My name is Ifoma, which means Lasting Friend, slave name Daryel Burnett, prison number B60892. I am entering my 46th year of imprisonment inside one of California’s pathological incubators. I spent over 40 years in solitary confinement, most of which were for non-disciplinary reasons or prison rule infractions. The bogeyman fear tactics was drummed to create the justification for isolating classes of men from the general population.​

 

Despite the denigrating stereotypes and dehumanizing language used to describe us as ‘monsters’ or ‘worst of the worst,’ I am father, Son, Uncle, Cousin, Nephew, Friend, Social/prison Activist and most importantly Human Being. It is through this prism I wish to be judged, not through the inhumanity of a cage.​

 

My consciousness was shaped by the social inequalities and inhuman barbaric practices existing within the prison system. Solitary confinement, violence, repression, mandatory sentencing, prison industrial complex, mass incarceration and other issues played a role in the maturation of my consciousness and activism.​

 

After the victorious prison hunger strikes, I was released from Pelican Bay in 2014. I discovered immediately that prison had transformed into a chaotic abyss, a habitat for fractured minds, lost souls and defeated spirits. It has become a place for living zombies, a species who possesses no sense of trust, integrity, honor and respect. They are difficult, full of obstacles and set-backs.​

 

I ask that you join us in the movement of rebirth, resurrection and transformation. We need the sunlight of wisdom, light, knowledge, inspiration in order to give birth to a new consciousness. How do we begin to plant the seeds of rebirth? We need you to be our sunlight.​

 

The struggle continues,

 

Ifoma