Federal Prisons

Thanks to those who continue to pass us information on what happened to Amare “Ra’d” Selton, as well as the many words of condolence. Though it is hard for us to say anything conclusive on what took place last September when he died in Attica, it has become more evident that the DOCS was ultimately behind what happened. As our comrade explains below, there is a constant struggle for many between staying alive to struggle and staying sane under extreme repression. For more on this topic read Prisoner driven to suicide.

To learn from Ra’d’s sacrifice is to study strategy, and how to be effective in organizing for justice. As materialists, we also recognize that winnable battles are not always in the cards. Sometimes there is no question of whether we can win, only a question of whether we struggle or not before we lose. In such cases, our strategy must center on making these losses serve as examples to inspire and to expose. Ra’d continues to inspire those who knew him.

A New York prisoner writes:

I am writing to inform you and my comrades of the death of my mentor Amare “Ra’d” Selton. May Allah bless his soul. … Ra’d was my boy, he’s who a person with nothing would always look up to. Ra’d would embrace anybody who was struggling. Ra’d would pick anybody up who was down. If Ra’d saw another prisoner being assaulted by a police officer he’d help out any way he could. Ra’d was a good brother, may Allah be with him.

Rest in Peacefulness, hold your head Ra’d!

A second New York prisoner writes:

I was in SHU with Amare back in 2003. He is a true rebel with a cause! May he rest in power! He was never the suicidal type, he was a warrior, a freedom fighter and he had 25 to Life, so he sought freedom by all means, even death.

I had hours to build with him and he always expressed his Muslim theory and stance against imperialism and white supremacy, which coincides with his murder, which I know was done by the pigs! He was a threat, that’s why they isolated him in SHU for long, extended periods of time.

I met him and automatically connected with him because he has a passion to resist oppression and police brutality. So to know he got murdered by these pigs really was heart-wrenching. The pigs get away with it like they do when the pigs in the street shoot an unarmed Black or Brown brother/sister; it becomes justifiable homicide! This cannot continue to happen without some type of organized resistance. One cannot talk non-violent or peaceful resolutions with those sadistic pigs because they don’t respect it. To be honest, I don’t want to die in prison, I’m more worthwhile on the streets organizing, but there’s only so much I can endure in this hell hole. I’m not reactionary, but we must demand our respect by any means!

High Desert State Prison
I am currently in this Control Unit(CU).
There are 96 cells which are mostly housing two prisoners each for a max of 192, but a handful of single cells make it about 187.
The whole prison is not a CU. Z-unit is the only full time CU built for this specific purpose. However three building on D-yard, 6-7-8 blocks, are currently used as overflow and to reward snitches, PCs with comforts and luxuries not afforded to those who see the beast for what it is.

80% or more of the population is Hispanic, 15% white, and 5% Black. A large majority of us are “validated” as prison gang members/associates and are thereby automatically deemed threats to the safety of others and the security of the institution. This is illegal as none of us have been designated “current active” in prison gangs by OCS, which is the agency responsible for dealing with prison gangs. Likewise, the evidence gathered and used to label us members/associates is also fraudulent and goes against the requirements set forth by their own rules and regulations. Others are here for weapons being planted on them or in their cells. A few are here for stabbing/fighting with other prisoners.

I believe this CU opened in 2005/2006

It was built solely to serve as a CU

We are unaware of state plans to open new CUs but we believe it is inevitable due to the mass “validation sweeps” across California prisons.

At this time Z-unit is run by staff that have little respect for our conditions. We are being denied clothing exchange on a weekly basis. In lieu of that we are given half a bar of soap to wash our clothes and even that is thrown on the ground and kicked under our doors instead of being given to us through the tray slots like decent human beings. We are closed off from the outside world with no access to TVs/radios that are available in other CUs. We are also limited to a single book or magazine in our cells at a time.

Yo tiroteo en pensar que nuestros “sirvientes públicos” están borrando las mentes de ciudadanas estadounidenses con drogas, y que las cortes son tan ineptos hasta acudir trazos insidiosas como medicamentos forzados. ¡Drogas psicotrópicas no son más que envenenamientos lentos! Es una amenaza a la vida, la salud, la mente, y la religión de uno. Las cortes pueden pensar que ellos tienen el derecho legal de borrar las mentes de ciudadanos nacidos libre, pero no solamente es una violación flagrante de nuestros derechos, además es un intento de homicidio. Por lo tanto he elegido protestar en contra de esta atrocidad con una huelga de hambre a padecer de hambre hasta que este envenenamiento malvado pare o yo muera. Yo preferiría morir que verme deteriorarme despacio hacia tal degradación horrenda de vida.

