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Last month, we were devastated to learn that the Angola 3’s Herman Wallace had been diagnosed with liver cancer, and that he was continuing to be held in isolation in a locked room at Hunt Correctional Centers prison infirmary. Reflecting on his confinement while battling cancer, Herman said: "My own body has now become a tool of torture against me."

On July 10, Amnesty International launched a campaign directed at Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, calling for Herman’s immediate release on humanitarian grounds (take action here). "After decades of cruel conditions and a conviction that continues to be challenged by the courts, he should be released immediately to his family so that he can be cared for humanely during his last months," said Amnesty USA campaigner Tessa Murphy.

In recent years, Amnesty has initiated other campaigns challenging the over 41 years spent in solitary confinement by Herman and Albert Woodfox, also of the Angola 3, including the April 17, 2012 delivery of a 67,000 signature petition to LA Governor Jindal demanding Albert and Hermans immediate release from solitary. Earlier this year, Amnesty called on Louisiana Attorney General James Caldwell to not appeal the US District Court’s overturning of Albert’s conviction. More recently, accompanying their call for Herman’s release, Amnesty also expressed concern about “the worsening conditions of confinement” for Albert at David Wade Correctional Center, where he remains in solitary confinement. “For approximately two months, Woodfox has been subjected to additional punitive measures – including strip searches each time he leaves or enters his cell, being escorted in ankle and wrist restraints, restricted phone access, and non-contact visits through a perforated metal screen. Temperatures in the prison cells are reportedly extremely high, regularly reaching up to 100 degrees Fahrenheit,” wrote Amnesty.

Public outrage intensified on Friday, July 12, when a letter citing the Angola 3 case, was sent to the Civil Rights Division of the US Justice Department by Congressman John Conyers, Jr. (D-Mich.), Ranking Member of the full U.S. House Judiciary Committee, Congressman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on the Constitution and Civil Justice, Congressman Robert C. “Bobby” Scott (D-Va.), Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, Homeland Security, and Investigations, and Congressman Cedric Richmond (D-La.). The letter called for an investigation of the Louisiana Departments of Corrections for its “abysmal history of protecting the rights of its prisoners,” of which the “tragic story of the Angola 3 is a case in point.”

About Herman Wallace, the Congressmen wrote: “We have heard that he lost over 50 pounds within 6 months.  Despite that dramatic weight loss, and at 72 years old, the prison did nothing to treat or diagnose him until he was sent to an emergency room on June 14.   Given the late stage of his diagnosis, his treatment options are now limited.  He is frail and ill, but is still being treated as if he is a threat to security, and we hear that he remains under lockdown conditions. This is unconscionable.”

Within hours of the letter’s release, Herman Wallace was transferred out of solitary confinement, when Louisiana’s Hunt prison reduced his classification from maximum to medium security. Herman is now staying at the prison hospital in a 10-bunk dorm, with access to a day room, and does not have to wear leg irons anymore. While celebrating the more human conditions, Herman and the International Coalition to Free the Angola 3 emphasize that the transfer from solitary is not enough. They are asking folks to continue supporting Amnesty International’s call for humane release. The Angola 3’s Robert H. King, himself released in 2001 after 29 years in solitary confinement, says, “The wind is at our back and with your continued help our objective will be realized - freedom is in sight.”

The case of the Angola 3 is at the center of a 42-day fundraising drive begun for a touring play, entitled Opening the Box, that will focus on the use of prolonged solitary confinement in US prisons. The choice of fundraising for 42 days is a tribute to the almost 42 years spent in solitary by Herman Wallace and Albert Woodfox. The writer and producer of Opening the Box, Sarah Shourd, is herself a survivor, having spent 410 days in solitary confinement while held as a political hostage by the Iranian Government from 2009-2010. After returning to the US, she successfully fought for the release of her now-husband Shane Bauer and friend Josh Fatal.

Conceived specifically “to add to the momentum of a burgeoning movement” against solitary, Shourd will be working with Solitary Watch to “collect real stories from a diverse spectrum of people living in solitary confinement today--immigrants, children, lifers and women. Then, Im going to write a play about it and go on tour.”

