Some of those familiar with Our organization, who’ve read Our Tx
TeamOne Primer, and Our other numerous articles, or followed us on
Twitter, may ask what is the purpose for this writing. For you would
have already known that Texas TeamOne is not a nationality-specific
organization.
The articulated reason some have become confused and muddle-headed is
because a comrade here decided to initiate campaigns on dates some
associate with New Afrikan revolutionary nationalism, and have taken
exception to this.
The campaigns in question were initiated on Black August 21st and
ended September 9th. The other campaign is one We’re working on now, and
have promoted in Under Lock & Key (ULK) which is Our
Juneteenth Freedom Initiative.
First let’s look at Black August 2st - September 9th and why We chose
that. These two dates are associated with George Jackson’s assassination
and the Attica uprising. What were Jackson’s politics? Jackson, at the
time of his death was a Communist. Jackson expressed his desire to
eradicate ‘racism’ and the necessity to differentiate himself and others
as Black, or whatever color. Jackson said “Black, white and Brown are
all victims together.” i say this to say that Jackson was more than just
a Black man; to see him as such is to showcase one’s own limited
perspective. Jackson was and is a paragon for imprisoned people entering
the realm of revolutionary ideas and practice, he was a living legend to
an entire state prison system, even to those who did not like him.
Telling of all this is that on his death date the other prisoners who
rose up in defense to smite their enemies, and were charged and came to
be known as the: San Quentin Six, some of these comrades were Chican@s.
Hugo Pinnell, one of this group and also a supposed Black Guerrilla
Family member, was Puerto Rican.
So when We take these hystorical facts into account We have a better
understanding that August 21st isn’t merely about George Jackson but
also solidarity to the death, shown by those comrades that day.
Furthermore, August is also the month of the Chicano Moratorium, and is
commemorated each year, as Chican@s learn of their hystory of
revolutionary struggle around this time.
September 9th, the day of the Attica uprising, is clearly a day of
multi-national prisoner solidarity, when New Afrikan, Amerikan and
Puerto Rican comrades occupied the prison compound as one body. This is
held up as the ultimate example of multi-national unity among
prisoners.
In regards to Juneteenth, i believed that in 2022 the connections
would be clear to everyone, but apparently not. Apparently some think
that only New Afrikans were and are slaves. This is not the case.
According to the U.$. constitution all those in prison are slaves. The
contradiction is that Juneteenth commemorates a day when slavery was
supposed to have ended, and Biden’s regime has made this a federal
holiday now, while millions of ‘slaves’ still exist in this kkkountry,
and their colors vary like the rainbow. The Juneteenth actions are so
set in order to raise the visibility of this flagrant contradiction, a
method used to tell the public, to showcase that while most are busy
incorporating themselves into amerika INC, We, the lumpen-prisoner class
are among the last unincorporated people, or class resident to North
America. This is the most basic ideal behind Our Juneteenth Freedom
Initiative, but not the only. The J.F.I. consists of three stages, the
first mentioned above, is to publicize, the second acts to bring the
issue of targeted mass incarceration and its role in the genocide of
oppressed nationalities domestic of N. America, to the federal
level.
The third stage acts to bring these two issues to the international
level. We’ve released a more in depth communique surrounding the J.F.I.
Please write in to MIM(prisons) to obtain it and be sure to provide
postage via stamps.
In political struggle there are many forms of oppression and
exploitation. However, these many can summarily be broken down into
three primary forms of oppression, and these are national, class and
gender.
In Our quest as people to undermine and ultimately devour this
oppression We formulate specific types of organizations and
organizational methods that We infer will best allow us to meet Our
goals, and do so swiftly. Some organizations are organized around
gender, for example, the National Woman’s Organization, while others are
organized around nation(al) issues, like the Black Panther Party, NAACP,
UNIA, RNA, Black Lives Matter and many many others. And still there are
some which organize around issues of class, United Struggle from Within,
Socialist Workers Party, Prison Lives Matter, and such organizations are
examples here.
After much discussion within the Texas TeamOne organizational body it
has come to Our attention that We must make Our position clear on the
question of the basic purpose of Our organization. Some within and
without the organization seem to assume that Texas TeamOne is a New
Afrikan-based organization, and thus is organizing on the question of
nation and nationality and this has subsequently alienated some, or at
least been an excuse for their inactivity. Therefore, i would like to
use this platform to publicly declare that although some in Texas
TEAMONE are New Afrikans, We’re not a New Afrikan-based organization.
Some of Our comrades are Chican@s/Mexican@s, but We’re not a
Chican@-based organization either. Texas TEAMONE is focused upon uniting
the prisoner(lumpen) class, as a class statewide, guiding this class in
asserting its class interest in a manner aligned with proletarian
internationalism, and working within the masses of this class to develop
political cadres (professional revolutionaries) to send out to the ‘free
world’ to assist in freeing Our peoples. This is Our long-term
mission.
