pared to blacks, inmates with a college degree or more (compared to those who had not completed high school), a sexual orientation other than heterosexual compared to heterosexual, and who had experienced a sexual victimization before coming to the facility compared to those who had not. The point of racial comparison may initially read as misleading, since a disproportionate number of non-white men and women are incarcerated in the United States. Without question, more people of color are assaulted behind bars than white people. However, it is significant, above all significant for Tobias Beecher, that those most at risk of sexual assault are those outside the prison norm.
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My friend who works in the art class is Chinese-American. She is constantly having to field questions about Chinese language and China and what her family eats. The teachers in the education wing are all women, and they are all either black or white. My friend sticks out even more than I do. She is small and slight and has luminous skin and waist-length hair. She may be the only Asian person in the building. She is beautiful and she is never afraid. “But that hallway walk,” I say. “What do you really think is going to happen?” she says. “If anything happened to us it would cause such a shitstorm that whoever did it would be in prison for life and Garden State would get trashed in the media.” She is right, and I realize that I’m not afraid of anything actually happening. What I am afraid of are the looks themselves, and what they mean. I am afraid of the knowledge that these looks correspond to looks and thoughts on the outside, among the law-abiding, among men I know. “I hate it,” I say. I do. I don’t hate volunteering, and I don’t hate the men I help, but I hate the way I feel when I sit alone in the classroom, waiting for our class to file in while Ms. Thomas makes copies two doors down. The men start coming in and each one shoots me a sidelong glance. “Good morning,” I say, and they say, “Morning,” like they have a full bite of cake in their mouths and more cake in front of them. Our ta comes in. He says good morning like a normal person. I wonder whether he is a rapist. He starts sharpening pencils. More men pass by the door on their way to other classrooms. Some of them call out, “What’s good, shorty?” The ta makes for the door. “Show her some respect,” he calls back. They laugh at him and keep walking. I wonder whether thanking him will acknowledge how uncomfortable I was, thus revealing my weakness and vulnerability. “Don’t show weakness,” the volunteer handbook advised, as if I were working with bears or mountain lions instead of adult humans. I decide on an appropriately world-weary tone of voice with which to thank him. By the time I’m ready, he’s gone, back to pencil-sharpening, and there are more men outside the door.