Under Lock & Key

All Power to New Afrika

In the previous issues of the ULK there have been several articles, wherein, We expanded upon how these prisons serve as a repressive arm of the oppressor nation, and how they are used as an apparatus to wage war against New Afrikans and other oppressed nations here in United $tates. There have been some well written diatribes, however, We’ve neglected to point out how this way impacts our children.

There are approximately 1.7 million parents incarcerated across the United $tates, leaving behind approximately 3 million children suffering the loss of a mother, or the loss of a father, and in some cases the loss of both primary care givers. This has resulted in Our children suffering immense trauma due to their separation from their parents, similar to that of losing their parent to death. This can lead to severe depression, anxiety, high-rates of obesity and behavioral issues.

The combination of trauma, shame and stigma has led the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to label paternal incarceration an Adverse Childhood Experiences (A.C.E.).

Currently, 50% of juveniles that are in detention centers actually have a parent in prison and there are some studies that say children of incarcerated parents are 7 times more likely to end up in prison than their peers.

One in 57 children of European descendant have a parent that is incarcerated, it is 1 in 28 for Chican@ children and to no surprise 1 in 9 New Afrikan children have a parent that is incarcerated.

You see when a parent is charged with committing a “crime” law enforcement and the judicial system intervenes a behalf of the “victim” of the committed “crime,” however, no one intervenes on behalf of the children of the prisoner. These children are left to suffer.

This is by design. The aforementioned numbers reflect the genocide being carried out against New Afrikans.

Article II of the Convention of the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, adopted by United Nations General Assembly on December 9, 1948 states in part that Genocide means ANY of the following acts committed with INTENT to destroy in whole or part, a national, ethical, “racial” or religious group, as such:

A. Killing members of the group;

B. Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;

C. Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;

D. Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group.

The oppressor nation has had well over 400 years to perfect those methods of genocide. Beginning with the aggressive European invasion of Afrika, it progressed with the euro-Amerikkkan slave trade during which millions of Afrikans died during the “middle passage.” All the deaths of Afrikans on slave ships at the hands of village raids, and city police, were acts of genocide.

Amerikkka is still the enemy, and today it uses its prisons as genocidal weapons. Amerikkkan prisons are instruments used to practice political, economic, and social oppression of New Afrikan people. Prisons are used to practice genocide, to practice physical and mental destruction of the group, and as one of the instruments used to prevent the group’s successful struggle for liberation Amerikkan prisons are Koncentration Kamps. The entire U.$. “criminal justice system” is used as an arm of the government to repress and destroy the national liberation struggle, sadly this includes our children.

Post Script: i need to inform North Carolina Prisoners that our (S.W.A.P) address has changed. Prisoners should write to:

At the moment our support is limited to providing the New Afrikan P.O.W. Journals to NC prisoners. If you are interested in supporting the Do M.O.R.E. (Mobilize Organize Revolutionize & Educate) campaign. i entreat that you write to us with your ideas.

The primary objective of the campaign is to have the Security Risk Group (SRG) sanctions and restrictions removed from prisoners who don’t pose a “threat” to the “security” of the prison system. Please write for details.

To All Comrades,

This is for those who are soon to be released. I’ma keep this short and sweet and to the point. Forget about EVERYTHING you think you may know concerning “Freedom” once you’re free! Unless you’re blessed to pertain to that exclusive 1-5% of individuals who are returning home and whom will still be fed with the silver spoon, forget about everything you think you may know.

First and foremost, the sad reality still exists that money, the almighty dollar, still rules. What I mean is, you will have to get some type of job to generate income in order to sustain your lifestyle. From essentials/necessities like phone bills, groceries, rent, gas, car note, to luxuries like clothes, entertainment, jewelry, travel, etc. there ain’t no handouts out here. Contrary to popular belief and you’ll already know, ain’t sh free. Bottom line is this fellas: this transition and re-entry back into society after 12+ years in the Florida DOC is nothing short of egregious. It’s difficult, and it’s one door after another that’s closing right in your face. Y’all better be ready to come out with that hustler mindset, and I mean that I’ma grind nonstop for that legit slow money… To Be Continued

MIM(Prisons) adds: We want to commend comrade Fatal for sticking with the basic program of our Serve the People Re-Lease on Life Program. Ey has stayed in touch since eir release, got set up with a way to communicate with us securely, and has been distributing Under Lock & Key locally. As we tell all soon-to-release comrades, staying in touch is all you need to do in the beginning. As Fatal explains, you’ll be so busy figuring other things out in your life, so just stay in touch.

