Federal Prisons

I really do appreciate your help. But I have another favor to ask you. For a long time I have been trying to get a copy of the TDCJ Policy so that I can better understand how to fight every case that be written up against me. Cause these peoples will write peoples up for no reason at all. You can’t imagine how corrupted this system is. They don’t let us get access to the most important policies that we need to be able to fight for our rights. I am a 12 hour worker in here in this prison a day. And sometimes my supervisor don’t feed me telling me they don’t have to feed me a hot meal. Just a Johnny Sandwich. Which isn’t right at all. So if you can please provide me this policy concerning TDCJ, I will appreciate it very much.

This is Saif-Ullah, from USW, checking in from California Correctional Institution. In the last 15 months I’ve witnessed comrades being beat, slapped, set up, and pepper sprayed, without any justification, until about forty of the inmates of all races joined together with a campaign to have our families and friends call and complain about these abuses, until finally last month a new warden was hired and the old one sent away from here.

Since her arrival she has walked off three correctional overseers, and a teacher, who had some real racist acts under her belt as well. The overseer Stewart, and his side kick Miller are the ones here known to plant razors and assault and beat inmates and really act out, but they charge the inmates with attacking staff.

I myself and about thirty other comrades have came to the point that if we are attacked we will meet them with the same amount of force. As Huey stated, the party was born in a particular time and place. It came into being with a call for self-defense against the police who patrolled our communities and brutalized us. They are just an oppressive army occupying our community.

MIM(Prisons) responds: Amerikkka has been oppressing the internal semi-colonies of North America since the earliest settlers came to these shores. This comrade demonstrates how to put forth the correct analysis of conditions, while mobilizing the masses for short-term reforms like the firing of the worst abusers. There is a reason why we find so many “abusive people” in the departments of “corrections” of the imperialist United $tates. There is a reason why despite massive outcry, unarmed New Afrikan people continue to be murdered by the police. It is a system that aims to control other nations that demands this kind of brutality. That system of national oppression, imperialism, must be destroyed.

To whom it may concern:

With all due respect, I have prepared this correspondence in the hopes that I might shine some light on the unjustified, cruel, and unusual treatment/torture that is occurring here in the Tennessee Department of Corrections (TDOC) and hopefully find a solution and or remedy to the issues and problems we as prisoners face on a day to day basis here within the Tennessee Department of Corrections prisons.

For the past six years, to this day, I have been confined to solitary confinement, due to no fault of my own, and when I ask “why am I being segregated/isolated?” I am told, “we do not know for sure but it came from higher up” or “it’s for your own good” or “it’s a request from central office in Nashville.” I have written to central office in Nashville multiple times about the matter and have yet to receive any type of reply.

Since I have been in solitary confinement/isolation, I have lost a drastic amount of weight due to the lack of nutrients because of the small portions of food they are providing to inmates in solitary confinement/isolation units and or pods. They claim to give us prisoners the required sufficient adequate amount of calories each meal per day. But in reality, the prisoners are being deprived of basic human rights and or needs, as a punishment, being placed in punitive/isolation units or pods. For example, on the date of November 18th, 2015, for dinner, I received only a small slice of cornbread, two small hash browns, and a half of a Styrofoam cup of chicken broth, (cup size about ½ of a pint.) This was approximately 6:35pm. That was just one of the many nights I’ve went to sleep hungry, knowing I would not receive anything else to eat until 7am or 8am the next morning.

As an inmate here in the state of Tennessee, in the Tennessee Department of Corrections custody, myself and others are subjected to dehumanizing scrutiny on a daily basis and it does us no good to try to do things the right way in most cases as far as going through the proper channels like filing a complaint or grievances, because the people who pick up the grievances are the same officers (correctional officers) you are filing the complaint on, and or their co-workers/friends. Therefore, the grievance or complaint goes into the trash, leaving the inmate no option other than act out which in turn gives the officers validity to violate the inmates further, then it comes down to the inmate’s word against the correctional officer’s word and we all know how that turns out. Being that we are in punitive units or pods, solitary confinement, isolation (locked in a small 8x12 cell, twenty-three hours a day, Monday through Friday, and twenty-four hours a day on weekends and holidays), we are condemned, considered and labeled as trouble makers.

