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Other essays on this theme
Essay: "Fitting In"by Name Withheld I have been sitting here trying to figure out how to start this topic of fitting in. I guess you might say that I have been trying to fit in all of my life. I have never felt that I have fit in with any group or setting. Even while I was married, things just didn't mesh like I felt they should. I have always felt isolated, alone as if I was on an island. I guess that by not fitting in and always wanting to; I was finally led to my drug addiction and, in the end, ending up in Administrative Segregation in a Texas prison. Like I said, all of my life I have been trying to fit in, to finally lose this loneliness, this isolation that I felt inside. I started doing drugs at the age of 14. Starting off by smoking pot and, at the age of 30, shooting cocaine, heroin, and meth. I finally ended up in prison at the age of 36. Coming to prison was a real eye opener, a wake-up call to what is important, most important, to me in life. What you will come to realize is that the thing that is most important to you, besides your freedom, is your family. They are #1 above all else. They are your lifelines when you are behind these bars. Especially when you sit in a 5'x9' cell at least 23 hours a day, year after year! Let me tell you how I ended up in an Ad. Seg. I was sent to prison on several different charges to do 10 years of my life for, among other things, being a drug addict. I can't really say if I was scared when I was sent to prison. Maybe I was scared of the unknown? It was my first time in prison and I pray that it is my last. There are so many things that those who have never been to prison don't and can't understand, including the feelings of loneliness, despair, and isolation that you feel when you first come to one of these hellholes. I have always been independent, never needing anyone for anything, but always wanting to fit in. Upon coming to prison you find out real fast that if you don't find a group of people to fit in with, you will be on an island, with no one to watch your back having to fight every day of your life, especially if you are a white man. I have always carried myself as a man giving respect and expecting it back in the same manner that it was given. Carrying myself as a man and fighting for myself in the county jail is what brought me to the attention of a prison gang that calls itself the Aryan Circle. One of the men I was locked up with was a longtime member of this gang. I got to my first unit in June of '97 where it was mostly black inmates and black guards. Most of the black guards were either CRIPS or Bloods. As you might guess, the blacks had the run of the farm. The rest of us were in last place, especially the whites. The Mexicans stuck together so they didn't have to fight for what was theirs. Most of the whites don't stick together because 90% of them are color scared. If they see a white man being clicked on by another race they get as far away as they can to avoid getting clicked on too. This is the problem with the whites in Texas prisons, they don't want to get involved (unlike myself and others like me); they would rather not get in the middle and, in the end, they themselves end up paying protection. It just so happened that the same Aryan Circle gang member ended up District Captain on the same unit I was on. This is where I got my first taste or, better yet to say, I first heard of A/C. Being the man I am and the way I carry myself as a man, I was approached by this prison gang and given the prospect of becoming a member of said group. I was told lie after lie about what this prison gang was all about. Some of the lies I was told, including what the constitution said, are a long way from what is true and real about the Aryan Circle, and all the rest of the gangs here in prison. I read the constitution and it said that the circle was created in 1985 to protect the weaker whites here in prison from being clicked on, raped, and having their property stolen. Homosexual activity was one of the worst things you could do as a member of this group, but I found out later that it was going on in the group's upper levels!). There was not supposed to be anything worse than betraying a brother or snitching (again, I found out that this was going on in the upper levels too). What a joke this all is and what a fool I was to believe any of the lies I was told without thinking for myself first.
I have honor and I live by a code of honor and respect that most of these guys can't or never will have or understand. There are some really good people in this group that were mislead just as I was by the lies we truly believed. I still have much love and respect for some of these men who still believe in the things that A/C was created for. But they, just like I, can't change the nature of the beast anymore than you can teach a pack of wild wolves not to hunt. After becoming a full-fledged member of the A/C, I found out the truth about what it really is. We were doing the same thing to our people as the other races and gangs were doing! It made me sick to see something I believed in so strongly become a lie right before my eyes. But, still trying to fit in, I went along with the wars we had with other white gangs and all the times tried to educate our people in the circle and tried to help first timers how to survive in the first place. This went on for years, A/C fighting our own race and killing our own people. I could no longer stand what I was involved in. I thought about it long and hard and decided it was time to step away from this group. In '99 we went to war with the Aryan Brotherhood of Texas (ABT) throughout the system (this wasn't the first time). There were people stabbed up and killed on both sides, fortunately none on this unit, as we were all friends with these men! We did fight and beat each other up and even some were stabbed. In late '99 both groups were locked down and stayed locked down, eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, for 8 months before I was confirmed as a gang member and placed in Seg. Where I still sit today. Long before we went to war with ABT, I asked for help in getting out of A/C. I sent letters to STGM (Security Threat Group Management Office) here on the unit and in Huntsville. I even sent a letter to the executive director of TDCJ more than once. No help was forthcoming from any of the TDCJ officials. The only way I found out anything was from an inmate who was on his way to a newly opened program GRAD (Gang Renouncement and Disassociation program). It has been over 3 years now since I stepped away from the mess I was involved in. But yet I am still sitting in Ad. Seg. Waiting to go to the GRAD program. I don't know if any of this makes sense to any of you who are reading it or if it has anything to do with the topic "Fitting In". I guess what I am trying to say in all of this is you don't need to fit in with any group or anything else except your real family in the world. That is what you should be really trying to do and that is what is most important to you. Not this life in a place like this. Get books, study, and learn all that you can while you are locked up, so that you never come back to this place! |