So to be clear, what is a ‘class’? Marx didn’t see classes as simply
economic groupings. Instead, Marx gives-us indispensable criteria, which
could be listed as: 1) that class members must share a common position
in their relations to the means of production, i.e., common economic
conditions, relative to their labor and the appropriation of the social
surplus; 2) that they must share a separate way of life and cultural
existence; 3) that they must share a set of interests which are
antagonistic to other classes; 4) that they must share a set of social
relations, i.e. a sense of unity which extends beyond local boundaries
and constitutes a ‘national’ bond: 5) that they must share a
corresponding collective consciousness of themselves as a ‘class’ and;
6) they must create their own political organizations, and pursue their
interests as a ‘class’.(1)
So while Texas prisoners are ‘naturally’ a ‘class-in-itself’, by
meeting the first above criteria alone, We at Texas TeamOne are about
leading the charge to make the Texas prisoner class develop into a
‘class-for-itself’, “which will depend on the acquisition and
development of the remaining elements. Meaning the group must develop
consciousness of itself as a class; create political organizations
engage in unified action to oppose and defeat class enemies; begin to
build a new society free from all exploitation and oppression and:
eliminate all class division”.(2)
Texas prisoners already share a definite and distinct way of life
separate from the rest of society’s classes represented in Texas. As
many of you already know, despite Our inability to unify strongly in
massive numbers, We do have common interests, however We get in Our own
way. Numbers four, five, and six are the role Texas TeamOne shall occupy
for prisoners in this state, and We will contribute to the countrywide
lumpen/ prisoner class organizing being done by USW, and groups like
Prison Lives Matter. The key is to build solid cadre state-to-state,
then organize these cadres across the country to actualize the mighty
reservoir of revolutionary potential that lays dormant behind these
walls.
Before i close this out, i would like to express the importance of an
in-depth study and comprehension of WORLD hystory. The oppressed nations
in the United $tates have an extended hystory of organized unity.
Remember Santa Anna? Why did the General call for the war against
Anglo-Texan colonizers? Was it not to force them to abolish slavery? Why
do people celebrate Cinco De Mayo? When the French, led by Maximillian
I, invaded Veracruz, Mexico to re-institute slavery, didn’t the Mexican
people fight admirably to repel the French? Didn’t free New Afrikans
stand in solidarity with their/ Our Mexican counterparts? Cinco De Mayo
was initiated by the Mexican Amerikan Union Army veterans in the
SouthWest(Aztlán) to commemorate the Mexican victory over the european
invaders who were hell-bent on re-enslaving the people. It was a holiday
symbolizing national independence, resistance to imperialism, and the
abolition of slavery. What is telling is that the Mexican Amerikan Union
was actively fighting in the Amerikan civil war on the anti-slavery side
while they called for the Cinco De Mayo celebration.
What’s my point here? In case you’ve missed it, the point is that
Chican@, Mexican@, Indigenous, and New Afrikan people have been
intrinsically connected throughout Our hystory. We would do well to
remember this, to not see Our struggles as separate but see them as Our
ancestors did. For they always knew that if one allowed an Indian to be
colonized, a Mexican would be colonized next. If the African was mired
in slavery, the Mexican would be returned to it. Thus their unity was
one of anti-imperialism, anti-colonialism, and international
abolition.
As a final note, in recent years, because of the legacy mentioned
above surrounding the days of Aug 21st & Sept 9th, comrades within
the countrywide prisoners movement have utilized this period of time to
mobilize outside support and action, as well as inside. This call has
already gone out to mobilize for this year’s ‘Shut ’Em Down’
demonstrations, as they’ve come to be called. This adds to the reason
why comrades have chosen those dates, and We hope that this brief piece
dissolves any assumptions, myths regarding Our work, and that many
others will actively join us in our level of commitment.
COMBAT GENOCIDE!!!! COMBAT NEO-COLONIAL VIOLENCE!!!
MIM(Prisons) adds: We want to acknowledge that a
comrade in Anti-Imperialist Prisoner Support, the MIM(Prisons)-led
organization for outside supporters, also contributed to this confusion
by posting an image on social media promoting last year’s hunger strike
against RHU in Texas calling for support for “New Afrikans.” Once we
noticed this we asked the comrade to change it, which took some days to
happen. This is a lesson to the outside supporters of anti-imperialist
prison organizers who may not be aware of the sensitivities among the
oppressed nations to these questions.
What Team One is experiencing is something MIM(Prisons) has experienced
for many years. To an extent it is unavoidable in a country where the
oppressed nations are constantly pitted against each other, we will
continue to alienate some readers when we support national liberation
struggles. But we can be careful in how we do this, be clear on our
politics, do our best to promote a diversity of voices and campaigns
when they exist, etc. As the definition of United Struggle from Within
on p. 2 reads:
“USW won’t champion struggles which are not in the interests of the
international proletariat. USW will also not choose one nation’s
struggles over other oppressed nations’ struggles.”
As the local representation of USW in Texas, Texas Team One shares
this line as they describe above. Likewise, they echo the spirit and
line of USW in this statement.
Sources:
1. Meditations On Frantz Fanon’s Wretched of the
Earth, James Yaki Sayles; pg. 286; citing Karl Marx, The 18th Brumaire;
Karl Marx, The Holy Family.
2. Ibid, pg.287