It is a known fact that isolation is a key to solitary confinement, and one cannot exist without the other, but what the TDOC has mastered is that they have orchestrated conditions which identify and then exploit the multiplicity of the tactical mechanics of isolation. Physical isolation is just one form of isolation: you would then discover its multiplicity.

Now allow me to give examples of these: social isolation, racial-cultural isolation, ideological isolation, political isolation, religious isolation, spiritual isolation and geographical isolation just to name a few.

Before I continue, I would like to take this opportunity to illustrate the malevolent and nefarious parasitic nature of the tactics of the TDOC agents and what they use to achieve mental dismantlement and social isolation. During and or within these past six years, I have been in solitary confinement/isolation, I have endured dehumanizing situations such as, I have been made to strip completely nude in front of a group of men and or correctional officers, (five for more), made to spread my butt cheeks and bend over on multiple occasions. I’ve been stripped down to my boxers and thrown into a cell that had no working plumbing, unable to flush the toilet, which was already filled with another person’s defecation and urination for days at a time. I have been put in cells and denied a mat to sleep on, forced to sleep on the cold hard metal or concrete floors, no sheets or blankets, toiletries for at least a week at a time. I have been beaten beyond recognition on more than one occasion and I have been denied food and given empty food trays for days at a time. I have also been given food that has had living bugs crawling in it and small broken pieces of glass in it and this is just to name a few of the torturous things I have experienced while in solitary confinement/isolation while in the custody of the TDOC.

Sometimes for days on in, reality itself can seem to vanish from this place, and yet, on other days as I sit, locked in solitary confinement for a minimum of twenty-three hours a day, I sometimes cannot block out the screaming that never stops, the screams of prisoners being beaten, mentally and or physically, screams of grown men retreating from the intolerable pain of reality into madness.

Now I ask what is solitary confinement? Wait I know at first glance and from its most simplistic perspective that question might seem rhetorical, if not insulting to one’s intelligence, but you would be surprised if not incredulous as to know there is so much more than just being separated from others. And even more perplexing is that most prisoners, not being able to formulate their own words in order to truly convey their answers, would probably give the same standard antiquated response which is, “a prisoner in a cell or behind a solid door where he or she is isolated from other prisoners and human contact.” I mean listen, by no means am I implying that is the wrong answer, but what I am implying is, that’s the right answer and yet so much more!

See the answer is more complex than just saying separated from all other inmates, like when physical isolation was the only criteria for defining what solitary confinement is. The science of solitary confinement/isolation has expanded beyond its original tactical application. From the beginning of the twentieth century on back, the answer given was applicable, but at the start of the twenty first century its theoretical concept remained, but its tactical application has transformed. This is directly due to two principal exponential factors, 1) the advancements in technology and 2) a more in depth and functional knowledge of the process, as a direct result of analyzing past applications of solitary confinement/isolation and their desired ramifications.

Please understand that social isolation has a dual nature and function. It is used to facilitate the isolation process as it pertains to the precision targeting of a specific prisoner or prisoners and to serve as a tactical instrument in the service of their (the TDOC agents) torture program. TDOC has taken isolation/solitary confinement to a scientific level. It has become so sophisticated in its execution, it is barely detected on the average prison-rights activist’s radar. In fact, the average prisoners often times are blinded to the deliberate manipulation of conditions that are not required to complete and complement the implementation of the new application of solitary confinement/isolation.

Allow me to employ a civilian example to illustrate the utilization of multiplicity of isolation, before I briefly elaborate on its utility within the TDOC. Okay, let’s say I have an eight-bedroom house and each has a television and I pick eight people to live in the house. There are four rooms upstairs and four rooms downstairs. Upstairs, I have selected the following four people: 1) a Jewish holocaust survivor, 2) a Nazi concentration camp guard, 3) a member of Hamas, and 4) an Israeli soldier. Downstairs, I have selected the following four people: 1) Nat Turner, 2) a slave master who had enslaved Nat Turners family, 3) A Liberal, and 4) Donald Trump.

