MUNCY STATE PRISON
November 8th, 2024
Friday
5:08pm
Dinner’s going to be late. Four people from this unit just went to the Hole. Somebody PREA’d Ms. Moon, an older Asian lady in a wheelchair here. It turns out it wasn’t true, so the people in on it went to the Hole for an investigation.
Stupid.
Things in my cell aren’t any better. That doesn’t stop Swiper from asking me for things. Today she asked me to hit my cigarette. I said no and then wondered if she would retaliate.
I hate prison.
I spent the next two days in bed after Trump won the presidency.
I just don’t understand.
Is there that much hate in the world?
I found a book!
“Organizing for Social Change: Midwest Academy Manual for Activists” by Kim Bobo, Jackie Kendall, and Steve Max © 2001
“If there is no struggle there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what people will submit to, and you have found the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them; and these will continue until they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.
–Frederick Douglass
Letter to an abolitionist associate, 1849
November 10th, 2024
Sunday
9:46am
Today is Daisy’s 42nd birthday. I gave her three pairs of socks, batteries, and an e-cigarette. Tonight we’ll have cheesecake when Kimberly gets off work in the kitchen. I don’t know how to make jail cheesecake, but I bought the ingredients.
Kimberly is leaving for her grandmother’s house in 10 days.
Cinnamon made Daisy a card.
Daisy and Bambi have been weirdly chummy lately. Bambi is still not speaking to me and hasn’t said a word about what Burgundy told her I said about her.
It’s fine with me.
I’d rather not be friends with such a nasty, spiteful, vindictive person anyway.
Or fake friends, as it were.
She doesn’t seem to be actual friends with anyone. Things with Swiper are no better.
It’s uncomfortable and tense in our cell.
Stressful.
I finished Oprah Winfrey and Bruce D. Perry’s book, “What happened to You? Conversations on Trauma, Resilience, and Healing” © 2021
Here’s some excerpts:
P. 109
“If, in the first two months of life, a child experienced high adversity with minimal relational buffering but was then put into a healthier environment for the next twelve years, their outcomes were worse than the outcomes of children who had low adversity and healthy relational connections in the first two months but then spent the next twelve years with high adversity.”
P. 230-234
“Our ancestors recognized the importance of connectedness and the toxicity of exclusion. The history of the ‘civilized’ world, on the other hand, is filled with policies and practices that favored disconnection and marginalization–that destroyed family, community, and culture. Colonization, slavery, and the U.S. reservation system, Canada’s Residential Schools, Australia’s Stolen Generation–these were so destructive across so many generations because they intentionally destroyed the family and cultural bonds that keep a people connected. They created disconnected, traumatized individuals in inescapable, painful situations–situations that, as we’ve discussed, make people dissociate in order to adapt and survive. And even though the dissociation is adaptive, it results in more passivity and compliance, making traumatized peoples easier to dehumanize and exploit.
While less obvious to some, I believe that our existing child-welfare, educational, mental health, and juvenile-justice systems often do the same thing. They fragment families, undermine community, and engage in marginalizing, shaming, and punitive practices.”
P. 258-259
“…I’m very concerned about poverty of relationships in modern society. In our work, we find that the best predictor of your current mental health is your current ‘relational health,’ or connectedness. This connectedness is fueled by two things: the basic capabilities you’ve developed to form and maintain relationships, and the relational ‘opportunities’ you have in your family, neighborhood, school, and so forth.
Simply put, modern life provides fewer opportunities for relational interactions. In a multifamily, multigenerational environment, the continuous social interactions provide a rich source of regulation, reward, and learning. And that’s how we used to live. In 1790, 63 percent of our nation’s households had five or more people; only 10 percent had two or fewer. Today those numbers have basically flipped: In 2006, only 8 percent of households had five or more people, 60 percent had two or fewer…
The art of storytelling and the capacity to listen are on the decline. The result is a more self-absorbed, more anxious, more depressed, and less resilient population.”
I wrote a birthday letter to Daisy:
Daisy,
I just wanted to write you a quick birthday note and tell you that I feel lucky to have you as a friend. If I’m making it weird, I’m sorry, but you are one of the funniest, smartest, and most animated people I know, and I’m glad to have met you. You’re strong, even in the face of monumental adversity, and I admire that about you. And you give good hugs, even when you don’t want to, and even if we’re both a little bonier than when we came in.
Also, you’re a good storyteller and a good listener, and I appreciate that about you. While most people ignore me because I am quiet, you make me feel seen and heard in a place where it’s easier to fade into the background.
So thank you.
No one wants to be in prison, but if I have to, I’d choose you to do it with. Happy birthday and here’s to celebrating on the outside.
Love,
Justine
8:21pm
I’m fucking exhausted. Bambi and Swiper made the whole night a fucking fight.
Jesus fucking Christ.
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