“While watching this play, I want the audience to breathe along with a young man having a panic attack after being denied a visit with his mother, to crawl inside the skin of an immigrant detainee terrified of being deported and to travel with a lifer on a magic carpet of memory--only to be pulled back into the stark, implacable reality of the hole. By hearing these stories, my hope is that the audience will be able to relate to the men and women enduring this torture in our prisons, to their pain but also to their resistance to the dehumanizing forces around them, their incredible resilience...and their refusal to be institutionalized,” explains Shourd.

In this interview, which Shourd dedicates to Herman Wallace, we take a closer look at her project, Opening the Box, as well as the ongoing prisoner hunger strike in California, the Angola 3 case, and the politics of prisons in the US. Currently based in Oakland, California, Shourd is an author and Contributing Editor at Solitary Watch. Before being captured by the Iranian government, Shourd was living in a Palestinian Refugee Camp in Damascus, Syria, working as a journalist and teaching for the Iraqi Student Project. She’s written for The New York Times, CNN, Newsweeks Daily Beast and has a blog on Huffington Post. Her memoir (co-authored by Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal) will be published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in Spring 2014. To learn more visit sarahshourd.com and/or follow her on Twiiter @SShourd.

Sarah Shourd:           I only knew a little about the Angola 3 before I was detained in Iran, but I thought about them when I was inside. I also thought about Mumia Abu Jamal, Nelson Mandela, my friend Jafar Saidi (who is being held in a Pennsylvania prison) and all the other prisoners I’d heard of being held in prolonged isolation. I reasoned that if these people found the strength to endure weeks, months or even decades alone, then that meant I could get through it too. Their example helped me believe that it was possible to survive indefinite solitary confinement, that with enough discipline and focus, I could learn to stay afloat, to ward off depression & hopelessness and even confront each day with some sort of dignity and purpose.

Now that I’ve studied Herman and Albert’s case, I know there is absolutely no evidence that either of them is guilty of the crime (murdering a guard) that landed them in solitary 41 years ago. The 70’s were an extremely volatile and politicized time inside Angola prison and prisons around the country. Herman, Albert and Robert were organizing and resisting mistreatment by guards inside Angola—and I believe that’s why they were targeted by prison officials and used to set an example.

Herman and Albert were given a sentence on top of their original sentence—life in solitary confinement. This ruling was made internally, without judge or jury, which in my opinion is unconstitutional.

SS:      Herman deserves a release on compassionate, medical grounds more than any other prisoner I’ve ever heard of. It couldn’t be more obvious that he’s no danger to anyone and the yet extent of suffering that’s been heaped upon him over the last four decades is beyond comprehension. No human being, under any circumstances, should be subject to this kind of cruelty.

That said, there’s no changing what’s already been done. The best hope for Herman is that he be allowed to taste freedom and be with his loved ones for the last months or years of his life. After 41 years, Herman deserves much, much more than that—but all we can really hope for is that government officials decide to grant Herman a compassionate, medical release the most expedient way possible. This is the only way to make right even a fraction of the wrong that’s been done— before it’s too late.

A3N:   Last week, on the other side of the country, California prisoners began a hunger strike, following up on the demands first made by hunger strikers in 2011. How did the 2011 hunger strike affect you, following your release from Iran?

SS:      I’d been fighting non-stop for over a year when my now-husband Shane Bauer and friend Josh Fatal were finally released from prison in Iran. Just weeks later, the UN’s Special Rapporteur on Torture, Juan Mendez, issued a report condemning the long-term use of isolation on prisoners and calling it torture. Mendez went on to say that any period over 15 days in solitary can cause permanent psychological damage and should be subject to strict, mandatory review.

A few weeks later, the largest hunger strikes in history erupted in my home state, California. It was such an intense, mixed time for me. After more than two years since our initial arrests, the three of us were all finally together, free and back in the US. Yet, I was acutely aware of the tens of thousands of people in my own country, who were needlessly suffering the same kind of torture that the three of us had been subjected to.

I began speaking and writing about solitary confinement, connecting my own experience to what I saw happening around me. I knew the fight for justice wasn’t over for me—this was now a lifelong commitment.

SS:      I’m angry that ten of thousands of prisoners have been forced to begin hunger striking again, but they have no other choice. The response from California prison authorities to the demands of the prison hunger strikers in 2011 was sorely inadequate. In fact, no tangible changes have been made at all. Prisoners in our country have next to no rights—they have to risk their health, safety and even their own lives in order to be heard.