Now see, I deliberately identified all contradictory bodies of politics. Can you imagine the outcome of such an orchestrated dynamic?

Now even though there are no bars on the bedroom doors, I have induced and orchestrated conditions that are designed to facilitate isolation. Most of these individuals would avoid each other and stay to themselves. I’ve manipulated conditions that produce a solitary state. Though there are eight people in this house, there will be little to no communication. For the most part, they will stay to themselves, reinforcing the isolation/solitary confinement. But it was I who induced these conditions, knowing the inevitable outcome. These individuals will become isolated in a solitary state but completely compelled by me.

Now let’s replace the eight rooms with eight cells in a pod with the same racial, cultural, geographical, political, ideology, religious, and socially diverse contradictions but intensified ten fold. This is the new anatomy of solitary confinement/isolation. Please understand that this new architectural structure of today’s prisons cannot structurally accommodate the old forms of solitary confinement/isolation. Their infrastructural designs have given birth to new forms of solitary confinement/isolation and torture! These modern-day dungeons are more technically sophisticated, intricate, and not to mention elusive to the average person in society.

I believe it is critical and overly necessary that I use every avenue and approach available so that I can expose the tactics that are being used to implement social isolation as it relates to the precision targeting for the sole purpose of increasing the degree of dehumanization and isolation for a specific target or targets.

These tactics are criminal and in direct violation of our constitutionally protected rights. The TDOC agents of oppression have developed these criminal tactics and deploy them at whim. I should know because I have been one of their primary targets for extreme isolation for years now!

Please don’t judge the content of this letter by the man who is writing it, my being incarcerated does not negate my intelligence nor does it take away from my capacity to articulate the complex dynamics of solitary confinement. In fact, my six years of being in solitary confinement, dealing with dehumanizing treatment, torture every day, three hundred and sixty-five days a year for six years, well qualifies me to speak and write on these issues.

I trust that I have provided a comprehensive illustration so that you can and will fully grasp, vividly, the significance of this torturous situation we prisoners, we the people within the TDOC, as human beings are enduring right here in America.

This report was signed by 37 prisoners

MIM(Prisons) has very few comrades who continue work with us once released from prison. Recently one of these comrades offered to ask the wimmin ey organizes with on the outside to write up something for this issue of Under Lock & Key. We sent prompts but didn’t hear anything back. When we checked in on the article submissions, our comrade gave us an update:

“The reason nothing has come out of the shelter is because of a sudden turnover in residents, many of the active wimmin are now gone or just can’t be reached. I have not submitted due to constraints on my time. My fiancée was kicked out of the shelter and due to taking care of her as much as possible and my own parole and other issues, i simply have not had time to put anything to paper. I am sleeping about 3 hrs. a day and on the move the other 21. We are working on an awareness project to get some of the people mobilized. Currently there are only 3 of us working on all of this, a member of Blackstone from Chicago, my fiancée and myself. It is very slow and tiring work. I apologize for my silence, i have just been swamped with stuff every day.”

We empathize with this comrade’s difficulties in finding time to put pen to paper. It’s extremely difficult to juggle the bureaucratic challenges of parole with the lack of resources available for basic survival. We need to build independent institutions so we can meet our basic survival needs, so we can focus on the political struggle for self-determination. There’s a catch 22 where reformist struggles take time and energy to build, and our ultimate goal is liberation from the conditions that make these band-aid programs necessary.

August was a long month on the tier here at Hancock State Prison. Oppression here is a very real thing. Forced to live in a tiny two men cell with another person. We shower 3 times a week which is really the only time we are taken from our cells.

