MIM(Prisons) is a cell of revolutionaries serving the oppressed masses inside U.$. prisons, guided by the communist ideology of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism.
Under Lock & Key is a news service written by and for prisoners with a focus on what is going on behind bars throughout the United States. Under Lock & Key is available to U.S. prisoners for free through MIM(Prisons)'s Free Political Literature to Prisoners Program, by writing:
MIM(Prisons) PO Box 40799 San Francisco, CA 94140.
A paper published this week challenges the psychological conception of
“conformity bias” that evolved from the Stanford Prison Experiment by
Zimbardo and the Teacher/Learner experiment by Milgram.(1) The paper
makes connections to recent work on the oppression carried out by Nazis
in Hitler’s Germany, and generally concludes that people’s willingness
to hurt or oppress others in such situations is “less about people
blindly conforming to orders than about getting people to believe in the
importance of what they are doing.”
In the Stanford Prison Experiment (1971) students were assigned roles as
guards and prisoners in a simulation, and soon both groups took on the
typical behaviors of those roles, with the guards treating the prisoners
so harshly that the experiment was stopped early. MIM(Prisons) has used
this as an example that oppression is systematic and that we can’t fix
things by hiring the right guards, rather we must change the system. In
ULK 19, another comrade referred to it in a discussion of how
people
are conditioned to behave in prisons.(2) The more deterministic
conclusion that people take from this is that people will behave badly
in order to conform to expectations. The Milgram experiment (1963)
involved participants who were the “teacher” being strongly encouraged
to apply faked electric shocks to “learners” who answered questions
incorrectly. The conclusion here was that humyns will follow orders
blindly rather than think for themselves about whether what they are
doing is right.
“This may have been the defense they relied upon when seeking to
minimize their culpability [31], but evidence suggests that
functionaries like Eichmann had a very good understanding of what they
were doing and took pride in the energy and application that they
brought to their work.(1)
The analysis in this recent paper is more amenable to a class analysis
of society. As the authors point out, it is well-established that
Germans, like Adolf Eichmann, enthusiastically participated in the Nazi
regime, and it is MIM(Prisons)’s assessment that there is a class and
nation perspective that allowed Germans to see what they were doing as
good for them and their people.
While our analysis of the Stanford Prison Experiment has lent itself to
promoting the need for systematic change, the psychology that came out
of it did not. The “conformity bias” concept backs up the great leader
theory of history where figures like Hitler and Stalin were all-powerful
and all-knowing and the millions of people who supported them were
mindless robots. This theory obviously discourages an analysis of
conditions and the social forces interacting in and changing those
conditions. In contrast, we see the more recent psychological theory in
this paper as friendly to a sociological analysis that includes class
and nation.
As most of our readers will be quick to recognize, prison guards in real
life often do their thing with great enthusiasm. And those guards who
don’t believe prisoners need to be beaten to create order don’t treat
them poorly. Clearly the different behaviors are a conscious choice
based on the individual’s beliefs, as the authors of this paper would
likely agree. There is a strong national and class component to who goes
to prison and who works in prisons, and this helps justify the more
oppressive approach in the minds of prison staff. Despite being superior
to the original conclusions made, this recent paper is limited within
the realm of psychology itself and therefore fails to provide an
explanation for behaviors of groups of people with different standings
in society.
We also should not limit our analysis to prison guards and cops who are
just the obvious examples of the problem of the oppressor nation. Ward
Churchill recalled the name of Eichmann in his infamous piece on the
2001 attack on the World Trade Center to reference those who worked in
the twin towers. Like those Amerikans, Adolf Eichmann wasn’t an
assassin, but a bureaucrat, who was willing to make decisions that led
to the deaths of millions of people. Churchill wrote:
“Recourse to ‘ignorance’ – a derivative, after all, of the word ‘ignore’
– counts as less than an excuse among this relatively well-educated
elite. To the extent that any of them were unaware of the costs and
consequences to others of what they were involved in – and in many cases
excelling at – it was because of their absolute refusal to see.”(3)
The authors of the recent paper stress that the carrying out of
something like the Nazis did in Germany required passionate creativity
to excel and to recruit others who believed in what they were doing. It
is what we call the subjective factor in social change. Germany was
facing objective conditions of economic hardship due to having lost
their colonies in WWI, but it took the subjective developments of
National Socialism to create the movement that transformed much of the
world. That’s why our comrade who wrote on psychology and conditioning
was correct to stress knowledge to counteract the institutionalized
oppression prisoners face.(2) Transforming the subjective factor, the
consciousness of humyn beings, is much more complicated than an inherent
need to conform or obey orders. Periods of great change in history help
demonstrate the dynamic element of group consciousness that is much more
flexible than deterministic psychology would have us believe. This is
why psychology can never really predict humyn behavior. It is by
studying class, nation, gender and other group interests that we can
both predict and shift the course of history.
On November 15, 2012 Michigan’s ban on affirmative action in college
admissions was declared unconstitutional in federal appeals court. This
strikes down a 2006 constitutional amendment prohibiting the use of race
as a factor to determine which students to admit to college. While bans
on affirmative action are fundamentally reactionary in preserving white
privilege, this was a weak legal victory for school integration. The
justices did not cite the need for equal access to education for all
people in their reasoning, but rather struck down the ban because it
presents a burden to opponents who must fight it through the ballot box,
because this is a costly and time consuming activity. This “undermines
the Equal Protection Clause’s guarantee that all citizens ought to have
equal access to the tools of political change,” according to the
majority opinion of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati.
The courts determined they would rather leave this debate over
affirmative action to the governing boards of the public
universities.(1)
A similar law in California was upheld by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of
Appeals, leaving conflicting legal rulings for different parts of the
country. It is likely that these cases will move to the Supreme Court.
Six states besides Michigan have banned affirmative action in school
admissions: Washington, Nebraska, Arizona, New Hampshire, California and
Florida.
Debates over affirmative action in Amerika provide revolutionaries with
an opportunity to talk about the history of national oppression and the
reality of ongoing oppression today. But we need to be careful not to
get caught up in the details of affirmative action alone. Based on
college admissions information and population statistics, in recent
years oppressed nations are actually attending college at rates that are
approaching those of their white counterparts. But the story missing
here is what’s happening to the rest of the Blacks and Latinos who don’t
attend college, as well as which colleges each nation is attending.
Affirmative action would impact the latter problem, but has no affect on
the close to 50% of Black and Latino students who don’t make it to high
school graduation.
From 1976 to 2010, the percentage of Latino college students rose from 3
percent to 13 percent, and the percentage of Black college students rose
from 9 percent to 14 percent. During the same period, the percentage of
white college students fell from 83 percent to 61 percent. As the table
below shows, the percent of Blacks and Latinos in the college student
body overall in the U.$. is approaching their representation in the
population.(2)
Nation
1976 % of student body
2010 % of student body
2010 % of population (age 18-24)
white
83%
61%
60%
Black
9%
14%
15%
Latino
3%
13%
18%
Another relevant measure of college education equality is the percentage
of 18-24-year-olds enrolled in college. For 2008 the rates by
nationality were(3):
“Race”
2008 % w/college education(age 18-24)
white
44.2%
Black
32.1%
Hispanic
25.8%
Clearly there are still wide disparities in educational access as well
as the degrees that oppressed nation students are achieving relative to
their white counterparts. And a long history of differential college
education leads to population statistics that reflect the overall lower
educational achievement of oppressed nations. The table below shows the
percent of the population with each degree by nationality.(3) The total
percentages of each nation with a college degree should get closer
together if oppressed nation enrollment continues to approach the
population distribution. But that won’t necessarily result in the same
levels of education achieved.
