MIM(Prisons) is a cell of revolutionaries serving the oppressed masses inside U.$. prisons, guided by the communist ideology of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism.
www.prisoncensorship.info is a media institution run by the Maoist Internationalist Ministry of Prisons. Here we collect and publicize reports of conditions behind the bars in U.$. prisons. Information about these incidents rarely makes it out of the prison, and when it does it is extremely rare that the reports are taken seriously and published. This historical record is important for documenting patterns of abuse, and also for informing people on the streets about what goes on behind the bars.
Prison administrators here in State Correctional Institution (SCI)
Huntingdon have recently begun to deny all of the programming textbooks
that have come in the mail for me, stating that the books contain
writings which advocate, assist or are evidence of criminal activity, or
facility misconduct. I am unable to properly appeal the publication
denials to the facility’s superintendent, who told me in person “You’re
not getting your fucking books.” He told me that the decision by the
Inmate Publication Review Committee (IPRC) is final, and his responses
to my attempts to appeal publication denials reflect this statement. I
am unable to use the facility grievance system to file complaints about
my mail and incoming publications, which are meant to be handled some
other way. I am unable to ask exactly what misconducts or crimes the
books advocate, assist in, or are evidence of, and facility staff have
been unable to specify.
I am writing to your organization to respectfully request any
assistance, or information you may be able to provide which could help
to right this wrong. These books are purely educational, and as such are
entirely neutral. Disallowing them could not serve any legitimate
penological interest.
MIM(Prisons) responds: This letter shows that education can never
be “entirely neutral” under imperialism. Educational textbooks, while
generally devoid of any progressive political content, still present a
threat to prisons because of the opportunity they provide for
educational advancement. Through this education prisoners may become
more aware of the basis of the criminal injustice system and their own
oppression, and it could lead them to seek out more revolutionary
education. Keeping prisoners uneducated is a good way for the oppressor
nation to maintain its privileged position.
Denial of books can also be used as punishment for a prisoner who is
seen as a trouble maker. The fact that this comrade knows how to file
grievances and is working to gain education may be the cause of these
denials. Part of the system of social control in prisons is the use of
arbitrary rules to contain prisoners who might be a threat because of
their understanding of legal rights and their ability to fight for these
rights.
For both of these reasons, instead of arguing about what constitutes
“legitimate penological interests” we point out that the penological
interest really being served by the Amerikan criminal injustice system
is social control. Censorship is a key tool the prisons use for this
end. And for this reason we focus some of our limited time and resources
fighting against censorship. For this comrade we have provided a copy of
our guide to fighting censorship. But what we really need, in many
states across the country, are lawyers who can help us bring censorship
cases to court to establish legal precedent. Of particular priority to
us are those cases where the censorship is of explicit political
material. Textbook denials like the one described above do happen, but
they are far less common than the denial of Under Lock &
Key and other revolutionary literature.
To the comrade who submitted the article
“Texas
Hides Grievance Manual” on a memo by Access to Courts Supervisor
Frank Hoke, take these words of wisdom.
The grievance procedure was certified by the United States District
Court for the Eastern District of Texas and Southern District of Texas
in 1989. In 1999 the Texas Board of Criminal Justice (TBCJ) and Agency
officials approved the Offender Grievance Operations Manual (OGOM) and
screening criteria. Pursuant to Board Policy (BP) 03.77,
“The resolution support manager shall establish and maintain the
Offender Grievance Operations Manual (OGOM) to provide guidance to
employees regarding the offender grievance procedure. … Instructions on
how to use the offender grievance procedure shall be established
separately from the OGOM for distribution to offenders and employees.
Provisions for training, education, and implementation of the offender
grievance procedure shall be established in AD-03.82, ‘Management of
Offender Grievances’ and the OGOM.” Signed by Oliver J. Bell, Chairman
TBCJ
Note the last part in BP-03.77 “shall be established in AD-03.82.” In
AD-03.82, the Resolution Support Manager is responsible for oversight of
access to courts, offender grievance and Ombudsman. Section I of
AD-03.82 establishes the set criterion of emergency and specialty
grievance. Furthermore, AD-03.82 Section IV A states: “Copies of
BP-03.77 … and this directive, as well as instructions on how to use the
offender grievance procedure shall be available at each unit, to include
copies in the law library.” AD-03.82 Section VI A states: “The
resolution support manager shall direct, administer, supervise, and
manage the implementation and operation of the offender grievance
procedure without interference by any employee.”
The memo you described was not issued by Texas Board of Criminal Justice
(TBCJ). So it is null and void, being it amends AD-03.82 and BP-03.77.
On Page 1 Chapter II of the OGOM titled “Authority” it states: “AD-03.82
‘Management of Offender Grievances’. Establishes agency expectations and
the fundamental groundwork for the effective operation of the Offender
Grievance Program. The administrative directive is more specific than
board policy and supports the grievance process by providing a basis for
the offender grievance operations manual.”
