Tragic Breaking News: Billy Sell Succumbs to Hunger Strike

The first known casualty of the hunger strike is Corcoran inmate Billy Sell. The San Francisco Bay View reports:

Billy Michael “Guero” Sell, CDCr No. P-41250, age 32, was housed in 4B-3L of the Corcorcan SHU, had not been under mental health care and had been going without water as well as food.

The prisoners reportedly described him as “strong, a good person, a good soldier” and concluded that “Billy died because of the hunger strike.” He is said to be from Riverside, but supporters have not yet been able to locate and talk with his family. The Bay View sends condolences to everyone who was Billy’s friend, comrade, fellow prisoner or family member.

Our heartfelt condolences go to Billy's family and friends, on the outside and behind bars, and our best wishes for physical and mental strength go to the strikers.

Emergency State Appeal of Plata Before Supreme Court

Justice Kennedy, the deciding voice in Brown v. Plata, is to tackle overcrowding once more, in responding to an emergency appeal from Gov. Brown to block the Plata panel to release more inmates and ease overcrowding. The L.A. Times reports:

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony M. Kennedy is in a position to decide — again — whether California's overcrowded prisons must release more than 9,000 inmates by the end of this year, but at the risk of sending some violent criminals back to the streets.

. . . 

Gov. Jerry Brown is now asking Kennedy and the high court to block a pending order from a special three-judge U.S. District Court panel that calls for releasing 9,600 more inmates by the end of the year.

In the emergency appeal, Brown's lawyers say the state has spent $1 billion to upgrade its prisons and improve the medical care of its 119,000 inmates.

In a brief filed late Monday, the state's lawyers said most of the prisoners who are nonviolent offenders are being kept in county facilities. Most of those who would be released now are classified as moderate- to high-risk inmates, the state said.

"Unless stayed, the three-judge court's order will release offenders with a history of serious or violent offenses who are very likely to commit more serious crimes," the lawyers said.

Because Kennedy oversees emergency appeals from the West Coast, Brown's request went to him. The justice could act on his own or refer it to the full court. But either way, the decision is likely to rest with Kennedy, a California native. The four liberal justices joined his 2011 opinion in the case, and the four conservatives dissented.

Hunger Strike - Day 18

TV Series Review: Orange is the New Black

The new Netflix original series, Orange is the New Black, is a dramatization of a book by the same name by Piper Kerman (referred to as Piper Chapman in the series), who a few years ago served fifteen months in a federal prison camp for her role in a drug trafficking conspiracy.

Kerman's story, while not imaginary, is fairly unique. In her early twenties, through her romantic involvement with a woman who worked for an international drug cartel, she helped deliver money internationally. When the relationship disintegrated, so did Kerman's involvement in the cartel, and she moved on to live a normative, white, middle-class life and get engaged to a man who did not know of her past. Then, ten years after the commission of the offense, the FBI knocked on the door; Kerman's involvement in the cartel was exposed, and she ended up pleading guilty and being sentenced to fifteen months in federal prison.

The first season of the show, which now streams on Netflix, walks us through the beginning of Chapman's imprisonment, from her initial surrender at camp through her adjustment to prison life. We are introduced to the other inmates and guards, to prison dynamics, and to the mix of cruelty and compassion that is part and parcel of the incarceration experience.

A few notable examples of the show's excellent storytelling include the racial divisions among the women and the way the prison system itself uses them to divide the inmates; the underground economy of prison; and the informal socialization mechanisms behind bars. Particularly notable is the show's attention to sexual assault on the part of the guards, which is a very unfortunate and prevalent aspect of women's incarceration. One episode draws an analogy between the birth experience of one of Piper's friends on the "outside" and one of her fellow inmates, taken to the hospital in shackles and returning to prison without her baby. While the show portrays romance behind bars, it steers clear from the lesbian inmate sensationalism that usually characterizes women's prison dramas and empathizes with the need for human connection. And, while not depicting the many complexities involved in incarcerating trans women (and the practices of administrative segregation involved), it is particularly sensitive to a trans woman's plight at receiving decent health care in prison.

