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.
I am writing to express my concerns with your paper. I am 100% for a
true United Front. I do not judge people by the color of their skin. I
am white and I’m proud of the fact. I come from Oakland CA and in school
was a target just because I was white. My family did not have money.
In
a
story in ULK 26 May/June 2012 you claim that poor whites searching
for identity turn to white supremacist and we find our identity in the
false belief of their supremacy in the color of our skin. Well my
friend, I refute your belief and you’re just way off the mark. I came up
in Oakland, CA in the 60s, 70s, 80s when Oakland was at war most of the
war was drug war, but in the 60s and 70s there were political wars and
protest from the Blacks. There was one movement after another.
I for one never claim that I am better than anyone because I’m white,
but growing up in Oakland, because of my white skin I was jumped. In
spite of that, to this day I do not judge people by the color of their
skin as you clearly do.
Now about
ULK
24, 2012 page 3 concerning Special Needs Yards (SNY). I came into
the system in the 80s and sure there was no such thing as SNY back then,
they called it PSU. CDCR has always housed child molesters, rapists and
snitches and they programmed on the GP yards for years, and for the most
part we ran them off the yard. SNY was not put in place for that kind of
people, SNY was put in place for prisoners who got sick and tired of
killing each other. The system back in the day was run by a bunch of
older guys who kept the youngsters in line. Well you had a bunch of kids
coming into the system, yes more Blacks and Latinos, who were in search
of an identity. They would join these prison gangs not knowing what they
were getting into. Then you had a lot of kids on the streets looking at
the drug dealers with all the money, cars, houses, women, so they joined
up with their gang, then they come to prison for drug charges and as
soon as they hit prison they have to prove themselves.
Now SNY came into play when people like myself said, wait why are we
fighting each other and letting the system take more and more of our
rights away from us, so they check in to PSU. But word got around on the
GP yard that you can do your time without fear of death so SNY was
formed. CDCR said OK that we now got these prisoners that want to drop
out of the gangs, that’s a win win for everyone. It took me until 2004
to check into SNY. I heard all races there stand as one. I said great. I
think SNY has about 65% of the prison yards now, and about 80% of SNY
prisoners stand as one voice, with 20% not ready or able to let go of
the GP ways.
I can state I never had to debrief, I never had to tell on anyone, I am
no sex offender. My position on sex offenders stands: they are still
considered seriously damaged people that I myself stay away from. This
person that sent you his BS about all SNY prisoners are weak and come to
this side for better treatment is wrong.
I was in Corcoran as an SNY in the SHU and we all engaged in the hunger
strike, we all signed numerous grievances and complaints to the
administration, and as you know we didn’t get all we requested but we
did change things for the better. Yes CDCR needs to change its stand on
SHU prisoners and I think this year will see more change.
Now when my SHU time was over they sent me to Ad-Seg pending transfer.
Ad-Seg is a mix of SNY and GP. It was SNY prisoners who took the stand
and boarded up, no GP took the stand but they enjoyed the outcome of our
SNY work. We got our 3 showers each week back, we got hot meals with
canteen.
We prisoners here in SNY do not get more privileges than GP. Our program
is the same as GP except that they’re locked down more because of the
nonsense they’re not willing to let go of. There has not been one
lockdown since I got here six months ago, and that’s because we still
have guys who have disagreements but we don’t try and kill each other,
there are fist fights but it ends there.
So the program is the same, but we get more of it because we stand as
one people and our fight is not with each other, our fight is to get out
of prison as fast as we can. The way to shut down prisons is to not have
prisoners to fill them. And the way that is done is for all prisoners to
change their thinking, change their outlook on life and become better
people no matter what color you are.
If prisoners would stop killing each other because of the color of their
skin or where they’re from there would be no need for SHU or Ad-Seg.
So before these so-called GP prisoners call all of us weak they need to
think about the real facts. SNY in the next five years will be the new
GP and these prisoners who want to hold on to the nonsense that keep
them in prison will be locked away.
On this side of SNY we ask to be treated like humans and in most cases
we are. When we stop fighting each other and put the paperwork in to
bring back the programs needed to better our lives, then change comes.
I think we have the same goal in mind, unity and peace. I am willing to
work to bring unity and peace to all prisoners no matter the color of
your skin or where you are from. With dedication and determination we
can change the system and make it work for us in a way to end business
as we know it today. We need to reach out to those that will listen and
work with us to bring down the number of people in the system.
