Juda Bennett, Instructor
Juda
Bennett is an assistant professor of English at the College of New
Jersey, where he teaches
Gay and Lesbian Studies and American Literature.
COMMENTARY
ON THE FILM
I have
only seen an early version of the documentary, and I loved it.
Professor Johnson has
approached this subject with great respect and care, and I think
that comes through when you
watch these women tell their stories. There are a thousand
reasons--institutional, political,
logistical--why this film might not have been made, might have
stopped at the first check point,
the first awkward moment. Many viewers will probably never
recognize the great
distances--metaphorical and literal--that separate the ivory
tower from the concrete jungle, but
Professor Johnson leapt across the expanse, listening closely and
with respect to prison
administrators, coordinators, guards, volunteer teachers,
and--with the greatest intensity--to
each individual prisoner. "Freedom Road" should be required
viewing in this great country, one
that has recently earned the nickname "Prison Nation" by having a
higher incarceration rate than
Russia and China, higher, in fact, than any other country.
COMMENTARY
ON TEACHING
I almost
wrote that I taught for two semesters at the Edna Mahan Correctional
Facility, but
I'm not sure that this is accurate. If the "teacher" learns more
from the experience than the
student, do the old terms, the conventional terms, still apply?
When you walk into a maximum
security prison, everything changes. Everything looks different,
even different from the images
on television and in the movies. Even the biggest screen can't
communicate what it is like to see
so much razor wire, so many rows of cinder block without
interruption. It has its effect, these
things that can't be filmed. And the sounds are different, and I
endlessly found myself wanting
to trace those sounds back to their meaning. But I was supposed
to "teach" a class. I've never
learned so much in my life. To gather around a table with these
women who refuse to be
forgotten, who refuse to be discarded, is more than powerful; it
is profound.
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