Notice that the Access to Courts is not the agency that is responsible
or authorized to make policy or amendments to policy or revisions. The
Access to Courts is violating the Liberty Interest Protections in
AD-03.82, being that Frank Hoke is not authorized to amend oversight
policy or the OGOM. These revisions unauthorized by Oliver J. Bell have
not been tested for constitutionality and changes AD-03.82 in violation
of Texas law and Texas constitution articles 1, 13, and 17. Please read
the article titled “Right to Assist others with Legal Work” in ULK
42 and you will see why they are doing this. Law library staff
violate privacy rights, copying letters, which they send to Access to
Courts for review. An Access to Courts violation has occurred which
impedes, hinders or denies these rights. There has been no change in
AD-03.82 or BP-03.77. Hoke’s memo will only go in effect if we allow it.
This is an unauthorized confiscation of OGOM without reason of safety or
security justification. See Corby v. Conboy, 457 F2d 251
(1972). Always keep the pigs within the “pen,” or they will eat up
your rights and liberty and defecate corruption, that will abolish the
smell of peace, and make the path of unity impossible to walk.
MIM(Prisons) responds: The knowledge of the invalidity of this
practice within Texas prisons is certainly something we can use in our
fight to remedy this repression. Prisoners in Texas should take the
information above and apply it to their struggle to get the grievance
manual put back into facility law libraries across the state. If someone
puts together a sample grievance, petition, or other organizing tool
then we can distribute it as part of our Texas Activist Pack.
But we also know that just because something is illegal or invalid
doesn’t mean that the state will ever actually be held accountable, or
be made to follow law. This is evidenced in prisons all across the
country, and on a broader scale by the illegal settlement of Palestine
by I$rael and the many illegal atrocities committed by the United $tates
and imperialist corporations all across the world. Those with power will
do whatever suits their interests. A grievance campaign might help us
win small victories. But we can’t be deluded into thinking that if we
just point out to them that they are breaking the law they will change
their behavior.
Mumia Abu-Jamal explains this well in the book
Jailhouse
Lawyers: Prisoners Defending Prisoners v. the U.S.A. In the Preface,
Mumia hammers home the point that law is what a judge decides in the
moment; that they make it up as they go along. In a discussion about
what makes jailhouse lawyers go crazy, Delbert Africa explains to Mumia,
“It drives they ass crazy ‘cuz they cain’t handle the fact that the
System just make and break they laws as it see fit! How many treaties
they done signed with the Indians? Ain’t a one of ’em they done kept!
Some of ’em broke ’em befo’ the ink was dry on ’em old treaties! Them
the same folks who run this System today! If they couldn’t keep a treaty
with Indians when they first got here, what make you think they gonna
keep they so-called law today, especially when it come to me and you,
man?”
Mumia pushed Africa to explain further why this makes jailhouse lawyers
go crazy, and Africa responded,
“They go crazy becuz, Mu, they really believe in the System, and this
System always betray those that believe in it! That’s
what drive them out of they minds, man. They cain’t handle that. It
literally drives them out they mind. I see ‘em around here, walkin’
’round here dazed, crazy as a bedbug!”
Mumia follows this conversation with an anecdote about a jailhouse
lawyer he knew from death row who insisted his appeal would be granted
because his argument was so “black and white” that the judge “gotta” go
for it. But as Mumia explained to this brother,
“They do what they wanna do, man! Just ‘cuz it says something in one
case, they don’t have to go by that case, man. I agree with you, that
you got a damn good argument – and you should prevail – but I don’t go
for that ’gotta’ rap!”
While we want to hold our oppressors publicly accountable as much as we
can, these struggles are more about highlighting inadequacies of the
injustice system and agitating for others to join our struggle against
capitalism and imperialism. When we do win a legal battle, we take it as
an opportunity to build space for more revolutionary organizing. We
ultimately need to wage a protracted, long-term struggle (that
eventually will be an armed struggle) against this oppressive legal and
economic system under which we attempt to live. In the meantime, we
agree with Mumia that “the law ain’t nothing but whatta judge
say the law is.”
As of right now the konvicts here at U.S. Penetentiary (USP) Big Sandy
are on lockdown due to a racial riot. This is what the pigs want. I
blame the pigs for setting up this atmosphere by creating tension
amongst the konvicts by applying oppression along with repressive
tactics. Instead of the konvicts challenging the pigs, they attack each
other. But I also blame us komrades here at Big Sandy for not agitating
and mobilizing the masses.
Those of us who are conscious with revolutionary theory should be
educating others. Teach the konvicts why they exist in the condition
that they are in. Help them to understand that they are victims of an
economic system. All crimes can be traced to socio-economic conditions.
We are at war politically, socially, economically and culturally. We
must educate the prisoners so that they will understand the true
function of the prison system and know why are we here. This is
especially true for the New Afrikans.
Black men comprise over 40% of death row inmates. There are at least 2.5
million people in Amerika’s institutions and over 50% are New Afrikans.
24.7% of New Afrikans live below poverty while only 11.4% of whites live
below poverty. New Afrikans serve 20% more of their sentences with
crimes similar to whites. Amerika is number one when it comes to the
world’s prison population, but is number forty-three when it comes to
the world’s education. Why is this?
We must figure out a way to reach the konvicts here so that we can begin
to challenge the injustices that are being inflicted upon us. I’ve met
komrades who use the excuse of getting sent to isolation if they take
the initiative. The revolution is not a dinner party. It’s supposed to
be suffering. We are at war with a vicious paper tiger. This is why we
call it a struggle. I understanding the meaning of a clandestine army
but damn! We can’t keep using this clandestine strategy as an excuse to
action. That’s some coward shit.