“Race”
Associate’s
Bachelor’s
Master’s
Professional degree
white
9.3%
21.1%
8.4%
3.1%
Black
8.9%
13.6%
4.9%
1.3%
Hispanic
6.1%
9.4%
2.9%
1.0%
The debate over affirmative action at the college level gets at the core
of what equality is. Those who demand “blind” admissions practices have
to pretend that everyone applying for college admissions had equal
opportunities up to the point of college application. And this gives us
a chance to challenge people on what many like to call a “color-blind”
society. Even looking at the privileged Blacks and Latinos who went to
schools good enough to qualify them to apply for college admission,
pretending equality is only possible if we ignore all the aspects of
oppression that these groups face in the U.$., from overt racial hatred
to subtle cultural messages of inferiority. Society sets oppressed
nation youth up for failure from birth, with TV and movies portraying
criminals as Black and Latino and successful corporate employees as
white. These youth are stopped by cops on the streets for the offense of
skin color alone, looked at suspiciously in stores, and presumed to be
less intelligent in school.
But the real problem is not the privileged Black and Latino students
qualified to apply for college admission. These individual students from
oppressed nations who are able to achieve enough to apply to colleges
that have admissions requirements are a part of the petty bourgeoisie.
The reality is very different for the other half of the oppressed nation
youth who are tracked right out of college from first grade (or before)
and have no chance of even attending a college that has admissions
requirements beyond a high school diploma.
Among the students who entered high school in ninth grade, 63% of
Latinos, 59% of Blacks and 53% of First Nations graduated high school in
2009. This is compared to 81% of Asians and 79% of whites. Overall the
Black-white and Latino-white graduation rate gap narrowed between 1999
and 2009 but is still very large.(4)
Few statistics are gathered on drop out rates between first grade
and ninth grade, but state-based information suggests that middle school
drop out rates are high. These no doubt reflect the differentials by
nationality, leading to an even higher overall drop out rate for
oppressed nations. It is almost certain that fewer than half of Blacks
and Latinos who enter grade school complete 12th grade with a diploma.
And the students who do graduate come away with an education so inferior
that many are not qualified for college. On average, Black and Latino
high school seniors perform math and read at the same level as
13-year-old white students.(5) This is not preparation sufficient for
competitive college applications.
History of Amerikan School Segregation
The history of segregation in Amerikan schools mirrors the history of
segregation and national oppression in the country as a whole. Access to
education is a core value that Amerikans claim to embrace. While harshly
criticizing the idea of free health care or other government-sponsored
services, eliminating free education is a concept only a small group of
Amerikans openly advocate. But equal access to K-12 education is an idea
that has never been reality for the oppressed nations within the United
$nakes. And the differentials in education are so stark that it is
virtually impossible for those attending the segregated and inferior
schools reserved for Amerika’s oppressed nations to overcome these years
of training and lack of good schooling to participate and compete as
adults in the workforce.
In the late 1950s, after the landmark Supreme Court Brown vs. Board
of Education ruling, Amerikan public schools took significant steps
towards desegregation. Through the late 1980s, with the use of bussing
and other policies, the proportion of Black and Latino students in
majority white schools increased and opportunities for education opened
up to many oppressed nation youth. But during the 1990s this progress
began to reverse and the trend has continued so that today segregation
in public schools is worse than it was in the 1960s.
This re-segregation is the result of government rollbacks in federal
programs, Supreme Court limitations on desegregation, and active
dismantling of integration programs. Essentially, the government
determined that desegregation requirements could be ignored. This was
partly due to shifting political winds, but MIM(Prisons) looks at the
timeline for this re-segregation and finds no surprise that the timing
coincides with the crushing of the national liberation movements within
U.$. borders in the 1970s. As the public outcry against national
oppression receded, with leaders either dead or locked up, and guns and
drugs circulating widely to distract the lumpen, the re-segregation of
schools was a logical result. And this segregation of schools is among
the most obvious aspects of the ongoing national segregation within U.$.
borders.
Jonathan Kozol, in his book Segregation in Education: The Shame of
the Nation, cites school after school, across the country, with
atrocious facilities, in dangerous and unhealthy buildings, insufficient
space, non-functioning utilities, and lack of educational materials,
serving almost exclusively Black and Latino students. Many of these
youth drop out of school before graduating high school. White families
flee the school districts or send their kids to private schools. School
“choice” has enabled greater segregation by offering options to these
white kids that the oppressed nation students can’t take advantage of.
While “choice” is theoretically open to everyone, it is the wealthy
white families who learn about the opportunities for the best schools
from their neighbors, friends and co-workers, and who know how to
navigate the complexities of the application process. And often knowing
someone within the school helps to get their kids admitted to the
schools with particularly high demand.(6)
The government reaction to the falling skills and education of
segregated schools has been to implement “standards” and “tests” and
“discipline” that they pretend will make these schools separate but
equal. Yet no progress is seen, and the conditions in these schools
continues to worsen. The changes in requirements for underfunded and
predominantly Black and Latino schools has resulted in two very
different education systems: one for whites which includes cultural
classes in art, drama and music, time for recess, and classes that allow
for student creativity; and another for oppressed nationalities that
includes strict military-like discipline, long school days with no
recess, rigid curriculum that teaches to very limited standards,
elimination of “fluff” classes like art and music, all taught in
severely limited facilities with enormous class sizes. This divergence
between the school districts reinforces segregation as white parents can
see clearly what their kids miss out on (and are forced to participate
in) when they don’t attend “white” schools.
According to Kozol, “Thirty-five out of 48 states spend less on students
in school districts with the highest numbers of minority children than
on students in the districts with the fewest children of minorities.
Nationwide, the average differential is about $1,100 for each child. In
some states – New York, Texas, Illinois, and Kansas for example – the
differential is considerably larger. In New York… it is close to $2,200
for each child.” If these numbers are multiplied out to the classroom
level, typical classroom funding for low income schools is on the
magnitude of $30k to $60k less than for high income classes. At a school
level these financial differences are staggering: a 400 student
elementary school in New York “receives more than $1 million less per
year than schools of the same size in districts with the fewest numbers
of poor children.”(7) There is an even greater differential when low
income oppressed nation districts are separated from low income white
districts. There are a few low income white districts but they get more
funding than low income oppressed nation districts and so pull up the
average funding of low income districts overall.
The achievement gap between Black and white children went down between
the Brown v Board of Education ruling and the late 1980s. But
it started to grow again in the early 1990s. By 2005, in about half the
high schools (those with the largest concentration of Blacks and
Latinos) in the 100 largest districts in the country less than half the
students entering the schools in ninth grade were graduating high
school. Between 1993 and 2002 the number of high schools with this
problem increased by 75%. These numbers, not surprisingly, coincide with
a drop in Black and Latino enrollment in public universities.(8)
Kozol ties the history of re-segregation back to a U.S. Supreme Court
ruling on March 21, 1973, (Edgewood Independent School District v.
Kirby) when the Court overruled a Texas district court finding that
inequalities in districts’ abilities to finance education are
unconstitutional. This was a key class action law suit, in which a very
poor non-white neighborhood argued that their high property taxes were
insufficient to provide their kids with adequate education while a
neighboring rich white district with lower property taxes was able to
spend more than twice the amount on students. In the Supreme Court
decision Justice Lewis Powell wrote “The argument here is not that the
children in districts having relatively low assessable property values
are receiving no public education; rather, it is that they are receiving
a poorer quality education than available to children in districts
having more assessable wealth.” And so he argued that “the Equal
Protection Clause does not require absolute equality.”(9) This means
states are not required to provide funds to help equalize the
educational access of poorer people. And because of the tremendous
segregation in schools, these poorer students are generally Black and
Latino.
