“SEARCHIN’ MY WEARIED MIND FOR DE DAWN OF LIFE”: CREATING A LITERARY AND CULTURAL IMAGINARY OF THE CARCERAL STATE

Abstract

The mass incarceration of African Americans in the United States is the product of generations of white hegemony and racial divide. The introduction of the 13th Amendment posed an obstacle for slaveowners, but legal loop holes maintained white economic status and racial order through the creation of a Carceral State. Carceral scholarship analyzes the systematic oppression of U.S. institutions with a top-down method, painting an incomplete picture. This project creates a literary imaginary of communities disproportionately affected by interactions with the Carceral State, giving their consciousness a human voice. The analysis of the violence and inhumanity through art will provide a comprehensive scrutiny of the United States prison system, while adding faces and stories to the scholarly research. By consuming this project, readers will comprehend the insidious ways the U.S. justice system has stifled the creativity and existence of people of color, how captives have separated consciousness from corporeal limitations to create beauty, and how generations of forced interaction with slavery and the Carceral State have shaped communities of color. This project seeks to add to Carceral scholarship from the ground floor to build a cultural history from the words and voices of the people it tends to forget.