Revolutionary salutations to all Texas USW comrades, leaders,
supporters, and those reading this wonderful newspaper for the first
time. In issue #75 there was some dialogue
regarding the BP 3.91 and i would like to speak to some things.
Comrades, as you all read in the last issue, Allred RHU went on
hunger strike in protest not only against B.P.-3.91, but also the
illegal use of solitary confinement as practiced via RHU, and we also
fought for other pressing issues. Due to this action, on September 8th i
was pulled off the outside rec yard, and brought to a cage; this cage is
very similar to the one illustrated by the comrade in the last issue. Me
and another New Afrikan brother were the only two of all the strikers
who went through this. After standing in the cage for about 30 mins to
an hour I was informed by an inmate worker that “they takin all yo
shit.” By this i assumed he meant food/beverage items of which i only
possessed empty condiment bottles so I had no worries. Half an hour
later, the property officer and a lieutenant come to escort me. They
tell me i will have to send property, particularly books, home; i have
too many and they may not be given to another prisoner. As they say this
i have heated words with the property officer, and have to be escorted
by a major and some others. They bring me to the office and outside my
property (all of it including state property) is slung everywhere. I’m
irate to say the least.
It is at that time that i entered an office with regional director
David Blackwell, along with three unit wardens. Here is a brief overview
of what was said pertaining to the B.P.-3.91 policy.
So this policy was supposedly pushed for by these “family groups”. He
mentioned Texas Inmate Families Association(TIFA) as the main culprit.
Supposedly one of the TIFA members has a brother who’s a sex
offender(S.O.), and she learned that he was allowed to write pen pals
who sent her brother sexually charged letters. Further investigation led
the sister in question to observe that he could also view/receive
pictures of women as long as the female wasn’t showing her “parts”. This
woman was immediately concerned that her brother was not being allowed
the proper environment to rehabilitate his behavior, and this is what
led to the rule change.
In case you don’t know, every week, like clock work, TIFA and other
family groups like the Families for Air Conditioning in TDCJ, have
phone/zoom conferences with the executive director and other top
personnel. In these conferences these groups are having influence on
policy changes and other things that affect us here in prison. The issue
is that these groups are not in contact with the masses, which in this
case is US, the captives. TIFA has a $25 membership fee yearly, and
imprisoned people can join. However, imprisoned voices are a minority,
and are/will be over rode by the petty-bourgeois/labor aristocrat
elements which dominate this terrain and don’t allow prisoners to
practice any level of self-determination. Even worse is that these
groups (TIFA in particular) do not even reply to inquiries from
prisoners. The pigs mentioned above provided me with their info to
contact and begin dialogue. I’ve wrote, I’ve e-mailed, I’ve DM’d, and
have gotten no response. This is on trend as we of TX TEAM ONE have
repeatedly contacted them in the past during our previous 3 hunger
strikes in the last 4 years, not including this year’s. Never have we
received any reply. So what does this tell us?
It tells us that the class divide is very profound in the TX prison
movement, even on the “left”. It tells us that at this present juncture
we can not collaborate with such reformers in any concrete way. Our
movement MUST be prisoner-led.
Speaking specifically to the BP-3.91 issue, from observation one can
see that these pigs are picking and choosing when/where to enforce this
rule. THE RULE DID PASS! Initially we were told that it hadn’t, that’s
not the case. Not only did this Director tell us so, but as i scribe
this, Allred Unit has been under rolling lock down and the pigs (from
what We in RHU are being told) are solely focused on pics, mags, etc. We
in RHU haven’t been hit yet. Last week the ACA came to the unit. An
audit. The pigs were verbally reprimanded (the wardens were) by ACA
personnel for even operating the lockdown/shake down while they are/were
still supposed to be under COVID protocol. This is a violation of CDC
guidelines, which is one of the things we called attention to during the
strike. The ACA demanded the wardens to cease the shake down. They did
so for the week the ACA was here, yet today (9 November 2021) We’ve
heard that they’ve resumed on the ECB building, and are to be coming
here next. U.S. weekly and Cosmopolitan have been denied here.
The legal standing they’re trying to stand on with this move is that
if they were to target specifically sex offenders with this rule while
not applying it to the masses of the prison population who are not S.O.s
then they open themselves up for suit by the S.O.s for discrimination.
What it boils down to is We’re gonna have to come together and fight
this through litigation. Simple.
We encourage others who are SERIOUS about litigating this issue to
contact us. While our writers within TEAM ONE are busy challenging RHU
confinement, We can possibly put all Our heads together to formulate a
way forward. All those who’ve filed step 1 & 2, and look to move
forward towards litigation should reach out to us: Tx TeamOne/ 113
Stockhom, #1A/ Brooklyn, NY 11221