I’m impressed, but by no means surprised, by how widespread resistance to solitary confinement has become inside our prisons—with 29,000 people refusing their food on the very first day. I think the renewal of this hunger strike is a sign that prisoners have reached a tipping point. They’ve made their grievances visible, so that now politicians, prison officials and the public can no longer afford to ignore the horrors happening inside our prisons.

SS:      Before I spent 410 days in solitary confinement, I knew that isolating a person was a cruel form of punishment. Still, it wasn’t until I experienced it myself that I realized it was torture. Long periods with little to no human contact violates a person’s psyche in the deepest, most insidious way—a way that usually leaves no physical marks but leaves most people psychologically damaged and changed forever

I see solitary confinement as the deep end of our very broken prison system. It’s the worst punishment our system dolls out. It’s also used routinely, often arbitrarily and with little to no oversight.

There are other ways to run prisons that are better for both prisoners’ individual health and public safety. However, instead of trying to deal with serious issues like prison violence (by inmates and guards) constructively, in U.S. we lock ten of thousands of people alone in cages where they lose their minds, often hurt themselves and commit suicide at a much higher rate than in the general prison population.

Still, prison authorities can’t keep them locked up forever. The majority of people that have been subjected to prolonged solitary confinement will one day be released back into society, where little to no services exist to help them recover, reintegrate and move forward in a positive way. That’s why so many ex-prisoners reoffend and the cycle continues.

Our prison system has veered so far from the path of rehabilitation over the last 30 years, there’s hardly even an attempt on behalf of prison authorities to give the impression they’re trying to provide inmates with resources or opportunities to change. Instead, prisoners are treated like raw material instead of human beings, warehoused away like surplus goods.

SS:      Solitary confinement is a perfect illustration of what our prison system has become. It’s used as a control strategy against anyone who presents any kind of hassle to prison officials and/or needs services that our prison system has neglected to provide. Guards use any excuse to get rid of people by sending them to the ‘hole,’ such as petty drug use, profanity and/or any small, petty (often non-violent) infraction.

The real reason many people wind up in solitary is because they have unpopular or threatening political beliefs, because they’re gay or transgender and need so-called ‘protection,’ because they’ve reported rape or abuse by prison officials and/or simply because they are mentally ill.

Human Rights Watch estimates that one-third to one-half of inmates in isolation had some form of mental illness before they were put there. Using solitary confinement instead of providing mental health and other rehabilitative services is inhumane, not to mention extremely negligent. This practice doesn’t serve society and that’s why we need to hold prison officials accountable and end this practice.

SS:      Many countries around the world only use solitary in their prisons as a very last resort. England, for example, tried implementing solitary confinement as a disciplinary measure. When prison violence increased, and they realized how expensive and cruel this practice was, they simply stopped relying on it. Today there are a few dozen prisoners held in prolonged solitary in the UK—compared to our estimated 80,000 on any given day.

The reason this mistake was caught and largely corrected in England was simple—they have a system of oversight in place, a government body that closely monitors what happens inside their prisons and keeps the public informed. In the U.S. we have nothing like this in place. As a result, this practice has gotten out of control and we’ve become by far the largest offender of this inhumane, senseless practice in the world.

SS:      I believe a play can reach a new and different segment of the population with a human rights issue that should be of grave concern to everyone in our country. ‘Opening the Box’ also has the potential of humanizing this issue in a visceral, embodied way that an article or report can’t.

In the late 90s a play called The Exonerated—based on true stories of innocent death row survivors— came out and quickly spread like wildfire. Half a million people saw this play and actors like Susan Sarandon & Danny Glover did cameos and the Governor of Illinois was so affected by seeing the play he decided to commute all the existing death row sentences in his state to life in prison.

I believe that hearing, seeing and reading real, complex stories of people living through the daily hell of solitary confinement (there is also a book in the works, slated to be published in conjunction with the play) has the potential of effecting people in a way they can’t and won’t forget. The play is not only about entertainment, of course, we want it to be a catalyst for action, a humble effort to contribute to a nation-wide movement—one that’s gained more momentum in the last few years than it did over the last century.

‘Opening the Box’ is also a deeply personal journey—an attempt to understand what happened to me during the year I spent in solitary and to connect my own suffering to that of so many others.

