I was handed a letter sent to me from a kind soul from the Netherlands. She asked if I had heard a recent episode of the very popular San Quentin State Prison's podcast called Ear Hustle (episode title: Down Low).
I had not, so it was great to see the brief header from the website. The print out leads with the following words:
"Of the thousands of incarcerated at San Quentin State Prison, no one is openly gay. NO ONE."
So now there is a bit of a rumbling in my spirit, as I have been housed in San Quentin's condemned row for over 20 years and living as openly gay ever since I was 12 years old.
I will note here that the Ear Hustle people invited the death row population to join their podcast. I wrote them back, as did others here. Yet when they broadcasted the death row episode here in the prison, the host of the show played as if no one from the row contacted them. We all laughed at the sanitized death row episode they did manage to broadcast. In fact, not everyone featured in that episode are actually on death row, which many of us found to be systematically interesting.
For me, people talked about how the death row episode ended with two voices of someone who sounded pretty ethnographically gay, and it was if a mainline inmate was chosen to replace the voice of, well, me. Let me add to my note here that just before the release of Ear Hustle's death row episode, I received a letter from an organization named Flying Over Walls. The letter prompted me to contact Ear Hustle because there was interest of doing a LGBTQ San Quentin podcast. And yes, I wrote Flying Over Walls, added my story, and NO ONE contacted me. NO ONE, not even Ear Hustle.
That leaves my spirit to rumble over reading the Ear Hustle header, that out of 4,232 inmates at San Quentin State Prison, NO ONE is openly gay?
Please allow me to provide some clarity on this matter. Yes, in 2018-2019, there is a "crowded closet" within SQ, and it is created on a systematic level. Here is what I mean.
Every inmate passes through a reception process before they are endorsed by a facility. San Quentin's reception center units are Badger Station, Donner Station, and Alpine Station. Alpine is the protective custody unit for gang dropouts that require sensitive needs programs and present a security concern. More about this later.
In Donner Station, portions of that unit now houses condemned inmates. I was there just a few months ago and had an opportunity to engage with the new generation of inner city youth being massively incarcerated. One day, out of nowhere, I heard a slash like a large water slash. In front of the cell I was in, I noticed a young gay black boy standing in the holding cages, waiting to see a councilor and be endorsed to go to a prison program, soaking wet.