From: SF Bay View, October
26, 2013
by
Mutope Duguma
It was
on Aug. 23, 2013, that I was removed out of my Ad-Seg cell around 5 in the
morning and placed on a CDCr transportation bus. I had been housed in Ad-Seg
since Aug. 5 due to my participation in a mass hunger strike.
I was
stripped of all my belongings except my shoes, socks, T-shirt and boxer shorts
and given a dark blue jumpsuit, in which I could not fit, so I was allowed to
wrap the arms around my waist.
If you
have to spend a vacation in prison, this looks a lot more inviting than Pelican
Bay.
Our mass
hunger strike started on July 8, 2013, and we were 47 days without eating at
the time we were placed on the bus. I heard several prisoners ask, “Where are
we going?” The response from the transportation officer was “New Folsom,
CSP-Sac” (California State Prison Sacramento).
We
pulled out of PBSP Ad Seg around 8 a.m., and it was a grueling ride due to our
conditions. I was in a dual situation, where I was able to enjoy sights that I
hadn’t seen in years, yet I was very conscious of the pain and suffering that
we all were enduring.
It was
one of the most physical challenges that I had ever experienced in my life. I
considered myself to be very strong, yet here I was dealing with my obvious
physical weakness and my mental strength, which was creating a contradiction in
which my physical weakness had begun to attack my mental strength. It was
obvious to me that I would lose this battle eventually, because time would
dictate my fate and I was running out of time.
Once off
the bus, it seemed surreal, because there were people everywhere, something
unusual for me, especially since I had been held in a solitary confinement cell
for the last 13 years, isolated from people and normal outside environments. My
reality of the last 13 years is concrete and steel and that’s it; no normal
human relations for me. This created a contradiction in which I would be
overwhelmed.
CSP-Sac
was wide open. People were everywhere, 24/7, doing everything. I saw New
Afrikans, which is something I hadn’t seen in years. I saw countless Mexicans,
Asians and Afrikans off the continent. I saw regular behaving white people. I
saw every nationality under the sun in one day’s time.
I was
dying of starvation but I was alive. I enjoyed every single bit of my human
interaction. I felt just like my grandmother’s dog Roscoe. Every time I went to
her house as a young boy she would tell me, “Darren, go out back and take
Roscoe for a walk.”
Roscoe
was a golden retriever three times my size and very strong. He was a real
happy, energized dog, but when I got back there with him, his excitement was
unmeasurable. I couldn’t get the chain loose to free him because he kept
knocking me down in pure joy that I was back there with him.
Roscoe
knew that I wasn’t there to feed him or to briefly play with him and leave. He
knew every time I came back there, he would be free. This is what drove his
excitement, freedom.
On
hunger strike after 49 days by then, I was extremely excited. I felt just like
Roscoe. It was literally overwhelming. I took full advantage of every human
being I came in contact with, except those green suits! They were psychs, RNs,
assistants to RNs, countless LVNs. It was crazy different people every day, in
their regular clothes – no uniforms – every single day.
I talked
to the Imam, a Muslim chaplain, who was allowed in the solitary unit at his
will. I talked to Christian chaplains, who were allowed to visit the solitary
units at their will, too. I talked to maintenance – free persons who worked
inside the prison.
I talked
more in a period of 12 days than I had in my whole 13 years of solitary
confinement. I was taken to legal visits across the yard. I saw countless
prisoners moving about freely.
The sun
was beaming down on me, with no blockers – just me and the atmosphere –
although I had waist chains on in which I was made to walk to the attorney
visit, which was a half a mile away from B Facility to A Facility. Under any
other circumstances this would be exactly what it was, torture, but I was so
overwhelmed, my mind was absorbing it all rapidly.
I saw so
much in such a short period of time, after being isolated and confined in
solitary for 13 years in PBSP. This was my freedom. It started to have an
adverse effect on me personally, because if the 20 representatives had not
suspended our mass hunger strike … I, for sure, would have been dead, because
this was one vacation that I, under no circumstances, would ever have ended.
I
reminisce over Roscoe today, and I now realize that he was imprisoned most of
his life, because we humans unconsciously didn’t recognize his imprisonment.
And I look back on all my loneliness, quiet time and wonder, “Did Roscoe suffer
in silence as I do today?”