Because the timing of the show coincided with the California inmate hunger strike, Episode Nine, which depicts the show's main protagonist spending a night at the SHU, was particularly poignant. Her stay there is portrayed as a frightening, dehumanizing experience. And while there, she speaks through the wall to another inmate--or is it a ghost?--who has lost count of how long she has been there. The terror, isolation and grief involved in the experience has moved many viewers to tears, and I have gotten many inquiries about whether the SHU "is really like this" (it's much worse and for much longer periods of time.)

Some critique has been leveled at the show's portrayal of race and class, arguing that black and brown nudity is treated more licentiously than white nudity. There has also been a concern that the show negatively portrays poor and working class women, in a way that is inattentive to the history of black activism. While the former point bothered me, too, when I watched the show, the latter point reminded me a little bit of the complaints leveled, a few years ago, at the American version of Queer as Folk: Not representative enough, not complimentary to Every Gay Person on the Planet, not educational in the manner of a Very Special Episode of a teenage drama or a carefully-racially-balanced Benetton commercial.

I didn't find the show remiss in its portrayal of politics behind bars. Yes, there's a history of racial and social activism in prison. But to argue that, in presenting a federal prison camp the series is remiss in not presenting inmates of color as activists is to ignore the realities of prison. Activism and uprising are the exception, not the norm (this is what is making the California hunger strike, now entering its 17th day, so notable). While many inmates develop consciousness regarding their experience and its broader meaning, incarceration is a difficult experience and for most people "doing time" does not involve political activism. This also goes to the portrayal of race in the show: uniting in the struggle front across barriers of race is also an exception. And, at least in the context of the hunger strike, it's not the result of some form of racial enlightenment, but rather a response to abysmal, inconceivably degrading prison conditions that offend people's dignity beyond their racial alliances.

As to the main critique against the show--its atypical narrator and removal from the class/race experience of prison--I think it is important to keep the potential audience in mind. Indeed, while Kerman/Chapman's story is atypical in terms of her background, introducing the viewers to prison through her eyes is a masterful storytelling device. The passage, by referendum, of so much punitive legislation illustrates how few middle-class taxpayers humanize, and empathize with, the prison population. Even the powerful stories of exonerated inmates haven't made nearly as much impact as they should, because the average citizen simply cannot imagine himself or herself suffering such indignity. This lack of imagination is startling, considering that 1 in 100 Americans is behind bars, but as we know, that share is not randomly distributed among the population. My experience in explicating the realities of incarceration is that spewing the overworked "prison industrial complex" cliche at white middle-class voters does nothing to deepen their understanding and empathy. On the other hand, giving them a character they can identify with--a woman who, to them, does not "naturally belong" behind bars--can do wonders for their ability to imagine themselves in such a setting. Moreover, while the story is told from a white, middle-class woman perspective, all of its characters come to life as complex, interesting women, aspects of their lives before incarceration shown in flashbacks, and their interactions with each other offered authentically and believably.

Does Orange is the New Black tell viewers everything they need to know about incarceration in America? Of course not. It portrays a federal prison camp of women and does not expose its viewers to overcrowding. Its exposure of SHU isolation practices is menacing, but minimal. And its engagement with the literature on prison politics and economics is superficial. But television cannot educate without entertaining, and judging from the immense interest this series has provoked, it is doing its job as well as can be expected. Many people who did not know about the hunger strike have now resolved to educate themselves and understand it better. Just seeing one night in the SHU on screen will help millions of viewers try to imagine what it could be like to spend five, ten, twenty, thirty years without seeing a living soul. If that raises consciousness and awareness to one of the biggest human rights struggles in America, I will be more than pleased.

Finally, those seeking a more realistic dimension to complement their perception of the prison experience for women should read Inside This Place, Not Of It, which drives home the frightening prevalence of sexual abuse by guards and of atrocious health care practices.
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Props to RJ Johnson for providing fodder for this review through the lively discussion on his Facebook page.

Film Review: Fruitvale Station

What a tragic week in which to watch Fruitvale Station, a dramatization of the last day in the life of Oscar Grant, shot by BART police officer Johannes Mehserle on New Year's Eve of 2008. Still raw and thoughtful after the week of intense public commentary on George Zimmerman's acquittal of Trayvon Martin's murder, a San Francisco audience wept tonight at the Metreon as they saw a familiar scene come to life: A brutal shooting of a handcuffed man, in grainy cellular phone footage first, and in dramatized high definition much later.

