Staying Awake: “OITNB” and Poussey’s Body
Warning: This content discusses police violence, animal cruelty, and it contains spoilers for the fourth season of “Orange Is the New Black.”
Literally and perhaps figuratively, while many may be slumbering, I’m awake. I can’t will my eyes to remain shut. The natural sleeping cycle melatonin normally affords me has faltered, and I can’t relax enough to allow my mind to welcome a dream.
However, I am privy to dream-like images… distressing ones; for instance: the wild struggle on Poussey Washington’s (“OITNB”) face as she asphyxiates and dies. I see her confused eyes as they register that her final moments of life will be observed there on the floor of the cafeteria of Litchfield Penitentiary, trapped under the knee and weight of an untrained white correctional officer. This is fiction, yet it is not.
“OITNB,” boasting a diverse ensemble cast, offers a glimpse beyond the prison gates. It’s a bittersweet indulgent comedy-drama showcasing dislocated women as they adjust to the unique world order of federal prison. At its center is a self-indulgent, well-educated white woman, Piper Chapman, and the series explores, among other things, her emergence into prison and her tumultuous relationship with her fellow inmate and lover.
When the series strays away from Chapman, viewers are granted snapshots of inmates of numerous walks who are given humanity and texture. We’re also eased into the ‘Game of Thrones’-like culture and politics of the prison’s administration. Though it gingerly glazes over the sexual violence and other atrocities that frequently transpire in prison, it manages to capture bonds.
Upon dying, Poussey’s best friend, ‘Taystee’ finds her within crowd, but arrives too late. Taystee stoops down and lies beside her whilst weeping that rattling cry reserved for the loss of someone unjustly ripped from you. Before Poussey is cold, the prison’s administration attempts to frame her as the aggressor, to make her appear more deserving of that death. Insult is added to injury when the warden deems the offending officer faultless. Moments later, we observe the reactions and outrage of the inmates, but we aren’t given a resolution. The season concludes. This is fiction. Yet, it is not.
When I was a teen, a large stray dog roamed our neighborhood. He bounded through the neighborhood chasing tires and sometimes children. One day, the police arrived and shot this dog, killing it. The officers sprayed bullets that hit not just the dog, but also neighborhood cars. They left. Two days later, the dead body was still in in the middle of the street. The body seemingly baked in the unseasonably warm sun, fully visible to everyone until someone covered the body with a sheet. Animal Control didn’t arrive until early on the third day despite numerous calls. This dog was not my first encounter with death, but it was it the first that I understood that negligence and thoughtlessness could be applied to a life and to a death.
Years later, I would read about 18-year-old Michael Brown being shot by a white police officer and I would become sick with anger. I, like everyone in the black community, became incensed by the injustice and enraged by the disregard for his body, which was left on the street for hours before the medical examiner permitted him to be taken away. I thought about that dog from my youth and how they’d treated Brown with that level of respect. Poussey’s body cooled against the cafeteria floor for more than a day, as it was dissociatively referred to as ‘it’ and ‘the body’, and I again thought of that dog.
“OITNB” attempted, in its fourth season, to reach deeper by killing off a beloved character, either for the purpose of shining a light on the fact that ‘Black Lives Matter’ is a hot topic or merely employing Black death as a device because it’s en vogue. Samira Wiley believes the former, telling Vulture, “Some people who love ‘Orange Is the New Black’ don’t know what ‘Black Lives Matter’ is. They don’t have a black friend and they don’t have a gay friend, but they know Poussey from TV and they feel just like you said — you feel like you knew her.”
The producers sought to snatch a page from our contemporary history books, and it managed to provide numerous insights that previous seasons didn’t wholly acknowledge: 1. White privilege is consequently lethal to people of color. 2. No matter how carefree and intelligent a person of color is, she’s sometimes merely seen as a feral animal. 3. Even peaceable law officials are complicit when it comes to the wrongful deaths of inmates, particularly people of color.
In real life, people of color, queer people, and people with mental disorders are shot down and choked out before our very eyes; and offending police officers are rewarded with their paychecks and our heartache. In mapping police violence in the U.S., we gain a clear picture of how communities have been weakened by the rapid fire of the police.
Back in the walls of Litchfield Prison, the death of the lovable black lesbian shook the entire populace. Her identities as a black woman and a lesbian being so important because of the functionality and currency of cultural identity and labels in prison. In addition to that, as an LGBTQ character of color, she was more likely to die than a heterosexual, white character.
According to Vox, approximately 10 percent of the character deaths occurring in the 2015–2016 season were women who identified as LGBTQ and the number of deaths of people of color easily surpassed that percentage. But these fictional deaths pale in comparison to the real thing, parroting real violence where police injure women and girls of color, like 18-year-old Genele Laird. They drive drunk and kill with impunity, such was the case with Erick Lagunas and Miguel Flores; and the police actively discriminate against the U.S. LGBT community.
I’ve always thought the work of comedic fiction was to offer relief in the face of certain realities, to gratify. I’ve allowed naivitė to ensure me that a prison drama perusing commentary on race, privilege, and the prison-industrial complex could do that. Nonetheless, I thirsted for Poussey to receive her justice and to have her body treated with respect.
Poussey’s death brought forth discomfort, but more than, it forced me to mentally replay reels of news footage featuring Sandra Bland, Freddie Gray, Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner, and Michael Brown. It forced me to dwell on thoughts on respectability, blackness, likeability, and the dangers of supremacy. The unexpected messaging caught viewers by surprise, perhaps hailing a new attentiveness to Black lives and Black loss, but perhaps not. Whether agenda the skewed toward the education, watch Poussey die was yet another publicly broadcast dismantlement of Black person while attempting to make inexperienced cops appear guiltless and sympathetic; as if to say, ‘this mistake, too, could happen to you.’ However, as Black citizens, we are more likely to find ourselves in Poussey’s position.
Originally published at nicoleakoukou.com on June 26, 2016.
