At The Festival For All Skid Row
Artists, now in its 5th year, we were invited to perform a fifteen
minute segment from “If The SHU Fits” a dramatic reading that I had recently directed
at the Unitarian Church in Santa Monica. This is a compilation of writings by
men and women who have been, or still are, in solitary confinement in United
States prisons. Also writings from members of their families outside. In
California, SHU stands for Secure Housing Unit and the implicit protest in this
performance is that, as declared by the United Nations, long-term Solitary
Confinement is Torture!
KevinMichael Key, who co-produces the
Festival, performed in the show and again at the Festival. One of his portrayals was a man in prison in
Malone, New York who pleaded: “Sometimes
I feel as though I’m walking through a cemetery of lost souls. Seeing as how
almost everyone around me is either already dead; in the process of dying or
simply withering away like a corpse left to rot away in some decrepit grave
with the name and epitaph erased away!” For another, who had spent 25 years
in the SHU, he read this ironic statement: “I
now face the rest of my life at Supermax, locked in a concrete tomb, dying in
complete isolation. I have been approved to be transferred to this torture
facility by psychological professionals who affirm that I am sane enough to be
driven crazy!”
Reverend Sidonie Smith, reading for
the sister of another SHU prisoner who had taken part in a fierce hunger strike,
persuasively laid out the humane and practical solutions to the incarceration
of such men: “The five core demands are
just human things that you and I would respect: 1. End group punishment and
administrative abuse; 2. Abolish the debriefing policy and modify the gang
status criteria; 3. Comply with the U.S. Commission recommendations to end
long-term solitary confinement ; 4. Provide nutritious food; 5. Create and
expand constructive programs!”
Most poignant was the reading by
Paula Brooks, as a woman in a New Jersey SHU, describing how she saw from her
sealed window a plant growing in the brick wall outside. She reads: “As the wind would blow against the leaves of
this plant, I would actually close my eyes and pretend this very wind was blowing
against my face. I know it sounds crazy, but it was the only part of nature
that I had.”
Deeply emotional was Sherri Walker as
the mother of a young man, locked away out of her reach, in the SHU at California’s
Pelican Bay: “You worry day by day if
your child is OK. You can’t visit them because they are so far away. They can’t
call you. All you can do is write them. You wonder if they are alive or dead and
the only thing I can do is pray!”
Most powerful was Craig Walter, speaking
for an inmate at Mansfield Correctional Institute in Ohio, an eloquent and angry
poet. He opened the reading with these words: “Within a cage, How can you Lock me in a cage, for some misdeed done,
Within a cage? All you can do, is feed my rage!” Then he closed with another
poem: “I shall not die a thousand deaths
of compromise Giving up names in exchange for food or blanket. I will bite my
own arm to smother my screams And rob you of the satisfaction when you
disassemble me…” He ended the presentation with this moving statement: “My name is Sean Swain. All I have is this
pen, this paper, and the truth. Please remember that I lived.”
Compiled by Melvin Ishmael Johnson
and Andy Griggs, “If The SHU Fits” was commissioned by the National Religious
Campaign Against Torture, and the Interfaith Communities United for Justice and
Peace. This one-hour dramatic piece is being presented at various churches as
an appeal to the public to stand forward and denounce the use of solitary
confinement now rampant in our prison system.
For further information contact: www.nrcat.org or www.icujp.org.
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