Fui informado que si intento esto ellos obtendrán un orden de la corte a alimentarme forzosamente por un tubo corriendo dentro mi nariz y bajando por mi garganta mientras esté atado a una camilla. Entonces ellos podrán inyectarme con drogas por una jeringa. Por esto, para salvarme la mente, mi salud, y mi vida, me siento que no tengo alternativa fuera de declarar casi cualquier casa que las cortes y el fiscal del distrito quieran de mi para parar este envenenamiento de mi miente, mi cuerpo, y mi alma. Es irónico que esta guerra contra las drogas es usado para desacreditar varias drogas y personas, y luego para forzar ciertas drogas horridas sobre algunas personas y llamarlo legítimo.

MIM(Prisiones) añade: Este camarada hace un importante conexión entre los varios usos de drogas por el estado. Mientras muchos prisioneros están sufriendo de dolencias físicas a causa de ser negados la atención médica que la gente por afuera tienen con acceso fácil, otros no tienen problema agarrando sus “medicinas” que son frecuentemente forzados en de ellos para controlar sus químicas del cerebro. Ambas situaciones dan testimonio de la terrible pérdida de vida que el sistema perpetúa.

También véase un reporte anterior escrito por una camarada californiano en Under Lock & Key 5: Using psychology to drug political prisoners (Usando la psicología a medicamentar presos políticos)

On March 6, James McKinney died at Potosi Correctional Center. In the Washington County paper it said natural causes (heart attack). Now for the real story. James McKinney was in solitary confinement with me. So I’m giving you a first person account of the events that I believe led to this man’s death. In early or mid-February McKinney was assigned to cell 2C-20 for a minor infraction. His first couple of days there he ran afoul of COI Shannon Clubbs (as many prisoners do). COI Clubbs harassed and verbally abused McKinney daily. In protest of this ill treatment James McKinney declared a hunger strike. He also sent a letter of protest to Senator Robin Wright-Jones.

When you have missed a certain amount of meals, you are automatically referred to medical personnel for a physical. Two times when he was approaching this certain amount of missed meals COI Clubbs opened McKinney’s food port and threw a noon-time meal in his cell. He then logged as if McKinney accepted a meal, effectively rescinding the food strike. The second time Clubbs did this McKinney screamed on the walk that Clubbs was setting him up, Clubbs was laughing and taunting him the whole time. To add insult to injury, he also gave McKinney a conduct violation for accepting a food tray and then not returning it when the meal was over. This is a common and favorite tactic of confinement COIs. We (all the prisoners) did kick and holler for assistance from other COIs to no avail, so when McKinney finally saw medical, he was in worse shape than they thought, because he had missed triple the meals as the files indicated because of Clubbs manipulating the files, but no one would listen to him or us. He wrote a letter to Senator Robin Wright-Jones explaining the harassment by PCC staff in general and COI Clubbs in particular. I’m not sure how long it was, but it was well past 2 weeks, maybe 3 before he was convinced to eat, the first couple of days in March early in the morning he was complaining about chest and he went to medical as a self-declared patient - 3 or 4 days later he was dead.

I’m not a doctor and I don’t know anything about his health or lack of health, but he wasn’t overweight, looked to be in good shape, a quiet respectful brother. I asked him a couple of times if he was cool and he said he had things under control. I tried to rally everyone to form a peaceful protest, but these passive-assed conformed-as-slaves won’t put up any type of resistance. My focus is COI Clubbs. Me and a couple of comrades wrote letters to Senator Robin Wright-Jones, State Rep Linda Fischer, Lisa Jones of constituent services. I have several copies of complaints on COI Clubbs in the last 6 or 7 months, about his abuse, harassment.

I just don’t know what to do next. I am not afraid of them so educate me and tool me up and I’ll stay on their asses here. Several convicts have won suits against them over the years. They pay but never change their repressive policies.

MIM(Prisons) responds: We print this article to continue our discussion about which strategies and tactics are available and useful to us in our struggles to end oppression worldwide. We need to analyze our options with a realistic and material perspective, and with that we need to measure their limitations. One lesson we can learn from this prisoner’s tragic death is that hunger strikes by individuals are vulnerable to manipulation by COs and administration. As we explained to another comrade in ULK 13, a protest needs to be well-planned and considered from all angles. The more we can learn about the limitations of our tactics, the better equipped we will be to use them effectively.