If you have a release date coming up let us know, get in our intro study course, and develop a regular line of communication now, while it’s easier. So many comrades who write us regularly inside, just never reach out, or we only hear from them once after they release and then they disappear. While our resources are limited in what we can offer you in support, we are always building our networks to support more comrades on release. And we can always provide you a connection to the movement, which can be vital in keeping you on the right path and not end up locked back up again as happens to many who do not stay in touch.

In our last issue we covered the mythology of sex crimes being painted onto Hamas in the imperialist media, and the flaunting of beautiful, young, “white” wimmin to rouse the hunger for war in the men of the United $tates, Britain and I$rael itself. In effect they have turned the genocide in Palestine into a rape revenge fantasy.

Since that article, multiple news agencies have done further investigation into the claims made by the New York Times and echoed across the imperialist media. Yes! and The Intercept both conducted investigations, and to those paying attention, it seems very clear that there is actually no real evidence of rape committed on October 7th, especially by Hamas itself. Both investigations report on the experience of one of the lead investigators for the New York Times, who questioned eir own qualifications to be working on the article, and hit dead end after dead end while intentionally trying to dig up information on alleged rapes. This “reporter,” Anat Schwartz, also liked a tweet saying that I$rael needed to “turn the [Gaza] strip into a slaughterhouse.”(1)(2)

Another figure in this propaganda campaign, Cochav Elkayam-Levy, was hosted by the White House in December, whom it described in a press statement as the “Chair of Israel’s Civil Commission on October 7 Crimes by Hamas Against Women and Children.” Since then ey has been the center of scandal in I$rael where it has been exposed that the “Commission” is just one persyn, and despite its name is not an official state commission. Elkayam-Levy released a “Horrors Report” that was 4 pages long, listing newspaper headlines and some signatures. Meanwhile ey attempted to raise $8 million for the “Commission’s” investigation.(3)

While working on this article another New York Times piece came out claiming that an I$raeli prisoner was sexually assaulted. This came out months after her release and having given a press conference on her imprisonment. It also came out shortly after that new evidence had been uncovered to prove some of their claims about rapes on October 7th false. In reality, it was already known that these claims were false before the original article came out.(4) What is not debated is the fact that these wimmin were killed in the October 7th attack. The grandfather of the two girls killed by Hamas, mentioned in the NYT report on rape, said it “was the saddest day of my life.” So why is it so necessary for the imperialists to create these stories that they were raped as well? Finally, this new sexual assault story comes to light as I$rael is conducting an intentional mass starvation campaign and destruction of medical care in the Gaza Strip and as footage is released of I$raeli drones hunting down and murdering unarmed Palestinians walking down the street.

The imperialist media has at times painted the myth of sexual assaults on October 7th as the greatest tragedy in the conflict in Palestine. Greater than the almost 35,000 dead Palestinians, greater than the thousands of Palestinian babies starving to death as we write this, even greater than the hundreds of I$raeli lives taken.

Meanwhile, many U.$. prisoners are confused by the state to think that anyone with a “sex offender” label has assaulted children. And they see this assault of children, whether real or imagined, by another prisoner as the greatest tragedy that they will sacrifice their body and their freedom to avenge. This is a greater tragedy to them than the tens of thousands of oppressed nation men and wimmin being tortured every day by the U.$. prison system. The 100,000 rotting away in long-term isolation. The minds of multiple generations being zombified by chemical warfare agents being brought in and sold by the guards. Staff beating people to within an inch of their lives over frivolous trespasses. Some of our misled readers would rather attack another prisoner than avenge these atrocities of the state.