Ongoing Reality of School Segregation Today
The Civil Rights Project at UCLA does a lot of research on segregation
in education in the United $tates. In a September 19, 2012 report they
provide some statistics that underscore the growing segregation in
public schools.(10) This segregation is particularly dramatic in the
border states and the south, and segregation is especially severe in the
largest metropolitan areas. They note that desegregation efforts between
the 1960s to the late 1980s led to significant achievements in
addressing both segregation itself and racial achievement gaps, but the
trend reversed after a 1991 Supreme Court ruling (Board of Education
of Oklahoma City v. Dowell) that made it easier to abandon
desegregation efforts.(11)
Key facts from the Civil Rights Project 2012 report include:
“In the early 1990s, the average Latino and black student attended a
school where roughly a third of students were low income (as measured by
free and reduced price lunch eligibility), but now attend schools where
low income students account for nearly two-thirds of their
classmates.”
“There is a very strong relationship between the percent of Latino
students in a school and the percent of low income students. On a scale
in which 1.0 would be a perfect relationship, the correlation is a high
.71. The same figure is lower, but still high, for black students (.53).
Many minority-segregated schools serve both black and Latino students.
The correlation between the combined percentages of these underserved
two groups and the percent of poor children is a dismaying .85.”
In spite of the suburbanization of nonwhite families, 80% of Latino
students and 74% of Black students attend majority nonwhite schools
(50-100% oppressed nations). Out of those attending these nonwhite
schools, 43% of Latinos and 38% of Blacks attend intensely segregated
schools (those with only 0-10% of whites students). And another segment
of these segregated students, 15% of Black students, and 14% of Latino
students, attend “apartheid schools”, where whites make up 0 to 1% of
the enrollment.
“Latino students in nearly every region have experienced steadily rising
levels of concentration in intensely segregated minority settings. In
the West, the share of Latino students in such settings has increased
fourfold, from 12% in 1968 to 43% in 2009… Exposure to white students
for the average Latino student has decreased dramatically over the years
for every Western state, particularly in California, where the average
Latino student had 54.5% white peers in 1970 but only 16.5% in 2009.”
“Though whites make up just over half of the [U.S. school] enrollment,
the typical white student attends a school where three-quarters of their
peers are white.”
The overwhelming evidence that school segregation continues and even
grows without concerted efforts around integration provides evidence of
the ongoing segregation between nations overall within the United
$tates. Even with residential patterns shifting and neighborhoods
integrating different nationalities, families still find ways to
segregate their children in schools.
The dramatic school segregation in the United $tates points to both a
national and class division in this country. First there is the obvious
national division that is reinforced by school segregation, which places
whites in a position of dramatic privilege relative to Blacks and
Latinos. This privilege extends to poorer whites, underscoring the
overall position of the oppressor nation. But there is also a class
division within the oppressed nations in the United $tates. The
education statistics put about half of oppressed nation youth tracked
into the lower class, while the other half can expect to join the petit
bourgeoisie which constitutes the vast majority of the Amerikan
population. Our
class
analysis of Amerikan society clearly demonstrates that even the
lower class Blacks and Latinos are not a part of the proletariat. But a
portion of these undereducated youth are forced into the lumpen class, a
group defined by their exclusion from participation in the capitalist
system. Future articles will explore the size and role of this lumpen
class.
featuring Killer Mike from the album One Rifle Per Family Beatrock
Music 2012 www.bambu.la
No surprise I’m from a gangbang culture Where we can keep it
civil or pull a thing thing on ya Southern California where th sun
don’t quit Intergenerational gangs so sons don’t quit But
immediately you see that the problems that’s in my city Are secondary
to what’s propelling it in my city I mean really break it down, take
poor black and brown Educate em poor, take the jobs from out they
town The inendate them with sedative drugs and dumb tv Locked into
a zoo and hunted daily by the police Then you get a group of youth
who know they don’t belong Then they gather up and organize and
number up strong But see the failure is in seeing that the problem
ain’t the gang It’s the situation in the communities where we
hang So I’m so pro-gang it might scare a muthuhfukkuh Cause I fix
th misconception that th enemy’s our brothers
Bang on the setup, bang on the setup, bang on the setup Upset the
setup Bang on the setup, bang on the setup, bang on the
setup Homie, we’ve been setup
I tell em… I went from a street gang thang Then I joined the
military Fleet Marine Force thang From a little bitty gang in th
south o Los Angeles T draggin bodies outta they house t help a
government Who hell bent on keepin money spent ona missle Th
reality’s the difference between em shits is little We had th
objective o armin up over money An they had th objective o armin up
over money An we told kids join us we th truth Lies about
protectin our block t get recruits Then we find out we gettin killed
for a hood An we don’t own a single spec o dirt onat hood Whether
ina zone down south in Decatur Or ina flatlands offa Lennox and La
Brea Or ina low-rise project in Chicago Big money come in and buy
up our barrio so…
Throw your sets up, we bout to upset the setup Upset the setup, upset
the setup Throw your sets up, we bout to upset the setup Upset the
setup, upset the setup
[Killer Mike Verse] I do it for the Crips and the Blooders, BGF
brothers, the real…Freeway Ricky Ross and Chris Dutters I do my thang
for Hoover, I represent for Fort So my folk and my people throw they
set to support Support will mean imagine, she might say the Chi So
maybe next summer no mamas gotta cry Cause maybe next summer nobody
gotta die Hell, even if we fail, somebody gotta try The only way
the system move, is somebody gotta lie And the lie they told us old,
they base it on your race They separate: you black, you brown, you
yellow and white face Then we further separate by joining gangs and
legislate That our neighborhoods are now at war like we are separate
states So the police occupy our hood to keep down all the drama So
the Starbucks they just built is comfortable for soccer mamas And
American Apparel comfortable for all the hipsters And it’s zero
tolerance for all you spics and you niggas And you chinks and you
crackas And it ain’t about who whiter and it ain’t about who
blacker But the money is a factor And the factor is the factories
got moved up out da hood When starvation is present and absent is the
job A man will simply starve, or he will form a mob If you should
form a mafia, then you should think Sicilian Buy the hood for real,
every block, every building Every building, feed the children, gang
bang, every building Feed the children, feed the children, gang bang,
on the system.
Let’s face it, most people coming to prison don’t arrive with people’s
safety at the top of their priority list. Most come to prison with their
homies’ or comrades’ safety in mind, but that is about it. Most come
from an existence where, if you are not sharp-witted, treacherous or a
cold hustler, you don’t eat or you don’t survive.
Being raised in this mind frame is not easily forgotten, so the economic
hurdle is key in a prisoner’s mindset. Many grew up in an environment
where other nationalities are frowned upon or there are open hostilities
between different nations. Then there are the mentally ill prisoners who
may kick off some shit over nonsense and others follow suit. There are
so many factors that make prisons unsafe that one can write a book on
them rather easily. Each factor has many ways in which to approach it
and combat it as well. But at the end of the day safe prisons anywhere
in Amerika will only come from the hands of prisoners ourselves.
In a capitalist society prisons are not created to rehabilitate
prisoners or teach us, they are designed to warehouse and neutralize us.
So the first step in attempting to create safer prisons is understanding
this. There is one key that unlocks the door to getting safer prisons
and that key is education! I am not talking about Amerikan education, I
am talking about revolutionary education. Rev Ed transforms people and
betters people in all areas, including interacting with one’s fellow
prisoners. Take away Rev Ed and one is left with backwards thinking,
reactionary behavior, abuse, set tripping, predatory behavior, religious
nonsense, drug and alcohol addiction – all the tore up tradition that
has self-destructed entire generations.
