Will Annoy Those North of the US Border

If you, my great readers, have not figured it out yet, I work in a prison. Prisoners have their own jargon just like sportsmen, soldiers, and specialist in their own fields. Every thing from, being "hit" meaning you were volunteered, as in "I was hit for over time" or "He was hit to take the fall", to names for crimes, I.E. Snapper, Ripper, or Skinner equals child molester. Sometimes these jargon words change from state to state Snapper being popular in VT while Skinner is popular in NH. Sometimes the Jargon is brought in from other fields like sports, take a guess what "tight-end" means here. Sometimes prison speak creates more prison speak. Informants are 'rats', rats eat cheese, therefore a 'Cheese Eater' is an informant, by the way a 'Cheese Eater' in Military Speak is a 'Brown Noser' or 'Ass Kisser' in common speak. Ok, I think you got it.

Here is the part that will really annoy Canadians. If you were to study prison jargon, you could easily identify what state, level of security, and/or federal versus state custody the inmate was use to. In the state I work for, but not live in, we have had a push to eliminate racism. Certain words, phrases, and or symbols will get our inmates punished. The inmates have likewise developed ways to be racist without being open about it. In my prison where the white inmates out number the black inmates 10 to 1 the new 'N' Word is Canadian. In a sick and pointless way, it is very clever. We do border Canada, and we do have a few Canadian Inmates, and we do have an abundance of people with Canadian Ancestry, so the inmates already have three excuses ready. Then there is the issue, that for us to prove it is a racist term, we must think racially. I mean how many people can honestly say that if I called them and said I was from Africa they would picture me as white, or I called and said I was calling from Canada would picture me as Black. Even though the country of South Africa has a very large white population and Canada has many African Canadians.

Now you may be asking, what is he rambling about? I am rambling because I just completed a Hostage Negotiation Class. I learned some really neat stuff, and found it, like a lot of stuff, nothing like the movies portray. I won't go into all that went on, except to say most of it was designed to test our ability to think quickly and apply certain skills. We also learned that use of these skills built repore with the Hostage Taker(HT). In my case, the HT would be an inmate, and one technique is to use terms they were use to when applying the skills.

I became famous in the school during one cession. I was awoken at 4am for a 4 Minute Drill. These drills are designed to test our skills, and since we are on call 24/7, the instructors tested us at will. We were woken up and tested, we would be coming out of a bathroom or watching TV and someone would call us to do a drill. On that night we had been drilled at 1am, and like some of the others in the class, I noticed that only 3 of the 6 instructors were present, so I went back upstairs and went back to sleep expecting another drill. I learned in Iraq how to sleep when you had the chance, but I have been home awhile, and I am not in practice of waking up immediately alert anymore. So I am awoken and proceed to the drill. The scenario is of one of our most famous inmates taking over a unit. This inmate is African American, but the instructor portraying him in white. So the instructor is there yelling at me, and throwing things at me, and the fog of sleep has not cleared. I manage to hit a few of the skills, but missed a opening, upon which the instructor turns their back on me and says "You’re not listening because I am black". Immediately I know I missed something and that he is accusing me of being a racist. In my mind I try to regroup and reconnect, I am thinking about the last statement and proclaim "your blackness has nothing to do with it". A millisecond later I realize my error, and 2 milliseconds later realize the room is silent. I look over the barricade and see one instructor holding a clipboard to their face so I won't see them laughing, another has their head down on their table attempting the same thing, and there in the middle is the actor instructor staring at me with a stunned expression. His next words completely destroy my logic, "So what? Are you going to call me a Canadian now?". To which I reply, "Are you Canadian?". At this point the Actor Instructor goes off and I am not allowed another ‘in’ the rest of the drill. Later, during the feedback cession, after I had been thoroughly humiliated, I was informed about the meaning of Canadian. I honestly did know at that time as I rarely work in Gen Pop on shifts where Inmates are awake. I totally destroyed my chance at building repore with the HT, and failed to get it back by not catching the soft ball jargon and explaining my other slip up.