In WA Prisons, Cultural Groups Build Community. DOC Wants to Erase Us.

Incarceration in the United States has long been used to strip cultural identities from people of color. Through the centuries, we've been separated from our communities through chattel slavery; Indigenous boarding schools; Japanese internment camps; reservations that were concentration camps by another name.

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Today, that state violence is carried out by the prison-industrial complex. Inside Washington State Department of Corrections (WDOC) facilities, incarcerated people of color have resisted the isolation and whitewashing we're subjected to by forming cultural groups: organizations by and for prisoners where we teach classes, host traditional events and build connections with our outside communities.

The fundamental nature of these groups is that they are peer-led. While we're often denied the full expression of our cultural traditions, for decades we've designed our own educational curricula and organized our own events-until this spring, when WDOC suspended all peer-led programming across all facilities.

https://nativenewsonline.net/sovereignty/in-wa-prisons-cultural-groups-build-community-doc-wants-to-erase-us