Ignorance of who you are will always bring out the worst in you. Knowing
where one comes from, the deep tradition of resistance and legacy of
struggle will always propel one in a positive path, a peaceful path,
because when we learn who the real oppressor is we no longer look at
another prisoner as the bad guy. Rev Ed teaches us that prisoners in
general are an oppressed class and when we really grasp this there’s no
way can we walk around trying to pick fights with our fellow prisoners.
Even the thought of this becomes absurd. Instead we are walking around
trying to share revolutionary ideas and exchange revolutionary
literature in our quest to revolutionize these hell holes. This must be
our focus if we want to have the greatest impact that we can to make
prisons safer.
I won’t sugar coat it: this is hard work. When I read about shit popping
off in what amounts to lumpen-on-lumpen crime I feel your pain because I
been there and I still experience bullshit that clings to many of those
who continue to hold on to nonsense or reactionary views. So I know how
it is when violence ensues around you, especially if you have been
working to educate people for a period of time.
These challenges don’t change the fact that if you want a safe
environment in prison you need to educate your fellow prisoners. The
best way to do this is to start with yourself and your cellmate if you
have one. I have always had long exchanges of ideas with a cellie.
Whatever revolutionary publication I had I would read it, or my cellie
would, and we would discuss what we agreed with or disagreed with. Once
me and my cellmate were on the same page we would begin to educate our
neighbors on either side regardless of who it was, passing publications
and eventually books, and eventually involving the whole tier or pod.
Many times this process would begin by just passing a publication to
someone or telling one persyn to read it and pass it down the line.
After a while the questions will begin. This is one way I have
experienced creating more educated prisoners and thus safer conditions.
I have also found prisoners who could not read or write, and the state
usually does not have material or classes for these people, so I would
tell these prisoners I’ll spend the time and effort to teach them to
read on the condition that they must in turn teach someone else once
they are able. One time I taught a prisoner to read out on the mainline
and when I saw he had not found someone to tutor I went around and found
someone for him. I would go to the law library when I was on the
mainline and see someone trying to maneuver in the law and I’d reach out
to help this persyn. These people were all different nationalities but
in order to create “peaceful prisons” I have learned that you can’t
limit yourself to your own nation; someone has to build that bridge of
relations. If I get to a yard where there is no bridge, I will fill the
vacuum because someone has to.
What I have experienced in doing time (and I have spent more time of my
life incarcerated than out in society) is that the majority of violence
that occurs is over a business deal gone bad, either drugs or gambling
debts. So if we have enough discipline to cut this out of the picture
would reduce a lot of the violence. The next issue is predatory behavior
which is just one persyn or group oppressing or attempting to oppress
another, either because of ones nationality or what geographic location
one grew up in. If you refrain from this behavior safer prisons become
even more of a reality.
In California, prisoners in Pelican Bay recently issued a
statement
to end hostilities between all nationalities in California prisons,
county jails and streets. This is unprecedented in California where
lumpen-on-lumpen crime has gone on with deadly consequences for many
years. This is only a step, but it is a necessary step in building any
type of serious change or any transformation in each nation. The days
when the state would pit prisoners on prisoners in California and use us
as gladiators for their amusement are over. Prisoners have finally
identified the real problem we face, i.e. the real oppressor. And if
California can do this and if those in Pelican Bay SHU, who the state
claims control all California “gangs,” can do this then there is no
reason why every prison in Amerika can’t do the same and call for an end
to all hostilities in all prisons, jails and streets! This is a
necessary step if prisoners ever hope to create real safe zones in
prisons.
We are seeing history play out in California where our future is in our
own hands. If we want to have prisons where we can really rehabilitate
ourselves then we must make it happen and the only way for this to
happen is if we do so collectively and by ending the hostilities between
all nationalities. This knocks down barricades that would otherwise slow
down this process. This is not saying we don’t have differences, there
are many differences, but once you identify your oppressor you realize
that lumpen-on-lumpen crime is not helping to reduce our oppression.
It’s very simple and all groups of all nationalities here in Pelican Bay
SHU have agreed to this agreement. If we can do it so can you!
The real safe prisons will come when prisoners can exercise forms of
people’s power in these concentration camps. People’s power exists when
contradictions are resolved without having to rely on the state. Like
the example I gave of helping my fellow prisoners to read and write or
do legal work. Most prisons do not have programs for this, so rather
than sit around and complain about it I started my own program on the
mainline.
People’s power can also be solving problems and preventing violence
through mediation which does not involve the state. In Pelican Bay SHU
there is the “Short Corridor Collective” which is a representative from
each group Chicano, Black, white and sub groups, which seeks peaceful
mutual resolutions to problems affecting prisoners. They even have come
out with certain demands to the state. If Pelican Bay SHU can do it why
can’t other prisons across the United $tates form collectives that seek
peaceful resolutions to issues affecting prisoners? The answer is they
can, and they must, if real peace and progress are to be achieved within
prisons.
Political education is the key. Once someone learns real history and
understands the class contradictions in the United $tates, and how our
oppression can actually be traced directly to capitalism, there is no
way they will want to waste time on nonsense. Instead of sitting around
gossiping about other poor people who are locked up and plotting on how
to hurt other poor people, these educated people will instead study,
educate others, form study groups, share progressive literature and
books, and create independent institutions behind prison walls in order
to advance the prison movement as well as the movement, for humyn rights
more broadly.
The only thing I see in the way of us not having safer prisons is us not
making these prisons safer!
by a North Carolina prisoner November 2012 permalink
The prison system in North Carolina does not have a law library. The
courts say they don’t need to provide law libraries because we have the
North Carolina Prisoner Legal Service, Inc. (NCPLS). The truth is NCPLS
helps maybe one or two prisoners a year.
Recently NCPLS sent me a letter telling me not to write back about the
publication class action lawsuit case Urbanial v. Stanley until
I have filed a grievance and the grievance is appealed to Step 3 and I
get the response back. When I did that I sent the grievance and response
to NCPLS, only to have them send the materials back without any letter
explaining why they sent them back.
I have requested assistance from NCPLS in civil matters 25 or more
times. This is going back to the 1990s when my civil rights were being
violated over and over again. As NCPLS states in one of their letters,
it’s a price we the prisoners must pay for being prisoners. I am not
allowed to even touch a staff member, and they should not be allowed to
unjustly pepper spray me, etc. When they do, I have to go through a
grievance system before I can file the lawsuit in court, and when I do
file lawsuits they are dismissed. As you can see, I am given no legal
assistance in filing these lawsuits either.
MIM(Prisons) adds: This comrade continues to fight repression and
censorship with the odds stacked against h. Over the years, others in
North Carolina have been researching and fighting the lack of law
libraries. Unfortunately, on paper, the nominal existence of the NCPLS
enables North Carolina Department of Public Safety (NCDPS) to skirt the
Constitutional requirement that it provides its prisoners access to
courts.
Bounds v. Smith 430 U.S. 817 (1977) permits prison authorities
to provide either law libraries or counsel to satisfy this
requirement, but it does not need to provide both. When a prisoner’s
appointed counsel is useless, and they don’t have a law library in which
to research a case to challenge this, their only hope is assistance from
outside organizations and supporters.
The Prisoners’ Legal Clinic is one such organization, under the
MIM(Prisons) umbrella, which was reestablished a few years ago in an
attempt to provide some of this much-needed legal support to our
comrades with an anti-imperialist focus. One of the help guides we
distribute for prisoners to use and build on is related to access to
courts. This help guide is in very rough format currently, but with the
expertise of our jailhouse lawyer contacts we can clean it up, and begin
to distribute it more widely.
To get involved in the Prisoners’ Legal Clinic, write to MIM(Prisons)
and say you want to put in work on this project!