Young New Afrikan males are one of the demographics that are most likely to be raped in the United $tates because of their vastly disproportionate rate of imprisonment.(5) Palestinians face similar rates of imprisonment, with accounts of rape in those prisons of both men and wimmin. A recent UN report says allegations of I$raeli sexual assault and rape of Palestinan wimmin and girls are credible.(6) It is clear that by fighting imperialism – its occupations, its wars, its prisons – we can do the most to combat rape. It is clear that bombing Gaza is not stopping rape. It should also be clear that attacking other prisoners who are threatening no one does not stop rape.

Rape revenge fantasies are built up by the patriarchy, to tug at the emotions of the patriarchal men who are called to avenge the innocent who are defiled. This props up the very gender relations that lead to rape in the first place, where individuals take other individuals’ fates into their own hands through the use of inter-persynal force. These fantasies are used to divide the oppressed and rally the oppressors. They are used to justify division and oppression in U.$. prisons, and they are used to justify war and genocide in the Third World.

<sup>Notes:
1. Arun Gupta, 5 March 2024, Claims of Mass Rape by Hamas Unravel Upon Investigation, Yes!
2. Jeremy Scahill, Ryan Grim, Daniel Boguslaw, 28 February 2024, “Between the Hammer and the Anvil: The Story Behind the New York Times October 7 Expose, The Intercept.
3. Ali Abunimah, 25 March 2024, Israeli “commission” on 7 October rape claims exposed as fraud, The Electronic Intifada.
4. Jeremy Scahill, Ryan Grim, 4 March 2024, Kibbutz Be’eri Rejects STory in New Yortk Times October 7 Expose: “They Were Not Sexually Abused”, The Intercept.
5. MIM(Prisons), September 2007, Gender Oppression in U.$. Prisons, Under Lock & Key No. 1
6. Julian Borger, 22 February 2024, Claims of Israeli sexual assault of Palestinian women are credible, UN panel says, The Guardian.</sup>

Power to New Afrika

When i was first introduced to the concepts and ideology of NARN (New Afrikan Revolutionary Nationalism) and New Afrikan Nationhood i subjectively analyzed it, thinking that it was based on narrow-nationalism that was focused on representing “race.” My narrow-mindedness would act as an impediment to my own development, which would ultimately prevent me from ascertaining that NARN actually provides a complete social, political and economic theory that constitutes a comprehensive network of principles, rules, beliefs, values and morals that teaches Us the importance of decolonization and National Independence.

You see many of Us profess to be all-the-way revolutionary, when in fact We are actually robots running on dogmatism and stale formulas. i myself was a robot running on dogmatism and stale formulas, a robot that was inimically opposed to any and all concepts and ideologies that were not compatible with my own.

My ignorance would persist up until recently when i had an experience similar to the supernatural experience that all Christians claim to have, e.g “i heard god talking to me and i seen the light.” However, my experience was corporeal.

i use the analogy because it epitomizes exactly what transpired. i was reading Atiba Shanna’s [AKA James Yaki Sayles] book Meditations On Frantz Fanon’s Wretched of the Earth.(1) But it was Atiba Shanna emself talking to me and “the light” grew brighter with each page i read, i began to have a different perspective.

Prior to being aroused from my pontifical stupor i had wrote a response to a poem titled, “White in the Mix” that had been published in the No. 82 Summer 2023 edition of Under Lock & Key, wherein i criticized the author’s idea of not seeing color as it related to “race” and proceeded to provide what at the time i thought to be insight into what is the criterion for the “white” revolutionary. Who else better than me to elucidate this? A former member of the White Panther Organization and the epitome of an anti-racist. One would assume that i was more than capable of elucidating race/racism.

Instead of being published my letter was met with criticism, which i automatically assumed was subjective, due to the disputes i had with the komrades of MIM. However, this assumption was a manifestation of my own subjectivism. The truth is my criticism was based on binary opposites “Black” and “White” (racial categories), thusly the komrades rightfully deemed my response to the poem as being contradictory to NARN and a further perpetuation of the myth of “race.”

It is difficult not to perceive everything through a racialized lens when the truth is that hundreds of years of racial oppression have ingrained this way of thinking in our minds. Even thinking of ourselves as “Whites” or “Blacks” testifies to the success the colonizers have had in undermining Our conscious as human beings.

