Entertainment Magazine has raved about it. Then my sister began watching it. Brooke (the typist) has followed the show as well. It sounds like they give an accurate account of life behind bars.
There's always violence. People click up together. Whether it's actual "gang activity" or rather just a group of Spanish dudes, or black dudes, or white dudes. Sometimes guys click together that are from the same town. They refer to each other as the home team.
Not all of these groups are bad. The Spanish click gets together and play soccer. The black click gets together and robs people. And the white click get together and get high. Sure, you can say that I'm stereotyping, but this is not an opinion.....it is how about 90% of the guys get together and what they do. There will always be variables. Prison is a melting pot of a large group of people.
I understand that Orange Is The New Black follows a woman's journey from street life to prison life. You take a journey as you get to know her and see her live life as a prisoner.
Prison will change you. In many ways it's helped me. I don't use drugs, I don't like them and I have direction in my life. In the same token, I used to be a non-violent guy who just wanted to be high. Prison caused me to change that about myself. Now, I'm sober and when pushed have to remind myself not to push back.
You have to remember fights here don't have referees to call the fight. When you fight here one guys fighting to kill the other and the other is fighting to survive. This whole world is concrete and steel. Before long one guy is straddling the other while he smashes his head over and over again into the floor. Sometimes one guy is completely unconsciousness and is still being beat on. There are no rules. Not just that, but prison makes ordinary men into killers.
One person sees blood and it causes a gag reflex. To others it causes a frenzy and awakens an inner rage that is uncontrollable. One man might hit the other in the nose and he sees his own blood and he decides to stop. The thing he thought was real important is all of a sudden not such a big deal. Then you hit another man in the mouth and he licks his lip, tastes the blood and smiles. Now he's ready to get down to business.
When faced with a confrontation in prison, you have about three seconds to decide if it's important enough to put your life on the line for it. Do you believe in it enough that you would die for it? Because the other person just might.
There are times when one man wins. But later that night the loser comes back and stabs him in his sleep. That's one reason when you decide to fight you, you fight until either the cops come and you go the confinement, or you fight until someone is headed to medical. That way you are separated and don't have to sweat the other dude killing you in your sleep.
I think it is important that the free world understands life in here. You think of Afghanistan and Pakistan as war zones and hostile environments. You have a battle zone in a location near you. That prison down the road from you had brutal fights, stabbings, rapes and murders. They will conceal it all on that side of their fence. You and the general public will never know about it. They will lie and cover it up as an accident.
Prison is it's own world behind these fences. I think it's good there are shows that depict what really goes on back here. We call it the concrete jungle and that just about sums it up.