I understand being clandestine if you’re doing the people’s work, but
sitting around playing chess, smoking weed, drinking, and just being
idle and doing nothing isn’t clandestine. Jumping on other konvicts
isn’t the peoples work. That’s a form of individualism as well as being
reactionary, unless it’s in self-defense. That’s why the Black Panther
Party was first started: to defend themselves and the community. This
prison is our community and it’s our job as vanguards to defend the
community. We cannot forget the legacy of George Jackson and the other
komrades who fought and died for the people. Their spirit is in us and
we must carry on the torch. The dragon has awaken. Can’t stop! Won’t
stop!
MIM(Prisons) responds: This comrade provides some important facts
about the reality of national oppression within U.$. borders. The
disproportionate lockup of oppressed nations is part of the system of
imperialism that continues to oppress internal colonies within U.$.
borders. And we echo this writer’s call for the oppressed to stand up
and take action. Even if it’s just forming a study group, or sharing
your Under Lock & Key with others. There is much education
and organizing work to be done. MIM(Prisons) can support your work,
write to us to get involved and put your time behind bars to good use.
I have been filing numerous grievances since I last wrote in. I also
used the grievance petition to my advantage. Below is an update of
people I have contacted about the grievance petition, when, and the
result.
I received a memo from the TDCJ Ombudsman office after mailing a
petition to Governor Greg Abbotts’s office 13 April 2015 stating “Your
correspondence was forwarded to this office by the office of the
Governor. The Governor’s office does not respond to prisoner complaints
or requests.”
I wrote to… … Scott Medlock of the Texas Civil Rights Project at his
new address. It is 1101 E 11th St, Austin, TX 78702. I wrote to him on
19 May 2015, and have not received any response. … Senator Jean
Huffman on 23 February 2015, with no response. … FBI Houston 15 June
2015, with no response. … Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton on 26 May
2015, with no response. … Region 3 Director Leonard Echessa on 3 July
2015.
I would like to receive 50 petitions so that I can mail to district
attorneys in the surrounding counties. I took it upon myself to
participate in this campaign because there needs to be accountability.
Obstruction of Grievance Process
CO II Okonknoo called me a “troublemaker” and made a comment stating
something like “I have received a lot of grievances [on my misconduct].
The grievances help promote me. Every grievance that is written on me
states that I am doing my job. Let me do my job.”
Grievance Investigator II Anna Rodriguez fails to answer questions in
regard to grievance numbers. She asks me why I need these numbers, and
states that she doesn’t know the pigs who receive the Step 2 grievances
in Huntsville, Texas.
Every Step 2 medical grievance sent comes back with a rubber stamp. Myra
Walker was usually the one that signs off on step 2 medical grievances.
Rat and Roach Infestation, Rotten Food
I live in a dorm with 53 other comrades where rats tear up soups in
lockers, and roaches are all over. Comrades leave cups and spoons all
over the floor. The dishwasher is always messed up. Therefore we
comrades get dirty spoons, cups, and plates.
They undercook food. I can’t even eat greasy food in prison like I used
to: chili, mac, beef noodle casserole. Most of it is pork. The diet for
health trays contains pork. We are eating bananas and cucumbers, some of
which are rotten.
Unkept Facilities and Supplies
I have been constantly sneezing and coughing up mucus. It is overly
dusty here. Urinals and plumbing is filthy rotten. There are shower
heads that are out. I press some of them and every now and then they
work. They need maintenance. Maintenance never comes in to inspect and
fix the drainage issues.
We haven’t received any cleaning supplies in a long time. At my last
unit and other units we get cleaning supplies each week. This unit
doesn’t care about cleanliness.
We are only allowed one pair of boxers, one top, one bottom, and one
pair of socks. We exchange daily. At other units (Robertson/Roach), you
keep two pairs of each. Pigs trip about having more than one pair of
boxers. The boxers are torn up. They expect us comrades to wear these
torn up boxers. The laundry department refuses to repair them. This also
goes for the shirts. They never replace missing pockets in the shirts or
the pants.
They do not change the water coolers every hour throughout the day/night
like they are supposed to. There is a lot of heat exhaustion. This is an
older unit. I feel that they need to shut down this unit.
Guards and Medical
The majority of staff at the unit are Afrikan nationals who treat
comrades as trash. They bring their bad attitudes to the prison and
unleash it on comrades. Most of the pigs don’t wear their nametags which
is a violation.
I had a lot of problems showering at night because pigs want to screw
comrades of showers when they work 1st shift/go to school. Every comrade
should be afforded a shower.
The medical department is bad. The lighting in the dayroom at nighttime
is too bright and it has hurt my vision severely. I was diagnosed with
lattice degeneration and dot hemorrhage (thinning of retina). Medical
doesn’t do a lot for comrades.
MIM(Prisons)’s 2015 congress was marked by some major successes and
growth in our work over the past year. We reached our goal from 2013 of
doubling Under Lock & Key subscribers; helped write and
edit Chican@ Power and the Struggle for Aztlán; and we took up
the Strugglen Artists Association project and collected and distributed
some great art both behind bars and on the streets. We have continued to
support and build prisoner education, running both beginner and advanced
correspondence study groups, sending in many political magazines and
books, and supporting more than 30 prisoner-led study groups. Our focus
in the coming year will be in building on these successes: printing and
distributing the Chican@ Power book, expanding prisoner-led
study groups, and building more United Struggle from Within (USW)-led
campaigns.
