Joadanus Olivas. I call this a new world slave ship. My ancestors were on the bottom of slave ships for nine months and longer at times. This uncomfortable situation, this journey to a new world is unimaginable to my 31 year old mind. But the thought of this makes my current situation in administrative segregation easier, there are screams all around me all day and all night.
Me and my peers act as apes or cage monkeys and animals, according to the correctional officers. One of my peers beat on the walls all night. I cannot sleep. Some of us are throwing urine and feces through our doors onto the staff members out of protest. In the last week, four brothers were beat while in handcuffs by these officers.
Our demonstrations every day in this prison called California men’s colony are quite violent, chaotic, and barbarous. What do you expect? We don’t have any laundry, no soap, deodorant, consistent showers. Our mail is tempered with, or it disappears. The depression level was so high around here, man, the stress at times feel similar to the strip in Gaza.
I can’t count how many times one of my prison peers slipped his or her handcuffs to stop another fellow prisoner, peer or correctional guard. There’s blood on the walkway now. As we walk to the yard, to the cages separated with, separated with similarities to dog kennels. In these little dog kennels, I run in circles around these cages that are the size of dog kennels, must I repeat, just to stay in shape.
I’m running so far around these cages. But yet I get nowhere. This is my 15th year and I’ve never experienced an environment as such. Where’s California prison industrial complex headed to? There are no cameras here, so what I relay to you and paint seemingly doesn’t even exist. It’s just another story or a legend.
It will be altered later by CDCR officers to only disappear, similar to George Jackson or Assata Shakur or Peltier and another political prisoner in this ship headed to a new world, the unknown.