CULTURE CLASH (Express Yourself)
THE BATTLE By Juan Gonzales
Photos courtesy of Shutterstock.com
I SAT AND WATCHED IN DISBELIEF AS THE NUMBERS ROLLED ACROSS THE BOTTOM OF THE DAYROOM TV. It was a late night in November 2016, and the guard on duty that night let me stay up late to watch the presidential race results. The other inmates in my dorm slept so soundly around me as if it was just another day in prison. Donald Trump’s numbers rose as my spirts fell, and then all too quickly, it was over. We had a new president and four years of uncertainty ahead of us. The next morning, I told everyone the results and was met with apathy. I heard the same comment a dozen different ways. “What does it matter? We can’t vote anyways so whatever happens is gonna just happen.” In the U.S., there are about 6 million citizens who are not allowed to vote in any elections due to a felony conviction. Approximately half of those have completely finished serving their whole sentence, a quarter are free but still on parole, and another quarter are still incarcerated. There are an additional 470,000 citizens who are in city or county jails still awaiting trial and, as of yet, not convicted of any crime. They are still technically allowed to vote, but are unable to do so for the most part due to logistics or red tape. They are all American citizens with no voice in our political system. These same people are counted in the census as residents of whatever region they are housed in, but have absolutely no say in who gets elected to such positions as judges, prosecutors, or sheriffs, amongst other positions. Who better to see how they carry out their jobs than those who most directly deal with them?
C U LTU R EC L A S H G A LV E STO N . C O M • S E P T/O CT 2 0 2 0
I find the attitude of my fellow prisoners to be the same as many of the people who I have talked to in the free world. “They are going to do whatever they want to do, no matter what I think anyway.” Many on this side of the walls don’t care because they can’t vote, and many on the other side of the walls don’t vote because they don’t care. Like out there, many of the people in here feel forgotten and unheard, and so have lost hope. When I leave this place in what is hopefully not too many more years, I will be expected to contribute and become a party of society once again. I will be expected to follow all the rules set upon me by a system that doesn’t care what I say. I will be expected to pay taxes which will be spent on things I have no part in deciding. Until I complete an
MY VOICE COUNTS TOO
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