All of this project-based work remains focused on our primary goal:
serving the oppressed in prisons within the United $tates, while working
from the vantage point of the Third World proletariat. We recognize that
imperialism is the number one enemy of the majority of the world’s
people, and we are fighting from within the belly of the beast in the
advanced stage of imperialism, where the majority of the people living
within U.$. borders have been bought off with the spoils of capitalist
profits. This petty-bourgeois population does not support our
revolutionary organizing, and we cannot rely on them for the finances or
labor needed to keep this struggle moving forward. So we focus our
public opinion building on prisoners, who have a lot to gain from an end
to Amerikkkan imperialism.
Growth and Finances
Over the past year we have seen a 70% growth in our Under Lock &
Key (ULK) subscribers. But with this success comes the new
challenge of paying for the increased printing and mailing costs. The
overall cost to send out ULK is up 60% in July 2015 compared
with July 2014. Subscriber funding of ULK increased by 64% over
the same period, a very good trend, but all of that money went towards
the cost of the 4 extra pages we printed in issues 39, 42, and the
forthcoming ULK 46.
While we were able to print three issues of ULK with 4 extra
pages of content, thanks to the funding from comrades behind bars, we
will no longer be able to use donations for that purpose. Instead we
need to focus all donations on the costs of printing and mailing to our
greatly expanded distribution list. We want to see ULK expanded
to 20 pages every issue, and we know readers are hungry for these
additional pages, but first we will need to greatly expand funding for
the publication. To answer the immediate need for more reading material,
we offer activists behind bars lots of extra revolutionary lit to study
in exchange for any sort of work they can contribute to the struggle.
Ultimately this shift is necessary to continue to expand the reach of
ULK as our subscriber list continues to grow. It was a
difficult decision to stop printing the extra content, but we are doing
it to prevent cutting down ULK content even more in the long
term.
We need your help to keep up with new subscriptions! At the current rate
of donations, prisoner funding for ULK covers only 4% of costs
(printing a 16 page publication). In addition to spreading the word,
sharing your ULK with others, and encouraging everyone to get
their own subscription, we need donations of stamps and checks. We are
setting a goal of funding 10% of each issue from subscriber donations.
This is an aggressive goal based on our history, but we are confident
that it is possible. To put it in perspective, we would meet the 10%
funding goal if 1 in 5 subscribers sent in just one stamp a year! (Tell
us if you want to send a check so we can send you instructions.)
“One important piece of our strategic orientation is the strategic
confidence we have from our global class analysis. Basically, our
analysis says that the vast majority of the world’s people, a solid 80%,
will benefit materially from an end to imperialism. This is why we
believe anti-imperialism is destined for success. Subjectively, this can
be important to keep in mind in an environment surrounded by class
enemies or by those with bourgeois consciousness. … One way i plan to
expand the international connections we make is to have a section in
each issue to print news snippets on events from the Third World that
demonstrate determined resistance and a broad class consciousness that
is opposed to imperialism. We hope that our readers find inspiration in
this information that you probably aren’t getting from other news
sources.”
In the course of writing these articles we realized that including
information highlighting struggles in other parts of the world without
going into details and analysis of the situation leads us towards
opportunism. It is easy to put out information about people taking
actions against their government, but if we fail to investigate the
underlying situation in those countries we can end up supporting
imperialism rather than national liberation. A good example of this is
our article on Burkina Faso printed in ULK 41.(1) While we
uphold the people’s protests against exploitation and oppression, we
can’t superficially uphold their President’s push into exile only to be
replaced by a military leader. The situation is too complex to be summed
up in a couple sentences, as it was in our Strategic Confidence feature
as we prepared to go to print. Fortunately we caught this error and
expanded the article before publication.
To correct this error we are re-orienting the international content in
ULK to include at least one internationally-focused article in
each issue, which includes more depth of analysis about the
situation/region. In these international articles we will favor topics
that lend themselves to strategic confidence by highlighting resistance
struggles against imperialism. It should also be noted that the
international content in ULK was of higher quantity and quality
over the previous year largely thanks to a number of United Struggle
from Within writers. So we call on their continued efforts to help us
meet this goal.
United Struggle from Within
This year we saw tremendous growth in our Texas subscribers, many of
whom learned about MIM(Prisons) through the Texas Activist Pack that was
created by comrades behind bars. The Texas Activist Pack was put
together to help prisoners in that state fight a variety of abuses
including the medical co-pay, the
indigent
mail restrictions and the
baseless
denials of grievances. This shows us that concretely addressing
prisoners’ day-to-day struggles is an important way to expand our
audience while getting vital organizing tools into the hands of folks
who need them. People who get in touch for these resources are staying
active with MIM(Prisons) at almost the same rate as those who write
directly to get ULK or otherwise get involved in our work.
We want to take this lesson from Texas and apply it to other states by
working with USW comrades to build activism packs specific to the needs
of prisoners in each state. This will require knowledge about the local
struggles and challenges, and work to create resources to help address
these problems. In some states like Florida this might be focused on
censorship as one of the biggest problems we are fighting there, while
in Georgia we know the tier system is a problem that overshadows the
lives of everyone locked up in that state. However, we want to be
careful not to assume that the biggest problem in a state is the one
that we can target with activism packs. These should be potentially
winnable battles, around which, through education and distribution of
resources, we can have a real impact on the lives of our comrades. Get
in touch with us if you have ideas about or can help create a campaign
for your state.
