I want to make something abundantly clear about solitary confinement, to why I was placed in here. I said before and I say now, again, that solitary confinement is torture and negatively impacts the mental health of those of us in it. Last night and this morning I had to endure listening to two young prisoners gate bang for hours and late last night, they spent 30 minutes banging so violently on each others cell walls that even my cell walls were rumbling.
They kept us all up last night. One guy is admittedly a paranoid schizophrenic who believes that others are coming into his cell at night to molest him. Let’s call him young boy Schizo. The other guy is bipolar hyper aggressive and short tempered. Let’s call him young boy Angry.
The whole conflict started because young boy Angry got offended that young boy Schizo thought he was one of the people sneaking into young boy’s cell at night.
Young boy Angry just couldn’t let it go and started talking angrily to himself about young boy Schizo who hears what he is saying. Next thing I know they’re trading insults and telling each other to suck and swallow each other’s private parts and to tell the others, mama, dad, grandmama and baby sister to do so as well.
This is part of the reality of solitary confinement. It’s the norm. These two young men need counseling and mental health treatment in an environment conducive to such. But solitary confinement fuels their rage and their delusion and their yelling and banging affects the rest of us as well. Now, being in solitary confinement isn’t easy on me. Some people out there can’t even endure self-isolation and social distancing, even though it’s necessary to stay alive. So how do you think it is for me?
And I’m in solitary confinement for fighting for my UFD organization which I use to positively organize, motivate, inspire, educate young prisoners and to steer them away from gangs, drugs and violence. UFD isn’t a gang. We’re not a security threat group. We’re a brotherhood and sisterhood of mutual aid and mutual self-improvement. One of my supporters asked me why I just don’t drop UFD and just mentioned young prisoners without the acronym.
First of all, UFD is more than just an acronym. It always amazes me how so-called progressive people and prison abolitionists will project upon UFD their own prejudices when they assume why the Department of Corrections and the Attorney General’s office are fighting to surpress UFD and I. You people should know better than anyone why the state would want to prevent the oppressed from organizing themselves to realize their own humanity and so forth, to defend their own dignity and to assume responsibility for their own empowerment.
It’s because we become a threat that will expose their illegitimacy and their incompetence. UFD is the expression of real prison abolitionist. Why other than just talking about it, I’m living it. I’m the body of it. And that is why I’m in solitary confinement. You think they got me boxed in for a goddamn acronym?
COINTELPRO had one of it’s top priorities to prevent the rise of what they called the Black Messiahs who could electrify the oppressed masses of Black people being crushed by the forces of white supremacy . Do you think their agenda has changed? Like the agents in The Matrix, the agents of the state look for Neo’s among the oppressed to destroy us.
So to my supporters, instead of worrying about convincing me to abandon UFD, due to your own hidden biases, preconceived notions and misconceptions, open your eyes and understand that the carceral state and its minions are the ones that are wrong. They have no legitimate reason to suppress UFD nor to discipline me for it.
And you should do all in your power to tell the world about this injustice and to help me fight it. This is Dontie S Mitchell better know as Mfalme Sikivu reporting to you from Great Meadow Correctional Facility in Comstock, New York. Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter @freedontiemitchell. Thank you for listening.
And my thoughts and prayers goes out to all of those of you who lost someone to coronavirus or who are affected with it. Also, thank you all of you who are participating in the phone blasts and email blasts on my behalf. I believe they were working. Yesterday I received a stack of 11 letters sent to me last month and 3 letters I sent out last month that these people never mailed.
And I received back some of my UFD literature, which is surprising because it was due to me being in a possesion of UFD literature and materials that I was placed in solitary confinement in the first place. I can, again, be disciplined and given more time in solitary confinement for possessing what they gave me back.
So the battle isn’t yet won. They still have more of my mail hostage, I’m still in solitary confinement and UFD is still being suppressed. So keep up the phone blasts and email blasts. Thank you.
(Sound of a cell door closing.) These commentaries are recorded by Noelle Hanrahan of Prison Radio.