Moreover, said thinking upholds the concept of “race” and promotes racialized thought and practice that ultimately impedes the advancement of national and social revolution.

Even though the author of the poem claims to see no color (which is an idea promoted by the conservative bourgeoisie that perpetuates the concept of “white” power) it is obvious that his ideas and ideals are based on society’s racialized paradigms, moreover, it is evident that the komrade has yet to understand that until he commits class suicide/white privilege suicide, that he is indeed complicit in the oppression of the oppressed nations that is perpetuated by the oppressor nation – the Amerikan nation.

As Komrade Atiba emphasized:

“To commit class suicide means to”Kill” the (class) consciousness of the bourgeois/capitalist order that exercises hegemony in our lives and minds. We tend to think of revolutionary activity as that which takes place outside ourselves – as overthrowing the capitalist institutions and property relations – but We seldom think of the need to uproot the bourgeois ideas in our own minds, to repudiate the values, morals, and the entire range of beliefs that We now hold “in so far as they are bourgeois.”(2)

Class suicide was first a theory engendered by the great Amilcar Cabral, therein he was referring to the Afrikan petty-bourgeoisie (a very small elite class in 1960s-1970s Afrika). This class were the only “natives” with a full colonial style education, had been to universities in europe and amerikkka and had returned and been hand-picked by the colonialists to work in the government public institutions. Similar to DuBois’ Talented Tenth Theory, Cabral saw that the Afrikan masses would have to be led by that petty-bourgeoisie, but to prevent the reality of a new bourgeoisie and neo-colonial establishment in native face, the petty-bourgeoisie had to commit “class suicide.” They had to bring what made them “elite” and lay it at the feet of the masses, allow those masses to gain and learn from the elite’s expertise and learn from the masses.

What that meant was forgetting the subtle notions of white supremacist theories they had been implanted with from youth. Forget the notion that all things Western are superior, come back to “the source”, return to the culture of your native people, relearn your native tongue, remove the Western name you’ve adopted, the clothes, the wealth and privilege. PAIGC (African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde) cadre were stationed in the countryside engaging with the peasants, seeing their daily lives, creating the institutions and programs to improve their lives (from the masses to the masses). The peasant masses were getting political education and tools needed to defeat the enemy. This was “class suicide” for them. Similar to Mao’s Cultural Revolution in China around the same time.

Now as it pertains to the Euro-Amerikkkan committing “class suicide” the process will be different, but to make it as clear as possible you will have to objectively forget your whiteness, while simultaneously utilizing it to gain advantages for the New Afrikan Independence Movement (NAIM).(3) You would be required to engage in the most extreme revolutionary factions instead of hiding in the comfort of your whiteness.

As the Komrad Triumphant advised me: “Forget your whiteness even when those around you (especially New Afrikans) try their damnedest to make you remember. Forget your whiteness.”

Our class is the lumpen, and here in Amerikkka We’ll have to simultaneously organize as a class for itself while also committing class suicide, by abandoning the culture (ways of living/thinking) that accompanies the lumpen, in favor of an international proletarian class analysis. This abandonment is the fundamental function of class suicide and white privilege suicide.

When committing to such an endeavor one must be scientific in their thinking and not be like the “whites” Malcolm X spoke of, those who join the struggle for New Afrikan liberation because they are seeking to appease their conscience for all the horrible things done to New Afrikans and other oppressed nations by the oppressor nation.

Most “whites” will not be able to make such a commitment, not until there is a deep societal change among those who make up the oppressor nation and this is fine, because the New Afrikan nation doesn’t need the support of the colonial-oppressor system. In fact, as New Afrikan Revolutionary Nationalists not only are we actively seeking to resist all oppression and the malignant sickness of the colonial oppressor-system but we are striving to build our own independent nation that would enable us to provide our people with food, shelter, clothes, education and other such essentials for Our own self-determination.

