Under Lock & Key

The solutions that this panel of “leaders” gave were borderline absurd. 1) Give the murderous cop the benefit of the doubt. 2) Stop looking at the death of Mike Brown as a race issue, but a people issue. 3) The nation’s problems can only be solved by church and 4) This would all stop if all poor people jumped into the middle class. I can only agree with one of 4 of these solutions. The killing of people by cops is a society issue. Any time a cop kills anyone, 9 times out of 10 the cop will never see jail, and if he does he won’t go for very long. As for the rest of these solutions, I felt like it only gave excuses for all of us to lay down and accept the militarization or police, state executions of people in communities, and the immunity by police as a fact of life.

The stark reality is, this kkkountry has a real problem. A majority of people in prison are from the internal semi-colonies, who come from underdeveloped communities. Again if racism and white privilege isn’t a fact in our society, why are we so encouraged to act, think, dress and accept what white society tells us? In fact, white supremacy is so ingrained in our society that we are raised with it, often times we don’t even notice. Poverty, profiling from police, bad housing, and schools that pipeline kids to prison, not to mention the criminalization of social behavior from childhood to high school. It is no real wonder that most of us end up in gangs, drug wars fueled by profit, single parent homes or just unwanted and state raised. All those who spoke on Fox News made me sick; prayer and peace is not a defense against bullets and badges and prison cells.

What’s being done in this young man’s tragedy should be a wakeup call and more importantly a call to arms. How many more of our children are we going to let them kill? How many more family are we going to let them lock up? Why haven’t we learned, this system doesn’t want us or accept us. When we as captives choose to ignore the reality of this system, or we choose to buy into it, then we are accepting all that comes with it: white supremacy, cultural aggression, and more horrifying oppression and imperialism. The system’s use of psychological warfare will always drive us to hate our cultures, nationalities and ourselves.

The U.$. will always seize the opportunity to pin the classes against one another and media outlets like Fox feed the misconception and downplay the situation of us in bondage to the U.$. colonial system. If we in prison build upon the reality of what life holds on the outside and how it will lead us to always be on the fringe we will then chose to feed revolution or fail.

This same attitude in national news feeds helps keep us kaptive, by allowing them to think that we are the real dangers to society rather than recognizing that we are kept in bondage because their government has led us to a violent, overly repressed and suppressed society, that drove us into poverty, fed drugs into our communities, gave us guns, and let the pigs clean up the mess.

Fear is a powerful tool, the longer we keep disorganizing and keep in-fighting the more we keep allowing the system, our kaptors, and society in general to continue on the path of building prisons and killing our children. We know the path, now it is time to build. Standing in solidarity.

MIM(Prisons) responds: There have always been individuals from the oppressed nations who the oppressor could use as mouthpieces for their own ideas. But the petty bourgeoisie in the internal semi-colonies of the United $tates is bigger than ever today. And as mentioned above, the political solution offered by those taking up white nationalist politics is to have all New Afrikans, Chican@s, or whoever the target is, join the Amerikan petty bourgeoisie, or as they say, “the middle class.”

There are two problems with this strategy. One is it is not happening on the broad scale that they would hope, and is merely a pipe dream fed to the oppressed to keep them pacified. The other is that joining Amerika is joining the most hated nation on the planet. And these two points are connected. On the one hand Amerika is hated because it oppresses and exploits all over the world, and this is why they have such a large, wealthy middle class. On the other hand, this oppression takes the primary form of national oppression, which is justified by ideas of race. Therefore there are both economic/structural limits to integration in the United $tates as well as cultural limitations, as the white nation must see itself as superior in order to support the actions of its imperialist government.

We need to keep in mind that the mainstream media reflects the views of the oppressor nation in Amerika, not just the views of the imperialists in power. This is why we need a revolution, not only in the economic base that allows oppressor nations to profit off the exploitation of the oppressed in the Third World, but also a revolution in the culture and institutions that promote reactionary ideas and justify the system of national oppression.

Even after capitalism was overthrown in China, and the communists had taken state power, they undertook the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution to criticize old reactionary ideas and create new revolutionary culture, and to encourage the people to criticize their leaders when errors were made. This is necessary because we cannot get rid of so many years of capitalist/racist culture overnight. Even good comrades can be influenced to wrong ideas. If this was necessary under a socialist state, just think how much more difficult it is under capitalism, in the richest country in the world, to create proletarian culture. We do not currently have the resources to fight state-supporting media like Fox. Work with us to build independent institutions of the oppressed!

