by Mackey Vesuvius, San Quentin State Prison, CA
Year 2021 went by slow at first, but after the sixth month passed by it started to go by fast. 2021 was a year that I want to forget so easily for many reasons. So let me share a few of those reasons with you all!
Number one is the disastrous multiple staged always changing Coronavirus, COVID-19. Delta, Omicron, and whatever else to come with this virus has intimidated the whole world. It change the whole world. I’m in San Quentin State prison environment inherently unhealthiness and how much they don’t care about the well-being incarcerated men and women in the whole prison system.
CDCR, echoes which is HealthCare Prisons stays quo makes me worry and a known fact that prisons and jails didn’t learn much at all about how to care for incarcerated people. The inconsistent policies of corrections systems around the country failed to prevent infections that reached a high of 25,000 prisons in a single week in Mid-December. Staff shortage have also become a major problem in a number of prisons.
The lessening of infections in prisons every week has caused prisons to ease restrictions for visiting, prisoner movements, and mask wearing. There’s a sense that COVID 19 is over. That the pandemic is almost completely behind us and that is just not the case. Officers and their union think that they are above rules and laws, by not wanting to be vaccinated. But remember that prisons and jails were hit so much harder than the outside community were and in many jurisdictions, they were late to provide vaccinations to incarcerated people.
Cal-OSHA sued San Quentin for 400,000 bucks for a number willful violations of workplace safety regulations. Incarcerated Men filed Habeas Corpus with over 300 petitioners to Marin County Supreme Court and Judge Geoffrey Howard agreed that prison officials acted with deliberate indifference and violated the constitutional rights of all those men, but gave no relief to those incarcerated saying; “the initial emergency has passed due to high vaccination rules amongst the population.”
I and many others stated that officers needed to be vaccinated or this outbreak might happen again. No one listened to us and here it is again. We’re having another outbreak due to sick staff members, Co’s and nurses. So, they didn’t listen to us at all. In Fact, they never listened to us at all.
Then there was the abuse of the refugees, which exposed the White Houses long-standing policy towards Haiti (Haitians). I saw My people on live TV at the Border Town of Del Rio, Texas. The human rights of these Haitian Refugees were violated twice, when they are hastily deported without official (ICE immigration and Customs Enforcement) who were looking for asylum.
Last July Haitian President Jovenel Moises was assassinated by a team of 28 foreign mercenaries and two of them were Americans. Haiti is in more turmoil than ever. Then US Media quickly turned its attention away from The Haitians to wholeheartedly support the fleeing Afghanistan immigrants who cooperated with the US invasion of Afghanistan.
So, why didn’t any of the congressional Black Caucus rush to the border to protect the rights of Haitian Refugees, as the late Rep. John Lewis and other members did on behalf of Hispanics being mistreated by Immigration officials? I believed this bias and animosity towards Haiti are fueled by a centuries long grudge that the US Government and other European Countries are holding ever since the former enslaved Africans won their freedom from France in 1804, a successfully revolted against their oppressors.
Since that time, the U.S. and France have taken unceasing revenge upon Haiti by hoisting dozens of coups and acts of insurrection to continually keep this country weak and destabilized. Moises was just the latest victim.
Another moment to remember was January 6th the attempted coup by Trump Supporters. Trump and a bunch of hardcore fascist leaders loaned a violent coup D’ stat to illegally keep Trump in power by stoping the process of certification of Biden’s Victory, attacking the Capitol Building. 147 Republicans supported this coup by voting not to Certify Biden’s Victory. I know the coup failed.
Next would be how many more black people will die at the hands of the police? We say no more! George Floyd, Andre Guardado, Breonna Taylor, Cole Stomp, Rayshard Brooks, Adam Toledo, Elijah McClain, Patrick Warren Sr., Dolal Idd, Dijon Kizzee, Lyana Gilmore, Daniel Prude and many more. That’s all just in one year of bad cops who continue to murder and terrorize people of color.
There’s no unity with people nowadays and there should be in these days. With all that’s going on around the world, gross stupidity is all around us and it needs correcting. But just for Ahmad Aubery though, there needs to be more of that going on. I think we will see more justice like that going on.
Next would be how corrupt the criminal justice and Prison system are, and how un-apologetic they are in all the bad crisis they’ve caused and continue to cause. The whole system needs to be eradicated and it WILL happen all by their own greed. Their own stubbornness, their own polluted, grimace, clownish inappropriate ways.
These are just a few things that I will never forget about what I anticipate this year 2022. More stable issues, disobedience with the police union, with the Criminal justice system and rise of angry people lashing out at the government, at politicians, because of all the contradictions that will be discovered, that will be brought to the light,
What my hopes and dreams are for 2022 are? I will tell you in my next writing to you all. But I will say is that I would like to see unity, real pure 100% unity of all people coming together and standing their grounds on whatever issues they are facing.