In closing, i want to express that i know there will be many who vehemently disagree with what has been said and will assume that i’ve taken this “wanna be” to a whole other level and i am laying the foundation for the New Afrikan identity to be hijacked by “white” people. My response to you is this:

Let me hasten to point out: By “New Afrikans” i don’t mean “black” people. i mean those who came to identify their nationality as “New Afrikan,” and who thus exhibit the consciousness and embrace the values and philosophy… those who pursue the goals of the “New Afrikans.” To me, to be a “New Afriakn” is not about the color of one’s skin, but about one’s thoughts and practice. i know that not everyone agrees with this, but that’s their problem…“(2)

Postscript: It’s only right that i give a clenched Fist Salute and a sincere thank you to the Komrad Triumphant of T.E.A.M.O.N.E & The Brow Box Collective for being so instrumental in my political development as a New Afrikan Revolutionary Nationalist. Thank you, Komrad, you walk it how you talk it.

MIM(Prisons) responds: We commend this comrade for making a public self-criticism following the feedback ey received from us and further study. We are all in the process of transforming ourselves, so engaging with others with shared goals, who have studied dialectical and historical materialism, is a necessary and ongoing part of all of our political development. We cannot change society without changing ourselves. We have a short study pack on the theory of Intercommunalism, which is the ideology this author has promoted in the past, if others are interested.

One of the main reasons we officially began using New Afrikan in place of “Black” was for the reason this comrade gives.(4) Similarly we have come to use Euro-Amerikan more consistently in place of “white.” The terms Black and white have their place and are still used and understood by the masses, but using them too much reinforces the racial constructs of the oppressor as this author explains.

In our study of the recently released Collected Works of the Black Liberation Army we also came across their very explicit inclusion of all revolutionary people into the Black or New Afrikan nation. Again, the author rightly offers some caution here. And we’d go further to stress the historical errors that have been forced onto oppressed nations by integrating with oppressor nations in the revolutionary struggle. We also believe different oppressed nations face different conditions that often warrant separate parties, while recognizing their struggles to be the same overall and favoring as much unity as possible. The answer is going to have to be determined in each situation. But clearly we must stand by the principle that (Euro-)Amerika is an oppressor nation and an ally of imperialism and not a base for revolution.

<sup>Notes: 1. for a review of this book see: Wiawimawo, May 2011, Education of the Nation, Under Lock & Key 20
2. James Yaki Sayles, 2010, Meditations On Frantz Fanon’s Wretched of the Earth, Kersplebedeb and Spear & Shield Publications.
3. A California prisoner, February 2017, To Identify as White is to Identify as Oppressor, Under Lock & Key 55
4. MIM(Prisons), November 2013, Terminology Debate: Black vs. New Afrikan, Under Lock & Key No. 35.</sup>

This question is not a matter of ancillary importance. Why? Because it seems as if after George Floyd was sadistically and undoubtedly murdered on camera for all to see by a person who was employed as a police officer supposedly standing under the motto of serve and protect (let them tell it), all of a sudden white America was finally awakened after 400 years of conveniently sleeping under the blanket of “better them than me.” (For the record of course “we know all white people are not racist”. Yeah, we know that to be a statement of gospel.)

I myself predicted seriously, when Rodney King (R.I.P) was beaten by obvious racist cops like a pair of weathered drums in Tommy Lee’s garage, that change would somehow slip through the cracks of injustice in the early nineties. However, that was daycare in comparison with what occurred on the unfortunate day of 21 June 1921 in Tulsa, Oklahoma after a Black shoe shiner was arrested for assaulting a white girl in an elevator. The Publisher of the local paper, eager to win a circulation war published a front page headline screaming, “To Lynch Negro Tonight.”

It was indeed a familiar occurrence for a Black man accused of sexually assaulting a white woman in the Deep South era. Rewind and fast forward to 21 June 1921 after the paper hit the streets an angry white mob began to gather outside of the courthouse where the Black shoe shiner (Dick Rowland) was being held (Rowland would be later released after the women refused to press charges). That alone reeks of rel-a-tion-ship. Some Blacks from the Tulsa neighborhoods of Greenwood – some were recently discharged war vets – began to descend upon the courthouse with the objective of saving Rowland from being lynched. Long story short, shots were fired and total chaos broke out. As a result over 12,000 whites were fully backed by the white police force. In all, 300 black lives were taken in vain, 1,200 homes burned to the ground and not a single (white) person arrested or ever held accountable for these untimely deaths of Black men, women and kids. To sugar coat the incident it was labeled a riot but in realty is was no less than ethnic cleansing genocide carried out on American soil. So do Black Lives Really Matter in the eyes of white America?

