ULK 18: Editor's Note on Political Repression

For our own sanity, and for freedom, we must recognize that there are no rights, only power struggles. As the articles in this issue of ULK demonstrate, so-called “rights” on a piece of paper are only a point of reference for debate. Their enforcement will depend on the actions of the different forces, groups, classes involved.

We hope that after reading this issue you are inspired to know that we are all struggling against the same oppressor in very similar ways. Some may use these stories to justify not rocking the boat, but they would be wrong. These are stories of people who are merely trying to educate themselves, or obtain basic respect, and they are attacked. These stories were hand-picked to demonstrate the political motivations of state employees, and to disprove the theory that repression is only used when necessary to prevent crime and control “trouble makers.”

While we haven’t received any reports directly from the comrades involved, a couple of organized collective struggles have created headlines over the last month in U.$. prisons. The Georgia strike was an historical event that involved thousands of prisoners from four different facilities who were responding to the lack of pay for labor, visiting rights and other abuses. One participant reported:

“On December 9, Georgia state prisoners stuck together and learned what their togetherness could do. They learned that they could get more accomplished being unified than they ever could being separated. For this day, Black, White, Brown, Red and Yellow came together. This day saw the coming together of Muslim and Christian, Protestant and Catholic, Crip and Blood, Gangster Disciple and Vice Lord, Nationalist and Socialist. All came together. All were together. The only antagonistic forces were the Oppressors and the Oppressed.”(1)

Meanwhile, in the Ohio State Penitentiary Supermax, four comrades protested years of torture by engaging in a hunger strike. These comrades continue to be persecuted for their participation in the famous Lucasville uprising in 1993. As we go to print, we’ve heard reports that after a two week strike, their demands for semi-contact visits, real rec, access to legal materials, and commissary were granted. In a statement from one of the participants, the message of this issue of Under Lock & Key is echoed:

“If justice as a concept is real, then I could with some justification say, ‘Justice delayed is justice denied.’ But this has never been about justice, and I finally, finally, finally understand that. For the past 16 years, I (we) have been nothing more than a scapegoat for the state, and convenient excuse that they can point to whenever they need to raise the specter of fear among the public or justify the expenditure of inordinate amounts of money for more locks and chains.

“And not only that, but the main reason behind the double penalty that we have been undergoing is so that we can serve as an example of what happens to those who challenge the power and authority of the state. And like good little pawns, we’re supposed to sit here and wait until they take us to their death chamber, strap us down to a gurney, and pump poison through our veins.
Fuck that! I refuse to go out like that: used as a tool by the state to put fear into the hearts of others while legitimizing a system that is bogus and sold to those with money. That’s not my destiny.”(3)

Today, many oppressed nation men in the United $tates find themselves in situations where even possessing books or affiliating with each other is against the law. This isn’t just in prisons, but in oppressed nation communities on the outside as our comrade in Texas describes (see page XXX). As another example, within the struggle for justice for Oscar Grant, gang injunctions were used against young Blacks to declare it illegal to affiliate in any way with the Black Riders Liberation Party. Faced with such obstacles, we continue to learn what struggle is, and what is really necessary to obtain the conditions that all humyn beings deserve.