BEING DEHUMAN-ED

I'm just riffin' here, so take a walk with me. I'm not arguing for letting Padilla walk free. I'm also not talking about his guilt. I just don't know enough about what he has done or not. But it got me thinking. A lot. [pd.: Please don't misinterpret this post. I am not drawing exact parallels, just thinking out loud, back and forth.]

Let me tell you. There's something profoundly wrong even with being shackled by people at all. I remember the first time I was handcuffed and dragged before a judge. I was 17, and had been living on the street. I had been kicked out of my apartment, which I shared with another person. I had been kicked out, with extreme prejudice, because a friend of mine who spent the night woke up to my roommate going down his pants. My friend (we'll call him "R") freaked out, as a person being violated by any other person would. We don't need to comment on how confused and scared and angry it can make a het male to be woken up this way by a (secretly) gay male. I say secretly because nobody knew, yet, that my roommate was gay. I sure didn't. Hell, he brought girls home! So who knows what all the definitions mean.

Well, actually, I know what one means. There is a non-flexible definition. Someone else's Self. You do not steal from someone, you do not rob their trust, you do not lie to them, you do not rifle through their drawers when they are not there, you do not block the doorway when they want to leave the argument, you do not force their body into places or positions or into accepting treatment that pleases you at their expense, you do not go down someone's pants who is asleep.

The town descended on my roommate. It was a small town. Someone spray painted our apartment's exterior. My roommate blamed R. The paint said "----- -------- IS A FAGGOT." Yeah, it wasn't pretty. I don't think it was my friend who did it. I think we know who did it, and it was someone else in town who felt deeply offended by the revelation. That person later got into a fight with my roommate...I guess over him being gay? Odd, the things people will try to fight over.

Didn't matter how sympathetic I was to any of it, anyway. My crime was, apparently, bringing my friend and his irresistible package into our apartment. So I was summarily purged from the roommate. And that started a time of my living on the street. Sleeping wherever, eating wherever, doing...whatever. I had no resources to fall back on, had quite a momentous parting with my parents at 15. So I survived, as I can do.

I wasn't into the street life. It was forced on me. I didn't enjoy being filthy and hungry and bored or lonely half the time. I wanted to find girls, chill, enjoy myself like other teenagers. At one point I wanted to go to M-town (the nearest big town) with this same (well-packaged?) friend to hang out, have a good time, etc. But we had no place to shower (my friend was on the street for a short time, too, but had the option of going home.) So we climbed into my "old" apartment, took a shower, ate an old slice of pizza, and took a handful of change off the table. Hell, I felt it was only fair. After all, what the hell had I done to anyone? And here I was waking up in a ditch with mosquito bites all over my face, walking the empty streets in the morning trying to find people at night so I could hang out instead of feeling like such a ghost in a town I once had been living and working in? All because my ex-roommate could not control his hungry hands? [UPDATE: I forgot to mention that it wasn't even my idea. "R" was pretty into doing it. I agreed. As the passage stands, it sounds like it was my reasoning that made it happen. Not true. But I guess I didn't bring it up as a defense because I agree that I still chose to climb after him and go in the window.]

I guess you know what's next. Someone called the cops. Said they saw us climbing into the window. Cops found us walking the street, I didn't run. I really didn't see what I had done as so bad. So I told them the truth. This is a mistake that took me a couple times to fix, when it came to dealing with the cops. I used to think you could talk to them like humans. That they might "understand" a situation. Or not use the information against you. I know. Naïve. But this was my third time being under such close personal scrutiny from the police. The first and second times were at eight years old and fifteen. It is true what they say about the third time. It was a charm.

The cops proceeded to acquaint me with what life is like once society puts a "vs" between you and The State of—. They taught me a lesson in law—and I don't mean that shit in your books, vato. I mean law in the practical sense, as in the "I am the Law" law, as in the "Law of the Jungle" type of law. They got what they wanted out of me and made up the rest, charged me with breaking and entering and burglary.

They took away my necklace, my phone numbers, my long underwear, my shirt, my pants, and everything in my pockets. They told me, quite dully, to strip naked and of course, I had no choice but to do so. They looked at me standing there, humiliated and unprotected, in what little light reflects off cold concrete and natty fluorescent lights, told me to lift up my junk so they could make sure I wasn't hiding any riches, told me to bend over, spread 'em, wiggle my toes, run my hands through my hair. All in the presence of a couple mean-looking, weaponed, gray-uniformed men in a room with sickly lighting. They noted all my tattoos and scars. They wrote it down. They took a picture of me. They gave me a new set of clothes. The old polyester blend smelled like old, cheap, slimy, soapstink. Bar of soap, towel, blanket, pillowcase. They taught me to stand as they liked, to wait for their commands, how to move down a hall, to be ready to drop my pants at a moment's notice so they could inspect my body, to shit in public, to give up the feeling that I was in control of my self in any way whatsoever. To abdicate dignity.