A couple of more Black lives in question, two of the greatest leaders to ever walk the earth, Martin Luther King Jr. and Mr. Malcolm X. At the time of their tragic assassination FBI agents were indeed on the scene under the orders of racist FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover as if they where known terrorists. J. Edgar Hoover was said to express paranoid thinking that Martin Luther King would one day turn radical and his followers would no longer turn the other cheek to the nasty side of injustice and racism. Even though up until his fatal demise he showed not the slightest hint of radicalism. Malcolm X had continuously complained to law enforcement that his life was in danger and he often requested a gun permit, which was apparently never granted.

Now the very thing that initiated this question/article in my head as I sit behind enemy lines in a cell for allegedly selling crack cocaine that conveniently was found behind a pay phone on the South Side of Dallas, Texas: Here I’ve remained for the last 20 years as if I murdered the President. Make no mistake I am not miserable nor bitter as I continue to seek justice in my case. Yeah, I was found not guilty of the exact same indictment and found guilty of the exact same offense. This is overtly obvious Double Jeopardy under the 5th Amendment. It does take 20 years for the courts to grasp this simple and clear vital error which was made purposely to get a conviction due to the fact that I refused to cop-out to a charge I was totally innocent of.

So I have educated myself since I have been incarcerated and there is no way of avoidance on behalf of the courts. Every so called law enforcement affiliate that I have relayed this information to has turned a blind eye to my situation so as of now I am in a lawless environment and failure is not an option as the system attempts to sweep me under the rug so to speak to cover their criminal activity. Now tell me, do Black Lives Really Matter?

MIM(Prisons) adds: Studying Black history like Tulsa, and current events in Palestine, the connections are clear. While the imperialists haven’t dropped any bombs on New Afrika in a few decades now, the low intensity warfare and genocide continues here in the United $tates. It is fueled by white Amerikans’ paranoid delusions, which make them fear that the oppressed might treat them as bad as they have treated the oppressed. The fact is that the Amerikan project is further along than the I$raeli project, and pacification is in full effect. But the contradictions remain, and cannot be resolved without ending imperialism. The oppressed will not see justice until then.

Dear UL&K Editor & Staff,

When i originally wrote to you regarding my lawsuit on the digitalized mail, i had NOT yet been assigned a case no. i have one now:

• Prisoners are NOT allowed to correspond with Plaintiff. ALL other INDIVIDUALS may write to Plaintiff using the name, #, and Unit, with:

WARNING Any fellow Texas Prisoner who wants to seek to join this suit as a Defendant WILL be required by the Court to pay applicable fees and court costs – so, don’t put your foot in the pond if you aren’t prepared to swim.

Again – as the Plaintiff – i am extending an open invitation to any Attorneys, Investigators, Paralegals, Researchers, Legal Aid Groups, or Sponsors who would like to offer assistance with this litigation.

• ALL pleadings filed to date should be available for viewing/downloading on the Court’s public website.

With appreciation for ANY assistance extended into my hand – have a great day and Blessed be.

“[Our purpose is] to ensure that literature and art fit well into the whole revolutionary machine as a component part, that they operate as powerful weapons for uniting and educating the people and for attacking and destroying the enemy, and that they help the people fight the enemy with one heart and one mind.” (1)

This feature, “The Culture Corner,” is a space designated to highlight and share cultural content that expresses revolutionary ideals and principles. “The Culture Corner” appears in the newsletter Power Moves, an internal newsletter distributed in certain Texas prisons, and is being reprinted here.

In 2024, the hip-hop genre has evolved to be the most influential genre of music in the world. As such, it is incumbent upon revolutionaries to utilize this genre to express revolutionary ideals and to advance revolutionary consciousness and solidarity.

One artist that has done this prolifically, while steadfastly maintaining a revolutionary nationalist and anti-capitalist political line, is Bay Area lyrical comrade The Revolutionary Eseibio The Automatic.