We are denied our right to medical treatment which I have had to experience first hand. I broke my wrist last month and have still yet to receive any kind of treatment and expect to be given some 200mg Ibuprofin with instructions to take 3 whenever there is pain. I’ve filed a grievance waiting to see what good that does.

They say they feed us an adequate diet which is laughable. I came to the Tier progrma 93 days ago at 6’3 weighing 178lbs. I now weigh 154 lbs so I don’t know if I’m getting enough calories why am I losing so much weight. Yeah the PA couldn’t explain it either. He said I was a perfect weight for my size. That the weight I have lost was due to my not eating all the junk they sell on the store.

It’s hard here we can’t pass notes from cell to cell using string lines on Monday - Friday between the hours of 5am until 5pm. We are forced to talk through vents to neighbors on either side of us if we wish to communicate with anyone other than the guy in the cell with us. We’re supposed to be given indigent supplies once a week but it’s more like every other week and if you’re asleep when they come in or in the shower your screwed til the next time they pass them out.

It’s started to cool off here some thankfully. This building has no AC. The only ventilation we get is from the small meshed over window. Altogether conditions here are deplorable. I struggle on from day to day because I refuse to be beaten by this system. I study any and all law work or literature I am able to get my hands on.

I spent 24 out of 34 days with no air circulation inside 8 cell in 11 building (solitary confinement) toward the end of June & most of July. The windows are not designed to open, just to allow the blazing sun in, which we aren’t allowed to block. Normally air is drawn out of the cell and fresh non cooled air from outside is pumped in. Well, it went out 3 times leading to 24 days of breathing stale air. You sweat night and day even with the 8” fan (purchased off commissary) blowing at your face. I developed a rash and jack itch as a result of likely sweating & for wetting down my sheet every hour, night & day & climbing under it to cool down.

I take a diuretic for hypertension, which is known to deplete your body of water. While they don’t seem to care about elevated risk to those that take medicine, one would think given the current lawsuit they would move at risk persons, especially in situations like this where in Warden Carter knew the air system was down. (We have a separate super max solitary confinement which is 12 building and has AC in it. So why wasn’t I placed in there?)

I’ve put in a step 2 grievance on this as well as several other issues. I’m sick of being abused by a broken system that fails to impart fairness. If you have anything, or know of some one else I should write, please send it to me in the S.A.S.E. I’ve enclosed.

I read some individuals voice their opinions regarding the SNY in unity for the Chicano liberation movement. I have stated before, I am not gang nor am I with gang. My decision to step away from GP was due to my differences in views and beliefs about gang against true revolutionary goals, of which were deemed “undisciplined,” (uniting with all Raza North-South, seeing New Afrikans as revolutionary allies, etc.) and succumb to ostracism within a group claiming to be for the Raza.

As a true revolutionary I will not discriminate, isolate, or alienate anybody who is seeking education and displays interest to understand the tyranny of imperialism. Be GP or SNY, that is only prison mentality of which I believe should never resurface in a post-revolution liberated Aztlán, this is the greater cause for the national liberation of Aztlán. That is where the true revolutionaries distinguish from gang. My true enemy is imperialism and its many systematic vehicles of oppression against the Chicano lumpen. Always keeping aware of infiltrators and spies working to suppress any resistance, including so-called allies who in truth operate on a subjective ideology of fascism.

In the SNY there are many comrades who have developed a higher political interest and awareness. A personal higher calling for servitude seems present in many for a better future for our next generations. Those who are still with gang are very present as well, but it is those who seek a higher learning and understand of this phantom enemy, imperialism, who I would like to reach out to! This is the struggle to unite.

It is public consciousness what we aim for, not numbers. The calling for revolution is within each one. Many lumpen have perceived revolution solely as an armed struggle and cause for war to kill the oppressor. In part, yes that is a goal, but i would disagree to integrate individuals who are solely for war. That would be as uniting or recruiting mercenaries, as Reagan did against the Sandinistas and to extreme case, the Salvadorian government force enlisting children against the FMLN.