On October 10 a peace accord went into place across the California
prison system to end hostilities between different racial groups. The
Pelican Bay State Prison - Security Housing Unit (PBSP-SHU) Short
Corridor Hunger Strike Representatives issued a statement in August, and
hundreds responded on October 10 with hunger strikes to continue the
struggle against so-called gang validation and the SHU. The original
statement calls on lumpen organizations to turn to “causes beneficial to
all” instead of infighting among the oppressed. Recently leaders in
Pelican Bay State Prison reasserted that this applies to all lumpen
organizations in CDCR, down to the youth authority.
We share the PBSP-SHU Collective’s view that peace is key to building
unity against the criminal injustice system. Prison organizations and
individual prisoners across the country have pledged themselves to the
United Front for Peace in Prisons (UFPP) principles and are building
this United Front in their prisons, communities and organizations.
We know this won’t be easy, but there is a basis for this unity and
peace. As was written in the original announcement of the UFPP:
“We fully recognize that whether we are conscious of it or not, we are
already ‘united’ – in our suffering and our daily repression. We face
the same common enemy. We are trapped in the same oppressive conditions.
We wear the same prison clothes, we go to the same hellhole box
(isolation), we get brutalized by the same racist pigs. We are one
people, no matter your hood, set or nationality. We know ‘we need unity’
– but unity of a different type from the unity we have at present. We
want to move from a unity in oppression to unity in serving the people
and striving toward national independence.”
The ending of hostilities between large lumpen organizations has
sweeping implications for the possibilities for prisoner organizing. USW
comrades in California should work to seize this opportunity however
possible, to translate the peace agreement into meaningful organizing in
the interests of all prisoners.
It is with great pleasure that we announce a new release that
MIM(Prisons) is adding to the labor aristocracy section of our must-read
list. Divided World Divided Class by Zak Cope contributes
up-to-date economic analysis and new historical analysis to the MIM line
on the labor aristocracy. I actually flipped through the bibliography
before reading the book and was instantly intrigued at the works cited,
which included all of the classic sources that MIM has discussed in the
past as well as newer material MIM(Prisons) has been reviewing for our
own work.
The Labor Aristocracy Canon
Before addressing this new book, let me first put it in the context of
our existing must-read materials on the labor aristocracy, which has
long been the issue that the Maoist Internationalist Movement
differentiated itself on. MIM(Prisons) recently assembled an
introductory study pack on this topic, featuring material from
MIM
Theory 1: A White Proletariat? (1992) and
Monkey
Smashes Heaven #1 (2011). We still recommend this pack as the
starting point for most prisoners, as it is both cheaper to acquire and
easier to understand than Cope’s book and other material on the list.
Settlers:
The Mythology of the White Proletariat by J. Sakai is a classic
book documenting the history of Amerika as an oppressor nation whose
class nature has always been bourgeois. It is for those interested in
Amerikan history in more detail, and particularly the history of the
national contradiction in the United $tates. While acknowledging Sakai’s
thesis, Cope actually expands the analysis to a global scale, which
leads to a greater focus on Britain in much of the book as the leading
imperialist power, later surpassed by Amerika. This complete picture is
developed by Cope in a theory-rich analysis, weaving many sources
together to present his thesis. HW Edwards’s
Labor
Aristocracy: Mass Base of Social Democracy is a less cohesive
attempt at a similar approach that is almost half a century old. Edwards
is wishy-washy on the role of First World “workers,” where Cope is not.
Edwards provides a number of good statistics and examples of his thesis,
but it is presented in a more haphazard way. That said, Labor
Aristocracy is still on our must-read list and we distribute it
with a study guide.
MIM went back to the labor aristocracy question in
MIM
Theory 10: The Labor Aristocracy. This issue built on MT
1 some, but primarily focuses on an in-depth look at the global
class analysis under imperialism by the COMINTERN. The importance of
this issue during WWII is often overlooked, and this essay gets deep
into the two-line struggle within the communist movement at the time. We
have a study pack on this piece as well.
The last work that we include in the canon is
Imperialism
and its Class Structure in 1997(ICS) by MC5 of the Maoist
Internationalist Movement. This book is most similar to Cope’s work,
with Cope seeming to borrow specific ideas and sources without ever
acknowledging MC5’s work. Since Cope is very generous in acknowledging
ideas he got from others, one suspects that there is a political
motivation behind ignoring the number one proponent of the position he
is trying to defend in his book. We think MC5 would see Cope’s work as a
compliment and a step forward for the scientific analysis, particularly
since Cope does not bring in anything to oppose the MIM line or to
confuse the issue. Cope’s book is very well researched and put together
as an original work, and we have no interest in defending intellectual
property.
The major new contribution in Cope’s book is the historical analysis of
the labor aristocracy in the context of the global system of
imperialism. He also does some original calculations to measure
superexploitation. His analysis of class, nation and modern events is
all found in contemporary Maoism. Cope seems to be walking a line of
upholding MIM Thought, while not dirtying his reputation with the MIM
name. This is seen in his discussion of nationalism, which is often a
dividing line between MIM Thought and the social democrats of academia.
Cope gives a very agreeable definition of nation, and even more
importantly, an analysis of its role and importance in the imperialist
system related to class divisions. Yet, he fails to cite Stalin in doing
so, while Maoists are honest about Stalin’s contributions on the
national question. So what we have is an excellent book on the labor
aristocracy that avoids other issues that are difficult for the
left-wing white nationalists to handle. In a way, this sanitized version
of what is already a very bitter pill for readers in the First World may
be useful to make this theory more available in an academic context. But
no serious communist can just ignore important questions around Stalin
and even the smaller, yet groundbreaking work of MIM itself.
MC5 or Cope?
For the rest of this review I will discuss Divided World in
relation to Imperialism and its Class Structure (ICS)
as they are parallel works. The above-mentioned sanitizing is evident in
the two books’ different approaches and definitions. Both attempt to
present the basics, before getting into some intense analysis later on.
Yet Cope sticks to discussing mostly Marx, with a healthy dose of
Lenin’s theory of imperialism without too much mention of the Soviet
Union, while MC5 cites the practice of Stalin and Mao as leaders of
socialist countries, as well as the contemporary pseudo-Maoists. It is a
connection to communist practice that makes ICS the better book
politically.
Cope’s work, by default, has the benefit of having more recent
statistics to use in part II for his economic analysis, though his
approach is very different from MC5’s anyway. Part III, which focuses on
debunking the myths promoted by the pseudo-Marxist apologists for high
wages in the First World, also has fresh statistics to use. MC5
addresses many ideological opponents throughout h book, but Cope’s
approach leaves us with a more concise reference in the way it lists the
main myths promoted by our opponents and then knocks them down with
basic facts.
MC5 spends more time addressing the ideas of specific authors who oppose
the MIM thesis, while Cope tends to stick to the general arguments
except when addressing authors such as Emmanuel who is an early
trail-blazer of MIM Thought, but said some things that Cope correctly
criticizes. Overall this provides for a more readable book, as the
reader can get lost trying to figure out what position MC5 is arguing
against when s/he refers to authors the reader has not read.
The model of imperialism that you get from each book is basically the
same. Both address unequal exchange and capital export as mechanisms for
transferring wealth to the First World. Both stress the structural basis
of these mechanisms in militarized borders, death squads, monopoly and
much higher concentrations of capital in the First World due to
primitive accumulation and reinforced by the mechanisms of continued
superexploitation.
While both authors take us through a series of numbers and calculations
to estimate the transfer of value in imperialism, MC5 does so in a way
that makes the class structure arguments more clearly. By focusing on
the proportions, MC5 leaves the revisionists looking silly trying to
explain how greater production per wage dollar in the Third World
coexists with supposedly lower rates of exploitation in the Third World.