Another error we would point out is the assertion that COI Clubbs is a problem separate from the repression of the imperialist system. We think it is important to bring attention to this abuse, and to name names for accountability’s sake. But focusing all energy on getting COI Clubbs fired doesn’t impact imperialism in general. In fact, it does the opposite by reinforcing the idea that the system is good; that the problem is just a few “bad apples” who can be dealt with on an individual level. In our agitational work, it is important to be clear about what the true problem is and the correct strategy to address that problem.

The fact that there are hundreds, if not thousands, of prison staff with similar accusations against them demonstrate that firing one guard does not usually improve the conditions of prisoners at a particular facility. In other words, getting Clubbs fired doesn’t ensure that the next guy that goes on hunger strike won’t face the same fate. However, developing strategy among prisoners who are facing these conditions and building outside support will help avoid such tragedies and make comrades’ lives last longer and be more effective in their resistance.

With the fury of a lion,
I attack them with my pen!!
The power of a Panther
keeps me fighting strong with MIMP!!
The anti-imperialist struggle
has me gripped into its grasp!!
The people are my people
locked away in social pens!!
From cherry pickers, to railroad fixers,
all races of poor humans
This U$A ain’t nothing but snakes,
they’re nothing but lies
don’t get it mistaked!!
They thrive off hate, money and rape,
Let’s piss on their flag and create our own state!!
Call up the troops,
and distribute the arms!!
They’re overextended,
let’s bring them some harm!!
An armed revolution
with no sense of charm!!
The fires, the yells!!
Why shouldn’t we rebel!!
They miseducate us!!
They don’t want to pay us!!
Immigrants and prisoners!!
Amerikkka hates us!!
Struggle with MIMP
and struggle for the cause.
Together we’ll stand,
Imperialism’ll fall.

(RC)= These materials are Revolutionary Copywritten. The copying, using, re-publishing of such material for anything other than the anti-imperialist/anti-capitalist movement is a crime punishable by the people.

Suppressed are the thoughts of an encaged man,
Like an animal held captive being broken from the land.
I speak with no sound as I move within the bounds
to a beat of the people with a light unyet found.
He doesn’t understand so he locks me in a cell,
Causing me to understand that the key is to rebel.

Incarcerated is the being, of an educated mind.
Heart of steel, word of stone, only truth I wish to find.
Forever will I push and strive, although oppressed and held inside.
The belly of the beast will fry
Being burned by flames I hold inside.

Power to the ones of you who seek to take command.
And down with those who have control and rule through exploit and demand.
The day will come when we shall find the rights that we deserve.
And when that day does come around these rights we’ll have reserved…

To Rise…

(RC)= These materials are Revolutionary Copywritten. The copying, using, re-publishing of such material for anything other than the anti-imperialist/anti-capitalist movement is a crime punishable by the people.

My, how all this time has changed my ways of thinking and viewing things.
Some time ago I saw airplanes, but never the skies that held the planes.
Subjectively going with the way things flowed,
I objected to progression and all things not known.

Now I’m more developed and the picture’s much more clear.
You can see the way I conduct myself, knowledge resides right here.
I calculate my steps, making sure I recognize
the man who watches his speech and acts is truly the man who’s wise.

No longer a child, I think for myself.
When without the answers I ask for help.
Aside with my pride, no ego to rise,
I’m eager to better myself from inside.

Gone are the days where anger controls,
Deciding my future and all that it holds.
This for I know as my past is a ghost.
Life is the party, and I am the host!!

(RC)= These materials are Revolutionary Copywritten. The copying, using, re-publishing of such material for anything other than the anti-imperialist/anti-capitalist movement is a crime punishable by the people.

This is track 2 off my album Rhythm & Rebellion: Hell Bound. It’s a two disc album with twenty four songs on each album. Hell Bound is disk two. Disk one is titled Heaven Sent. This item is registered with my idea of a Revolutionary Copyrights program for all them thieving ass capitalists looking to come up off the products of the struggle.