Those with true revolutionary interest take on study and self-development with eagerness. Those whose interests are not aligned, they simply walk away. Revisionist and other suppressive Raza are always present and that creates obstacles as well as a struggle to unite. Interacting, talking, and sharing our political lines are gateways to congregate and build study cells without risking our demise in a front by those wishing to suppress our efforts to unite.

No matter what another comrade’s political maturity is, well-developed or first time knowing, the practice and persistence to learn is what I see. For I myself am still amateur to communism. The abolition of imperialism and the liberation for Aztlán is my goal, to live in equality for all.

Sharing ULK and other material is a minor step I take for now in order to broaden and spread that consciousness within the lumpen here in my environment. Sometimes referring to myself as being for the Chicano national liberation movement upon meeting fellows brings questions from some and ignites interest in others. With time I share my copy of Chican@ Power and the Struggle for Aztlán.

To comrades in SNY reading this, let’s continue our struggle to unite. To comrades in the GP, struggle in solidarity and power to you all true revolutionaries.

In March 2016, I sent a letter to Representative Borris Miles about not having a law library at the Wheeler Unit. I also filed a grievance on the indigent mail getting 5 letters a month sent out instead of 5 per week. It was sent back saying that it was too old to file on.

I filed some legal work with Rep. Borris Miles because the other unit where I was before didn’t have a law library. The Wheeler Unit is only a few yards from here and they don’t have access to the law library or access to the courts which is a Federal violation. Below is part of my letter to Rep. Miles.

“I am writing this complaint to state from the evidence that I have, which is some I-60s, inmate request slips, which I wrote requesting to go to the law library to do some legal work, and was denied twice because Ms. J. Lara stated that we didn’t have law library sessions at this unit [Wheeler], because the law library which don’t have NO BOOKS just a few stuff not enough that you could actually use to complete legal work with. To the other request, her response was that I was afforded with what they had, but every time a request is put in by somebody it is denied. We have a full size library about 300 yards from this Unit at Formby Unit. I have requested to be transferred over there where I can have legal access to the law library so that I can have access to the courts also.”

You can print this, just leave my name out, because I would have trouble here and be retaliated against because of it. If you get this letter please write back and let me know that you got it because mail don’t always make it to where it’s supposed to go to. So please answer ASAP when you get this so I’ll know that you received this.

If you have a grievance manual I would like to have one if possible. I am in the processing stage of writing Rep. Miles about the grievance process. They need to have grievances looked at by somebody outside TDCJ, besides the grievance investigator here, because we don’t think the Warden even sees Step 1, because the same answer comes back on every Step 1, saying not warranted for further action. So this inital decision is all on it and it’s been typed on every Step 1 and then Huntsville looks at Step 1, copies this answer on Step 2, and sends it back to us, agreeing with the answer on Step 1. And we use Texas Penal Codes on it and it states clearly that state law is being violated by employees and it’s covered up within the Unit. So legal action can’t be taken. Send me a few of the petitions and grievance manual and I’m filing with others about this also.

I also saw in ULK 51 that you said the Jailhouse Lawyers Handbook is banned in Texas. I checked with the mailroom staff here [Formby Unit] and they said it is approved on this unit as far as they know. Please make this correction in ULK.

MIM(Prisons) responds: We’ve gotten confirmation from multiple sources that the Jailhouse Lawyers Handbook is not banned in Texas at this time. Thanks to this contributor, and others, who help us to stay informed.

We wrote about the need to connect the battles this comrade is fighting with the larger picture of revolutionary overthrow of the capitalist economic system in our article “Texas Comrades Need to Step Up” in ULK 52. Reiterating that call, we also encourage this comrade to see how futile it is to call for an outside review board to oversee the grievance process. Even if a review board was put in place, it would be run by the criminal injustice system or their allies, because that is who has the power in this country. And the whole process will start all over again with lawsuit after lawsuit filed and dismissed, and won and reneged. Revolutionaries can’t afford to bang our head against this wall while people are dying the world over, and their liberation is being stalled by Amerikkka’s runaround.

