‘If you are going to treat someone like a human’: White supremacy and performance programmes in Northern California’s correctional facilities

ABSTRACT

This study draws on the experiences of eleven individuals working for six organisations in Northern California to identify ways White supremacist ideals operate in performance-related programmes in correctional facilities. The inquiry examines the experience of teaching artist/facilitators (TAFs) of colour; White TAF’s (in)ability to reflect on the impact of their racial identity in the classroom/workshop; and the racism inherent in institutional prohibitions against ‘familiarity’ between workshop facilitators and participants. The essay concludes with recommendations for how artists and arts organisations can better engage in anti-racist practices with an eye towards eradicating racism at the personal, organisational, and institutional levels.

KEYWORDS:

• White supremacy
• prison theatre
• teaching artists
• incarceration

Acknowledgements

My heartfelt thanks to the dedicated artists who shared their perspectives and experiences as part of this research. I am also grateful to Mariana Moscoso, Program Manager of California’s Transformative Arts, for their helpful comments. Although she did not participate in this project, Amie Dowling has deeply influenced my thinking on both White supremacy and performance in correctional facilities.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 For example, Wagner and Kopf (2015) found that the longtime practice of transferring Black and Latinx individuals to facilities far from their communities of origin has resulted in disparities between the racial and ethnic composition of correctional staff and the incarcerated.

2 At the end of 2019, all programming in California’s correctional facilities is on hold due the COVID-19 pandemic. Some programmes have adopted modified practices, including videotaping lessons and guided workshops that participants can follow in their cells.

3 Because my findings refer specifically to a US history and context, I use BIPOC rather than a term with more international application such as ‘people of the global majority’.

4 White fragility is of course a misnomer, as it refers to a performance that conceals an extraordinarily robust system of repression and domination (Cottom 2019, 242).

5 According to a federal training from the National Institute of Corrections, a division of the US Department of Justice, undue familiarity is illegal in all fifty states (LeMaster et al. 2019).

6 The Oxford English Dictionary, 3rd Edition, December 2013.

7 I am grateful to Carmen Morgan of artEquity for this formulation.

8 I give credit to Margaret Laurena Kemp for this helpful phrasing.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Oona Hatton

Oona Hatton is Assistant Professor of Communication Studies at San José State University. Her research, teaching, and creative practice focus on performance ethnography, performance as research, devised theatre, and the representation of race, as well as performance and incarceration.