Hook:
Every day of the year gone by with us not getting paid (We Strugglin)
Every day that we got a young brotha on the block servin rocks (We Strugglin)
Every day that we livin on a land thatz own’d by the man (We Strugglin)
We got to stand up and stop feeling sorry for ourselves.
Instead’ve going against our own we should be extendin help.
Every day that we not doing right by each other as a whole (We Strugglin)

Verse 1:
For the sake of Blackness and ghetto mankind
Young whawdy bout to spill that revolutional wine.
I know
Masta gone hate it
but
who the fuck cares.
I’m bout to shine the light on all the governmental affairs.
Starting with modern day slavery.
Disabling me.
Constantly mislabeling me.
They wanna destable me
But I ain’t gone let that happen cause I’m just too damn stable you see.
Growth and development is the motto and the plan.
But just sittin around and talkin ain’t gone help us advance.
Educate yourself
Practice unity and organize
Let your actions speak for they self to make the people recognize.

repeat the hook

Verse 2:
Part two
Social control done been exposed
So now we move along to agriculture and house codes.
To rule the land you gotta rule the financial income
To rule the income you gotta keep the poor folkz dumb
Give them shitty schools,
Keep them syruped up and spliffed out
Throw a couple of colors in and keep them all flipped out
Don’t let them buy their own land
Make them all buy from us.
Don’t let them start their own companies
Make them all work for us
Man what the fuck!!!
Let’s all kick up some dust
The KKK been standing strong but they ain’t fuckin with us
If we just open our eyes
And just get rid of the pride
The poor folkz a be the giant that’s been needed to rise.

repeat the hook

(RC)= These materials are Revolutionary Copyrighted. The copying, using, re-publishing of such material for anything other than the anti-imperialist/anti-capitalist movement is a crime punishable by the people.

Above is a response from the Prison Law Office (PLO) to the petition for proper handling of grievances in California. Without addressing the systemic reasons for oppression, the PLO’s efforts to fight against parole denials and revocations is futile on the group, and especially international, level.

The PLO “represent[s ] all California prisoners who have ‘a major mental illness’ under the class action lawsuit known as the Coleman case.” In effect, Coleman v. Schwarzenegger led to the conclusion that “severe” overcrowding of prisons is the reason why most prisoners have no access to mental health care, and nominal efforts are being made to reduce the prison population. However, we know that imperialism, capitalism and national oppression are why mental health resources are inadequate within CDCR, and why prisons in Amerika lead to mental health issues in the first place. Prisons in China under Mao led to greater social awareness and responsibility, not mental illness.(1)

We challenge single-issue organizations to broaden their perspective. Parole assistance may lead to “freedom” for hundreds or even a few thousand individuals. But if we are organizing as internationalists, we can affect more people in a more profound way, and for a longer period of time. We do this by building communism. The least the PLO can do is recognize the importance of the grievance campaign and join it.

The ECCO has taken it upon itself to confirm and clarify what the ECCO is as well as our purpose, which is defined by examination and analysis on the dynamics of our main organization, so that an understanding of us is built within other Crip affiliates, and political and non-political lumpen organizations and individuals. ECCO is the East Coast Consolidated Crip Organization, an anti-imperialist cadre that works in conjunction with the internationalist united front against imperialism. We propose that the main organization adopt the acronym Community Revolutionary Internationalist Party.

ECCO is a prison-orchestrated, clandestine movement that acknowledges and utilizes a doctrine of reformism as a tactical maneuver necessary within our organization to help advance the individual and collective direction of our organization. We accept reform within our organization to better fight the oppressive system and ignorance overwhelming our ranks; we do not apply reform as unprincipled class collaboration with our enemies. We advocate the value of reformist concepts as a tactic in overall revolutionary struggle, understanding that we only do so because on one level no revolutionary situation in respects to armed struggle exists at present within the United $tates, and on another level because our organizational structure is flawed in numerous ways and a revolutionary war cannot be entered, managed, maintained and won without addressing the contradictions within us and other external complications affecting us.

We function under the ideology of Neo-Cripism, engendered from within the ECCO to help attain the goal of injecting political, socio-economic and revolutionary consciousness into Crips’ core, along with one centralized belief to govern the whole of the organization. Recently, an ideology was non-existent within this state, at least one that was correct and effective. What existed was and still is an eclectic collection of ideas incorrectly adopted and bastardized from our 1993 alliance with the Gangster Disciples. Is this to say that the Disciples’ concepts are wrong? No. This is to say that our “leaders” took on a system that wasn’t based on the specifics of our organization’s characteristics and socio-economic conditions; city-to-city, state-to-state. In doing so, they stunted the development of Crip and each of our organizations individually.

