Thread by @ScottHech

THREAD: Why words matter. 100 humans caged in solitary confinement in Michigan courageously publish letters. Horrors. Suicide attempts. Abuse. Denial of food. Racism. Torture. Routinely for years.

Department denies all. How? They don't call it "solitary."rollingstone.com/culture/cultur…

Rutikanga Akesi. Solitary for years: "I know it's too late now, of course, but I want those people to know we are humans too."

Michigan Department of Corrections: He's not in solitary. He's in the "START program." Only difference: 1 hour of group therapy once a week.

There are dozens of ways to hide the brutal practice of locking people away in concrete cages for years. One of them is changing the name of their cage. In the United States, these are the names used for the places we bury people alive:

"Mental Health Unit." "Observation." "Temporary segregation."

"This is the techno jargon that keeps the system opaque. All these euphemisms are for essentially solitary confinement. Anything that forces someone to stay in isolation for more than sleeping hours is solitary."

Here's whats terrifying. When confronted with these 100 letters from solitary, these 100 voices of people currently suffering, the Michigan Department of Corrections Spokesperson, @ChrisGautz, either denied their experiences or told the reporter to make an information request.

This spokesperson @ChrisGautz's job is to use words, deflection, semantics to ensure Michigan--the solitary capital of the world--currently confining over 3000 people in extreme isolation, can keep torturing human beings. It's harder to fight back against something you can't see.

Michigan Department of Corrections argues semantics about “observation” versus “segregation” versus "solitary," nitpick privileges and hardcover books, while the thousands of people inside these cages suffer and starve and take their own lives with shocking frequency. Not okay.

The vast majority of the world has ended long-term solitary confinement. It has no place in just and civilized society, and while we fill the streets with demands that the police stop killing Black and poor people, that the state stop terrorizing our communities...

We must not forget those men and women suffering in solitary confinement in Michigan and around the country. Forgotten, abused, degraded. Silenced. 100 people caged in Michigan solitary confinement wrote letters to share their experiences. The result:
silenced.in

Shearod McFarland, who spent *over 9 years* in solitary: “I felt that the quiet, creeping violence of segregation was slowly tearing my soul apart. These abuses continue because no one can see what’s happening to us. Solitary is a kind of perpetual violence."

Brian Peterson: "I hate it in there. I feel the walls closing in around me even as I write this about it. It is a horrible feeling to be so helpless. If it wasn’t for my faith in Jesus Christ I know I would have died. I can’t write about that but one night I know it was close."

Andraus McCloud: "The further you go up north, it's like the South. You see more crosses burning."

Erick Johnson: "You said you wanted to hear more ok then hold on to your seat. Because this inhumane treatment to anybody living conditions. The prisons and C.O.s don’t feed us. We received small to little to none food. I enclosed a drawing to show the food trays they give us."

Abron Shakir: "I am most passionate about drawing, tattooing, & learning new mediums to express myself. Unfortunately being caged so early in life I never had chance to learn what I enjoyed. Mostly I remember I was at my happiest spending time w/ my family & friends."

Quincy Howard: "I have experienced countless years of all contact being cut off from family, children. Gassed over 100 times with chemical agents, no heat in the winter, no ventilation nor cool air in the summer, the target of foul language, threats, and sour and spoiled food."

These people exist. Their experiences are happening. @ChrisGautz and the Department he's paid to protect can try to silence them & pretend they don't exist. But you can't unsee this: silenced.in

Thank you to @TanaGaneva for uplifting the powerful voices silenced in Michigan and for this powerful piece exposing the torture of Solitary in Michigan and the deflections and misleading statements of the Michigan Department of Correction. rollingstone.com/culture/cultur…