Celebrating Mandela Day starts with challenging solitary confinement in California

July 18 is Mandela Day. The occasion should remind us of the importance of resilience, and the need to fight injustice and racism in our country. There have been many discussions centered on racial justice and mass incarceration, and rightfully so. Yet one of the most inhumane pillars of mass incarceration is the use of solitary confinement to isolate people of color, break their spirit and cut them off from their communities.

Today, more than 122,000 people are in solitary confinement in the United States. Solitary confinement has no rehabilitative or penological purpose. It is about power and control.  And make no mistake, this is not just a human rights issue, it is also a racial justice issue.

Numerous studies have shown that people of color are overrepresented in solitary confinement in jails, prisons and immigrant detention facilities in the United States.  Black people in particular are often placed in solitary confinement more frequently, and for a longer period than their white counterparts.

I know this because I have spent years of my life in solitary confinement, inside a single room no bigger than an average bathroom with only my thoughts and the sound of my own heart beat. As the weeks and months went by I felt like a single flower left in a vase with dirty water, withering away in the dark. When my grandmother passed away, I was not able to call my family for more than ten days.

The experience hurt my soul. It took everything inside of me to not suffer a mental breakdown, or harm myself. I was lucky enough to survive. There are many who did not.

My story is the same as so many other young black men in this country. A childhood filled with hardship and trauma set me up for decades of institutionalization. My first contact with law enforcement came when I was 18 years old, over possession of marijuana. I was put on probation, and soon found myself serving a year in prison for violating probation. During this period I was placed in solitary, not because I hurt anyone, but because I violated a minor rule.

The way the system was setup was no accident. The racism is obvious for those who care to look. In California, studies showed that Latinos made up 42 percent of the general prison population, but 86 percent of those in solitary confinement.

Immigrants in California are not spared either. In the last few years private prison companies have reportedly placed individuals in solitary confinement as a form of retaliation for organizing with other individuals detained in the facility and participating in hunger strikes.

You may ask, what can be done to stop this? I asked myself the same thing every day when I was in isolation. After being released from prison I was accepted to the UC Berkeley Underground Scholars Program, and have been working to finish my education while also grappling with these larger questions.

My studies and dedication to making change has led me to participate in the California Mandela Campaign, in support of AB 280, the California Mandela Act on Solitary Confinement. This bill would place strict limits on how long jails, prisons and detention facilities can hold someone in complete isolation, and require facilities to find safe alternatives once those limits have been reached.

The bill recently received a super majority vote in the Assembly and is heading to the Senate where it is expected to pass with broad support. The challenge remains the governor, who under pressure from law enforcement, has attempted to dodge the issue.

But I for one cannot stand the hypocrisy of those who claim to support racial justice while ignoring state sanctioned racism and violence. Governor Newsom must recognize that solitary confinement, like so many other vestigates of mass incarceration, targets and destroys black and brown minds and bodies.

As a solitary survivor I have made a commitment to myself to stand up for those who did not survive, and to speak for those who are silent. As Mandela once said…“For to be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.”

Hakim Owen is an Undergraduate at the University of California Berkeley, and a Solitary Survivor and Advocate with the California Mandela Campaign.