Speed Reading on Death Row

by Scott Henson of Grits For Breakfast

In the future inmates in Texas prisons can read about Jackie Robinson, even if the Texas Department of Criminal Justice wouldn't let Kenneth Foster.

I just got off the phone with TDCJ public information officer Jason Clark who assured me that the refusal of the book on sports history to death row inmate Kenneth Foster was an accident, that it should have been approved.

If the pen is mightier than the sword, then words must truly be dangerous things.

Which must explain why the Texas Department of Criminal Justice wouldn't let death row inmate Kenneth Foster read a book on sports history that quoted Jackie Robinson, author David Zirin writes in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram ("Are words dangerous?," Aug. 19). TDCJ informed Zirin that his book"contains material that a reasonable person would construe as written solely for the purpose of communicating information designed to achieve the breakdown of prisons through offender disruption such as strikes or riots." Here's the offending passage from Robinson:

On Page 44, the radioactive quote in question was from that seditious revolutionary Jackie Robinson -- you know, the guy whose number is retired by all of Major League Baseball. I quoted Robinson's autobiography, I Never Had It Made, when he wrote about suffering racism early in his rookie season:

"I felt tortured and I tried to just play ball and ignore the insults. But it was really getting to me. ... For one wild and rage-crazed moment I thought, 'To hell with Mr. Rickey's "noble experiment." ... To hell with the image of the patient black freak I was supposed to create.' I could throw down my bat, stride over to that Phillies dugout, grab one of those white sons of [expletive] and smash his teeth in with my despised black fist. Then I could walk away from it all."

The other verboten passage made an historical reference to race riots in the US after Jack Johnson became the first black man to win the heavyweight boxing title.

I wonder what other titles have been denied by TDCJ on such flimsy grounds? These "Publication review/denial notification" forms sound like a good topic for an open records request, don't they? If Jackie Robinson and Jack Johnson don't make the cut, it makes me wonder what other history or ideas TDCJ thinks it's too dangerous for inmates to learn about.

As mentioned previously, there's a rally in Austin at the capitol tomorrow opposing Foster's execution, which is scheduled to take place at the end of this month.

Clark said the book was flagged in the mailroom because of racial content (historical passages about baseball great Jackie Robinson and boxer Jack Johnson), but that supervisors should have approved it under current policies. They didn't (no one knows why), so a denial letter went out citing the passages flagged by the mailroom.

He added that after the book's author wrote about the episode in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, a notification/correction was sent to both the publisher and the inmate to let them know it was okay if the author wanted to re-send the book.

That's cutting it pretty close, isn't it? Kenneth Foster is scheduled to be executed nine days from now on August 30, so if they're going to get him that book they'd better hurry. :-/

Clark and I talked through what information TDCJ keeps on rejected books, and I think I'll go ahead and file an open records request for the data tomorrow. After this episode, I want to see for myself the complete list of books TDCJ is rejecting and their policies.