by Lorenzo Flores
“Knowledge is power” is a well-known phrase. Knowledge will incarcerate, but knowledge will also surely liberate. Michel Foucault wrote his essay, “Panopticism,” seeing an antagonistic relationship between knowledge and power. Keeanga Taylor, author of From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation, argues the opposite, that knowledge has a useful relationship to power. So what is the difference?
Foucault says that the true power of the panopticon is to incarcerate all knowledge, as in the persons who carry a multitude and diversity in knowledge, skills, positions, pupils, scholars and, of course, criminals. The power is keeping everyone in that panopticon, which is a human honeycomb of madness. Foucault writes, “All is needed, then, is to place a supervisor in the central tower and to shut up in each cell a madman, a patient, a condemned man, a worker, or a schoolboy. By the effect of the backlighting, one can observe from the tower, standing out precisely against the light, the small captive shadows in the cells of the periphery … that this architectural apparatus should be a machine for creating and sustaining a power relationship independent of the person who exercises it; in short, that the inmates 
should be caught up in a power situation of which they are themselves the bearers.”
The knowledge Foucault speaks of is in fact a torturous “knowing” to the inmate, making the inmate to look upon the power wielder in the tower as his enemy. That knowledge and power are the enemy in this circumstance I personally know because I was that inmate locked away in the panopticon of the 180-design Level IV at High Desert State Prison. You can’t see nothing but the tower in front of you, even though you have neighbors and outside your back window all you see is snow. The power doesn’t know who you really are; all he knows is what they tell him in a file if he cares to look it up. All he knows is that you deserve to be there no matter what it is you are in there for. The knowledge of the purpose of the panopticon is abused. It’s torture instead of rehabilitation. It’s control to a standstill instead of building up the mind into a better way of thinking. It has made humanity into an ant farm. It reminds me of when I was a boy and I had a box with many different squares in it to put my action figures in, and separate them from each other. I would stand up the box and look at my toys and be in awe of my little collection. I had complete control of my action figures, which I put in my box (panopticon). Seems like being in control is part of our nature.
Taylor writes, “The essence of economic inequality is borne out in a simple fact: there are 400 billionaires in the United States and 45 million people living in poverty. These are not parallel facts; they are intersecting facts. There are 400 billionaires because there are 45 million people living in poverty.” Taylor inserts a statistic as a type of knowledge to inform, to wake up the reader, to help. She also writes, “It requires understanding the origins and nature of Black oppression and racism more generally. Most importantly it requires a strategy; some sense of how we get from the current situation to the future … Black liberation is bound up with the project of human liberation and social transformation.”
Taylor’s message is her knowledge and her hope is the power. Hope is a driver, a great motivator. This is her message and her gospel: If all races understood in the United States, rich, poor, or middle class that the economy was the root of mass incarceration (because of racism) and people would be willing to do something about it, then maybe there could be liberation from wrongful deaths and incarcerations. She is trying to educate with facts and heart and with a twist of anger, which of course is her concern.
The bottom line is that knowledge is power. Receiving knowledge that’s fearful gives more power to the oppressor in the tower of the panopticon. Knowledge and knowing what to do with it will keep one away from prison, from the torturous panopticon. That beauty is in the eye of the beholder; it can also be said that power is in the eye of the wielder. Knowledge has a useful relationship to power. My freedom is my power. The Bible says that “the truth will set you free,” and that is what is liberating me from the panopticon very soon. I have the knowledge now that I needed to change my way of thinking and gain my power back. My power is freedom. Spiritually I am free so my power is back and will be on full force when I am physically free soon. Knowledge is liberation and liberation is power!
Republished from “Perspectives from the Cell Block: An Anthology of Prisoner Writings” – edited by Joan Parkin in collaboration with incarcerated people from Mule Creek State Prison.
