Common Sense Racism...
The central human relationship in The Shawshank Redemption is between Red and Andy. Red, the old timer, passes on to the new fish, Andy, his most heartfelt advice, “Get busy living or get busy dying.” Without Red’s help and advice Andy may well have killed himself, or been killed—but the story follows the usual trope of becoming prison wise as Red takes Andy under his wing. Andy is transformed by Red who is repaid for his morality with freedom, albeit after he serves his 40 years of just deserts.
However, The Shawshank Redemption does not portray the reality of prison because Shawshank prison is not segregated. Racial segregation is not only a part of prison; it is ingrained in every action made by the prisoner. Thus the central relationship in the movie is impossible. It is only through the verisimilitude created in the film that Red and Andy have anything more than an extremely cursory relationship.
“Contemporary inmates live in racially divided institutions. In many prisons, informal race-based rules govern the relations among inmates much like Jim Crow laws…The commonplace aspects of confinement include racially segregated housing, with racial homogeneity in cell assignments the statistical norm. Racial balkanization extends into the prison yard, cafeteria, and other public places. Prison administrators often acquiesce to this apartheid-like arrangement, sometimes with the expectation of exploiting racial divisions.”*
In his article, “Foreword: ‘Separate But Equal’ In Prison: Johnson V. California And Common Sense Racism,” James Robertson uses the term “common sense racism” to describe this legal approach to racial balkanization in American prisons, which puts the needs of the prison above the human rights of the individual. Ironically, Common Sense is also the name of the pamphlet by Thomas Paine, which states, “A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it the superficial appearance of being right, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defense of custom. But the tumult soon subsides. Time makes more converts than reason.”^ And time for the prisoner is completely void of reason.
This racial segregation in American prisons was defended by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in its ruling of Johnson v. California.** In the case, a California inmate challenged the California Department of Correction’s (CDC) policy of racially segregating inmates. The Court found that, “Given the admittedly high racial tensions and violence already existing within the CDC, there is clearly a common-sense connection between the use of race as the predominant factor in assigning cell mates.”
The U.S. Supreme Court heard the arguments in Johnson v. California, and reversed the decision finding that the actions of the CDC did not necessarily conform to the U.S. Constitution:
“The right not to be discriminated against based on one’s race is not a right that need necessarily be compromised for the sake of proper prison administration. On the contrary, compliance with the 14th Amendment’s ban on racial discrimination is not only consistent with proper prison administration, but also bolsters the legitimacy of the entire criminal justice system. Race discrimination is especially pernicious in the administration of justice. And public respect for the system of justice is undermined when the system discriminates based on race.”^^
However, the Supreme Court did not throw out the case, instead it was remanded to the lower court to determine if the CDC’s “common sense racism” was necessary to maintain prison security, and to determine the constitutionality of the racial segregation policy under the Court’s standard of “strict scrutiny.” The Supreme Court also found that the CDC’s argument that its “policy should be exempt from the categorical rule [Judicial review of state prisons’ race-based policies under the standard of strict scrutiny] because it is ‘neutral’—i.e., because all prisoners are ‘equally’ segregated—ignores this Court’s repeated command that ‘racial classifications receive close scrutiny even when they may be said to burden or benefit the races equally.’” To date, the lower court has not performed a judicial review under the standard of strict scrutiny to determine if racial segregation in prison is constitutional, or not.
The end product of racial balkanization in California prisons can be seen in two films: American Me, and American History X. Both films portray the segregated life found in prison. The institutional racial segregation of the prisoners in both movies appears to be the product of immorality and racism born of the individual, or group/gang. What is not shown is the forced, institutional, segregation faced by each new fish.
What the films do not portray, or explain, as the physical reality of prison, is racial segregation. The communities of racially similar groups/gangs are brought together by segregated housing policy, and institutional tradition. These group/gangs exist primarily because the justice system created them, but more importantly, they exist because the criminal justice system in America allows them to exist.
The Shawshank Redemption centers on a relationship between Red and Andy. A relationship that in the late 1940s would have been as impossible as it is today. America’s number one film about prison seems to depict reality, but instead offers an illusion of hope and racial harmony that is the antithesis of truth. The story substitutes poetic justice for actual justice, a slight of hand that leaves the viewer with the underlying feeling that in the end, the American justice system will work itself out.
The truth is far from the fiction, but given the nature of the public’s access to information about what is happening at American prisons, Red and Andy eating at the same table in the mess hall is as credible as dinosaurs roaming the prison yard, or the fact that there is, “equal and exact justice to all men” in America.
* Robertson, James. “Foreword: ‘Separate But Equal’ In Prison: Johnson V. California And Common Sense Racism.” The Journal of Criminal Law & Criminality. Vol. 96, No. 3, (Chicago: Northwestern University Press, 2006), 803. Print.
^ Paine, Thomas. Common Sense (Mineola: Dover, 1997). Print.
** Johnson v. California, 321 F.3d 791; 2003. U.S. A p p. LexisNexis Academic. Web. 28 June 2014.
^^ Johnson v. California, 543 U.S. 499; 2005. U.S. Supreme Court. |