We should struggle for some reforms, as that’s all we can do right now at this stage in our struggle where we are too weak to struggle any other way. But we need to focus on reforms that will have the greatest impact on our organizing work, which centers around building independent institutions of the oppressed and building public opinion for socialism. Is an “outside” review board an independent institution of the oppressed? No, it would just be a facade of the state, and a false victory. If we want to have our grievances answered, we need to build unity, and come together to demand our grievances are answered. Of course there are many ways and many steps to unity, but this would be an independent institution of the oppressed to defend ourselves and build for the future where we’re not begging prison administration to please treat us like humyn beings.

Few things are more dangerous and detrimental to a revolutionary movement than over- and underestimation, in particular underestimation. Battles have been lost, tides and balances of struggles have ebbed and flowed, and slide from one side to the other. And all because of this simple mistake. Whenever we underestimate someone, group, or thing, we commit this mistake of relegating that persyn, group, or thing to unimportance. Or we ignore it or them as being trivial. This is something no revolutionary can ever afford to do. Especially those in the anti-imperialist, anti-capitalist movements.

Unfortunately, our movements, as so many others, can be plagued by machismo, a particular form of male chauvinism. In revolutionary circles this happens and wimmin are undervalued and most often underestimated. Wimmin are a force without equal in any movement. In the fight against capitalist and imperialist governments wimmin are an indispensable resource. A clear example of their worth can be found in recent Cuban history, the 26th of July movement.

Everyone knows of Fidel, Raúl, Frank País and Abel Santamaría. But their fame and successes would have been unattainable save for the revolucionarias, wimmin revolutionaries. While there were many wimmin later in the movement, there were only two in key roles at the beginning: Haydée Santamaría Cuadrado and Melba Hernández Rodríguez de Rey. These two stood out as invaluable and the personifications of wimmin to a revolutionary movement. Together they were key to printing and distributing “History Will Absolve Me,” the famous Castro speech. They also took up arms during the attack on the Moncada Barracks in Santiago de Cuba. Although, triumph eluded them during the assault, their efforts spread the movement from the eastern provinces throughout all Cuba. Haydée and Melba were both imprisoned after the assault. But their efforts never stopped and they even became more active in overthrowing the U.$.-backed Batista regime. Their imprisonment, isolation, and cruelty suffered at the hands of a proxy of U.$. imperialism only served to strengthen their resolve and commitment. As the movement spread, so did support which finished in the triumph of the revolution in 1959. Without them the revolution may never have been achieved.

Wimmin are often undervalued, underestimated and ignored. Let us not commit such mistakes. While the capitalists and imperialists do, let us recognize this fault and exploit it, using their fallacy for our advantage to progress the movement. We need our wimmin to be involved because they are the life blood of any movement and an invaluable resource. As revolutionaries and persyns, wimmin are integral to the success of our movement.

Let us take note of this history lesson and put it to good use. We need wimmin, prisoners and captives, to exceed the examples of Haydée and Melba, leading other compañeras from behind the walls as they did. Directing others in constructive methods, organizing study groups and educating other wimmin about the present struggle, as well as how to champion it. Their efforts will give breath to our movement and once it has spread, triumph will shortly follow.

MIM(Prisons) responds: This writer gives a good historical example of wimmin who have overcome barriers of machismo to make significant contributions to the liberation of their nation. There are innumerable examples like this one that we can point to for anyone who is hung up on their sexism so much that they think only “men” can liberate the oppressed nations.

This author is advocating for a necessary first step: first, we must accept that anyone is perfectly capable of being a strong theorist, warrior, contributor, to the national struggles. We don’t see many people writing in telling us wimmin are too weak or otherwise should be excluded from revolutionary organizing, so while this sexist indoctrination will ultimately affect how we approach organizing, at least on a conscious level we might be already doing good on step 1. So what’s next?