A diverse grassroots movement confronting the widespread use of prolonged solitary confinement in US prisons appears to be gaining momentum. On the morning of Tuesday, June 19, the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Human Rights is having an important public hearing on “Reassessing Solitary Confinement: The Human Rights, Fiscal and PublicSafety Consequences,”  presided over by Chairman Dick Durbin.

This Senate hearing comes on the heels of widespread prisoner hunger strikesthat have made the use of solitary confinement a central issue. Last summer, a prisoner hunger strike at California’s infamous Pelican Bay State Prison sparked a state-wide strikethat gained national attention. On May 31, a federal lawsuit was filed on behalf of prisoners at Pelican Bay, arguing that prolonged solitary confinement is cruel and unusual punishment.

A similar federal lawsuit that was jointly filed over a decade ago by Robert King, Herman Wallace, and Albert Woodfox, of the Angola 3, is expected to go to trial in early 2013. When King’s conviction was overturned in 2001, he was released after spending 29 years in continuous solitary. Wallace and Woodfox remain behind bars and have now spent over 40 years in solitary. The three have also jointly submitted a statement for Tuesday’s Senate hearing.

On April 17, 2012, exactly 40 years after first being placed in solitary, Amnesty International delivered a 67,000 signature petitionto Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindals office, demanding Woodfox and Wallaces immediate release from solitary confinement. Robert King and Everette Thompson, Southeast Regional Director of Amnesty USA were joined by a delegation that included State Representative Patricia Haynes-Smith, Chair of the Louisiana Legislative Black Caucus, Alfreda Bester-Tillman, Esq. from the Baton Rouge Chapter of the NAACP, Pastor Kathleen Bacon from the Slidell Chapter of the National Action Network,  and many others, but Governor Jindal refused to meet with them, and referred the issue to the Department of Public Safety and Corrections. In response, Amnesty has launched a new online petition directed to Secretary James M. LeBlanc.

Another member of the delegation that joined Amnesty International on April 17 was Angela A. Allen-Bell, a law professor at Southern University in Baton Rouge. The newly released issue of the Hastings Constitutional Law Quarterly features an article by Prof. Bell entitled "Perception Profiling & Prolonged Solitary Confinement Viewed Through the Lens of the Angola 3 Case: When Prison Officials Become Judges, Judges Become Visually Challenged and Justice Become Legally Blind.” A ten-page summaryof her article’s key points has been submitted by Bell for Tuesday’s Senate hearing along with a link to the full article. On the eve of the hearing, we spoke with Bell about why she wrote this piece and what the case of the Angola 3 reveals about the broader human rights nightmare inside US prisons.

Angola 3 News:          How did you first learn about the case of the Angola 3?

Angela A. Allen-Bell:             Over ten years ago, I happened upon a newspaper article about the case. It caused me pause. I continued with my normal routine until the memory of that headline entered my mind in 2009. Work on an article about injustices in post-Katrina Louisiana made me recall that headline I had read years earlier. Once I finished that publication, I could not overcome the need to know the end of the Angola 3’s story so I began to research the case. To my complete surprise, the end had yet to arrive.

A3N:   Why did you choose to focus on the Angola 3 case as “lens” to view the use of solitary confinement in US prisons today? What does their case tell us?

AB:     It’s unfortunate, but there is no shortage of cases to choose from. I could have selected many other cases, but that was never a consideration. My article was born of a desire to understand the Angola 3 case, based on those lingering questions that remained after I saw the headline about the case years ago. Given this, I never entertained the thought of using any other case as a case study.

Now that the article is complete and the research is done, I am certain I made the right choice in using the Angola 3 case for a case study. I say this because there is nothing in their prison records that could hinder a reasonable mind from seeing the flaws in the current solitary confinement “process” (used for lack of a better word, but with no intention of legitimizing what is happening in American’s penal institutions today).

For example, there are some inmates in prolonged isolation who have recent disciplinary infractions or who have a history of repeated institutional violence or who have medical opinions supporting the housing assignment. In such a case, the average person would not give thought to a conversation about abolishing or modifying the solitary confinement system. In such a case, the average person would dismiss conversations about harm being done to the inmate as being deserved.

