Yeah, yeah, yeah Family is sacrosanct right? So did we need a Mission Statement from The Virginia Department of Corrections to tell us that? Did we need the in theory and practice of The Commonwealth of Virginias' most anti-family of all anti-family structures to co-opt the unconditional and without conditions utility of that most basic and affirming foundation of our Human Condition, our Universal human condition, The Family as camouflage, as cover for its continuum of misanthropy? Well that is exactly what The People of Virginia through their Department of Corrections have and are doing. The Family as a thing, a living organic thing has been under attack in Virginia since Justices of The Supreme Court of Virginia ruled in their (1871) RUFFIN v. COMMONWEALTH 62 VA.790, that Virginia prisoners were (and I paraphrase) everything but human. The perfidy and insidiousness of the 1871 RUFFIN ruling is, it came on the heels of The Nations most destructive and life costing war, The Civil War, a war which for all purposes and intent was waged and fought to destroy and correct that most anti-family of practices, the "chattel" enslavement of Black People and it's functional and defacto negation of The Family as basic and foundational unit of The Human Condition, because during the approximate Three Hundred year, Virginia "chattel" enslavement of Black People, those White enslavers, beneficiaries and their support functionaries had enacted law and its prohibitions, specifically making Black People and Family anathema and illegal. So despite the conditional repudiation and quasi rejection of the RUFFIN ruling, by later Courts, the sentiments and intent of the RUFFIN ruling are still alive and fully entrenched in The Commonwealth of Virginias' habits and governing practices as a universal prejudice against ALL Virginia Families. So what started in the 1600's as a tool, a mechanism of enslaving Black People, by denying Black People, The prerogatives and motive of The Family structure is now a comprehensive and composite fact impacting ALL VIRGINIANS This is not a brain spinning, mind convoluting dichotomous consequence to grasp,because that age old oriental adage,"when one goes to slay the Dragon, don't become one yourself",encapsulates this denigration and negation of The Virginia Family completely. We see it in this inexplicable blind-eyed ignorance, an inevitable spill over into the disrespect of The Family of The Virginia Prisoner, by the mindless attitude of the Virginia Prison Official all under the euphemistic axiom of "public safety", which in practice is just another dehumanizing factoid of terms of Virginia's Social Contract. Well we reject it. We begin with: The Virginia Prisoner, is just that, an imprisoned Virginian. The practice of, and the utilization of Imprisonment, in a Society, as our ancients have lectured, instructed and advised, is an expression of our collective, honesty, an expression of repairing harm.
The focus of this work isn't to critique Imprisonment as form of repairing harm. But instead it confronts Virginia's form of imprisonment and it's scheme on Family as an organic entity, with focus on highlighting the crass petty reality of it's exploitation by the prison official of The Virginia Department of Corrections. Virginia's imprisonment scheme and the Justice Infrastructure it represents and reflects is, by all accounts and analysis, the highest, the Magnum Opus of Virginia's Social Contract, the qualitative conclusions of its social productivity and development. For one in Virginia prisons do we see the unmasked and unfiltered understanding and acceptance of what is the Virginian Human, by its governing elements or the human embodiments of what are virtually "state secrets" or that which governance in Virginia actually is. In other words to hell with the fake, phony and put on respect accorded the Virginian in public, if you really wanna know and understand how deep or shallow are Virginia's grasp of those "self evident truths" then pay attention and scrutinize The Commonwealth of Virginia's behavior in its prisons by its Prison Official because thats where we will begin to realize that those "self evident truths" are just that costumes and affections, put on for public consumption. So if what we encounter in Virginia prisons are, prison officials behaving savagely and barbarously, then it goes to say that the quintessential fact, the "state secret" or that wizard behind the curtain of The Commonwealth of Virginia is the animus of savagery and barbarism. Secondly,The Virginia Department of Corrections is The Commonwealth's, largest agency. The People of Virginia give its Department of Corrections and the Prison Official the most money, meaning of all other embodiments of the will of The People of Virginia, its Justice Infrastructure and imprisonment scheme is the most valued and prized, which is to say in the operations of its prison system are The People of Virginia accurately seen and revealed. Now I'm not being tongue in cheek or facetious, because the average Virginian will sure as hell vehemently disagree with me and the proposition that the reflection of their essence is to be found in the savage, barbarous, lawless, gratuitously cruel and extra-judicial behavior of the Virginia Prison Official, who acts in their name and that is the point.
Virginia's Social Contract through it's, as the Great Berhane Selassie or Bob Marley would say "uniforms of brutality" or it's Prison Official, has appropriated the credibility, validity and legitimacy of the Virginia Family as a pseudo mitigating tool, as cover for its dehumanizing and degenerate work against the Virginia prisoner.The work then, for The People of Virginia, is to reclaim what is "Family", on their own terms apart from and without any presumptive hectoring, any sham lecturing from the Virginia Prison Official, whose only purpose,is to, under cover of professing to underscore the significance and necessity of " Family" in the life of the Virginia prisoner, is to destroy it. Is it requisite for imprisonment to relatively destroy, that fundamental fact of what is Family? Convention and commonsense would, without any hesitancy respond with a primal hell no !!, however I leave that to the intellectualization and its debate of what the people of Virginia, without the distortions of colloquial suppositions, expect of their Justice Infrastructure, in its process of repairing harm. What I speak to are the perversions, distortions, antagonistic and contradictory self-serving proclamations from the Virginia prison official of the "public good" of their practical attacks and opposition to what Family means to the life of The Virginia Prisoner.
By William Thorpe
I'm William Thorpe Virginia exiled me to the Texas prison system. I'm solitary confined at the Wainwright Unit and if you feel any kinda way about this work contact me by Securus email using the Texas prison number #2261982