Will Perry

Today was a rough day. I will not take the time to detail the sobering effect hearing from Walter Lott, an inmate at the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman, had on all of us. Suffice it to say that, in tandem with Ms. McIntyre’s (our tour leader) description of the prisoners as “dogs in kennels,” and her interpretation of the racial composition of Parchman as including “Blacks, Chinese, and Americans”; together with the indignation I felt at watching Mr. Lott follow a presentation which exposed a corrupt system that has left him to rot in prison for the last 22 years and denied him parole 9 times despite his perfect prison record, his lectures to youth, and his acquisition of 2 trades (plumbing and horticulture) with the Pledge of Allegiance; to see him call Ms. McIntyre, a woman who, despite being good-natured, has clearly fallen victim to the precepts of race and class inferiority that mark this nation his second mother; to hear that the composition of Parchman is 80 to 85% black men and the dismal allotment of (at most) $50 and a bus ticket with which they are to begin life anew upon their release; it was a rough day. But the visit to Parchman was only the beginning of my difficulties.

Today we also had the pleasure of staying at the Shack-Up Inn, a former plantation complete with slave quarters. However, the Inn is not an attempt to replicate the experience of slavery, or to educate the unaware, but rather it bills itself as a blues resort. Yet, as everything has been preserved as closely as possible to its original condition the place is clearly reminiscent of the most blatantly exploitative time of Afro American existence. When we got into a discussion about why the Shack Up Inn might be offensive, we discovered that the shacks on the plantation were not originally there, and that they are, possibly, not slave quarters, but rather, the domiciles occupied by sharecroppers. Further discussion highlighted the potential to appreciate the beauty, albeit painful, opportunity to gain a first hand glimpse at the achievements of those who were forced to live under the conditions represented by the Inn.

However, the issue has nothing to do with the historical accuracy of the shacks (which are where patrons stay during their visit to the Inn), with regard to whether or not they were, in fact, slave quarters; nor does it have to do with their authenticity as hallmarks of southern character. The problem is what the Shack-Up Inn represents, and that it is being glorified. I was incensed that we were paying to support, intentionally patronizing, a place that is so clearly irreverent to the struggles of African-Americans. Furthermore, the Inn is not an acknowledgement of those struggles, but rather an attempt to deny its connection with that sordid past, billing itself as a rustic blues getaway where customers can “[tip] a cold one while the sun sinks slowly into the horizon…” Yet, its owners unintentionally evince some awareness of the irreverence of their attempt, for why else would there be photos of civil rights leaders inside the Shacks. Like a child who has been taught that stealing is wrong, and who, for guilt, cannot admit to his crime, but anonymously returns to leave payment what he has stolen, the proprietor(s) of the Inn perhaps found it psychologically compensatory to place pictures of such as Dr. King in the shacks to placate a guilt that could not have felt if the Inn were merely a rustic blues getaway.

In response to objections about staying in the Inn, Dr. Smith made the poignant observation that everything we do—the simple act of putting gas in a car or buying a stick of gum—reinforces an industry that directly or indirectly benefited from slavery. However, for all practical purposes, we do not have a choice in our patronization of those industries. I say “for all practical purposes” because of course there is the option of living as a recluse—choice is ever available. However, if we wish to have any semblance of a “normal” (a relative, subjective term to be sure) existence, we cannot avoid supporting the companies and industries which at one time if not currently benefited from the system of slavery. However, there would have been no difficulty in visiting the Shack-Up Inn without paying to stay there, an option which would have been much more palatable than patronizing a establishment so clearly offensive, for the reasons cited above.

Keenon Mann

We are en route to Parchman / Mississippi State Penitentiary. My mom asked me last night if I was nervous about going and I can not say that I am for a couple reasons.

My stepfather has been a correctional officer for a number of years. Hearing him talk about his experiences dealing with inmates and other staff and actually touring the prison facilities prepares me in such a way that I am not afraid of the stigmas that come along with the actual prison. We have also read about the historical past of the Parchman institution, described by some as a more modern replacement for slavery in Mississippi.

I have also visited some family members and friends in prison in the past. Knowing the human, the actual person unmasked, unmarked by the prison uniform, the metal bars, the barbed-wire, the entrance gate, the media, I can honestly say that I am not intimidated by the inmates, who are often portrayed as beasts, savages, animals. They breathe like us, as they must. They eat like us too. They bleed like us when cut. Us are but one mistake away from being them. And in some cases, the only difference between us and them is that they were caught.
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We just left Parchman / Mississippi State Penitentiary and I still hear the lyrics of the song by Bishop Larry Trotter, only this time in the voice of an inmate by the name of Walter Lott whose testimony we heard today, ironically in the prison chapel. Parts of Walter’s speech sounded like it was impressed into his head, like the fist of the prison official, by those who decided his final resting place and by a society convinced that only an individual’s voluntary actions determine his path in life. When Walter first passed through the gates of Parchman Penitentiary, he explained that he had been beaten until his face was swollen for weeks and he eventually confessed to a crime he did not commit. He admitted that he was definitely guilty of armed robbery, which he was tried for, but that he had not raped anyone, an offense that most likely is the reason he will never live in the “free world” (that’s how inmates and even our department of corrections tour guide referred to the world that exists outside of Parchman – interesting). For most of Walter’s speech he expressed to us his genuine concern for young people who could possibly end up in the same situation that he did, young people who possibly had not considered institutions like Parchman as a potential new dwelling place. Other portions of his testimony, though, echoed comments we heard from the corrections officer, that Walter was imprisoned solely because of his own decisions and actions. Studying the effects of social stratification and social inequalities, I know that societal conditions acting against Walter the African American, the male, the Mississippi Delta youth made his future bleak before he was even old enough to think about making a decision, planning an action, or even robbing someone.
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Although studying social stratification can cause one to process information about others who everyday experience a world atypical by his or her standards, it can also have an inverse effect. Reading sociological analyses of human conditions and experiencing them firsthand, I have found that oftentimes sociologists, instead of being drawn closer to the studied subject, become so analytical that they seem to lose sight of human emotion. To slip into that role is so easy. It is easy to walk down the streets of an impoverished town or the impoverished streets of a town and to discuss the problems contaminating lives on the other side of thin walls without contemplating the complications of living inside those walls inundated by the conditions I have just defined, examined and explained. It is easy to drive past neighborhoods in a tour bus without ever realizing that my steps only exist for me to tread because someone shed sweat, tears, blood, and future on grounds never before cleared. And it will be easy to finish this course, having earned four credits toward graduation, and never to think about lives interrupted, or perhaps graced, in all these small towns. . .

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