Part 38 (1/2)

'I said Teach, Teach. You want to teach. I call you Teach. You know what I'm saying?'

'Okay, call me Teach.'

'Teach, what gives you the motherf.u.c.king right to teach me English?'

'I am English, Tee-Bone,' I lied. I usually corrected those who called me English. I was Welsh. These guys would have never heard of Wales.

'So? Is you saying that makes you speak better English than us n.i.g.g.e.rs here?'

'Of course. We invented the language.'

'We has our own language, Teach.'

'I accept that. And it's no better or worse than English. But if you want to pa.s.s this English examination, I honestly want to help you.'

'What motherf.u.c.king use is English going to be to me, Teach? I ain't trying to be disrespecting your language or dissing you about no motherf.u.c.king thing, but I ain't trying to be no writer, Teach. You know what I'm saying? I ain't trying to be no writer, Teach. I don't be seeing no streets again, Teach. This motherf.u.c.king Government got us homeboys here till we die, Teach. We n.i.g.g.e.rs ain't trying to be no bada.s.s Americans. If it wasn't for you crackers, we wouldn't be here. Our ancestors was brung here against their will from our own country in chains.'

'So was I. And you know who brought me over? A Black US Marshal.'

Tee-Bone stood up.

'What the f.u.c.k is you saying, Teach?'

'You know what I'm saying. Whoever we are and however we got here, we all want to get out. Look, guys, I've only just got into this system, but I've already worked out that there's only three ways out of here: you pay a lawyer a few million dollars, which none of us have; you get over the fence and give government lunatics like Webster here some target practice; or you write your way out.'

'How is you going to write your way out?' asked a young Was.h.i.+ngton, DC crack dealer.

'Listen. Most of us got more time than we deserved. Some of you shouldn't even have been convicted. The Government lied and cheated about how much dope you did so they could bang you up forever. Blacks get hit harder than Whites. A lot of people out there want to put a stop to this government racial hara.s.sment. A lot more people don't even know it's happening. Even some of the judges don't believe it's going on. It's only judges, a few honest politicians, and some powerful individuals can change things. I don't mean to be rude, but most of you can't even write a letter that these guys could understand. And they're the only ones who can get you out of this s.h.i.+t. Don't tell me you're going to lie down that easy. I meant it when I said I was brought here in chains. The DEA came to my house in Europe, dragged me and my old lady over here, and left our three children without a mum or dad. I hate your f.u.c.king Government more than you ever could.'

'Okay, Teach. Chill out. You're not a bad dude. I know where you be coming from,' said Tee-Bone. 'Teach us some cracker rap, Teach.'

'Sure. Now why did you guys choose to speak English rather than Spanish, Portuguese, or French? These guys f.u.c.ked you around just as much as we did.'

'Give it to us straight, Teach.'

'Because you have good taste. You gave us the music. We gave you the lyrics. Now we'll start with punctuation marks. Do you know what they are? What's this?'

I wrote a full-stop on the board.

'That's a period, Teach.'

A Rastafarian Posse member objected.

'Wapen him, Teach. Him say ”period”. Me say ”fullstop”. Ah Jamaica me come from. In Jamaica a ”period” mean a b.i.t.c.h bleeding.'

The head of the Department of Education summoned me to the next room.

'Marks, you're teaching GED, right.'

'That's right.'

'You don't appear to have one.'

'One what?'

'A GED, Marks. I have no record of you having a GED or a high-school diploma.'

'I don't have either. That's right.'

'Now the powers that be might consider it inappropriate for a prisoner without a GED to be teaching other prisoners how to get one. You see what I'm getting at?'

'But I've got a Master's degree.'

'There are plenty of people with Master's degrees who can't teach GED. The haircutting school in this prison gives Master's degrees to people who can't read.'

'But I got my Master's degree at Oxford.'

'Oxford, Wisconsin. Who was your inmate supervisor?'

'Not Oxford, Wisconsin prison. The University of Oxford in England.'

'Well, no disrespects, but the United States Government is a bit wary of foreign qualifications. Generally, it doesn't recognise them.'

'It recognises foreign convictions.'

'Maybe. I'm not a criminologist. I'm an education specialist, and I take the view that if the foreign qualification is meaningful, then the holder will have no objection to being re-tested by a more appropriate body. Shall I put your name down to sit the next GED examination?'

I pa.s.sed. Wearing a radiant blue gown and mortar board, I was presented with a certificate by a smiling, tongue-in-cheek Webster.

In conjunction with a local university the prison's Department of Education also funded and ran evening cla.s.ses. I wanted to attend, but they weren't available to non-American citizens. This really infuriated me. The US Government were tearing around the world extraditing people and then refusing them an education in prison because they were aliens. I went to see the head of the Department of Education to complain.

'Yes, Marks, what's the problem?'

'This is straightforward discrimination. Why aren't we aliens allowed to pursue further education?'

'You have to remember, Marks, that each course a prisoner takes costs the American taxpayers $2,000. Have you paid much in the way of American tax?'

'It costs the American taxpayer $25,000 a year to keep me here. Don't you think it would make economic sense to spend 10% more and enable me to emerge as a useful community member rather than a biker or crack dealer?'

'I don't know, Marks. I'm not an economist. I'm an education specialist.'

'It seems insane to me. And unconst.i.tutional. Don't you have something called the Fifteenth Amendment which prohibits discrimination on the basis of nationality?'

'I don't know, Marks. I'm not a lawyer. I'm an education specialist. Anyway, Marks, you should have thought of that before you came to America and broke our laws.'

'I didn't want to come here. I was brought against my will.'

'Well, you shouldn't have broken any laws after arriving here, whichever way you were brought.'

'I haven't.'