Or how the larger unproductive sector in the First World can make
similar wages to the productive sector, while the productive sector in
the First World allegedly produces all the value to pay both sectors,
and profit rates and capital concentration between sectors remain equal.
Or if they acknowledge a great transfer of wealth from the Third World
to the First World, and it is not going to 99% of the population as they
claim, why is it not showing up in capital accumulation in those
countries? As MC5 points out, remembering these structural questions is
more important than the numbers.
Cope takes a numbers approach that ends with a transfer of $6.5 trillion
from the non-OECD countries to the OECD in 2009 when OECD profits were
$6.8 trillion. This leaves a small margin of theoretical exploitation of
the First World. He points out that using these numbers gives $500 of
profits per year per OECD worker compared to $18,571 per non-OECD
worker. So even that is pretty damning. But he goes on to explain why
the idea that OECD workers are exploited at all is pretty ridiculous by
talking about the percentage of unproductive labor in the First World,
an idea that MC5 stresses. Both authors make assumptions in their
calculations that are very generous to the First Worldist line, yet come
up with numbers showing huge transfers of wealth from the Third World to
the First World “workers.” Cope even uses OECD membership as the
dividing line, leading him to include countries like Mexico on the
exploiter side of the calculation. MC5, while a little less orthodox in
h calculations, came up with $6.8 trillion in superprofits going to the
non-capitalist class in the First World in 1993 (compared to Cope’s $0.3
trillion in surplus being exploited from them in 2009). As both authors
point out, they make the best of data that is not designed to answer
these kinds of questions as they try to tease out hidden transfers of
value.
Implications to our Practice
If Cope’s book helps bring acceptance to the reality of the labor
aristocracy in economic terms, there is still a major battle over what
it all means for revolutionaries. In MIM’s decades of struggle with the
revisionists on this question we have already seen parties move away
from a flat out rejection of the labor aristocracy thesis. Cope’s
conclusions on the labor aristocracy and fascism are well within the
lines of MIM Thought. But already Cope’s conclusions have been
criticized:
As mentioned in an earlier post, this kind of “third worldism”
represents the very chauvinism it claims to reject. To accept that there
is no point in making revolution at the centres of capitalism, and thus
to wait for the peripheries to make revolution for all of us, is to
abdicate revolutionary responsibility–it is to demand that people living
in the most exploited social contexts (as Cope’s theory proves) should
do the revolutionary work for the rest of us. (2)
Some see MIM Thought as ultra-leftist, and just plain old depressing for
its lack of populism. Practitioners of revolutionary science do not get
depressed when reality does not correspond to their wishes, but are
inspired by the power of the scientific method to understand and shape
phenomenon. But there is truth in this critique of Cope’s book due to
its disconnection from practice. A seemingly intentional approach to
appeal to academia has the result of tending towards defeatism.
When it comes to practice in the United $tates, the question of the
internal semi-colonies has always been primary for the revolutionary
struggle. Yet today, there is a much greater level of integration.
Cope’s conclusions have some interesting implications for this question.
On the one hand there is no anti-imperialist class struggle here “since
economic betterment for people in the rich countries is today
intrinsically dependent on imperialism”. (Cope, p. 304) Yet
assimilation is still prevented by the need for white supremacism to
rally Amerikans around defending imperialist oppression of other
peoples. Since national oppression will always translate into some
relative economic disadvantage, we may be witnessing the closest real
world example of national oppression that is independent of class. And
Cope argues that this will continue within U.$. borders because you
can’t educate racism away, you must destroy the social relations that
create it. (Cope, p. 6)
While Cope is explicitly non-partisan, MC5 provides a bit more guidance
in terms of what this all means for imposing a dictatorship of the
proletariat in a majority exploiter country, and how class struggle will
be affected after that dictatorship is imposed. MIM also gives the
explicit instruction that we do not support inter-imperialist rivalry or
protectionism. This becomes a bigger challenge to promote and enforce
among our allies in the united front against imperialism. Certainly,
promoting these books and other literature on the topic is one part of
that battle, but we will need other approaches to reach the masses who
are taken in by the social democrats who dominate our political arena as
well as their own potential material interests.
As long as would-be anti-imperialists in the First World ignore the
labor aristocracy question, they will keep banging their heads against
brick walls. It is only by accepting and studying it that we can begin
to make breakthroughs, and this is even true, though less immediately
so, in the Third World as Cope acknowledges (Cope, p. 214). Despite
works dating back over a hundred years discussing this theory of class
under imperialism, we are in the early stages of applying it to the
polarized conditions of advanced imperialism with the environmental
crisis and other contradictions that it brings with it.
“The Anti-Exploits of Men Against Sexism” Ed Mead Revolutionary
Rumors PRESS RevolutionaryRumors@gmail.com
This pamphlet is an historical account of the organization Men Against
Sexism (MAS). It is written in an informal, story-telling style, from
the perspective of Ed Mead, one of MAS’s primary organizers.
“Anti-Exploits” spans the development of MAS, from Mead’s first
encounter with the near-rape of a fellow prisoner on his tier in the
mid-1970s, to the successful height of the organization and the
eradication of prisoner rape in Washington State Prison. This success
impacted facilities all across the state.
Men Against Sexism was created to bring prisoners together to fight
against their common oppression. Mead recognized that homophobia,
sexism, rape, and pimping were causing unnecessary divisions within the
prisoner population. “Only by rooting out internalized sexism would men
treat one another with respect.”(p. 5) He brought together
politically-minded prisoners, queers, and even some former sexual
predators, to change the culture of what was acceptable and not on the
tier.
We should take the example of MAS as inspiration to identify our own
collective divisive behaviors on our unit, and attempt to build bridges
to overcome these barriers. Mead’s reputation of being a revolutionary,
stand-up guy in defense of prisoners’ rights preceded him across the
facility, and helped him win allies in unlikely places.
In the mid-1970s, prison conditions were much different than they are
today, and organizing MAS seems to have been relatively easy according
to the account given. Of course there were challenges amongst the
prisoner population itself (for example, MAS defending a convicted
pedophile from being gang raped and sold as a sex slave put many people
off) but the administration didn’t play a significant role in thwarting
the mission of MAS. The primary organizers were allowed to cell
together, and several different prisoner organizations were mentioned
which had their own meeting spaces.
Today it seems we are lucky if more than two prisoners can get together
to do anything besides watch TV. This is a testament to the dialectical
relationship between the prisoner movement and the forces of the state.
During the time of MAS, the prisoner movement was relatively strong
compared to where it’s at today. After the booming prisoner rights
movement of the 1970s, the state figured out that to undermine those
movements they needed to develop methods to keep prisoners isolated from
each other. Not the least significant of which is the proliferation of
the control unit, where prisoners are housed for 23 or more hours per
day with very little contact with the world outside their cell, let
alone their facility.
MAS recognized that there is power in numbers. They collected donations
from allies outside prison to purchase access to cells from other
prisoners and designated them as “safe cells.” MAS would identify
newcomers to the facility who looked vulnerable and offer them
protection in these group safe cells. This is in stark contrast to how
the state offers so-called protection to victims of prisoner rape, which
is generally to isolate them in control units.(1) Bonnie Kerness of the
American Friends Service Committee writes of this practice being used
with transgender prisoners, and the concept applies to all prisoners who
are gender oppressed in prison no matter their gender identity,
“In some cases this can be a safe place to avoid the violence of other
prisoners. More often this isolation of transgender prisoners places
them at greater risk of violence at the hands of correctional officers…
“Regardless of whether or not it provides some level of protection or
safety, isolation is a poor alternative to general population. The
physical, emotional, spiritual, and psychological impacts of solitary
confinement are tantamount to torture for many.”(2)
As late as 2009, data was compiled by the Bureau of Justice Statistics
(BJS) stating “Approximately 2.1% of prison inmates and 1.5% of jail
inmates reported inmate-on-inmate sexual victimization, whereas
approximately 2.8% of prison inmates and 2.0% of jail inmates reported
staff sexual misconduct.”(3) Certainly much of this staff-on-prisoner
sexual assault occurs in general population, but isolating victims makes
them that much more accessible.
