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Tuesday, November 26, 2013

Herman Wallace, who gave his life to end solitary confinement, got no mercy

November 26, 2013
In: SF Bay View

by Mutope Duguma

The system, whether it is in the state of California or Louisiana, has demonstrated that those of us held in solitary confinement will receive no mercy. The recent actions surrounding our dear New Afrikan Brother Herman Wallace is a sharp reminder on how each and every one of us will be treated.

Here you have a New Afrikan man who gave up his life in order to challenge the systemic attacks by the powers that be that deliberately target the poor and oppressed people of this nation. For taking this position, Herman Wallace would find himself trapped inside the belly of the beast, Angola Prison slave complex, where he would continue to challenge the system from within, where the treatment of prisoners is blatantly horrendous.

Herman Wallace was no criminal. He was a just and righteous human being, one who hated injustice so much that he sacrificed himself in order to bring about change for the lot of us. Many need to realize that the commitments and the suffering for such commitments are very serious and selfless acts on the part of many like Herman Wallace, when they challenge the injustices against our very humanity, even at the cost of their/our very own lives.

The system has no mercy for no one. It’s totally committed to annihilating any and all resistance, whether violent or non-violent. Solitary confinement is but one of the many tools used to carry out that very annihilation of anyone who attempts to challenge its power, and the system uses all means that they deem necessary.

For 41 years, Herman Wallace was shown no mercy by a system that has never shown any mercy to anyone it considers its historical or present enemy. Herman Wallace was made to suffer at the hands of local, state and federal governments. No matter how bad his situation got, there was not one human being within this system, or government, who sought to provide Herman Wallace any mercy.

He would be made to suffer in isolation, solitary confinement. Today’s solitary confinement uses a more diabolical approach, yet this does not under any circumstances negate the isolation, sensory deprivation and physical and psychological torture of being placed in such an environment for an inhumanely long period of time, during which the torture is magnified.

Forty-one years is a crime against humanity, and since Herman Wallace was a prisoner of war and political prisoner (POW PP), this treatment of him was a war crime, because the system sought to torture Herman Wallace and all similarly situated prisoners throughout this nation toward their and our extermination.

To use the most powerful state and federal governments in the world to kill and neutralize prisoners of war and political prisoners is a direct violation of national and international laws. Herman Wallace would be murdered by way of a civil death by the United States government, yet not one of those laws would be adhered to in respect to Herman Wallace, nor to countless POWs and PPs throughout Amerika.

Why? Was not his life and the lives of similarly situated prisoners of any value to the state and federal governments, who have a responsibility to all their citizens of judging who falls within the human race? If prisoners are human, why not show mercy for all fellow human beings?

To have a man or woman linger inside solitary confinement for 41 years and no local, state or federal government official – politician – had the human capacity to show this human being any mercy: That is a government that is a threat to all mankind.

Our fight to end long term solitary confinement is one of major urgency, because allowing human beings to continue to exist under such a merciless system with such brutality is a direct reflection of the very nature of our humanity! The very practice of solitary confinement is barbaric.

Bless the revolutionary spirit of our New Afrikan Brother Herman Wallace to whom no mercy was shown.

Being normal is not OK

November 26, 2013
In: SF Bay View 


We prisoners are being told that as long as we are mentally healthy or not succumbing to CDCr’s debriefing policy, we will not be eligible for release from solitary confinement. Despite all the hype promising change, CDCr is still claiming that our placement inside solitary confinement is justified, despite the clear injustice of holding us here indefinitely, to no end, for nothing.

Because many of us have maintained our mental stability under such a barbaric system, we do not meet the criteria for release, but as soon as we begin to exemplify any signs of mental illness, we immediately qualify for release. Does this not suggest that our placement inside solitary confinement is for the sole purpose of driving us to become mentally ill patients?

CDCr simply waits for us to begin to suffer from the effects of mental illness like so many before us. They’re looking for us to put fecal matter all over our bodies, talk to ourselves, beat on the cell door, holler at the top of our lungs until we fall asleep from exhaustion, throw urine and fecal matter on staff and prisoners, commit suicide or attempt suicide, become anti-social etc., only to be taken out of our cell by force and placed in four corner restraints and heavily sedated and neutralized into a zombie state.

This has been the pattern for all of those we have seen driven into mental illness, due directly to their placement in solitary confinement. Why does CDCr even wait for any of us to succumb to mental illness when we are, for the most part, normal – unless being normal is not OK.

Many of us have kept our mental stability or capacity to some degree throughout all the years we’ve been in solitary confinement. Wouldn’t it be only right for the state – for CDCr – to prevent prisoners from eventually succumbing to such a fate, because we all know the longer you’re here, the greater your mental and physical deterioration.

Hasn’t CDCr created enough mentally ill prisoners through the use of solitary confinement? Hasn’t CDCr caused enough suicides through the use of solitary confinement? Hasn’t CDCr emasculated enough prisoners through its de-briefing policy? Why can’t we – normal, functioning human beings – remain as such?


END LONG TERM SOLITARY CONFINEMENT NOW!