In contrast, the facts surrounding the Angola 3’s stay in solitary confinement compel action and challenge silence because there are no recent disciplinary infractions and no medical or psychiatric findings to justify or support the housing assignment. Prison officials have even said that Herman Wallace and Albert Woodfox are not physically dangerous to others and are not an escape risk. Because of this, the Angola 3 case makes for the perfect case study because there are no factual distractions. When you look at their case, you can see the issue without anything obstructing your view.

A3N:   Herman Wallace and Albert Woodfox’s 40 years in solitary began after they organized a chapter of the Black Panther Party at Angola Prison. Shorty after acclaimed prison author George Jackson started a BPP chapter at San Quentin Prison in California, he was assassinated, and his closest known comrades were prosecuted as the San Quentin Six. The last of the Six behind bars is Hugo Pinell, now in solitary confinement for over 42 years—currently held at the notorious Pelican Bay supermax prison.

AB:     The media very effectively taught the world that the Black Panthers were nothing more than a gun toting militia group. Schools have omitted meaningful lessons about the Black Panthers from their curriculum. The Government, through its COINTELPRO program, criminalized the Panthers and led a campaign to discredit them.

With all these competing forces, the average citizen is left to his or her own devices to investigate and reach a conclusion about the Panthers. I don’t think we are there yet as a society. And I especially don’t think most Louisiana, politically-appointed, prison administrators shape their viewpoints of those in their custody after engaging in a balanced study of issues concerning racial history and social change organizations.

Your question asks about “prison authorities.” I offer a more limited response because, in my view, the Louisiana prison experience, and certainly the Louisiana State Penitentiary (Angola) prison structure, warrants a particularized response. This is said because the 13th Amendment, legalizing slavery in prison, means something very different in a former slave state than it does where slavery was not practiced. The 13th Amendment also takes on a different form on plantation land, which is what Angola is. In a former slave state, like Louisiana, free labor has always been a commodity in high demand. When there are opportunities to get free labor or to be compensated for housing human cargo, some act aggressively to capture the prey. In those cases, it’s the prey that is being hunted and not the politics that is being challenged.

In other cases, there is sheer ignorance about the fact that the Black Panthers wanted  much of what mainstream America wants. They wanted to see men be providers and leaders in their homes and communities and they wanted to see their communities be functional and not dysfunctional. They wanted to see children respect authority and aspire for academic excellence. The Panthers strongly believed in self-reliance and community empowerment as opposed to government dependence. The Panthers did so many positive things for the community, like escorting the elderly to the bank, protecting their neighborhoods, educating the ignorant and the lost, and feeding the hungry.

Many prison administrators, like the general public, do not know this history. What is etched in their minds is the image of the guns that that media shows in the same way the media showed the images of African Americans “looting” or “taking” (and not “finding” or “needing”) after Hurricane Katrina. With this limited understanding, one can see the basis for the perceived threat.

I will share one final perspective about the reaction of some prison officials to the Panthers. To some administrators, an African American man today is what the law named him yesterday: a piece of property. When such a person is confronted with a Panther, a non-pacifist type of African American, their innate and subconscious reaction is to do what is done to property that is misplaced. The inclination is to put it back in its proper place. Thus, many of the Panthers are being put in their places (solitary confinement) because what they represent as African American men is incomprehensible, intolerable and out of place. What is threatening about them is not the Panther affiliation necessarily, but the Panther mind and ideals. Some administrators are at their best without the fear of the consciousness that could be raised by such a person. As they see it, their regime would run more effectively with property because property doesn’t move or speak back.

To appreciate this point, you might consider a house when its inhabitants are away and the property is left all alone. Inactivity and calm prevails. When the inhabitants return, activity follows. Some prison administrators delight when the occupants of their home are away and only the property is left in their immediate view. These administrators falsely assume all activity is disruptive activity.  More importantly, these administrators dwell in a day gone by. Today, African Americans are no longer recognized as property. These administrators are actually guilty of creating the threat they say they fear. 

A3N:   With over 2.4 millions prisoners today, the US now has more total prisoners and a higher incarceration rate than any other country in the world. How does the use of prolonged solitary confinement fit into this human rights nightmare that is mass incarceration fueled by the criminalization of poverty? In this broader context, what role does it play?

AB:     I alluded to the 13th Amendment in my earlier response. It is applicable here as well and it would be intellectually dishonest of me not to interject it into this discussion. A lodging facility is happier when you lodge for a prolonged period than they are when you lodge for a brief period. They are paid more for a longer stay than for a short stay. Such is the case with many institutions.

