At the Lexington High Security Unit Radical Daughters, This Could Be You by Beth Connors-Manke Self-Determination

North of CeNter WeDnesDay, May 25, 2011 Free TaKe HoMe AND READ NOCLEXInGTON.CoM VoluMe III, Issue 10 At the Lexington High Security Unit Radical daughters, this could be you By Beth Connors-Manke self-determination. Paradoxically, this is true even when we sanction the strip- This is part two of Beth’s “Rebelly Bitch” ping of others’ freedom through bad series on incarceration. In March, she education, racism, enforced poverty, or reported on the imprisonment of nineteenth- incarceration. century political prisoner Anne Devlin in Ireland’s Kilmainham Gaol. Devlin’s cap- Magdalene Sisters tor-torturer, the prison official “Dr.” Trevor, around the same time, I had seen is reputed to have said: “Bad luck to you The Magdalene Sisters (2002), written Anne Devlin, bad luck to you, you rebelly and directed by Peter Mullan. The bitch; I hope you may be hanged.” Beth’s movie takes place in a convent also tour of the gaol reminded her of Lexington’s functioning as an asylum for “loose” own history of political imprisonment at women. ‘asylum’ turns out to be a the Lexington High Security Unit. euphemism for a prison run by nuns; each woman there had been locked up When I first started researching against her will. and writing on imprisonment, I was Beautifully shot, remarkably quiet, asked: “Why write on prison?” This and composed primarily of medium query came at a public forum—I was shots and close-ups, The Magdalene being measured up—so I had to give Sisters is a difficult movie to watch. intellectual, rather than personal, rea- Difficult because it tells the story of sons. now, I don’t remember exactly three young Irish women—one raped, what I said; it was probably something one beautiful, and one who gives birth The Federal Medical Center (formerly the Federal Correctional Institution) on Leestown Road. about theories of surveillance and the out of wedlock—who are stripped of ontological experience of confinement. their freedom because they are young But this confinement wasn’t sim- I wasn’t tempted to distance However, I do remember what I women and because men around them ply about zealous morality taken out myself, though. Having grown up in wanted to say: I write about imprison- have sinned sexually. Difficult because on the young; convents like the one an Irish-american Catholic family, the ment because it terrifies me. the claustrophobia and the frustration depicted in the film relied on the film hit close to home. These girls were Imprisonment terrifies me for the the young women feel is painfully women’s forced labor for financial via- like me in many ways. I could imagine most basic of reasons: how I under- present in every shot. Difficult because bility. In a time before the wonder of how, with a twist in circumstances, this stand myself and the world is premised women—the girls’ mothers, the nuns, personal washers and dryers, these asy- could have been my fate; I could have on freedom. This, of course, partially the women of the community—are lums also functioned as laundries. as been sent off, swallowed up by a sys- has to do with my personality (don’t complicit in the incarceration. the film suggests, the laundry/asylums tem larger than me, for reasons having tell me what to do, I won’t do it), but Difficult because it’s based on were driven by economics as much as, little to do with me. To put it another freedom is also the gold standard in true events that happened as recently if not more than, religious fervor for way: I imagined that if it happened to american culture. We’re bred on it. as the 1960s and 70s in Ireland. The the reformation of “wayward” girls. other women, it could happen to me. We may sometimes, stupidly, fool our- last laundry closed in 1996. While For some, it might be tempting to selves into thinking freedom is the the women’s movement was at a fever distance oneself from the violence and Fallen Women ability to choose between two types of pitch, especially in the united states, the horror of illegal confinement of While the u.s., like Ireland, has SUV or twelve styles of jeans; however, in the Magdalene asylums women were the Magdalene asylums by dismissing a history of incarcerating women for deep down, americans’ psyches are being imprisoned for their sexuality by it as having happened in another coun- fundamentally grounded in the idea of the Church and their families. try, in another time. continued on page 3 Valley View: A ferry history By Danny Mayer river or the other. as Jefferson, Fayette John Filson's 1784 map of atop the fertile high grounds rising and lincoln counties splintered into a “Kentucke,” published 