Tuesday, March 19, 2024
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Tag: Pelican Bay State Prison

Liberate the Caged Voices

In the wake of deep pain inflicted, this collection of excerpts from prisoners gives testimony to compassion, love, support, integrity, intelligence, faith, heart, depth and humanity from those too often dehumanized.

Liberate the Caged Voices: The rose began to grow from concrete

In this second part of Nube’s interview with Minister King X we learn how he found his own way through his unfolding Artivism to using art to bring the message in the struggle for true freedom.

Beacons of hope: Humboldt State’s Project Rebound builds a prison-to-college pipeline

Project Rebound at HSU breathes life support into possibilities for life successes to people returning from incarceration and at-risk youth.

Liberate the Caged Voices

Editor Nube Brown’s interview illuminates shared humanity and how Artivists formerly incarcerated Minister King X and 26-years currently incarcerated Keelo G work together to win release for CA elder freedom fighters and political prisoners.

Hunger striking for true freedom – statement for a political musical

While the Historic Hunger Strikes brought joyous victory with the end of indeterminate solitary confinement, the struggle continues with most of the representative body, now Elders, still in prison, suffering ongoing retaliation by parole authorities.

Decades of torture, hundreds of men, weeks of starvation – and...

Celebrating the 10th anniversary of the first of three California Hunger Strikes, Bay View Editor Nube Brown interviews Paul Redd and Kubwa Jitu, captured and labeled the worst of the worst, sharing a combined 66 plus years total in solitary confinement, and revealing their humanity to be the Best of the Best.

Are we a part of Black Lives Matter?

The rest of the world recognizes the corrupt brutality that exists in U.S. prisons spurning increasing doubt about our claims to be the exalted “land of the free.” It’s unfathomable that we know how those incarcerated are being treated and yet ignore the inhumanity they suffer as if it were not our business. This is the tipping point. Our inaction is not a choice, if we are to remain human.

Liberate the Caged Voices

No one is coming to save us or our loved ones. Soon we move from the terror and inequities of 2020 into undeniably more of the same in 2021, and we are reminded that change is upon us, and up to us to drive our unstoppable force of We the People to use the truth we hold in our gut to join our incarcerated brothers and sisters to end the oppression of control and modern day slavery.

No warning shot

Not in our most creative nightmare could we imagine being snatched off the street or out of our home thrown into another reality of waking into the horror of hand shackles, waist chains and leg irons, the “Devil’s Playground” of gladiator fights and corrupt and sadistic prison guards, unless we are Black, Brown or other targeted persons.

Psychiatrist Mariposa McCall on mentally ill in solitary: ‘Change is possible!’

I am calling on colleagues and professional organizations to recognize publicly and use our influence to bring an end to prolonged solitary confinement in American jails, prisons and detention centers. Not only is there is a great need for solidarity among individuals and organizations to uphold human rights and ethical principles but also to reduce reprisals against any whistleblower. Considering that 95 percent of those incarcerated will be released back to the community, bringing with them the negative health consequences of their confinement, the conditions and traumas they face while incarcerated should concern us all.

Rally in solidarity: Join the California Hunger Strikes’ four ‘main reps’...

Rally at the San Francisco Federal Courthouse while the four California prisoner hunger strike and Ashker class representatives meet and confer* with CDCr to address the continuing solitary conditions that violate the Ashker lawsuit settlement agreement. The four prisoner hunger strike representatives will be present in the courtroom, an historic presence! Help create a strong show of solidarity with prisoners fighting for human rights! Join the rally outside the courthouse on Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2018, 11:30 a.m., at the Phillip Burton Federal Building and U.S. Courthouse, 450 Golden Gate Ave., San Francisco.

‘Solitary Man’ play and panel at the Black Rep – pain,...

On April 21, I finally got to see Charlie Hinton’s “Solitary Man” play at the Black Repertory Theater in Berkeley. It was so much more than a cultural experience. The play was gripping, emotional and real, with jazz trumpet sprinkled in. The panel powerfully reflected the layers of pain, survival and resistance in the prison movement. And the event, a benefit for the San Francisco Bay View, was a moving tribute to Mary and Willie Ratcliff’s devotion to their invaluable newspaper.