MIM(Prisons) responds: First, we will address the question of
unity and the interests of whites. We have always maintained that whites
can be revolutionaries and can act in the interests of the oppressed.
But we make statements about groups of people and their material
interests. This individual white persyn may in fact really be willing to
fight for the interests of all people, but whites as a group in the
United $tates have demonstrated their material interests are aligned
with the imperialists. And historically they have gone for fascism over
revolution (See Sakai’s book Settlers: Mythology of the White
Proletariat). Examples of one white persyn in Amerika who claims not to
judge people by skin color is not relevant to this scientific analysis.
This is not about judging people for the color of their skin, it is
about understanding the history of nations and national interests. We
don’t like Obama better as a President because he is Black, he’s still
the leader of the biggest terrorist government in the world.
Nonetheless, we call on all white people to unite with the movement
against national oppression both in the U.$. and globally, and we know
some whites will be on our side.
On the SNY debate we have more unity with this prisoner. We agree that
there are many individuals in SNY who are part of the anti-imperialist
movement, fighting on the side of the oppressed, and not snitching or
betraying people. But this letter goes too far in posing SNY as better
than GP. Conditions are different in each state and even within states
in each prison. We need to judge the actions of individuals rather than
making sweeping assumptions about “all SNY prisoners are snitches” or
“all GP prisoners are fighting each other.”
We also do not agree that “If prisoners would stop killing each other
because of the color of their skin or where they’re from there would be
no need for SHU or Ad-Seg.” We maintain that
control units
are a tool of social control, not a legitimate punishment for prison
violence. And so we do not blame the prisoners for the system that
confines them and in fact encourages violence. We know that many
prisoners in the SHU are locked up for their political organizing, not
for violence. We should not perpetuate the myth of legitimacy around
these control units.
Every ill-conceived notion and manipulative scheme to sabotage the
success of the lumpen under class is embodied within the Texas Education
Agency (TEA).
For the past 3 months a common front page headline article in the El
Paso Times has been associated with a cheating scandal involving El
Paso Independent School District (EPISD) “trustees” and various school
officials and administrators. In truth, this scandal and scam has been
marinating for years, not months. There is concrete evidence which shows
TEA was aware that something was not right in El Paso but for whatever
reason whether it be cronyism, nepotism, or a hidden political agenda,
the scandal was kept quiet.
However, when the Department of Education and the Department of
inJustice, represented by the FBI, got involved, a shocking scheme was
revealed. EPISD educators and administrators were trying to game the
federal accountability system by “disappearing” certain students who did
not perform well academically and didn’t score well on certain
standardized tests. In some cases, EPISD administrators not only kicked
poor performing students out of school, they did not offer them an
alternative. Further, it was discovered that these crooked “trustees”
would sic ICE agents on the predominantly Latino children, not just
kicking them out of school, but deporting them out of the country! This
ensured that they would not be around to tell it!
I mentioned that there might be a hidden political agenda at work here
and there is. In 2011, during the Texas state legislative session, Texas
lawmakers decided to cut $5.8 billion dollars from the public school
budget. These budget cuts placed many school districts that serve
minorities in dire straits; they just did not have the financial
resources to teach the children or pay quality teachers. During this
time Governor Rick Perry was eyeing a bid for the Republican
Presidential nomination and in his best imperialist oppressor moment, he
refused to accept any federal government stimulus money or allow Texas
independent school districts to compete for money in a new initiative
called Race to the Top. Perry outright lied to the media and said Texas
educators don’t need any federal money to educate children in Texas. The
Federal government changed requirements and regulations for Race to the
Top funds and allowed independent school districts to apply themselves
for federal money instead of relying on racist, crooked-ass politicians
like Governor Rick Perry to represent them. As a result of the rule
change, Texas led all states in the United $nakes in applications for
federal money geared toward education. Looks like old redneck Rick is
out of touch with what his constituents really want and need. Or is he?
While Governor Rick Perry is fully aware of the lumpen’s need for a
quality education, it is not his intent to provide quality education for
the lumpen under class. Better education would derail Texas’s
pathway-to-prison strategy. Do you really believe that Black and Latino
men and wimmin have the market cornered on criminal behavior? Comrades,
so many times it is our social and economic conditions that lead us to
the penitentiary. MIM theorists have been telling us this for years!
In 1793 political scholar William Godwin criticized the whole idea of a
national education system. He states in his inquiry concerning political
justice that: “the project of a national education ought uniformly to be
discouraged on account of its obvious alliance with national government.
