The Reformatory

by Tananarive Due

Florida’s soil is soaked with so much blood, it’s a wonder the droplets don’t seep between your toes with every step,

no one person can explain away the reported events at the Dozier School, or the Alabama Industrial School for Negro Children, or the Indigenous “schools” in Canada where so many children were buried. No one person can be blamed for our nation’s current nightmare of mass incarceration. The Reformatory has a central villain, but the actual villain is a system of dehumanization.