Education
Thursday, November 19, 2015
Cleveland students bridge the income, opportunity gaps with Lorain inmates
A Case Western Reserve University course brings together inmates and undergrads to discuss race and class
by WKSU's KABIR BHATIA |
Reporter
Kabir Bhatia | | |
 | | Nate (left) and Anthony are among about a dozen inmates at Lorain Correctional who signed up for the course with CWRU students. | | Courtesy of KABIR BHATIA |
A dozen undergrads from Case Western Reserve University have been studying side-by-side with inmates from the Lorain Correctional Institution. And their conversations have covered everything from race and class to friends and family. WKSU’s Kabir Bhatia reports. |
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This semester, Case Western offered the course “The Impact of Race, Class and Education: A Dialogue on Current Issues.” The course aims to show some of the commonality across the income and opportunity gaps between the prison inmates and the students. Last week -- after teleconferencing for the last several months -- the undergrads finally headed to Lorain.
 After clearing security, everyone was ushered into a large meeting room: no cell doors, no bars on the windows and no chains around ankles. If half the participants hadn’t been in blue shirts, it could have been a church basement. A few guards stayed mostly in the background, concentrating more on the students and visitors than the inmates.
“Get your chairs in groups of three, just like this," said Ben Sperry, instructor for the course.
To start things off, he had everyone get into trios for some general discussion to break the ice, with the prompt: “a possession you had as a child that you thought was very special.”
Inside versus outside
Anthony: “We had this little record player, but it had a little video screen on it. My mother had bought it for me and it had seven movies: ‘Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.’ That was the best thing I had as a kid.”
“My parents gave me, like, a viewfinder. And it had those rolls of pictures, but they were customized. So they were of us.”
That’s Yu-Na Jung, one of the “outside students” -- which is what the undergrads are called – speaking with an “inside student,” Anthony, who’s being released next year after serving time for burglary.
After about 10 minutes of team-building, everyone was divided into groups to discuss topics of race, often related to one of the course textbooks, “Slavery By Another Name,” an examination of race relations between the Civil War and World War II.
“I’ve learned a lot about the system and racism. Just like it says in the book, a lot of people didn’t even know their 4th Amendment.”
Not all about race
When the discussion pivoted to sexism, the prisoners – all of them men, most of them African-American -- had the chance to listen to the women in the class like Reji Rouf, an Indian-American student from New York City.
“I’ve been catcalled and been uncomfortable but that’s nothing to do with race. That’s like, ‘they’re dudes, I’m a girl, I’m going to cross-over [the street].’”
That struck a chord with Nate, also in for burglary, who says he doesn’t consider it racial when women cross the street to avoid men.
“I see it all the time, it happens all the time. So I really don’t take that too [seriously]. Because I know that I’m not going to do you no harm. It’s inside of you; it’s not inside of me. So I don’t really get mad at that.”
How does racism begin?
The discussion went from sexism to current events to race before the end of class, when everyone gathered in a circle. Shannon Stork – who is white, like most of the undergrads – said her group determined attitudes about race are formed early on, in the home.
“So many people are being raised in households that are either indifferent, or they’re being taught that some races are better than others. Some members of our group had experiences that were overwhelmingly positive. And they claimed not to feel as much of the effect of racism growing up. They had friends of different races, and they were able to hang out and feel equal.”
With that, the class – for the day, and for the semester -- ended.
Inmates as students
As the “inside students” prepared to head back inside Lorain Correctional, Ronnie – a serious-looking, tattooed inmate with thin, gray hair -- reflected on why he signed up for the class.
“I signed up for this because it’s something I’ve always wanted to do. I’ve got 43 years of incarceration. I’ve actually wrote a program since I’ve been here, it’s called Code Blue. And what I’m trying to do is target the first-time offenders. First part of it is I’m trying to prepare them for their parent institution. And the second part of it is, I’m a poster-child for why you don’t want to do this.”
After that, Ronnie got quiet. He turned away and simply headed to the exercise room, clearly emotional. He’s 57 and isn’t slated for release for at least a decade. But Anthony, who’s getting out next year, plans to head to Columbus – and never again be behind prison walls. He says the Lorain Correctional/Case Western partnership should continue.
“It’s a positive experience. They should take this and run with it and share it because I learned. If you can get to me, somebody else will learn, definitely.”
| As part of the program at Lorain Correctional, prison officials only allowed three of the inmates in this program -- Ronnie, Nate and Anthony -- to be identified, and only by first name. |
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