They put me first in Block E, which was for felons awaiting transfer. Rapists, murderers, etc. That was just "for the night." Someone tried to make friends with me, but I resisted. Luckily, I had the bars between them and myself, as it was late and past lockdown time. The next day they moved me to a different block which was for a range of lesser crimes. The first thing a man said to me was "How old are you?" (Remember, I've always looked very much younger than I am.) I told him I was 17 (I had just turned 17). He said "We don't care much for kids in here." I told him "I'm not really thrilled to be in here with you, either." He said, then, "If you gimme any more lip, I'll kick your ass." Faced with that logic, I informed him I would make a habit of restraining said "lip."

I learned a lot in my time in that hellish house of hate, anger, bitterness, longing, and despair. I really did. How to shoot tiny flaming projectiles at people, to make shirt hooks on steel walls with nothing but plastic ware, matches and the other sundry materials, how to roll a 1/4 rolling paper, how to scam phones, where to buy equipment to do it, how to handle the cops next time...a lot of things. I met people, interesting people. I learned how to make a hammock of a sheet that can hang on bars and come down at the slightest sound of a jingling keyring, learned how to shower in front of strange, hostile, men. I learned more things than I can list. Things I would not type online.

I met interesting people, as I said. Jailhouse philosophers, warriors, and professional hustlers. Thugs, dealers, punks, fools. I met the silly, the stupid, the smart, the wise, the crazy, the utterly dangerous. I met people who told me they could kill anyone I wanted, for a price. People who tried to entrap me into doing shit that would have got me fucked by the CO. They tested me. (Have you ever had your cell bombed with a rain of fecal matter and urine? MMMmm, jail. You've gotta go sometime!)

But I passed. I didn't rat anyone, I kept my cool. I learned as quick as I could because you may meet compadres in jail, and you might form some sort of alliances, but nobody is there to be the Lenny to your George. ("Okay, this a last time Im'a show you, Peewee. Then y'on y'own.") But when I demonstrated that I wasn't some idiot child who would cry for his mother and tell on everyone—that I could be cool—I was invited into the circle of learning; of smoking someone's crushed-up prescription meds from an empty Joy bottle, of gambling for our snacks, of smack-talk, threat-talk, shit-talk; of yelling to the women's block every night, back and forth, voices, only voices, stink of animal, jingling of keys, and tiny slitted windows too high in the wall to do a human any good. And marks on the wall. Lots of little marks.

Even if nobody hurts your body while you are locked up, it's a terrible, terrible place. Even if you are only forced to meet that part of yourself that you will keep locked up in your own little hole, never to see the outside world. A shameful, enslaved, undignified, and ugly side of you. Because you can hunger strike and you can visualize world peace, but in the end, you are at the whim of strange men with guns. And as I hope you've inferred, this place rehabilitates noone. (I know torture has never been used as a "rehabilitation" tool...but torture also does not do the job claimed. Only makes you sicker. Just like being treated like an animal in a cage.) That's not even close to one of the purposes of jail. Men may make themselves better there, but it is by working against the sadistic systems inherent in incarceration. Believe it. Chances are very good it will only further your knowledge of the underworld, and commitment to avoid getting caught at whatever it is you do or have to do out there.

My comments, as always, come from a personal place. A place motivated by the journey I have undertaken by creating this blog.

THE MENACING JOSE

I was reading about Padilla's snatching and torture here . It will make anyone shudder to read what this man was put through. I think if you have ever met the loss of your free will and physical volition or dignity at the hands of armed men, it may strike you even deeper. Especially if you are suffering under no delusions about the cops.

