In prison, I have learned well that optics, not facts, drive the gossip that incarcerated men whisper. And those whispers determine one’s perpetual caste in this kingless kingdom where only reputations rule.
In February of 2020, I presented a TEDx talk called “Love Doesn’t Like Everything It Sees” at Sing Sing Correctional Facility. In it, I expressed how I came to terms with one of my younger sisters, Myosha, coming out to me as gay. She referred to her “girlfriend” in a romantic way during a conversation we had in Sing Sing Correctional Facility’s visitation area.
When she said this, a mix of emotions welled up in me, which she interpreted as rejection. Our relationship was torn apart for years afterward. Myosha and I reconciled. Assumptions, rumors and misunderstandings between the people I am imprisoned with have proven to be more difficult to make right.
Prior to incarceration, as an adolescent, I found myself in a household with other young men — like a boarding house, but not. Sexual abuse occurred there at the hands of our caregiver and other men.
It did not seem peculiar from the inside. We were a family. Within that family, there were a few openly and closeted gay and bisexual boys. We were all bound by our collective trauma, secrets and fragility. We were a unit. I loved them. We loved one another.
I carried this indifference to sexual orientation into the prison setting, against one of the proscriptions of prison culture: Stay away from the chumps — a derogatory term used to identify homosexuals. Failure to follow this rule may result in a range of consequences, including shunning, physical assault and even death.
In violation of the rule, I became friends with someone from the LGBTQ+ community, whom I will refer to as Ray. (We have not been in contact for over a decade, and I want to protect Ray’s privacy and safety.) Ray and I were porters. We swept and joked, mopped and laughed.
I reasoned that I should treat this person elsewhere in the prison the same way I did at work. I believed people would see it for what it was. After all, I was transparent. So, we spoke in the recreation area as well as at work, even though the social conventions of prison would normally keep me from doing so.
One friend in particular, Kenneth Minor, tried to explain that being friends with Ray outside of work was a bad idea. “Yo, I’m telling you,” Kenneth said, “that don’t look good.”
“We’re in the yard, what do you mean?” I replied, trying to understand how a relationship that seemed straightforward to me could be so twisted by whispers. I was oblivious. Prison is a fishbowl. Everyone is watching. Everyone is assessing. Everyone is whispering. I would soon learn that visibility was the problem.
Things got worse when Ray purposefully tarnished my reputation. Ray had fallen in love with a member of a gang. Attempting to protect the lover from gang justice, Ray confirmed the rumors that were circulating about me to the gang. After all, I had conveniently supplied the proof, the appearance.
I confronted Ray at work when I caught wind of it. Ray admitted to starting the rumor and begged me to confirm the lie, to sustain its power of protection. Out of body, I felt compassion and rage simultaneously.
I contemplated doing Ray and the lover harm. I sought out Kenneth. Again, he decoded the language of prison optics for me, and advised that violence by my hands would exacerbate the rumor. “It would look like a lovers’ quarrel,” he said. Once more, image mattered. “Just walk away,” he said. I did. I changed my work schedule. Ray and the lover had to work and walk together.
Ray and the lover knew that me removing myself as the beard that protected their lying lips would result in peril to them both. By protecting myself, I exposed them. As a consequence, they suffered violence. I suffered shunning for a very short while.
More recently, I have watched as some sex offenders and informants have moved into circles once denied to them, without social recourse. Meanwhile, gay men continue to be ostracized. Here, sexual orientation factors into one’s ability to engage with others. Flamboyant or effeminate gay men are frozen out of all social bubbles. Masculine-presenting gay men may still be allowed in some social bubbles. Meanwhile, a sexual assault conviction hidden behind masculinity may be overlooked. These rules that determine the social hierarchy are all based on presentation and perception. On optics.
In that TEDx talk years ago, I stated, “Mere association with a gay man, a trans woman, gender-non-conforming, or queer folk can ruin a man’s reputation for the duration of his sentence.” For a long while, I defied those odds. Then my friendship with Ray resurfaced. Someone had seen us laughing, speaking, walking — in the fishbowl. Whatever they saw, it prompted them to inform others. Before it got to me, it got to my friends.
I was confronted again. I did not have eyewitness support this time. My word contended with their imaginations. I appeared calm, but I was enraged. I called Kenneth.
“It came up again,” I said.
“What?” Kenneth asked.
“Ray, it’s back.”
“Man, fuck that,” he said. “You can’t get in front of that.”
In that call, he declared that the rumor would pop up periodically, like a whack-a-mole. He encouraged me to live with it. I acknowledged that violence could not extinguish the problem. I would have to stand in the fire this time.
One person, whom I cared for dearly, sat me down. “I’ve gotta separate myself from you,” he said. “You should have told me.” In retrospect, I should have.
What’s more, I was removed from the waiting list for one program. I was removed from a volunteer position in another. Some individuals socially shunned me altogether.
Somehow, I found peace in it. I shed the skin of armor I had forgotten I had put on. I put it on to shield my true identity. I’m a person who does not care about anyone’s sexual orientation, even in prison. I could live with that.
I support the human rights and equality of all people. However, in prison, I do so from a chasm because the social costs that I once paid were just too steep. Maybe I should say that they remain too steep to navigate.
I treated someone like a human being. I do not regret it. They wronged me to survive. Maybe things would have been different if the culture were different. We are frayed. We are in disarray. We are constantly hurting ourselves. We are watching. We are assessing. We are whispering. We are looking to justify schisms between ourselves.
I committed the crime for which I am sentenced. Even so, the state’s narrative of events is different than mine. They used eyewitnesses. The witnesses were at a distance. Some made determinations, after the fact, based on what they supposed to be true based on the evidence before them. I was there. I know what really happened. That does not matter. Here, in prison, there are outcasts. Locked away. Alone. Prey. Fodder. I know that the maltreatment embedded in prison culture does not serve them, nor our society. Still, acquiescent, I am complicit. I am an ally in the distance, out of sight.
Joseph Wilson is a father, self-taught composer, librettist, singer, songwriter, pianist, art curator, co-founder of the Sing Sing Family Collective and contributing writer for The Marshall Project. He is currently incarcerated at Green Haven Correctional Facility in Stormville, New York.