If we continue to see wimmin as a resource, even for revolutionary aims, we are not going to get very far in resolving the gender contradictions that plague our struggle for unity and liberation. Rather than asking ourselves how can we mine this resource, we need to ask “what are the contradictions inhibiting this growth of our movement?” and “what can we do to help resolve these contradictions?” A study of dialectical materialism, including Mao’s essay “On Contradiction” is imperative for this discussion.

Similarly, we can’t fetishize organizing of any subgroup in our movement, lest we lose direction for the sake of getting some wimmin on board. That’s the mistake made by people who believe who is saying it is more important than what is being said. It’s the same trap that got Obama elected as a Black persyn, and Hilary campaigning on the platform of being a female. Even if the tokenization is of an oppressed group (queer/trans people of color appear to be the token of the day), identity politics is always dangerous and an antithesis to materialism.

Prisons in California have become one of the most active and organized areas of resistance behind bars in the United $tates. With the second largest prison population in the country, and some of the biggest long-term isolation units, this is perhaps not surprising. Out of this repression and resistance has come some strong organizing efforts over the past few years. And this has also raised contradictions that need to be resolved to advance the struggle. We use this issue of ULK to highlight the contradictions and challenge our comrades in California to think broadly about resolutions.

While SHU/Ad-Seg prisoners are about 6% of the California prison population, they were 35% of our readers according to our reader survey conducted a couple years ago. Special Needs Yards (SNY) are reported to be around 30% of the total population, but were about 40% of our reader responders. So while SHU/Ad-Seg are very over-represented, SNY also seems to be slightly over-represented among our readers. There is a big division between SHU/GP and SNY prisoners with distrust and anger on both sides. But comrades from both sides continue to do solid organizing work. One of the significant developments in Cali is the Agreement to End Hostilities (AEH), a United Front that has made important strides forward but is also plagued by these divisions.

It is unlikely anything we do or say will worsen the division between SHU/GP and SNY. Rather than fan the flames, we are airing these grievances as a step towards understanding and eventual reconciliation. We also want to challenge both sides. The revolutionary, anti-imperialist, pro-people forces are tiny in all sectors. Some argue that SNY is in a better position to unite, while others say only GP has potential. So we want to encourage a little friendly competition between the two sides to see who can do more. Practice has already demonstrated the leadership from SHU’s ability to mobilize the masses for a progressive cause. But progressive forces on that side must continue to move forward in order to consolidate those gains, or risk them being lost. At the same time SNY comrades claim they gained the freedom to unite and organize with whoever they want, and so they need to use that position to unite others who dropped out. To both sides we say: if you’re only seeking a comfortable way to do your time you’re not helping advance the struggle and the revolution has no place for you.

We received a number of responses to the article in ULK 50, “Chican@ Power Book Tainted by AEH.” One comrade in SNY wrote: “In my point of view it [the Agreement to End Hostilities] contradicts every aspect that they preach. Now everybody who died, who caught a life sentence for the struggle they believed in was all for nothing. Take a second and think about that. There are people who are in prison serving a life sentence for killing an individual who opposed his views and beliefs. Now they expect him to be the best of friends with these same people? How does that make sense?

“Now you guys reading this might say ‘He is only saying that because he’s SNY.’ Well, for 4 years I was active and I have seen both sides of the fence. Not everybody over here is a snitch. There is more unity here than there is on the mainline. You see raza from North and South united where it doesn’t matter what part of the state you’re from.”

Saying that the AEH is hypocritical based on the past goes against the United Front for Peace in Prisons (UFPP) principle of Growth. We must allow for growth and evolution of individuals and organizations if we want to see unity among the oppressed, because the old way didn’t work. There are major contradictions between lumpen organizations (LOs) still, and between different housing units in California. But we see these as contradictions among the people. Which is why we stand behind the AEH, and think those old wounds can heal. It’s been four years, and there’s still a long way to go. But people are putting in the work, and in some locations we’ve seen real progress.

We understand the lack of trust that some have for those calling for the AEH in California. But we say to those people, the ones who truly want to end oppression as this comrade does, isn’t the AEH a step towards what you want? Even if you don’t trust certain individuals, the more we do to promote the spirit of the AEH, as well as the principles of the UFPP, the closer we get to replacing the old order with a new order based on unity of the oppressed.