Isolation as the best option for protection is the most obvious example
of individualizing struggles of prisoners. What is more individualized
than one persyn in a room alone all day? Individualizing prisoners’
struggles is also carried out by the rejection of group grievances in
many states. All across the country our comrades meet difficulty when
attempting to file grievances on behalf of a group of prisoners. In
California, a comrade attempted to simply cite a Director’s Level Appeal
Decision stating MIM is not a banned distributor in the state on h
censorship appeal, but it was rejected because that Director’s Level
Decision “belongs to another inmate.”(4) We must identify the state’s
attempts to divide us from our potential comrades in all forms, and
actively work against it.
MAS worked to abolish prisoner-on-prisoner sexual slavery and rape,
where the pigs were consenting to this gender oppression by
noninterference. But the state paid for this hands-off approach when the
autonomy of the movement actually united prisoners against oppression.
What about gender oppression in prisons today?
In 2003, under strong pressure from a broad range of activists and
lobbyists, Congress passed the Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA), and
in May 2012 the final rules were completed. With the initiation of the
PREA, statistics on prison rape are becoming more available. But
comprehensive, sweeping data on the frequency of prison rape does not
exist and so we can not detect trends from 1975 to the present, or even
from 2003 to present. Despite high hopes for the PREA from anti-rape
activists, we can’t yet determine if there has been any benefit, and in
some cases the rates of prison rape seem to be increasing.
When MAS was picking out newcomers to recruit into their safe cells,
they were identifying people who they saw as obviously queer, or in some
way likely to be a target. MAS was using their intuition and persynal
experience to identify people who are more likely to be victimized.
According to the BJS, in their 2009 study, prisoners who are “white or
multi-racial, have a college education, have a sexual orientation other
than heterosexual, and experienced sexual victimization prior to coming
to the facility” … had “significantly higher” rates of inmate-on-inmate
victimization.(1) Human Rights Watch similarly reported in 2001,
“Specifically, prisoners fitting any part of the following description
are more likely to be targeted: young, small in size, physically weak,
white, gay, first offender, possessing ‘feminine’ characteristics such
as long hair or a high voice; being unassertive, unaggressive, shy,
intellectual, not street-smart, or ‘passive’; or having been convicted
of a sexual offense against a minor. Prisoners with any one of these
characteristics typically face an increased risk of sexual abuse, while
prisoners with several overlapping characteristics are much more likely
than other prisoners to be targeted for abuse.”(5)
The descriptions above of who’s more subject to prison rape are
bourgeois definitions of what MIM called gender. Bullying, rape, sexual
identity, and sexual orientation are phenomena that exist in the realm
of leisure-time activity. Oppression that exists in leisure-time can
generally be categorized as gender oppression. Gender oppression also
rests clearly on health status and physical ability, which, in work-time
also affects class status.(6) Since prisoners on the whole spend very
little time engaged in productive labor, their time behind bars can be
categorized as a twisted form of leisure-time. Prisons are primarily a
form of national oppression, and gender is used as a means to this end.
Consider this statistic from BJS, “Significantly, most perpetrators of
staff sexual misconduct were female and most victims were male: among
male victims of staff sexual misconduct, 69% of prisoners and 64% of
jail inmates reported sexual activity with female staff.”(3) An
oversimplified analysis of this one statistic says the
biologically-female staff are gendered men, and the prisoners are
gendered wimmin, no matter their biology. But in the United $tates,
where all citizens enjoy gender privilege over the Third World, this
oversimplification ignores the international scope of imperialism and
the benefits reaped by Amerikans and the internal semi-colonies alike.
While there is an argument to be made that the United $tates tortures
more people in its prisons than any other country, this is balanced out
with a nice juicy carrot (video games, tv, drugs, porn) for many
prisoners. This carrot limits the need to use the more obvious forms of
repression that are more widespread in the Third World. Some of our most
prominent USW leaders determine that conditions where they’re at are too
comfortable and prevent people from devoting their lives to revolution,
even though these people are actually on the receiving end of much
oppression.
On a similar level, MIM(Prisons) advocates for the end of oppression
based on sexual orientation and gender identity. But we are not jumping
on the bandwagon to legalize gay marriage.(7) We also don’t campaign for
sex reassignment surgery and hormones for prisoners.(8) This is because
we see these as examples of gender privilege, and any privileges
obtained by people in the United $tates inherently come on the backs of
the Third World. Whereas in the time Men Against Sexism was formed the
gay rights movement was militant and engaging in street wars against
police, they are now overall placated by the class privilege they
receive as members of the petty-bourgeoisie.
We encourage everyone facing oppression to recognize its true roots –
capitalism and imperialism – and use their privileges to undermine the
United $tates’ world domination. Without an internationalist
perspective, we will inevitably end up on the wrong side of history.
A comrade from another trench spoke once on leadership and what it means
to h: “The answer is that like it or not, people who collect
information, analyze and then make decisions on what is true and not
true, are leaders. People who do not are not leaders.”(1)
Sensory deprivation in solitary confinement creates an inability to make
decisions because information flow is very nearly cut off. Another way
this bourgeois imperialist society stops leaders in their tracks is by
making one’s decisions, after analyzing information, seem off, to seem
crazy or “mentally ill.”
“Another problem relevant to revolutionaries is they have a more
intellectual tendency to describe reality independently of the socially
acceptable way of so doing. The individual is one who feels manipulated
and controlled by outside forces, and is aware of the limitations of his
individuality and room for maneuver… he gives himself importance, and
does not care what others think, or at least feels that to care about
that won’t help him to live. He tends to see himself as good and others
as wicked.”(2)
Prisoners, prison abolitionists and anti-imperialists of all stripes are
familiar with the above mindset. It is a mindset that’s a prerequisite
to successful prolonged struggle against entrenched anti-people systems.
Hegemonic propaganda that pigs use to uphold the superstructure
inculcates the majority of citizens to turn on non-mainstream
individuals. I’m positive some reading these words will be shocked to
hear the above quote is the bourgeois definition of schizophrenia.
Comrade Huey P. Newton, Minister of Defense of the
Black
Panther Party, was labeled mentally ill by prison administrators,
cops and non-revolutionary whites. His leadership ability of
disseminating truths gleaned from study posed such a threat to
capitalist hegemony that he had to be discredited by the label “crazy.”
In prison, pigs forced Newton to visit a psychiatrist. He had this to
say:
“From the minute I entered his office I made my position clear. I told
him that I had no faith or confidence in psychological tests because
they were not designed to relate to the culture of poor and oppressed
people. I was willing to talk to him, I said, but I would not submit to
any testing. As we talked, he started running games on me. For instance,
in the midst of our conversation he would try to speak in psychological
questions such as ‘do you feel people are persecuting you?’ Each time he
did this I told him I would not submit to any sort of testing, and if he
persisted I was going to leave the room. The psychiatrist insisted that
I had a bias against psychological testing. He was correct.”(3)
Mental illness is just a form of social control. Just the same as
“corrections” and “spreading democracy” are forms of social control. I
believe the prison system uses mental health jackets, and society in
general tags people as “just plain crazy,” to break revolutionary’s
self-esteem, leadership skills and family connections. When something as
large as koncentration kamps throws its weight into convincing people’s
mothers, fathers and sisters that said person is nuts, it’s a short walk
away from these individuals actually becoming insane with lack of
“free-world” support.
