The Coronavirus pandemic is changing the social fabric of the prison...
It's unlike anything I have ever witnessed in my forty years of incarceration, aside from the September 11th terror attack upon the United States back in 2001.
The pandemic is bringing us together as a community with the unified goal of keeping one another safe from the deadly virus, and defeating it. Men from differing backgrounds, races and religions, are learning to put aside our differences as we battle an enemy who threatens us all, and our families, as well.
We have a common goal now, to keep one another from getting sick. So we've been working together as a community, passing around the bleach, taking better care of our hygiene such as washing our hands more, sharing the hand sanitizer, and being diligent to wear our recently issued cloth face masks.
I am seeing men from different gangs, who'd normally stay apart and keep company with only their own group, now mixing together. Talking amongst each other, working side by side, and getting along peacefully. Barriers that kept proud men apart and at odds, are being dismantled.
Such barriers are not being taken down deliberately. Rather, they're coming down and eroding away naturally. The fear of our common enemy, who's a threat to all of us, has caused the men to come together so that the virus can be defeated.
We know that the quicker this pandemic comes to an end, the faster life will get back to normal. The visiting room will be reopened. The men will be able to see their loved ones again. Classes will resume, and the familiar routines of prison life will return.
For now, however, as a result of the current pandemic, everyone is learning to work together as a team. It is us against a deadly foe. While new friendships have begun to blossom, as well. Ironically, it has taken a virus to bond us together as a community. I pray that once this viral outbreak is over and gone, the friendships that were birthed as a result of it, will remain.
D.B.
The pandemic is bringing us together as a community with the unified goal of keeping one another safe from the deadly virus, and defeating it. Men from differing backgrounds, races and religions, are learning to put aside our differences as we battle an enemy who threatens us all, and our families, as well.
We have a common goal now, to keep one another from getting sick. So we've been working together as a community, passing around the bleach, taking better care of our hygiene such as washing our hands more, sharing the hand sanitizer, and being diligent to wear our recently issued cloth face masks.
I am seeing men from different gangs, who'd normally stay apart and keep company with only their own group, now mixing together. Talking amongst each other, working side by side, and getting along peacefully. Barriers that kept proud men apart and at odds, are being dismantled.
Such barriers are not being taken down deliberately. Rather, they're coming down and eroding away naturally. The fear of our common enemy, who's a threat to all of us, has caused the men to come together so that the virus can be defeated.
We know that the quicker this pandemic comes to an end, the faster life will get back to normal. The visiting room will be reopened. The men will be able to see their loved ones again. Classes will resume, and the familiar routines of prison life will return.
For now, however, as a result of the current pandemic, everyone is learning to work together as a team. It is us against a deadly foe. While new friendships have begun to blossom, as well. Ironically, it has taken a virus to bond us together as a community. I pray that once this viral outbreak is over and gone, the friendships that were birthed as a result of it, will remain.
D.B.
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