8 years before above the Kentucky's southern banks, The Kentucky river's twisted number of smaller counties, nearly all the area achieved statehood, shows and on towards the Cumberland north-by-northwest course defined that abut the Kentucky use the river as four ferries in operation around river watershed and its growing pio- three of the original four counties that a boundary rather than allow its flow lexington. To the city's east, the ferry neer river-town, nashville. In 1784 comprised the commonwealth before inside its borders. at Fort Boonesborough (the area's lexington's main street, if traveled it separated from Virginia: Jefferson first, chartered in 1779) secured pas- westward, literally dead-ended at the county rolled away from the river's 1785: Crossing the Commonwealth's sage over the Kentucky to/from the Kentucky river hamlet of lee's Town, western banks, lincoln from its south- Great Wall of Water terminus of Boone Trace, gateway now better known as Frankfort, at ern banks, while Fayette sat nestled, to the Cumberland Gap and the which point a ferry floated citizens, sling-like, in the fertile, east-facing By 1785 when former revolutionary relatively settled nation east of the their products and animals across to scrotum-shaped terrain squeezed War veteran John Craig petitioned the appalachian mountains. To the city's the river's western banks, the roads on between it and the ohio rivers. state of Virginia to operate a ferry at south, Hogan's Ferry at Hickman this other side of lees Town trend- at first glance, the river's early Valley View nearby the mouth of Tates Creek (now state Highway 27) and ing north to Port royal or west to cartographic importance to the state is Creek, a handful were already in oper- Curd's Ferry at Dick's river (near Clarkville, both pulling, as if by rheo- easily explainable. surveyors love riv- ation along the Kentucky, shuttling High Bridge) allowed passage to/from taxis, toward the early republic's great ers, their beds making great, mostly people, livestock and goods from one the vibrant frontier settlements of definite boundaries to which all par- side of the river to the other. Danville and Harrodsburg, which sat continued on page 3 ties can abide. With early surveyors like Daniel Boone using creeks and rivers to deed up property borders, deter- mining the common boundary line for three counties must have seemed like a no-brainer. Choose the big body of water and its hundred million year old river bed that slice through the state's interior; head to nearest tavern to work off last night's bottle fever. But using the Kentucky as a common boundary also held a political logic. The river's steep banks, tower- ing palisades and deep pools were difficult to traverse. early Kentuckians could not expect easy passage across the Kentucky at the locations and times of their choosing. Cross-river traffic was spotty at best, and required much effort. The river could add miles and days of travel to distances that, as the crow flies, were minuscule. ensuring political representation in early republic Kentucky, then, meant confining counties to one side of the Ferries used to ring Lexington’s southern border. Contents In forthcoming issues 2 — Neighborhood 4 — Music 7 — Sports 7 — Opinion 8 — Comics More rebelly bitch Farmer’s Daughter Music “calendar” ROCK and roll You say you want a... Fierce Company Whippoorwill I 5 — Film & Media xxxxxxxxxxxx Report from Louisville General Dallas Census analysis More Discarded Summer Classics! Letters Local happenings More musical mayhem 2 North of CeNter MAY 25, 2011 The Neighborhood A farmer’s daughter By April York heritage, and not just because I knew country girl I am. Though I avoided it, humans can do if they try in coopera- where milk came from, and to realize I have stripped tobacco: Box #3, red. tion with the world and each other. It’s I am a farmer’s daughter. how much I was missing, it felt too late. I’ve kicked corn, moved palettes, and knowing dedication, hard work, inge- When I was a little girl, Granny Mac I have a memory, I don’t know when climbed the rafters of a barn. nuity, and a bit of stubbornness will and I would play dress-up, watch soap it’s from, of walking down the lane and But being a farmer’s daughter is lead you far. It’s knowing that all you operas, write spelling sentences, and eat feeling like I wanted to belong there, to more than owning a pair of cowboy really need are the people you love. It’s hoecakes while everybody else stripped feel a connection to the land. But I had boots, getting your first driving les- cherishing a family dinner around the tobacco, or did the cattle round-up.

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