Government will not fail to employ it (education) to strengthen its hand
and perpetuate its institutions…Their view as instigator of a system of
education will not fail to be analogous to their views in their
political capacity…”
We have taken a quantum leap here. We are not just talking about the
flawed system of mis-education in El Paso or Texas as a whole. I am
telling you that there is a serious flaw in the national education
system in the United $nakes and this should be enough to convince a
comrade to study Maoism seriously.
But I’m not done with redneck Rick yet. I want to reveal a couple more
facts about what he has got cooking in Texas. Comrades, with a prison
system that is overflowing with Blacks and Latinos, what particular slot
is redneck Rick trying to get the poor lumpen underclass to fill?
Moreover, what particular slot is this pig’s poor education system
trying to get them to accept?
Recently, 600 independent school districts in Texas took the State
government to court stating they were not being given adequate funding
to educate children, and that this neglect by the State amounted to a
serious violation of the U.S. Constitution. The court ruled in favor of
the school districts! Furthermore, it was found that Texas’s inability
to provide adequate funding for schools was unconstitutional.
Governor Rick Perry has recently been making trips to California
attempting to lure businesses to Texas citing Texas’s low tax rates and
easy-going regulations for large corporations. Nevertheless, Perry
ignores the cries of the lumpen for adequate funding for education. His
actions speak volumes: “My allegiance is to the imperialist
corporations, I could care less about educating the lumpen under class,
they might wake up to my real agenda!” I suspect these are the thoughts
of Governor Perry.
Today, February 22, 2013, activists from Houston, TX prepare to travel
to Austin, Texas, the state capitol, in order to lobby and protest in
reference to the $5.8 billion that was cut from education in 2011. The
battle cry for the lumpen in Texas seems to be “If you don’t fight for
what you want you deserve what you get!” As the great James Brown would
say “Say it Loud, I’m Black and I’m Proud!”
MIM(Prisons) responds: As we reported in an article in
Under Lock & Key
30 on
national
oppression in education, on average, Black and Latino high school
seniors perform math and read at the same level as 13-year-old white
students. Money available for school districts with a majority of the
students from oppressed nations is far less than what is available for
white school districts, and segregation is on the rise again in Amerikan
schools. So we are not surprised to see this story about Texas denying
money and education to oppressed nation children. The court decisions in
these cases have gone back and forth, and we can’t count on them to
rectify the problem.
While the differences in funding between schools based on national
composition is damning, this is just a symptom of the problem. The
campaign to increase school funding is dominated by the petty bourgeois
labor unions who utilize oppressed nation children in their campaign for
higher pay. As this prisoner points out, the schools will still be run
by the government and deliver the education they want. This will not
address the needs of the oppressed or create anti-imperialist change. We
need to use the school situation as a tool to educate youth about
national oppression and the need to join the fight against imperialism.
Just as we run independent study programs for prisoners across the
United $tates, the youth need independent education programs that teach
them what they need to know to create a better world.
Chris Dorner was the all-Amerikan young man, but national oppression in
the U.$. still got to him causing him to put what he felt was right
over everything else.
Recently an ex-LAPD officer, Chris Dorner, was in the news for killing
cops and their family members, and then eventually himself in the
resulting manhunt. This is a classic case of the chickens coming home to
roost. When this story broke, many of us prisoners were not surprised
about this activity. The state has for generations unleashed pig
brutality on the internal semi-colonies (brown, black and red peoples),
it is a way of life. What is surprising is for this to be unleashed on
the state by one of its own.
Dorner was fired by the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) in 2009 in
retaliation for reporting police brutality including incidents of
unwarranted abuse on innocent Latino and Black people in Los Angeles.
This speaking up against pig brutality was crossing the line, and
threatened the pig culture that permeates the states institutions. Poor
people are looked at as the enemy by the state. It’s not only one’s skin
color, although skin and thus nation continues to be a driving force for
oppression. But state terrorism does not happen in Bel Air or other
wealthy or “middle class” communities. These terrorist acts are carried
out in poor communities.
