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How Prison Turned My Childhood Friend Into a Neo-Nazi
We grew up listening to Tupac, smoking blunts and emulating Black people. Behind bars, our past was a dangerous secret.
As I entered the prison dining hall, the drone of more than one hundred men conversing shocked me. In little snippets, I could hear that they didn’t focus on home. Most talked about the dramas of life behind bars.
Since arriving at the Washington State Penitentiary, known as Walla Walla, this was my first contact with such a large portion of the general population. I noticed that most prisoners sat at long tables segregated by race: Black people in one area, White people in another, Mexican people in the middle. As I got into the long food line, I scanned the details of the hall, hoping to find where I belonged. (I have Native family and always had Native traditions in my life growing up.)
A person is lucky to
