Email from Madeleine Gibson
Very eloquent. After reading Jay’s piece on the “Symbol of the Walk to Haskell Prison Camp” and Mrs. Boone’s account of prison economics in Haskell County, and as a Taylor resident who realizes that Taylor is too far away to be a true “bedroom community” to Austin, and yet makes the trek to Austin every day with the hope that the neighborhoods and schools in Taylor will eventually somehow benefit from the Austin salary (and culture?), I am drawn immediately to ideological parallels with the Civil War.
Is it that the family farm is no longer an economically viable unit for the support of a vibrant county, and so those who would preserve the rural county’s way
of life are willing to turn a blind eye to the moral consequences associated with any possibility of creating local jobs offering salaries that might keep the local boys at home a while longer?
Williamson County is affected, although we will always deny it, by our proximity to Austin and Travis
County, which hold more liberal, urban values that remind us of (and embarrass us with) the right and humane ways of treating our fellow human
creatures. And, the county’s western half (full of Austin bedroom communities and beautiful views) is outright prosperous at the moment, so the eastern half can probably withstand the loss of CCA as a local
employer.
It will be most impressive if ICE and the Emerald Companies can be similarly moved and embarrassed in Haskell. If only the ICE would subsidize a large Best Western franchise at this rate!!!
Texas Civil Rights Review 