I went back to ULK issue 42 to sort out some disputes with the
other prisoners and gangs housed in this institution. The problem is
that we can’t seem to get it together. Mainly those claiming to be a
part of an organized entity. Some members say they are for the cause to
unite and fight against oppression (within the prison). What drew me
back to this issue was the topic of the issue
Building
Peace with the United Front which speaks about the base of bringing
the misled and disorganized together. Yet, in my situation, it’s a
constant contradiction. Nobody wants to play their part or abide by the
agenda and constitutions set out for them. So I am asking you: as a
current member of the contradictory organization, do I stay, proclaiming
my loyalty, or do I move on? Please help me with this issue. The only
thing that I can see me staying for is the true comrades, but I didn’t
become what I am for the few individuals. I chose my way of life because
of the movement. Now I am stuck deciding what is best for me. Well it’s
been nice sharing my issues with you. I just ask that you give me your
best opinion from what you have read.
MIM(Prisons) responds: This is an important question that many
folks who are part of lumpen organizations raise as their political
consciousness grows. There is often the possibility of educating and
building from within an organization, helping to bring the level of
political knowledge and organizing work up for the whole group. But
sometimes this is not possible, and you find yourself inside an
organization that refuses to advance whether this is because of
mis-leadership or the conflicting goals of the members. When this
happens it may be time to leave the organization and start something
new. We should not hold on to blind loyalty when this binds us to
reactionary organizations.
This is the difference between scientific leadership and cult
leadership. A cult demands blind loyalty and creates a situation that
allows for abuse and oppression within the group. In contrast,
MIM(Prisons) would tell people they should leave our organization if
they believe it has taken a reactionary path. Of course, one should only
do so after struggling within the organization to correct its errors. In
other words, push the contradictions within the organization to
conclusion before just giving up. And while doing so you might study
Mao’s “On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People.”
This comrade asks “what is best for me?” But we would instead ask “what
is best for the oppressed people of the world?” If you are in an
organization that is not fighting on the side of the oppressed, and is
not willing to listen to you when you push them in this direction, then
you are wasting your time with this group. If you take action and break
with the organization in order to take up the revolutionary struggle,
any other progressive individuals inside of this group might be inspired
to join you. It’s important that you be clear that is it not lack of
loyalty that causes you to break with the group, but rather the
importance of your goals to serve the people.
MIM(Prisons) disagrees with the organizational model of a single
ideological leader (or privileged clique) providing all the instructions
and theory for its membership, with the masses submitting to this
guidance. This is part of why we are an anonymous organization – to help
people overcome the cultural tendency of hero worship. We want everyone
to take the ideological development of our movement into their own
hands. As we’ve seen countless times throughout history, raising
everyone’s political consciousness, as the Chinese Communist
Party did under Mao, is essential to ensuring that our revolutionary
movement is not usurped by our enemies or our mistakes.
To this end, we run correspondence study courses, and we encourage
prisoners to run their own study groups where they’re at. Malcolm X,
George Jackson, Stanley Tookie Williams, and countless other leaders
developed their revolutionary analysis using their time behind bars in
U.$. prisons. We follow their example and aim to push forward the
political development of all U.$. prisoners; supporting prisoner-led
study groups (SGs) is one way we do this.
We help support over 30 SGs in 16 states and the Federal system. Since
the SGs are prisoner-run and led, we primarily provide support by
sending study materials, including books, magazines, newspapers and
study packs. Some of the study packs are collections of essays or source
material on a particular topic, and others are questions that go with a
magazine or book. With this issue of ULK and our letters to SG
leaders, we also aim to provide tactical guidance and suggestions.
In February we sent out a questionnaire to get a better sense of how
these SGs are run, their scope, their successes, challenges and needs.
About one-third of the SGs we support responded, and here we summarize
what we learned.
The number of participants ranges between 1 and 25 people, and most
groups have less than 10 regular participants. Some groups are
single-nation, but most are mixed-nation, with a mixture of lumpen
organization (LO) and ex-LO membership. We see SGs as a good place for
building the United Front for Peace in Prisons through practice. One
respondent told us:
“The three core members have all had gang affiliations in the past. The
two brothers were in the Gangster Disciples or Vice Lords, and the
Chicano was in the Latin Kings. But behind bars we have found out who
the real enemy is: the U.$. racist imperialist oppressor pigs who run
this joint. So we have put our racial differences and gang affiliations
aside to fight our common enemy.”
The average time an SG has been together is 2 years, with a range of 2.5
months to 6 years. Most go through study material at similar rates:
either one ULK per week, a few chapters of a book every two
weeks, or a magazine/book per month. The SGs that have been going the
longest reported that individual members teach what they are familiar
with, or have assigned areas to become expert. Other groups report that
one persyn or a core group will lead the entire study.
SGs have a wide range of structure. The structure of your group should
be based on the conditions where you’re at, but it should be a universal
goal to get a variety of participants engaging in leading the group.