This response comes from the comrade at Folsom (not SNY) who reported in ULK 50 on the progress of the AEH there, with Raza from north and south playing handball together on the same teams: “It’s a challenge educating people here, attempting to share and explain the current situation and contradiction of ideology, morals, politricks and capital. These factions seem to be following a textbook on capitalism. Yes, we have the AEH, which is a beautiful thing and can be used as a stepping stone for a more productive practice of commune. At the moment people are more concerned on exploiting the twisted habits of others and making their pockets fatter for self-interest. The ‘chiefs’ preach to confuse, saying that the ideology, morals and capital is framed around serve the people, united we are stronger and all that glitter. But i’ve not yet seen one cent invested in the people, books, education or basic needs. Too bizzy taxing the fellas for pickles out their store bags.

“Get your back straight my people, the AEH is being tainted by self-interest and is not being maximized to its full potential in a more revolutionary way. Serve the People.

“The great are only great because we are on our knees. If you don’t have sycophantic attitudes towards the ‘leader’ and express your support they don’t look great. Put some pressure, maybe then these individuals that abandoned the cause for self-interest can snap out of their pig ideology and step their game up and shape their minds and struggle towards national liberation. Resemble more a revolutionary internationalist and not the imperialist pigs that fucked us all in the first place, Tony Montana wanna-be mofo.

“I will continue to read, educate, practice and liberate regardless of the situation and this September 9 will be no different.”

A comrade in Corcoran (not SNY) is skeptical of the AEH, but echoes the refrain from many in SHU/GP that there can never be unity with SNY:

“The AEH is a godsend to all the souljas who have been held captive in the concrete tombs for 10, 15, 20+ years. The AEH is the tool CDCR is going to try and use to 1) gain more funds to build more prisons, and 2) justify the need for indeterminate SHU sentences. The current shape/mindset of prison and prisoners is not what it was back in the days that the souljas remember it being. This is going to create problems. These newly released souljas are going to be dealing with 18, 19, 20 year olds sentenced to 50, 60, 100 years.

“The AEH is going to create old-school versus new-school. That about sums it up. There’s more to it. Like say the both schools are getting along there’s also a snake on the police side ready to cause dissension amongst the community. Bottom line, CDCR cannot afford for the AEH to work, so they will see that it doesn’t and when it doesn’t they’ll try to capitalize off its failure.

“They are now selling e-tablets, but only for SNY yards. There’s mp3 players only for SNYs. The list goes on. Even with the trades there on SNY yards, the GP level prisoners aren’t being afforded an opportunity to utilize programs that would rehabilitate them and better their lives and chances of staying out of prison. The message is clear: if you level four prisoners want to better your life you got to go SNY.

“Oh, there won’t ever be a united front between GPs and SNY. You’re better off trying to get a united front between convicts and pigz. See how crazy that sounds?! While there are solid souljas on the SNY yard, who became tired of the twisted prison politics. They’re far outnumbered by pieces of shit, ie. child molesters, rapists, snitches, cowards, people running from drug debts, etc.”

All of these struggles in the California prisons remind us of how far we have to go, as humynity, to achieve a society where all people can live together in peace, in a society where no group of people has power over any other group. That long-term goal is communism. But to get there we will need to radically change our culture and the education people get from schools and society. Divisions are built into imperialism, people are pitted against each other based on class, nation, and gender generally and more specifically feuds are fostered by the imperialists to pit the oppressed against each other. This culture won’t disappear overnight.

We learn from the revolutionary history of China that cultural revolutions will be needed after the oppressed take power, to re-educate everyone and build a truly revolutionary culture and society. It’s a long road, and our comrades behind bars in California shouldn’t be discouraged by divisions that have been created over many years of capitalist cultural indoctrination. Keep the big picture in mind and build for the revolutionary united front that serves the oppressed of the world.