An ideology is the systematic, scientific, cultural, economic, political, social and moral values of a people. It enables the organization and/or movement to coordinate its set aims/goals through its organized activities/social practices via the ideological indoctrination of its members as it relates to concrete conditions that define the organization. Without an ideology an organization or movement will fail in the primary factors it claims to represent.

For the Crips to exist in this state as in other areas it has to be understood that a doctrine needs to be established in every area that complies with all internal and external activities of the organization so it functions. It’s not possible for the Crips to truly aggregate (become whole) with no common organizational structure created for them. Those of us who are conscious of the contradictions within our organization, who seek to develop a genuine concept for the organization without fear of internal repression, opt for the ECCO and Neo-Cripism - an ideology established with the revolutionary-internationalist influences of scientific Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, Frantz Fanon, the Black Panther Party, The New Afrikan Black Panther Party- Prison Chapter, George L. Jackson and the Black Liberation Army.

Our goal is not simply to establish a new design into the Crip history books, but to make it a common belief within our organization that we hold an extreme amount of revolutionary potential as a multinational lumpen organization comprised of the oppressed New Afrikan, Latino, Samoan, Asian, poor white and Indian races to name a few. This gives us an advantage in our resistance to oppression, white supremacy and imperialism.

No change within the reality of the Crips or the society around us is possible without those of us who step forward, risking suppression and taking the initiative upon themselves to bring that change about. We err in this state by not creating a system to go with the conditions here and fail again in denouncing our East Coast Crip identity. To identify ourselves as West Coast Crips because a number of the Crip gangs we belong to in this state migrated from California is an overplayed concept that is unrealistic and based in subjectivity.

All thought within the ECCO is put forth from universal objective observation and rationalization to understand situations in every aspect and angle. Our reality as an urban counter-cultural paramilitary unit and pro-community organization is our own to uphold. If we fail to advance then it’s from our own failure to seize the time and shape the reality to our desire and uplift ourselves from the multiple layers of oppression we’re faced with.

“The mistakes of the past must be exposed without sparing anyone’s sensibilities, it is necessary to analyze and criticize what was bad in the past with a scientific attitude so that work in the future will be done more carefully and done better… In treating an ideological or political malady, one must never be rough and rash but must adopt the approach of curing the sickness to save the patient, which is the only correct and effective method.”
- Quotations from Chairman Mao, p.263

MIM(Prisons) responds: This comrade is applying the strategy of “unity from the inside out” as developed by MIM(Prisons) and United Struggle from Within (USW). Unity among progressive forces must begin from within. Different organizations cannot unite on principles if the organizations themselves have no principles. Therefore we encourage others to work with USW and MIM(Prisons) to develop unity within themselves and with each other as part of the Anti-Imperialist United Front.

In this statement, the ECCO applies the word “race” to address the multinational character of their organization. Races do not exist, and race is a concept created by the racist oppressor nations. Nations do exist, and there are many oppressed nations within the borders of the United $tates. MIM(Prisons) sees the principal contradiction within U.$. society to be between the oppressor and oppressed nations. At the same time, the oppressed nations themselves have been more integrated and bourgeoisified than at any other point in history. While history has shown the usefulness of nation-specific parties and organizations, the lumpen class often finds itself organizing across national lines in spite of the strong divisions that the state has encouraged. What form future revolutionary movements take will depend on the development of the different contradictions along both class and national lines.

The concept of “reform” presented here by ECCO is related to the question of the nature of a contradiction. There are antagonistic and non-antagonistic contradictions. Contradictions among the oppressed are non-antagonistic, because ultimately their interests are the same. The contradiction between the oppressed and imperialism is antagonistic, meaning you cannot reform imperialism to serve the oppressed. But you can reform an organization of the oppressed to serve the oppressed as is proposed here. This does not mean that it is always possible or that it is the most effective path. Often times, organizations are entrenched in their ways and new ones must be formed. It is up to the comrades in each situation to determine whether internal reform and unity from the inside out is the fastest route to mobilizing the oppressed around them for anti-imperialism.

As Lenin best explained, without a scientific vanguard party a revolutionary movement cannot reach the point of overcoming the status quo. So as MIM(Prisons) works to develop unity with other organizations we will also struggle with our most advanced comrades to join or form vanguard elements that are distinct from the mass movements that most of us start out in. This is an application of the law of unequal development.