Raising the leadership skills of the participants is one way to raise
their political level. And since people are moved around all the time, a
follower in one SG might need to become the leader in a different
facility. If they already have some practice generating study questions,
acquiring reading material, and recruiting participants, then the new SG
is more likely to be successful. In this way we can use a disruption,
such as transfers, to our advantage.
The frequency and reliability of meeting to go over study materials also
varies widely. For groups who are in different facilities, or who are in
isolation, they “meet” by passing lit and sharing essays they write
analyzing the reading material. Most groups reported they meet once a
week, some 3 or 5 days a week, and one group said they meet daily. Some
reported they meet creatively under the guise of religious services or a
tutoring program.
Challenges
Of course one huge barrier to SGs and revolutionary development
generally is literacy – your ability to read and write. We know that a
significant portion of prisoners are illiterate. Most of our SGs
reported they do not spend much energy teaching literacy, and most
participants have GEDs or higher. One group even reported that a GED is
a minimum requirement to participate. With the abhorrent lack of
programming in U.$. prisons, the responsibility of teaching literacy
rests primarily on prisoners themselves – each one teach one.
Challenges reported include:
Imprisonment problems: infiltration, SHU time, validation
“Imprisonment problems” will always affect our SGs just because of
the fact that they are running inside prisons. But these issues can be
addressed somewhat by having good security practices. At least one SG
recruits participants by being blatant and open about its politics,
receiving criticism from other prisoners (which they then engage through
discussion) but not repression from staff (at least not yet). In our
limited experience, this is an uncommon scenario, and definitely varies
by facility and state. We are creating a security study pack to add to
our list of available study materials, so if you have any
recommendations of security practices that have worked for your group,
please share them with us.
“Lumpen problems” are those which are prominent among the lumpen class
as a whole, which we need to address on a mass scale. We can start
working on these problems within our SGs. The institutionalization of
the daily routine in prisons leads many to rely on others (their
captors) to determine what they do at any given moment. This prevents us
from developing the necessary skills of time management and
self-discipline. When moved to a less structured environment (e.g, from
SHU to general population, or from prison to the outside) it is
difficult to stay committed to projects and it can be as if one is just
following the wind. Encouraging self-discipline with work reports and
planning in advance is one way to tackle this problem.
Study material being censored and confiscated can possibly be dealt with
using the appeal and grievance process, but we also need to assume
repression will always come from our oppressor whenever we try to
educate ourselves. Since you can’t rely on having articles or notes to
refer back to, try to read the material multiple times before passing it
on. Writing a summary or analysis on the material, even if it’s just a
few sentences reflecting on an article in ULK, will help you
remember it better and think about it more critically. And discussing
your reflections with another comrade if possible will help you develop
your overall political analysis. So even if the material is stomped on
and torn up and “lost” forever, you will have done your best to hold on
to it and can hopefully teach those principles to others even without
the written words to refer to.
If the main problem in your SG is having material to study, you’re in
luck, because that’s probably the easiest problem to solve! Barring
complete censorship of our materials, MIM Distributors can send you
literature on a wide range of topics. Send us reports on what questions
are coming up in your SG, what conclusions you are drawing from the
material you are studying, and how those conclusions can be applied to
the struggles in your prison, and we’ll hook you up. Encourage your SG
participants to sign up for ULK and send us work-trades for
lit, such as articles, art, or poetry for the newsletter. You can even
pool together your financial resources to purchase books outright.
One of our goals coming from our annual congress is to be supporting 50
SGs across the United $nakes by this time next year. Since the
initiative of our subscribers (YOU!) is what determines how many SGs we
can support, we are trying to up the support on our end by addressing
some of the main challenges identified in responses to our
questionnaire. Please share experiences with us that others might be
able to apply to their own SGs.
We hope with this issue of ULK to spark some inspiration among
our readers to take their usual “I read and love this newsletter, and
pass it on!” to step up and sit down with their fellow captives to
study. It is not only important for our own immediate tasks of building
unity and increasing our knowledge, but it is important so that our
actions will have the greatest impact on liberating the majority of the
world’s people.
I am doing time and slave labor on the Wynne Unit in the Texas
Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ). This is an industry unit.
Millions of dollars worth of commodities are mass produced by prisoners
who receive no type of worthwhile compensation. These items consist of
vehicle registration stickers, license plates, mattresses that range
from Sealy Posturepedic to college dorm and prisoner beds. Signs are
produced for a wide range of functions, and there’s a computer recovery
warehouse that refurbishes used and discarded units to be sent to high
schools and hospitals.
It goes without saying that if everyone decided to lay it down the
powers that be would have a serious problem. Yet sadly enough out of the
2,200 prisoners housed here, the number would more than likely be in the
double digits only. You have those who don’t want to lose their clerk
job where they might get a few perks every now and then. Some in the
craft shop would put the craft shop first. I do understand why people
want to protect their “jobs,” but how much longer are we going to stand
by and be forced to witness the constant abuse of power?
I have been locked up in segregation unjustly. I’ve seen my brothers
lose their lives which may have been prevented if the COs acted as if
they gave a damn. Although we all know they don’t. So, we rise early
every morning, we are told to work “or else”, and god forbid you try to
utilize the option to go to school because you are expected to be at
work before sunrise even if you are trying to educate your mind and work
on your attitude.