The 13th Amendment allows slavery or involuntary servitude when someone is incarcerated. If certain jurisdictions or corporations are paid for the amount of human cargo in their facility, then the longer the stay, the better. Inmates held in prolonged solitary confinement ensure maximum occupancy and they do not require the expenses related to compensating teachers or staff or expenditures for materials or supplies.

Once in solitary for a prolonged period, the average inmate will be robbed of the mental stamina to effectively challenge his stay. Even if the inmate could mount a challenge, it would be meaningless because, in most institutions, the review process one would employ to gain exodus from solitary confinement is constitutionally deficient. On this point, my article expresses: “A simulated process akin to a hearing, where formalities can be documented, but where no meaningful probing occurs, is unjust and unconstitutional. It amounts to nothing more than procedural automation in a legal assembly line where unfavorable reviews are mass-produced.”

In the end, the beds remain full and the payments continue coming. Before you know it, more prisons get built and more beds need to be filled. Going back to my earlier point about how, as a society, we are not investigating the things that are reported, this would be another such case. Some elected officials and some media outlets suggest we need prisons in order to be safe. We innocently accept that.

A3N:   Let’s take a closer look at the title of your Hastings Constitutional Law Quarterly article. How have “prison officials become judges?”

AB:     A judge is charged with the task of imposing sentences, not a prison administrator. When a prison administrator places an inmate in prolonged solitary confinement (often after the inmate has not committed an infraction while in custody), that inmate has an increased risk of mental decline and death. Taking this at face value, one might contend that a sentence (possibly a death sentence) has been handed down.

My article notes: “When prison officials stop acting as administrators and effectively begin handing down sentences, they, for all practical purposes, become judges. The Separation of Powers Doctrine prohibits prison officials from acting with this authority.”

A3N:   How do “judges become visually challenged?”

AB:     Courts generally defer to prisons administrators and often limit their role to making sure that the inmate was afforded a process. In the case of prolonged isolation, courts do not review the substance of the process.

My article states: “When judges abstain from meaningful involvement in the periodic review process, they look, but fail to see the very thing they are uniquely positioned to see. They do not see the need for justice and interpretation of law--due process law.”

A3N:   How does justice become “legally blind?” What do you mean by this?

AB:     If a court does a “sniff test” and not a thorough review of the actual process afforded an inmate subject to prolonged isolation, the court’s view of the problem is challenged. What the court misses is the fact that the prison did not carry a burden of proof or the inmate was left with no way to mount a defense because the isolation robs the inmate of a way to show any reformation as the inmate is not allowed to work or attend school.

According to my article, “The judge, by his omission, renders justice legally blind as far as the inmate is concerned. The legally blind can innocently be a detriment to those around them.”

A3N:   What legal processes to do you propose in your article for remedying the prolonged solitary confinement crisis in US prisons and making prison authorities more accountable?

AB:     The article actually contains proposed legislation. It is my hope that legislators, courts and prison administrators all across the country will use it as written or in spirit to cause legislative and policy changes. I advocate:

and services.

empanelled.

A3N:   Anything else to add for the interview?

AB:     Yes, three final points.

If we are a Christian nation, shouldn’t we act like Christ?Christ was a defense attorney to victims of human rights violations, as well as to the poor and downtrodden. What is happening where solitary confinement is concerned is a “human wrong.” As a nation, we must give thought to this.

I was amazed to discover in my research the existence of standards governing how shelter animals must be housed and how research animals must be treated. The protections are greater than what is now in place for the HUMAN BEINGS that are subject to prolonged isolation. Where is the outcry?

In doing community outreach work on behalf of the Angola 3, people often offer prayers and express gratitude for the work that is being done in this regard. The prayers are valued. The expressions of support are appreciated, but they often leave me wondering what that individual is doing while other individuals are doing this work. I consider what their talent might be and wonder if it is the one I lack. I ponder if I could or would indulge myself in what it is that they do if I weren’t doing this work and ask if they would do this work if they didn’t feel safe that it was getting done by those of us who do it? Talent and commitment stacked side-by-side could circle the globe and bring social change with it. Talent unwedded to commitment creates an era of stagnation. If resistance is shackled away behind bars and stagnation is roaming free, we are left to discern who dwells in a cell and whose dwelling is, in fact, a cell.