I have not gone into exactly what I learned about the cops on that third charmed time, but I do want to stress a point. Because I know one or two of those who read here have voiced opposition to my hardcore anti-police stance. But just know that while I respect you keeping your opinion, I do not conjecture out of thin air. These opinions are not based on Spike Lee movies or newspapers or knowing that my ex-Uncle Joe is a cop in the Bronx. They are based on my personal life experience; the shackles on my arms and legs, the sticks and the riot cuffs and the lies they tell. From incidents inside jail as well as outside it. I have seen cops abuse humans, I have been one of those humans; I know they lie, I know they do drugs, I know they are very often bullies and killers and crooks. If this was only a "sometimes" thing with a regular human, most would condemn it. Cops ought to be doubly damned for violating trust and abusing such power as is inherently theirs.

Then, there is an essay here, at the same blog. That post is more of a discussion on Padilla's brownness, or at least the photos used to portray it. At a point, almost as a passing remark, Mr. Greenwald mentions that Padilla's face was "menacing" in the commonly-seen mug shot going around. And he posted a picture.

Here is the picture of Jose Padilla that out of all the images circulating, I deem closest to "unretouched." I do feel when it comes to media, I have some experience to draw from. We all have Photoshop, and of course I have used this for years, but I have also worked as a digital retoucher in publishing, and have spent years specifically studying images, their processing, and especially their psychological impact and construction as I studied for my degree in Film and TV at NYU. There are many signs to look for in altered pictures. And there's even stuff you can do to see if things have been cloned at all. (And I don't mean squinting. After all, cloning is reproducing a portion of mathematical data and placing it elsewhere in the image file. So no matter how well you clone—and I unapologetically assert myself a blackbelt cloner—there are ways of finding out. LGF was SO damn pleased with themselves for catching a glaringly obvious clone job. I'm not talking about that. Anyway, I still think that cooked-up image was propaganda created for the purpose of slamming the anti-Israel news reports.)

My point (and I made it here, too) is that I don't really see him as "menacing." Look at his face. Forget, first of all, that you are trained to think of a dark face in a mug shot as "menacing." What OTHER reason could a brown man POSSIBLY be photographed this way? Serious expression? Grayish wall? When you see a brown or "black" man staring ahead at a camera using a front axial light, do you think "driver's license" or "horse groom license" or "passport"? Nah. I bet you TEN TO ONE that the percentage of people who say he looks "menacing" here slant heavily to the White. I don't see it. Then again, I have love for Latin America. So does that mean I forgive a killer, if one comes from the lands of my father and his fathers? No. What it means is that the mainstream American kneejerk against the Brown face is not part of my reaction, here.

The point I made in the comment thread was that Mr. Padilla is a Brown man staring at you. That in and of itself is probably enough to warrant the "menacing" tag. The man also has heavy eyebrows (more "darkness" for ya), dark eyes, and he is a Brown man keeping his chin up. That is not the requested chin-position for a Brown man. There is a Menacing line, you see. And it's down by the chest. If you lift up your chin so that you are directly looking at someone, you've definitely entered "menacing" territory. His eyebrow ridge is heavy. That's the bone, my friend. He can do nothing about the shape of his skull or his skin color, or his eyes color, or his hair color.

Do you see his muscles clenched? His mouth? His forehead creased? Please, tell me where he is looking "menacing."

Now look at the face on the front of this blog. You may call that foto (it is an animated gif, so I mean the one with the white bandanna) "menacing." See the brow, knitted up? See the eyes, see the emotion? Yes. Now look at Mr. Padilla. His face is placid as a pool of water. He's attractive. But he's made the mistake of standing up against that damn wall and letting someone flash a camera at him. This was his ticket to Menaceville. Well, that and Amerika needs a demon. Always. Thus, The Dark Goldstein.

THE MANY FACES OF PADILLA

I am not saying any of the listed effects were done intentionally. But they were done. I will speak briefly about the changes and what I know of what they mean to the average human brain and eye.

Again, the first:

Msnbc

Now,

CNN's Padilla. Here, the pic was made bigger in a "quick n dirty" way, thus blurring. You can also see that the yellow channel has been jacked. ( Artifacts along his white shirt edge, and various "splothes" of yellow in photo. This, I don't think was done on purpose. The splotches seem a result of the sizing in an unskilled way. But they are there.) This has the effect of making the bg a bit greener, and his skin tone appear browner. Green = ill/crazy in cinema vocabulary. Brown=bad in America. News From Russia's Padilla. Here, the contrast is increased, and the yellow also seems to be heavy. The sharpener was used. and so was the brightness increased along with the contrast, thus his washed out highlights. More contrast and sharper edges will make a picture feel more intense, high-energy. Washington Post Padilla. I know what putting a black frame around a face means to the brain in our culture and current time. I paid lots of money to find out these things so I could manipulate images, make you feel ways, and cash in on it. But I bet you know what these things do without me saying another word on it. So I won't.

