We throw around the words solitary confinement in a very cavalier way in the U.S. Thanks to efforts like Solitary Watch public awareness is being raised about the brutality and torture of solitary confinement. This is a good thing. Today there is an excellent Op-Ed by Colin Dayan in the New York Times about the plight of prisoners at Pelican Bay and also about their resistance through hunger strikes. Yet I find something missing in our consideration of isolation in prison. We need to hear more of the voices of those who have experienced this torture.

A prisoner named Ahmad Al Aswadu wrote an essay titled “A Black View of Prison” in the April-May 1971 issue of the Black Scholar. In his essay, he describes the experience of living in the “hole” while incarcerated. Here is some of what he wrote:

The “Hole” (called such because its locality is usually under the prison’s first floor) is solitary confinement. One could stay in the hole for a week or a lifetime depending upon his color and attitude. It is here in the hole that men are made and broken at the same time. It is here that the previous threat of getting “hurt” can realize itself all too quickly. And it is here that the seeds of Black Consciousness have been cultivated in the minds of many black men.

It is very difficult for a layman such as I to describe the atmosphere of the hole but I shall try. I believe that the very first thing that the brother notices about the hole is the desolateness and the feeling of utter aloneness. The first time that I was sent to the hole I felt as if my soul had deserted me. I don’t believe that I had ever experienced such a feeling of intense emptiness in my life before then. I had been sent to the hole to have my attitude changed, because, as they stated, it was not conducive to “good order.” A brother had just been murdered by the guards who worked in the hole, and rather than go through that type of thing, I pretended to be institutionalized. Fortunately, my stay only lasted fourteen days and I was returned to the general inmate population.

Life in the hole is epitomized by one big question mark. Uncertainty is the order of the day. Your visitors are turned around at the gate when they come to see you. The food quantity and quality is drastically reduced to the level of subsistence. You might get a shower and you might not — depending upon whether or not the guard’s wife was good to him the night before. I believe that it is the hole that is the most memorable aspect of the prison experience. They are all the same, and yet they are totally different from one another.

Today, Critical Resistance is hosting a national conference call about the Pelican Bay Hunger Strike. All of the relevant details are below:

Monday, July 18th
6pm EST/ 5pm CST/ 4pm MST/ 3pm PST
toll-free call in number: 1(800)868-1837 (new number)
participant code: 62435226