Just as peaceful resistance to brutality on the streets is often considered threatening — and even cause for a protester to be harmed — resistance to brutality behind the walls is seen as defiance of the natural order of things. (Photo: Vicki Watkins / Flickr)
I identify with the movement of mothers whose children have been brutalized or murdered by police. I am very fortunate: I will see my son again, while most of these mothers remain to mourn their children. However, when I see my son, it is behind bars.
I am a mother who was forced to be a warrior for prisoners. I advocate not only for the rights of my son, but for the human and civil rights of all prisoners.
Fighting injustice is imbedded in my DNA. I am not wired to be a bystander. It is my duty to fight for those whose voices too often go unheard. Prisoners are not heard because of the way they are kept invisible from society. When I began investigating my son’s experiences in prison, I could not in clear conscience turn my back. I was faced with the reality that many prisoners were experiencing the same brutality, starvation and torture.
I may be “biased.” After all, I am a mother and a protector. But this mother has an arsenal of facts to prove her points about solitary confinement. I am armed with the truth: the truth of what happened to my son and what happens in solitary confinement not only in Pennsylvania, where we live, but throughout the United States.
Before the explosion of cell phone videos and social media exposing police brutality, American prisons were videotaping brutal beatings, torture and sometimes murder of unarmed prisoners. Those videos seldom surfaced or became public. Around 2011, I had the unfortunate responsibility of viewing videos of the brutal cell extraction of my son, Carrington Keys at SCI Dallas, in Dallas, Pennsylvania. I couldn’t watch. In fact, I didn’t watch it in its entirety until 2016. Even then, I lowered my gaze to avoid the pain.
This nightmare began in April 2010 when…