Their tactics are to divide and conquer by pasting “schizophrenic,”
“depressed” and “anti-social” tags on the foreheads of revolutionary
genius. They psychotropically castrate and lobotomize mind-washed
leaders into their people’s own genocide.
I could leave prison by consenting to swallow my own destruction. I
could leave solitary if “all I did” was snitch for them. Most of my
family’s gone because they believe I’m insane. Forty-six letters sit
unmailed because I lack postage. After filing two lawsuits, the Prison
Litigation Reform Act bleeds 60% of the $25 a month my dear poor
grandmother sends. She could have retired this year, but with all her
grandsons in chains.
FDR 25 is a kkkontrol unit policy which I have filed suit on. A policy
deputy director for administration Mike Haddon states:
“The policy you are requesting is FDR 25, Intensive Management Unit, it
states ‘mail, other than first class, privileged and/or religious shall
not be allowed for inmates on intensive management and includes
newspapers, books, magazines, pamphlets, brochures, etc.’ This policy’s
release could reasonably be expected to jeopardize the Utah Department
of Corrections hence it is protected. If this information were to be
released into the system, inmates could use that information to fight
policy. We do not let that chapter out to anyone who isn’t in law
enforcement. Your request for a copy of the 78 page policy is,
therefore, denied.”
A policy that prevents people from collecting information, receiving
information and analyzing said information, coupled with the
unconstitutional fact that the Utah DOC doesn’t provide a law library
per supreme court ruling Bivens, halts the ability for captives
to “describe reality independently” of that policy. Since only pigs can
know that policy, we can’t fight it.
Even if I could know it and struggle with it and beat it in court I’d
just be labelled “mentally ill,” more so than I am now. And this is the
purpose of sensory deprivation and mental illness: halting revolutionary
leadership and maintaining the status quo. Stopping information and
throwing dirty jackets on truth.
Who does bourgeois psychiatry serve by destroying oppressed peoples? The
oppressor nation. What types of people are being killed off in these
concentration camps? The oppressed nations. What population turns a
blind eye to this reality, or even worse, that the Third World is
parceled up and packaged for First World consumer consumption? The
oppressor nation. What nation must be organized to defeat the oppressor
nation? And if we wish to succeed shouldn’t we discern friend from foe?
“The job of psychiatrist [and those that subscribe to bourgeois
psychiatry] must be abolished [and reeducated after repenting oppressive
policy, genocidal injustice and terroristic ‘spreading of democracy’],
if only because it is corrupting to the truth to have a profession of
people [or nation] making money by constructing various vague illnesses
[vague reasons for war or psychotropics/institutionalization] that
people have. Instead, all oppressed people and progressive-minded people
must take up the science of controlling their own destinies.”(4)
MIM(Prisons) adds: Just as physical violence is used against the
oppressed as a means of control and installing fear, so is psychological
violence. So when we think about promoting safety in prisons, we cannot
do that without addressing psychological violence as well. Often that is
the predominate form of violence used against revolutionaries. Our
approach to this must be twofold in terms of helping comrades survive
the torture they currently face in U.$. gulags, and to put an end to
that torture altogether to really ensure people are safe. It is for this
reason that we reviewed and distribute portions of the
recently
revised Survivors Manual from the American Friends Service
Committee. Our Serve
the People Programs, such as our Free Political Literature for
Prisoners Program and University BARS study groups exist for all
prisoners, but are especially important for keeping those in isolation
engaged, active and sane. All comrades should support these programs
with money and labor, while comrades on the inside should keep the issue
of long-term isolation at the forefront of the general struggle for
prisoner rights.
[This article was added to and facts were corrected by the Under
Lock & Key Editor]
Recently, Chicago rapper Lil Reese signed a $30 million contract with
Def Jam to make music. A day or two later he brutally beat down a woman
for verbally disrespecting him. Lil Reese is an affiliate of another
Chicago rapper, Chief Keef, who has also been making a name for himself
for being at the center of controversy around violence in hip hop. A
recent episode of Nightline addressed the fact that at least
419 people have been killed in a dozen neighborhoods in Chicago in 2012,
more than the number of U.$. troops killed in Afghanistan where
resistance to the occupation continues to grow. The program centered
around a sit-down of 38 members of lumpen organizations in Chicago
organized by
Cease
Fire, a group discussed in ULK 25. It also featured a Chief
Keef and Lil Reese video to criticize Keef’s anti-snitching stance.
MTV.com reports that the participants almost unanimously agreed that it
would practically take a miracle to stop the violence.
The misogynistic nature of rap music
has
been analyzed and explored thoroughly. This article is not meant to
downplay the senseless violence against a humyn being, but the “powers
that be” are using the incident with Lil Reese and programs like
Nightline to formulate another sinister plot to target the
oppressed nations in Amerika.
Chicago has had one of its most deadly years in terms of urban gun
violence, and this has been attributed to Chicago street tribes and
lumpen organizations. The Aurora, Colorado movie theater massacre
perpetrated by a man who claimed to be “The Joker” does not generate the
same fear or threat that young Blacks and Latinos in the hood with guns
do. Why is that?
Imperialists are not worried about white males in Amerikkka with guns.
It is the oppressed nations that pose the most realistic threat to the
oppressive imperialistic regime. We have seen the toll that the
so-called “war on drugs” has had on our Black and Latino nations.
Genocide, social control, and mass incarceration of the lumpen
underclass; it’s the Amerikan way! During the presidential debates both
candidates agreed on keeping gun laws the same.
One of the most brutal social control programs is being formulated as we
speak and it will be cloaked in a “war on gun violence.” In truth it
will be a death blow to urban street tribes and lumpen organizations.
President Obama and his Attorney General Eric Holder have pushed for one
of the highest budgets for federal prisons and detention facilities that
we have seen in years. The states are actually reducing their prison
budgets because of the dismal economic conditions, but the feds are
pumping up the volume! A whopping $9 billion dollars has been allocated
for the U.$. Department of Injustice in 2013 for corrections, jails, and
detention facilities. Of that, $6.9 billion has been allocated to the
Federal Bureau of Prisons in 2013, an increase of about 4% in tight
fiscal times.
There is a prison in Thomson, Illinois that had been tagged as the
location where Guantanamo Bay detainees were supposed to be housed after
President Obama closed the barbaric torture chamber in Cuba. However the
Amerikan public balked! They said they did not want these “dangerous
terrorists” housed on Amerikan soil. U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder
still wants to purchase the prison in Thomson, Illinois and change it
into a Super-Max just like the one in Florence, Colorado. 1,400
Ad-Seg/solitary confinement beds for “the worst of the worst” in
Amerikkka. These beds will be for oppressed nations, just like the
solitary confinement cells in prisons across the country.
MIM(Prisons) has reported extensively on the use of
control
units as a tool of social control. These torture units are used to
target political organizers and leaders of oppressed nations who are
seen as a particular threat to the imperialist system. We have been
collecting
statistics on these control units for years, because the isolation
cells are often hidden within other prisons and no consistent
information is kept on this pervasive torture within Amerika. We invite
prisoners to write to us for a survey about control units in their state
to contribute to this important documentation project.
For those facing violent conditions in Chicago or elsewhere who turn to
despair, remember that there are many who come from the streets of that
very city, from the Black Panthers to lumpen organizations, who have
taken positive paths. If it weren’t for the interference of white media
and the police, things would be different now. Ultimately solutions to
those problems must come from the people involved who don’t want to be
living like that, no matter how they brag about being tough in a rap.
The way out may not be obvious, but things are always in a state of
change. And when it comes to humyn society, it is up to humyns what that
change looks like. Struggle ain’t easy, but it is the only way if you
have ideals that contradict with the current society under imperialism.