Unity Is: I Care About You

Got a keyboard? Help type articles, letters and study group discussions from prisoners. help out
[United Front] [International Connections] [ULK Issue 72]
expand

Unity Is: I Care About You

On page 3 of Under Lock & Key No. 70 the key ideals listed under United Front for Peace in Prisons are truly at the heart of any plan for positive change.

I will just hit on the one that seems to echo No. 70: Unity. People must realize We are inherently the same; when I am hungry I want to eat; moms in every country around the world love their babies; people want to live productive, peaceful, happy lives the world over.

Through the five pillars of the United Front, these kinds of universal needs and wants of people should be stressed with the added ingredient: I care about you.

Unity is: I care about you, you care about me; We work together for Our mutual well-being, happiness and development. We are not the same, yet have fundamentally the same fears, hopes, needs, wants and dreams and the reality is that We can only achieve them when We live and work together in Unity. Unity is not being in relationship; it is more being in fellowship; not just co-workers but comrades.

One thing we hear the staff or guards say all the time is “I don’t care.” All of their actions, policies and procedures prove it is absolutely true; they do not see us as people any more. This is an extension of the imperialist view of the rest of the world’s population. “They don’t care” whether this or those people live or die, have a decent standard of living, live free of famine or war, or free from social instability, mass discrimination, incarceration or class stratification.

They don’t care – the target is not a person with thoughts, feelings, needs or dreams. It is an insanity that plagues mankind: people treating others as things, objects, property, chattel or goods; to be used, abused or destroyed at will.

As the article Individualism Equals Hunger pointed out greedy people just do not care about others to the point of allowing millions of people worldwide to either starve or at the least live malnourished. Especially here in America, individualism is a key component of “I don’t care.” Even in prisons, huge amounts of food are thrown away daily, it is really crazy when one sits back and thinks about it all.

chain