By Carla J. Simmons / Prism
Ten years ago, a friend of mine made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. When she returned, she came to visit me in prison where I am serving a life sentence in Georgia. I was horrified to hear from her stories that Israel was denying Palestinians access to fresh water, arbitrarily arresting and detaining Palestinians, and separating them from their homeland by a towering wall. She shared images of graffiti that covered the wall: markings that started as a protest but, at the time of her visit, had become a tourist attraction. It was jarring to see a spray-painted “John loves Emily” on such a structure; it seemed to me then that a humanitarian crisis had been normalized into a way of life.
As an incarcerated person, I felt connected to the people of Gaza. At the time, my access to nutrition was grave, my oppression was maintained through counterinsurgency tactics such as arbitrary disciplinary action, withheld resources, unpredictable routines, and forced separation from family networks and skilled occupants. Additionally, the cruelty of my experience has been embedded into American culture as a just desert, where most Americans believe that all people are guilty and owe a debt to society.
Now, as women’s services have become increasingly unstable due to understaffing, corruption, and deprivation, I remain in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza, who suffer large-scale state violence in the world’s largest open-air prison. The violence against oppressed people in both Gaza and U.S. prisons is a direct result of imperialist fundamentalism and the brutal policing that must be used to maintain power and corruption. The U.S. prison system has become a humanitarian crisis that is suppressed in the media, fueled by retribution, and perpetuated by capitalist interests at the expense of justice. Living in that system connects me to the people of Gaza, who continue to fight for their safety, homeland, and freedom under these same conditions.
The Israeli occupation of Palestine and the forced displacement by Israeli settlers of its people have resulted in a struggle for land and political freedom since the world wars. In America, the support of the Israeli occupation has gone on for so long the media has heroized the effort to suppress Palestinians. Whoever controls a narrative maintains power. When it comes to the siege on Gaza, many Westerners have routinely ignored the long history of Palestinian displacement, stolen resources, and fight for political independence. Therefore, their efforts to reclaim their humanity are often vilified, considered criminal, and met with vengeance. On the major cable networks, U.S. media has suppressed the context of the Palestinian story to justify the continuation of their oppression and the violence that is now resulting in widespread death and famine. As America continues to protect its self-interested investments in the Middle East, American media continues to focus on terrorism and Arab resistance to justify its support of a genocide.
As an incarcerated person, I know firsthand how the public narrative is used as a tool to maintain power and destroy lives. Every day, crime reporting that fuels racist narratives around Black and brown men erases the context of their lives. Stories of systemic racism, poverty, psychological concerns, and substance use are wholly removed from mainstream media and, in some states, becoming illegal to discuss. The overrepresentation of crime in American media, beginning with the war on drugs, justifies the expansion of the U.S. prison population, despite the actual crime data that does not support the need to incarcerate. By continuing to legitimize the carceral system, America is able to shape an enemy at home, the criminal, who can be exploited and confined in an industrial complex, sustaining capitalism and white power.
In prison, and other settings where access to information is limited, Palestinian and Israeli settler-colonialism is overly simplified and focused on the events of Oct. 7, 2023. If my friend had not seen the injustices taking place firsthand and came to prison to share her experience with me so long ago, I would have a very narrow view of Palestine and Israel. My perception would be based on movies, daytime TV, and news reports favoring colonialism and the American hunger for retribution. Similarly, the complicated nature of crime and punishment in America is simplified into stark divides of guilt and innocence, which are also reinforced by major media outlets and solidified into American culture. The cultural violence enacted on the people of Gaza and the people in the U.S. prison system is at the heart of the military action taken to further the reach of imperialism and justify keeping human beings in cages.
In Gaza and the U.S. prison system, the continued oppression and abuse of vulnerable people by military forces serve purposes beyond the existing wars on terrorism and crime. With the momentum of retribution, the policing of these overcrowded, malnourished, and traumatized populations puts the capitalist agenda at the forefront of world power. By sustaining the carceral state here in America, the state is able to fortify the wealth gap, the longstanding electoral power of the white and the wealthy, and to secure the occupation of land and resources for the privilege to own and pass down, ensuring generational poverty of the marginalized and the confined.
The Israeli and U.S. military share tactical training strategies, weapon distribution, and operative intel so that both forces can maintain their colonization and, ultimately, their capitalist agenda to own, conquer, and expand their possession of land, money, and power. In Gaza, the Israeli military controls the borders, and, therefore, the access Palestinians have to food, water, medical supplies, foreign aid, and their connections to the West Bank. This control has deprived and provoked the people of Gaza, making an equitable peace agreement impossible due to coercive power and the assistance of the U.S. government, which depends on the alliance with Israel to police the Middle East.
While the news media has brought the war on Palestine into popular consciousness since Oct. 7, the carceral state of Gaza and the deep history of Israeli occupation and apartheid have long suppressed Palestinians from before the 1948 Nakba to today. Similarly, mass incarceration in America occasionally arises in a news cycle or political agenda during election season, or if violence breaks out against correctional staff in an institution. In reality, the prison system has been rooted in capitalist culture since the ratification of the 13th Amendment. Both Gaza and U.S. prisons are isolated, punished, and policed through counterinsurgency tactics. Both the Israeli and U.S. governments perpetuate the oppression of marginalized people with the shared agenda to secure and expand their capital, military, and political power.
As an individual who has been swallowed by the American carceral system, denied access to basic human needs, and remains lost in the vicious cycle of retribution under the guise of justice, I see the Palestinian longing for independence and freedom, the strength of their resistance, and their refusal to continue being trapped in the corner of their own homeland without opportunity or hope. The conditions in Gaza and the U.S. prison system are humanitarian crises. The current siege of Gaza is an act of genocide. In both cases, the militarized state of fundamentalism dominates the law and oppresses marginalized peoples. This continues despite the familiar dangers of the past and the obvious harm that has become a normal way of life.
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Carla J. Simmons
Carla J. Simmons has been incarcerated in the state of Georgia since 2004. She has an associate degree in Positive Human Development and Social Change from Life University and is a member of the Justice Arts Coalition and Empowerment Avenue. She has contributed to the Scalawag Magazine as an author and artist, Rattling the Bars on the Real News Network, Truthout, Lux magazine, and the 2024 edition of the Other Almanac. She takes seriously the work of social justice and is passionate about exploring trauma in the carceral system through her works to raise awareness as well as process her own horrific experience. A survivor of state and domestic violence, she is now a member of a very small and supportive family, and a believer in the significance of the here and now, as well as hope for a better future for us all. She is currently writing a memoir.
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