On 5 August, President Obama announced plans to send $12 billion in aid to support an electrification program for six sub-Saharan countries in Africa. This is in addition to U.S. firms investing $14 billion in banking, construction and information technology in Africa.

Are these efforts really about helping the African nations, or is it just to protect the stake certain parties have in the region? I can’t help but remind myself of the economic consequences that will befall an already impoverished nation. When it comes to the class divisions, I think this new effort will only push the proletariat into deeper starvation and exploitation. As I’ve read in MIM Theory 12, investment from an imperialist country like the United $tates usually comes with dire consequences. Funny, not once did I hear the U.$. imperialist president speak of self-determination of all African people. This is either lip service paid to the petty bourgeoisie or when it’s all said and done the “pound of flesh” which the United $tates will eventually get will come at a greater cost to those held in oppression.

The puppet governments of southern Africa gained a large victory today, but as we all know, no amount of policy or investment will really benefit the most oppressed people. This is true until all peoples’ needs are met, not just profit gained for a few. It looks like more economic imperialism to hold the already poor people in bondage with the illusion of expanding the Amerikan dream. Raise! Fight! Stop U.S. imperialism!

The solution should be what can be done to empower and enable the lower class and proletariat into rising up and controlling their own destinies. Only when this is pursued will conditions improve. People from the proletariat need to understand that they have the power to educate and engage in armed struggle to gain their rights.

Picture a 6-man goon squad, in full riot gear with a gun, a barrel of tear gas, and an electric riot shield. And now realize that this tactic is used on us prisoners any time we get out of line for any reason. This particular incident happened over a flooded cell, broken state TV, and covered window. Not only was a comrade gassed, the pigs shot him two times with 30mm rubber bullets at close range.

What we’re seeing first hand is the militarization of prison guards, but it’s also an attack upon our psyche. The gas, the riot gear, and the shock shield are all visual reminders of the pigs’ control and what is supposed to result in our subservience. This action can take place at any time the pigs feel a threat to the order of the prison. What threats could we possibly cause behind a steel door in the presence of 6 fully armored and armed guards? When these situations happen the pigs turn off the vents so when they get gassed we taste it too.

I often spend long hours thinking about why such an awful use of force is ued for something so benign. In MIM Theory 5 it is said that one can’t go on increasingly repressed by fascism forever. And while premature armed struggle is a hindrance, doing nothing at all is even more detrimental.

We spend more time fighting over small and insignificant bullshit, and we let the pigs take advantage of our disorganization. We fill our time checking our paperwork or fighting petty beefs, and the more we do this, the more important it becomes, until eventually it becomes a belief system that causes our own subservience. We need to look past what the DAs tell us and pay attention to what is happening right now.

There are many prisoners who love the United $tates, those who do not understand the evil it causes abroad, nor domestic slavery it’s done here. For those who are struggling, keep engaged. It’s our duty to fight injustice and racism, and unite. Unity is a deep concept. It’s a constant struggle to help someone who’s not from your own and it means reaching out being the first one to overlook what keeps us at one another and lets the pigs run all over our rights. If you’re not doing something you’re feeding the problem. Educate, teach, unite, fight back.

MIM(Prisons) adds: This comrade underscores some important points that are part of the United Front for Peace in Prison. First there is the principle of Peace; we fight for peace while the prison guards stir up and perpetuate violence. “We organize to end the needless conflicts and violence within the U.$. prison environment. The oppressors use divide and conquer strategies so that we fight each other instead of them. We will stand together and defend ourselves from oppression.”

Second there is the principle of unity; we must build unity even when it means taking the first step to overlook differences. “We strive to unite with those facing the same struggles as us for our common interests. To maintain unity we have to keep an open line of networking and communication, and ensure we address any situation with true facts. This is needed because of how the pigs utilize tactics such as rumors, snitches and fake communications to divide and keep division among the oppressed. The pigs see the end of their control within our unity.”

We call on all individuals and organizations to study the United Front for Peace in Prisons Statement of Principles, join the UFPP, and build unity in your prison.