Just as important as eir content, in my view, is the accessibility of the music to the captive population. In the prison climate today, dominated by tablet devices with their purposely indoctrinating content, Eseibio’s content does its job by providing a revolutionary alternative. Eir content can be accessed on J-pay/Securus tablets on the media store app. Simply search music and type the artist’s name as spelled above. Eseibio has an extensive catalog of music, spanning over a decade worth of material with a wide number of albums and mixtapes.

While all of Eseibio’s material is revolutionary with an underground flavor, there are certain albums and songs that stick out more than others. These include the albums “Black Panther” and “African Revolutionary”. The former’s tracklist reads like a history lesson on the Black Panther Party. Standout tracks like “10 Point Program,” “Hands Off Assata,” “Red Book,” “Letter to Afeni,” “Smile 4 Pac,” “Off the Pigs,” and “George Jackson Day of the Gun” are bangers that also educate the listener. Other standout tracks like “Juche,” “Che Guevara,” “Bust A Cap,” “Kwame Nkrumah,” “Black Boots,” “In Defense of Self-Defense,” “Free The Land,” “Free Em All,” and “C.R.E.A.M-Capitalism Rules Everything Around Me” should be in steady rotation.

Most important of all is that Eseibio, and other artists that shall be featured in “The Culture Corner” in the future, provide a platform for political prisoners to bring brothers, sisters, mothers and fathers who were left by the wayside into the revolutionary movement. It is not good enough to complain of the maneuvers of the enemy. We have to be good at improvising on the new realities. This is only one way of mixing up the necessary improvisation.

A clenched fist salute to The Revolutionary Eseibio The Automatic and all other revolutionary and conscious artists using their talents for the advancement of the class and national struggles.

“The Culture Corner” will put the spotlight on other artists in future issues, We recommend you to go check out the comrade Eseibio.

^{Notes: (1) Mao-Tse-Tung’s Selected Works III p.84, “Talks at the Yenan Forum on Literature and Art.”}

My fellow prisoners I am sending out this call for a massive assault upon our living conditions here in TDCJ; a massive RUIZ TYPE Lawsuit that should not only bring a change to our living conditions, but should bring about the release of thousands of us.

ORDER TO REDUCE PRISON POPULATION

On 4 August 2009, this three-judge court issued an Opinion and Order finding, by clear and convincing evidence, that crowding is the primacy cause of the constitutional inadequacies in the delivery of medical and mental health care to California prisoners and that no relief other than a “prison release order”, as that term is broadly defined by the PLRA, 18 USC 3626(g)(4), is capable of remedying these constitutional deficiencies – see COLEMAN v SCHWARZENEGGER, 2010. US.Dist.LEXIS 2711, BROWN v PLATA, 563 U.S. 493 and GRADDICK NEWMAN, 453 U.S. 923.

Each of these cases were started by prisoners in California and Alabama. We can, and must, do the same! We must do so because the conditions today are back to Pre-RUIZ. Thus, we need a massive lawsuit to bring change. Unfortunately, we must come up with a way to communicate. Since communication is often difficult to impossible I offer the following strategy: During the American slave trade, the top priority of each plantation was to ensure there wasn’t any communication between the slaves from one plantation to another. Shuttering the communication lines was, is and has always been the most effective way to control slaves/prisoners. Doing so is the dominant means of ensuring captives are not planning insurrections, escapes, revolutionary actions, and/or working together to get the very best class action suits filed in federal courts!

Ruiz was the lead plaintiff in the fantastically expensive and bitterly contested lawsuit that laid waste to the original and brutal Texas Department of Corrections (TDC, now known as TDCJ-Texas Dept. of Criminal Justice) control model. Had it not been for the benefit of the mail system the lawsuit probably would not have ever seen the light of day. During the time the lawsuit was being researched, rough drafted and crafted, the incarcerated were permitted to write each other and share notes, ideas and research of what the lawsuit should bring to the court’s attention. Needless to say, we cannot do that today. As a result, besides the recent “excessive heat” lawsuit filings by TDCJ prisoners and then taken over by the ACLU and other civil & human rights groups, there has been no sign of an effective federal suit against TDCJ since the original RUIZ in the 1970s and 1960s. The originality of the lawsuit had started with Ruiz, Fred Cruz and others of “eight hoe-squad.” It eventually fanned out to other writ-writers at several more of the 14 units/plantations in Texas. Every writ-writer in the State was either researching or actually writing up some filings to either send to Ruiz’s eight hoe-squad crew consideration.