We stand together so prisoners never have to go through the...

This is a follow-up to our October 2017 Prisoner Class Human Rights Movement’s statement of prisoner representatives on the second anniversary of the Ashker v. Brown settlement. I am sharing a copy of my proposed “Open Letter to Gov. Brown, California legislators and CDCR Secretary Kernan on ongoing human rights violations and lack of reparative action for decades of torture” with the hope of helping to re-energize our movement, by gaining widespread support for the positions presented in the “open letter.”

PTSD SC: Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Solitary Confinement

California Department of Corrections and rehabilitation (CDCr) had been locking classes of prisoners up in solitary confinement since the ‘60s as part of CDCr’s para-military low-intensity warfare, to break the minds and spirits of its subjects, California’s prisoner class. CDCr’s solitary confinement has two operating components: 1) punishing you and 2) physically and mentally destroying you.

Wrongfully returned to SHU: Six-month update

I begin this six-month update on the activities of CDCR and the CCPOA with my utmost thankfulness and respect for the San Francisco Bay View. I thank your staff and readers for continuing to shine a bright light on the injustices that occur daily behind enemy lines, as it pertains to human beings who are marginalized as prisoners, defined as slaves by the 13th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, but yet full citizens of this country! I have now been housed in Pelican Bay Level II SHU for six months, and the situation has not progressed but has rapidly deteriorated.

Parkland: If ‘Don’t-mention-his-name’ were Black

I cannot imagine that if DMHN, of Parkland, Florida, were Black, that he would not have been captured and controlled by some aspect of law enforcement. The unfortunate and overplayed fear of Black students misbehaving has been very much on display in the media with various police student classroom encounters available for all to see. I cannot imagine any Black or Muslim of any age, under the kind of FBI scrutiny we now know happened with DMHN, who would not have been contained, blamed or framed by security and intelligence forces in this country.

Benefits for the Bay View: Performances of ‘Solitary Man’ Feb. 10...

Don’t miss the highly acclaimed play, ‘Solitary Man: My Visit to Pelican Bay State Prison,’ performed by Charlie Hinton and Fred Johnson. Fred and Charlie launched the new two-person version in September 2017 and return now, on Feb. 10 and 14, for two performances as benefits for the SF Bay View newspaper: Saturday, Feb. 10, 7:30 p.m., at ANSWER, 2969 Mission St., San Francisco and Wednesday, Feb. 14, 7 p.m., at Freedom Archives, 518 Valencia, San Francisco – Show the Bay View some love on Valentine’s Day!

Survivors of long term solitary confinement petition for institutional restitution

To: CDCr Secretary Scott Kernan and Director Kathline Allison -- From: Abdul Olugbala Shakur (aka J. Harvey, C48884) and Joka Heshima Jinsai (aka S. Denham, J38283) -- The following is what we believe to be just and fair and reasonable requests considering the inhumane treatment that many of the prisoners were being subjected to while housed in solitary confinement, or isolation, for decades, especially at Pelican Bay State Prison and Corcoran State Prison.

Losing direction: The abysmal history of mental health care at Pelican...

I left CDCr wondering how PBSP could remain in shambles after 22 years of court oversight. As I started educating myself about prison reform, I stumbled upon Keramet Reiter’s 2016 book, “23/7: Pelican Bay Prison and the Rise of Long-Term Solitary Confinement.” Within those pages, I found validation and some disturbing answers. I wish this book had been available to me before I started working in CDCr.

Modern day slavery is real

Modern day slaves, sanctioned by the United States government under the 13th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution … Yes! By subjugating, marginalizing and disenfranchising the oppressed human beings, by way of economic discrimination or depriving humans of decent wages, that forces humans to live half-butchered lives that subject humans to the many social ills produced inside a society – a slave, criminal and gangster mentality that devalues, demeans, degrades and dehumanizes humans.