Listen, there is no way this WaPo image and the MSNBC image (what I'm calling the "original") are both just "versions." Okay? Maybe some changes are due to processing/publishing or bad proofers/editors. But given these two extremes, I am going to have to say that of all the photos I've seen, the Washington Post and Newsday ones really push it. I would guess that this is manipulated. Why? A few reasons. Not worth going into all in detail. But one is that the same reflection off his hair on the lightest one is almost identical in luminescence as the darkest photos. This makes no physical sense. In the sense of the properties of light. It implies that the skin was targeted especially. Also, his face in these two darkest ones takes on a "painted" look (as if using a certain function I know well in Photoshop to alter the hue or chroma of particular shades within a photo only. If not done with a very light touch, you will sort of "flatten" a range of pixels, giving the overall patina a "painted" or non-graduated look, as occurs in life). If you look closely, you can see artifacts around the hairline and directly to the side of each eye that remain the same in darkest and lightest photos. This tells me that this hue was not included in the operation of changing the averaged color of his face. So it stays the same. I don't know how well I've explained it. And I'm not swearing that's what happened. But I will say that when I worked as a graphic artist amongst other graphic artists (in publishing), I was the one they brought the retouching trouble-jobs.

The aforementioned Newsday Padilla.

Anyway. For the hell of it, let's say none of the pictures were purposely altered for any reason. That's not really the most important part. I don't need to prove that to know the agenda of law and politicians in America, or the memes against the Brown. Just wait til election season if you need a booster, a memory shot.

I think a good thought exercise is: How exactly would a man have to look or present—given he is brown and in a mugshot giving you a chin-up, unflinching stare—to not earn the tag "menacing"?

THE PROCESS OF JAILING THE MIND, PART 6978

SO there I was. Waiting for the judge. In my very first set of handcuffs, in the middle of the night. It all seemed like such a tiring event for the cop and the judge. Just another moment in another series of long days for them. Here I was, snatched from the street, taken from my world without much warning, but at least I was not sleeping in a ditch. Was I grateful?

No. I was horrified. I was staring down at my wrists. I tested the iron. I couldn't believe I was sitting there and someone had chained me up. It was a mindmelting moment. I was trapped in a chain, and there was no higher authority. This was what the highest authorities in the land wanted. And nobody could stop them. I'll never forget that moment. Sitting waiting for the Judge to be woken up so he could drag his ass out of bed to come sign a paper that would send me to jail. Sure, the cops had lied and coaxed a "confession" from me. Told me I'd be out and done with the trouble in a matter of minutes. Yeah. I won't go into how they poisoned me against them forever. But perhaps you are getting a whiff. I learned all about interrogation...and basically, how you are the only one not supposed to break a rule. They can do whatever the fuck they want.

My friend's parents came for him, got him a lawyer. He went home, never to see more than the station house holding cell. I don't know that I ever saw him again. For me, it was off to the judge and off to County, and when I got out a little later and came back to town, everything had changed, most of my stuff had been given away even though I asked my "best friend" to hold on to it, and I still had no home. So, I held my lessons close. They—and my fortitude—were all I had left.

THEY USE YOU TO GET THE REST

I know some people are afraid out there. And others want us to be afraid. Very, very afraid. I know they are using your own fear to help themselves. They conjure a deadly and malevolent force and they ask your help to unleash it on our own country and the world. They show you pictures of dark faces and ask you to sign on to this brave new world where stormtroopers are the guardian angels, and Mexicans immigrants are the new Devil. They go to so much trouble to tie us allllll together. Mexicans, migrant Mexicans, Greasy Al Qaedas, Black Men Who Date White Women, Islamexicommuniberals. It's easy to get in line. So many still actually listen to those mainstream talkers and typists, soulless zombies long sold to the combine, couldn't find their own heart with a spotlight.

If you've never had handcuffs on and been forced to go places against your will, do things against your will, completely and utterly abdicated your very own precious will, then pay attention to what you allow, to what you do not speak out against, to what you claim is "needed" in the name of "safety." Do not let them shackle your mind. There are many ways to be violated. And anyone who has been violated by someone else needs to think very carefully about heaping derision and judgment on The Dark Goldstein, because they lend their hand to a terrible crime. And it is one that can come for you, too, citizen.

By participating in the New American Minute of Hate, you make yourself and the world less safe.