From the disciplinary block of the Wynne Plantation, Ruiz’s document traveled first to Judge William Wayne Justice’s court house in Tyler. He sent eight illustrative complaints to the New York offices of the NAACP’s Legal Defense Fund to solicit representation for the indigent Plaintiffs. The rest is history. Unfortunately, we cannot write to one another, nor can we expect the fair treatment of a William Wayne Justice. We must come with overwhelming clear and convincing evidence for these ultra conservative judges. To make this point clear, I offer the following example, which is a case I personally litigated from here on the Coffield Unit. They put Armour on the Medical Chain, kept him away for about six months and played the chase-mail game with his mail. They handled us real ruff:

“Armour attached in his response a newspaper article, purportedly from a publication called the Texas Tribune, saying that TDCJ Director Bryan Collier testified in a court hearing that TDCJ failed to monitor temperatures on units where the agency houses inmates who are supposed to be protected by a settlement agreement covering the Pack Unit. Armour also attached four pages, 11, 12, 47 and 48, which are purportedly from a document called the Human Rights Report from the University of Texas. These documents recite from interviews with inmates about the heat, claim that TDCJ is aware of”inhumane conditions”, and sets out the conclusions and recommendations of the unnamed authors of the “report.” The Defendants have filed a motion asking that the article from the Texas Tribune and the excerpted pages from the Human Rights Report be stricken as hearsay. The Fifth Circuit has stated that newspaper articles are classic, inadmissible hearsay and cannot be used to defeat summary judgment.”

Please read ARMOUR v DAVIS, 2020 U.S.DIST-LEXIS 94986, and see that in addition to this the Judge claimed that 406-Affidavits of prisoners were not part of the record.

Thus, it is my hope that us jailhouse lawyers across the State of Texas will file lawsuits about our living conditions, and in the future we will attempt to get them consolidated and/or attempt to get the Justice Department to intervene. Also, I urge each of you to contact the National Lawyers Guild. They have four lawsuits that they are attempting to get Affidavits from all the units in TDCJ about the complaints they have filed: BAKER v COLLIER, 1:22-cv-01249, PANUS v O’DANIEL, 1:23-cv-00086, SIRUS v RELIGIOUS PRACTICE COMMITTEE, 1:22-cv-00191 and COX v COLLIER, TBA.

So, as the story unfolds, “mail-call” has lost the most important part of its strength when it comes to incarcerated individuals uniting as one band or group of people to fight the injustices of a system that holds them in perpetual bondage, whether that’s physically in prison or by means of supervised release to parole/probation. Let us not allow the lack of the ability to communicate to prevent us from carrying out the next multi-level federal case!

DARE TO STRUGGLE! DARE TO WIN!

MIM(Prisons) responds: We print this article for the information it contains, not necessarily to echo the call of this comrade. This comrade has a proven track record of legal campaigns. Those who operate strictly in the legal realm, whether jailhouse lawyers or organizations like the ACLU, can be comrades in united front with demands of the anti-imperialist movement.

What the comrade doesn’t address here is why we are back to conditions as bad as before the Ruiz case. The short answer is, there are no rights, only power struggles. We live in a system where the minority oppresses the majority. As long as that is true, the majority can never sit idly and have their needs met. They must struggle for them.

As this comrade is calling for a coordinated struggle, we agree. But it cannot be relegated to the courtrooms. That is why we did promote and support the Juneteenth Freedom Initiative in Texas prisons, which had a multi-pronged approach that was based in organizing the prison masses. The state seems to have won that round, but that is the type of strategy we need. Just as the International Criminal Court is not going to stop the genocide in Palestine, nor are peaceful protests in the United $tates, but they provide agitational support for the ongoing liberation struggle being fought on the ground by the masses. All of these forces are part of a united front effort, with different political approaches, supporting a common cause of ending genocide.