Word: quentin
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...both cases, much of the confusion resulted from the fact that, consciously or accidentally, the officials involved misinformed the public. In California, San Quentin was quarantined while prison officials emerged periodically to present a string of stories and updates about how the six deaths had occurred. Similarly, New York officials changed stories with the impunity with which a snake sheds its skin. Alleging at first that the hostages who did not come out alive had been killed by inmates, the New York officials finally announced that all 40 of the deaths that day at Attica had resulted from gunfire...
...long run what is probably more important than the erroneous information the officials fed the public is the fact that they failed to deal in any meaningful way with why the two incidents occurred. The authorities at San Quentin claimed that George Jackson had been killed in an aborted escape attempt. Yet at no time did they or their supporters attempt to explain why Jackson would try to escape. Their entire treatment of the incident took Jackson's motivation as a given--as not susceptible to change nor of any particular consequence...
...separated from the world of civilized men that have appeared in B-grade films and novels and armed these stereotypes with the most explosive rhetoric of insurrection and hate. In so doing, they have succeeded in turning public attention from the question of why these incidents occurred in San Quentin and Attica to how they occurred...
...revolving around things like coroners' reports and ballistics that are basically peripheral to the human experience. Imprisoned in the heat of the debate--which, at best, can end in an impotent draw--people on both sides have lost sight of the principle issues involved in what happened at San Quentin and Attica. Regardless of whether or not they have accepted the stories the officials in California and New York have given of how the prisoners in the two institutions acted, people involved in the debate have, either openly or by default, accepted the officials' versions of why the prisoners...
...precisely this question of motivation that is the central one in both cases. It is the pivotal issue, not only because it is the key to the specific truth of what happened at San Quentin and Attica, but also because it is the portal to reaching an understanding of what significance the two incidents hold for those of us surviving, both inside and outside prison walls. It is only through an analysis of the human element of motivation that one can accurately answer the most enduring questions raised by the tragedies at San Quentin and Attica...