It’s no secret that the TDCJ’s main concern all the way around is money.
Ironically our “great state’s” prison system is in the negative on funds
but will not hesitate to lock someone up over a bullshit parole
violation or something nonviolent like theft. And we are being punished
daily by the COs and administration who use their position as an
opportunity to abuse other human beings and get away with it. Our
so-called grievance system is a laugh-out-loud joke, just like TDCJ’s
good time and work time fiascos.
The reality is that if just one third of our prison population would
spend some of those phone minutes on educating our outside support
rather than crying about more money for holiday packs and new shoes
every 6 months, we might see some difference. Let people know how they
can help, without making TDCJ’s commissary richer. I like candy and
sodas as much as the next guy. What I don’t like is getting treated like
dog shit just because I’m trying to resolve a problem. The indigent mail
issue, the medical copay, the good time, work time and assaults on
inmates by guards are but a few of our long list of issues that are not
just going to disappear. We will not go quietly into that good night,
and we will not back down without a fight.
TDCJ started allowing pagans to have a “service” once a week. We get 1
hour for non-outside-leader peer-to-peer, and 2 hours for groups led by
an outside teacher. But the problem is that they don’t even follow the
policy that they themselves put into place, and 90% of chaplains and
corrections officers (COs) are anti-pagan. These so-called Christians
are the ones who oppress everybody who is not a Jesus follower. They
cannot understand why we, those liberated from a “slave religion,”
refuse to follow their way. So they oppress us all as “satanists,” which
is funny when most of us don’t even believe in the guy.
The chaplains will “lay us all in” (give a pass) to attend “pagan
services” at a pre-determined time and place. It’s almost always at
count time when no movement is to be allowed, or at shift change when
the COs are trying to get gone. So it’s impossible to get out the door
most of the time. When we do, they expect all of us, Wiccans,
Ásatrú/Odinist, Druids, etc., to group up together and do our thing in a
common circle. This does not work! We are so different from each other
that it would be like making Muslims, Catholics and Christians all group
up and have church together. I’ve had kingsmen (fellow followers) get
locked up for asking to speak to the major or warden to get permission
to be in separate groups. The unit chaplain didn’t like the idea that we
may get our way over what he had in mind. We tried to do some simple
rites, based on what TDCJ policy lays out that we can do but this was
shut down. Administration claimed that we require an outside leader.
They don’t understand that we don’t require a priest or the equal to
lead our groups. Most of the time who lead a rite is rotated or chosen
by knowledge of the purpose and/or reason for said rite. Most of the
simple rites don’t require anything more than a cup and bowl, which we
can get from unit commissary. But they want to try to oppress us by
saying that we can only get together and study our lore during our hour
long session.
I want to ask all Texas Pagans to come together and fight to get equal
rights as the other religions. It would even be good for any oppressed
Pagans of other states to join the movement for our “services.” Don’t
let the powers that be use scare tactics to stop the equal rights. All
it takes is a unified front to stand together and it will work in our
favor.
I first became exposed to revolutionary theory in prison, although I had
been a reader my whole life. Prison has become my classroom for
revolutionary knowledge, not because the state ensures this, but because
I came in contact with politically conscious prisoners who helped
instill a consciousness in me. Groups like MIM helped to fuel my early
cultivation through liberatory literature and I was able to engage in
study groups throughout my prison journey, facility to facility and yard
to yard. Study groups were the key to my own development.
It is a fact that U.S. prisons are used for social control of prisoners,
who are mostly from the internal semi-colonies. Colonized people have
always been subjected to brutal prison conditions but dialectical
materialism teaches us that we can transform our environment, including
prisons. In order to revolutionize these modern day slave kamps we need
to study to revolutionize ourselves.
How Study Groups Help People
People are social beings, and as strong-minded and determined as we
think we are, the truth is we learn best through interacting with our
environment and especially other people. We learn best by discussion and
debate. Asking questions helps us get answers, and when we are having
trouble grasping a concept, studying with others allows us to learn.
Teaching others also helps the teacher to learn themselves. The study
group facilitates all of this.
In my own experience with study groups within U.$. prisons I have found
that besides developing one’s own political thought, study groups also
teach one how to interact with others and what are the best ways to
translate or explain our social reality to the people. We should
understand that in many ways those of us who study political science and
engage in study groups within prisons operate like political
organizations out in society that do outreach to the masses, only our
fellow prisoners are the masses.
Just as our counterparts outside prison walls constantly attempt to
learn from the masses in order to better help the masses, we should do
the same with our study groups. As prisoners, those of us who are
conscious must revolutionize these dungeons. We have boots on the
ground, and study groups within prisons should develop programs which
help educate all of the prison masses, not just those involved in a
study group. In this sense a study group can serve as the vanguard in
their facility.
Study groups have helped me understand my oppression and the oppression
of Aztlán, and through them I have become a better persyn. Understanding
politics and theory has given me purpose and has helped me to help other
prisoners to better their existence. In short I have not just learned
about hystory, as when I study alone, but I have learned different
methods of using the lessons of hystory to revolutionize the future.
How do study groups operate?
Depending on one’s facility, study groups take on various formations. I
have experienced many, from formal groups studying political science
while on the mainline where one can meet face to face on the yard and
discuss different aspects of society, to yelling through an air vent to
people I couldn’t see.
