Johanna Goodman
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Charles Jackson and Collins Bailey, two of only a handful of African-American prison guards working at the Clallam Bay Corrections Center about 40 miles west of Port Angeles, were lost. They'd been on the way to an outdoor barbecue when the sun went down, turning the winding country roads of the state's north peninsula into a shadowy maze. They drove around aimlessly until they came upon a familiar car parked in a drive- way. It belonged to a white co-worker at the prison, a man rumored to hold racist beliefs. At least one fellow guard claimed to have overheard him brag of membership in the Ku Klux Klan. But lost is lost, so the two headed up the walk to the front door. They knocked a couple of times. When the white guard answered and saw two black men standing on his stoop, he pulled out a gun and pointed it in their direction. "Didn't you read the sign?" he asked. "Niggers aren't allowed here." The man's wife, also a guard at the prison, joined her husband at the front door—they started to laugh, creating an eerie scene. "In a case like that, where we are stereotyped," explains Jackson, "we didn't want to act like they think we act. I wanted to knock him out. I said a couple of curse words and we proceeded on our way." As they headed for the car, Jackson says, one of the guards called out, "Remember, this area is for white people only and read the signs next time!"
If Jackson and Bailey were the kind to let signs stand in their way, they never would have applied for jobs at the Department of Corrections in the first place. They and other current and former black employees from across the state say the department is rife with racism and that they frequently receive, through word and gesture, a message similar to the one posted by the white guard: We don't want minorities here. The sentiment manifests itself in a number of ways, including a daily barrage of racist language—like referring to Martin Luther King Jr. Day as "Happy Nigger Day" at Clallam Bay.
Two groups of black guards, one from Clallam Bay and one from the Washington Corrections Center at Shelton, have recently filed lawsuits against the DOC, hoping to draw attention to the department's policies and force change. Last July, Jackson, Bailey, Doris Washington, Earnest Grimes, and Valinda Andrea—current and former officers at Clallam Bay—filed a $500,000 suit claiming that they'd been subjected to a racially hostile environment. The guards describe a frightening atmosphere where white officers refer to blacks as "coons" and worse; where minority inmates are targeted for beatings; where black officers receive threats; and where white guards feel comfortable enough to brag in front of other employees of membership in hate groups like the KKK.
And just last week, a second group of black officers, from Shelton, filed a similar suit making similar claims. Kevin Waller and Larry Harris, along with white officer Jeannette Hawkes, say that white supremacist beliefs are alive and well at the institution and that racist behavior has made it almost impossible to succeed in performing their jobs. At some points they even feared for their safety: When Hawkes reported hate-group activities to her superiors, her complaints were leaked, and she says she was threatened at home and retaliated against at work. When Waller reported similar behavior, including the dissemination of racist literature at the prison and active recruitment for the Neo Nazi Party, he says he was labeled a "snitch" and denied promotions. The situation at the prison became so contentious that the Washington State Patrol was called in to investigate. The 1998 findings, obtained exclusively by Seattle Weekly, reveal a workplace divided along racial lines. They also allege that at least two members of organized hate groups had worked at the institution for almost a decade.
Complaints of racism have come from points all over the state, including the Washington State Penitentiary at Walla Walla, the Washington State Reformatory at Monroe, and McNeil Island Corrections Center. Figures from the state's Division of Risk Management show that the DOC has paid $2,747,106 in employee civil rights claims since 1989, the third-worst record among state agencies. More than $500,000 of that total went out to state prison employees claiming race discrimination. "I think [the DOC] is one of the most poorly managed agencies in the state," says Eugene St. John, executive director of the Washington Public Employees Association, which represents 300 of the state's prison employees. "Their record on employee relations is abysmal. They are sued more by their employees than other agencies. Others would take those complaints and charges, all measures of their lack of success, as a need for change. This agency never looked at it that way."
Michael Schwartz and Lois Meltzer, both Seattle attorneys, represent the plaintiffs in the Clallam Bay and Shelton suits. "It seems to me that the system is simply rife with racism," says Schwartz. "It's pervasive." It's not a big shock to him that there are "bigoted individuals" working for the DOC. "It's just our society. What bothers me more than anything is the institutional support for those individuals. And I absolutely, firmly believe that this could not happen to the extent it does and for the length of time it does without institutional support."