The film walks us through a day in the life of Grant, a 22-year-old man, teetering between two courses of life: Responsibility, a steady job, and a stable relationship with his young daughter's mother, and a life of drugs in the street that led him to a stint in San Quentin the previous year. His family and friends, and especially his girlfriend, come to life, not in an idealized, canonized, haloed poster image for a demonstration, but like any of us: Living, loving, making mistakes, having fun, getting angry, trying, failing, succeeding.

We could talk about the comparison between the dramatized series of events and what actually happened. And we could remember the moving op-ed from the doctor who treated Grant, and the aftermath for BART Police, and the broader meaning of the taser defense, and about the difference between protest and riots, but we already talked about all that during the events and the trial. And now it's time to look at the movie as what it is - a work of art that seeks to tell us something important.

Here is what I am glad the movie does not tell us: That we should canonize Oscar Grant as the saint of the struggle against police abuse of power and racialized violence. or that his life was exemplary and flawless.

The movie also does not tell us this: That Oscar Grant is nobody, his life not worth remembering except for the event of his death.

Instead, the movie tells us what we should all remember: That Oscar Grant should be canonized. As all of us should - every single one of us. Because every human life is valuable and precious and has intrinsic value. Grant's, and Mehserle's, and Martin's, and Zimmerman's. And because the measure of a life is not its death or its achievements, but the small magic it works in our loved ones and friends and family members. In the little deeds, like dropping off our kids at school, or going to the supermarket to buy ingredients for gumbo, or at the greeting cards aisle picking a silly card for a relative.

And yet--even though all lives are precious and valuable--some lives are worth less than others. David Baldus' study of the death penalty indicated the way prejudice operates through the race of the victim; black victims' murderers, whether white or black, fared more leniently than their counterparts with white victims. If you will, this is where the prevalent "let them kill each other" approach comes from. And a grim reminder that underenforcement, like overenforcement, is not race blind.

Far from offering overt racial preachy monologues, the film exposes the experience of an African American working class life in a way that weaves the racial experience intrinsically into the minutiae of one's day, in life and in death. One's consciousness need not be raised for one to experience the subtle effects of race on one's life. In a humorous scene, Grant's sister asks him to buy a card on her behalf for her mother's birthday. "Don't buy a white card," she asks, a reminder that even in the Hallmark aisle there are symbols and themes and that even cute pastel slogans speak to different life experiences.

And, through the fighting scene with a former fellow inmate on BART that led to Grant's apprehension and shooting at the station,  the movie tells us one more thing: That the experience of imprisonment is toxic, poisonous, and that life on the outside is permeable to life on the inside. That animosities behind bars have a way of affecting interactions on the outside. That an imprisonment experience that offers no growth, no hope, no betterment, promises only pain and tragedy.

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Many thanks to the many friends who came with me to see the film tonight for their wise words.

Day 11: California Bans Inmates' Rights Lawyer from Prisons

The Los Angeles Times reports:

Marilyn McMahon, executive director of California Prison Focus, on Wednesday said she was sent a fax informing her that her access to inmates participating in a statewide hunger strike — as well as inmates anywhere else in the state — has been cut off. In addition to advocating on behalf of inmates, McMahon is a member of the mediation team assembled to work as a go-between state corrections officials and protest leaders.

The letter, bearing Tuesday's date and the signature of corrections Undersecretary Martin Hoshino, cites a pending investigation into an unspecified “threat” created by a retired paralegal who worked as a volunteer for McMahon and had last visited Pelican Bay inmates in May.

In a copy of the letter provided to The Times, a check mark appears next to the words "The person's presence in the institution/facility presents a serious threat to security." No details are provided.

California corrections spokeswoman Terry Thornton said late Wednesday that she was unaware of the action against McMahon and had no comment. Thornton said 2,300 inmates in 15 prisons continued to refuse state meals Wednesday, the 10th day of the protest.

Tomorrow: Day of Action in Support of Hunger Strikers