I was in one spot where every few days someone picked a different
country and we discussed all of the uprisings in that country. People
would search old magazines, books or newspapers to find anything on that
country.
Another study group I participated in was in a facility that was highly
restrictive with revolutionary literature. Since none of us was too
politically educated we got whatever newspapers or progressive magazines
we could, and we would discuss the articles, and attempt to apply them
to other aspects of society.
Prison Study Groups in Maoist China
If we look to Mao’s China, and specifically to the time of the Cultural
Revolution, we will see that every level of society was touched by
Maoism, even the prisons. When I read about prisons in Mao’s China I
learn why it is that Maoism is considered the highest stage that
socialism has developed so far.
Though frequently badmouthed in the imperialist media for their
re-education practice, these prisons focused on the political education
of inmates. Most people behind bars had committed serious crimes against
the people (landlords who murdered peasants, people who spied for
Amerika, government officials who abused their power), and so this
education helped prisoners understand how their actions affected others
and why they should want to work towards a society where people do not
have the power to oppress and exploit others.(1)
The study groups developed by prisoners during the Cultural Revolution
involved thought reform. This means understanding why one has particular
thoughts and finding ways of correcting incorrect ideas. This was
reforming one’s errors on levels that many of us cannot even imagine. It
was a process of dialectics where prisoners would study the essence of
their actions and behaviors. They would also engage in
criticism-self-criticism where they would look into their own errors or
the errors of others so that they all learned and evolved as a group.
The prison study groups in Maoist China did not conduct
criticism-self-criticisms in order to ridicule or bully people; instead
it was done to really point out the error and get the persyn to
understand their error. One cannot change a behavior if one does not
know or truly believe that they are committing an error in the first
place. What we must understand is every prison in Mao’s
China had these daily study groups, which were fully supported by the
people’s government. In this way prisoners learned and
became better people because of the study groups. They became people who
went on to help build the revolution.
In contrast to Mao’s China, here in U.$. prisons we are simply
warehoused. We are placed in a cell where we are taught
nothing, and this is done for years and decades. If we
are lucky we are released and come out the same or worse than we went
in. We don’t learn from the state because under capitalism they don’t
have any use for us other than filling a cell. And when we try to form
study groups we are punished and our studies are falsely labeled as gang
activity or security threat activities. This is the difference between a
Maoist society and a capitalist society; one heals people, the other
destroys people.
All of this was part of the political line of China under Mao which put
into practice the theory that people can learn from their mistakes and
become productive members of society if they take study and
self-criticism seriously. In Amerika’s prisons today we find the
oppressed rather than the oppressors, but there is still an important
role for self-criticism in the anti-people actions of many lumpen. And
the study of political theory is especially criticial to the oppressed
as we hone our understanding of how to fight back against the
oppressors.
When speaking about education Mao stressed: “Our educational policy must
enable everyone who receives an education to develop morally,
intellectually and physically and become a worker with both socialist
consciousness and culture.”(2)
Mao reminds us that education is to make us better people. In the above
quote he describes education being used to help people become workers.
Although we are lumpen, education can help us become lumpen with
socialist consciousness and culture.
What are the difficulties?
Forming or participating in study groups is not easy. There are many
obstructions we have to deal with. As most know, U.$. prisons unleash
political repression in the guise of upholding their laws. They
criminalize political organizing and revolutionary activity of the
imprisoned captives by labeling it “gang activity” or “security threat
group activity.”
There were times when I would get a good group of people together and we
would have a good study group going and then the prison, out of nowhere,
would move people out of the building or section, scrambling the housing
population and dismantling the study group. The study group is
disrupted, but this only means that we need to start over.
Sometimes I would be somewhere and gather lots of notes on political
articles or uprisings and I would use these for groups, only to have my
cell searched and all of my notes trashed, with a guard noting “gang
notes.” Likewise I would acquire a good selection of revolutionary books
only to be transferred to another prison and in the process all of my
political books would be “lost.”
Once I was in a control unit where the prison put me and a New Afrikan
next to each other and everyone else in the unit was juiced up on psyche
meds kicking their door all day. The prison did this to further isolate
us from our nations. So we formed a study group together and discussed
ULK and other books. When things get repressive we need to keep
studying and educating each other, no matter how hard it is.
Study groups can also be done through the mail. MIM(prisons) facilitates
some of the best study groups I have encountered. But this invites
censorship and sometimes harassment from the prison staff. We have to
understand that learning about our own repression and about communist
theory is something the state seeks to prevent. Prisoners learning about
revolutionary theory scares the state because it means we will learn and
turn theory into practice, against them.
What’s it all for?
We should understand that repression will happen regularly. This is why
studying is so important, so that when our mail is censored we have
books and literature to fuel our study groups. And when our lit and
books are “lost” we can remember our lessons and teach others key
concepts like dialectical and historical materialism. We can help other
prisoners understand why we need a united front or how the oppressed
within U.$. borders developed as nations. We will know all of this and
what kind of program we will need to liberate the people because of what
we learned in our study groups.
What we do today and how we spend our time in these dungeons will
determine what the future of these dungeons will look like. At the same
time study groups should produce theory and theory should produce
practice. We are not studying to be armchair revolutionaries, we are
studying in order to ultimately join the oppressed of the world in
smashing imperialism.