When the manhunt was launched for Dorner, people were told that if they
had a truck they should “stay home.”(1) This is sending the message that
the state is seeking to attack any truck on the road, and this is not a
big exaggeration. One only need ask Emma Hernadez, the 71-year-old
Chicana who was shot with her daughter while they were driving a truck
delivering newspapers.(2) I didn’t know what was more surprising: the
fact that the pigs turned a truck into swiss cheese with wimmin in it
with no provocation, or the fact that the corporate news media was slow
to mention it. The Spanish language outlet Univision mentioned it while
other English stations took days to cover it. When they did they
grudgingly mentioned “a shooting” and a day later “two wimmin were
shot.” The media once more failed to criticize the state terror that we
experience. This shooting was treated as critically as a fender bender.
What transpired with Dorner points to a contradiction within the United
$tates where some of the oppressed are allowed to eat from master’s
table and given crumbs like jobs, rank in its military, and positions in
the political body that ultimately serve the oppressor nation. These
crumbs come at the expense of oppressing other oppressed people. This
dilemma hits people with different results. Some in the military come to
this realization while in the Third World and react by either committing
suicide, attacking the state like Dorner did, or simply continuing to
oppress other people. The media, which is the state’s mouthpiece, says
how “dangerous” Dorner is, but who is he a danger to? With his training
he could have easily attacked people on the street but he stated he is
bringing a war on the LAPD in an online manifesto, so the only danger he
would pose is to the state. Putting the state on the defensive benefits
those oppressed by Amerikkka.
The death of police officers who have been killed in the line of duty,
like the U.$. military, has been on the rise in recent years. In 2009
there were 122 pigs killed in the line of duty, in 2010 there were 154,
and 163 for 2011.(3) Like the enlisted military, Amerikan police are
compelled to oppress Third World peoples, often people who look just
like them. This has resulted in not only resistance from those being
oppressed but also in mental trauma for the oppressor in what has been
referred to as “post traumatic stress disorder.” This trauma, regardless
of what it’s called, is brought on by one coming to the realization that
killing innocents for Amerikan empire is a horrible thing; so horrible
that it often results in violence either unleashed on the state, on
oneself or one’s family, or on the public.
Pig violence inflicts terror on the barrios and ghettos in the United
$tates in its most crude forms, which then works to traumatize the
people, particularly our youth. We are so immune to violence that we
often consume the oppression inflicted on us and mirror this oppression
on others just as many of those abused as children go on to abuse
others. It is a process that mimics behavior one was taught.
We are beginning to understand that violence affects us more than we
know. More than merely teaching us violent behavior, we are now learning
that violence affects us biologically as well. A study recently found
that children exposed to violence are prone to disease about 7 to 10
years earlier. According to this study “that early childhood adversity
imprints itself in our chromosomes.”(4)
Growing up in neighborhoods where an activity like walking the dog in
the evening is met with being thrown against the wall by a pig, or a
child riding her/his bike after school is met with being questioned,
photographed and having a field card filled out which locks you into a
gang database, affects our youth in ways we are only now learning about.
National oppression is not simply occupying our land or killing us on
the streets. There are many more diabolical ways in which this genocide
is inflicted besides bullets.
The stress that our youth are now facing by the pig terror comes in many
forms. One journalist for example said he interviewed a 22-year-old from
Queens, NY who has already been “stopped and frisked” 70 times.(5) Think
of how this must affect our youth when living one’s childhood revolves
around being approached, harassed and hunted by gun-toting pigs who you
know have a license to kill you at any time. But the streets are not the
only place where our youth are hunted by the pigs. In “operation crew
cut” the NYPD doubled officers in an attempt to combat “gangs” via
social media. This can be seen as an attempt to bait our youth online to
discuss illegal acts or to pry info out of youth which may implicate
others, trolling the internet in search of more brown and Black skins
that they cannot get from the streets.
But wanton murder by the pigs is still alive and well; the lead
raincloud continues to hang over our heads in streets across the United
$tates. In 2011 54 people were killed by the LAPD.(6) This is the same
police department that Dorner rose up on. This national oppression is
supported by the highest levels of the Amerikkkan government. When the
NYPD officer who killed Sean Bell back in 2008 was acquitted, Obama, who
was a candidate for president at the time, issued a statement to the
public to “respect the verdict.” This is not a matter of a couple of
pigs acting up here and there; it’s national oppression.
The social reality of the oppressed is much different than what is
perceived from those who are not oppressed in the United $tates. Our
interaction with the pigs is violent and traumatic. It is common for
homes to be raided by “mistake” and often these raids result in an
occupant being murdered or injured physically, but almost always
occupants are injured psychologically. The author Michelle Alexander
gets at this a little when she writes: “In countless situations in which
police could easily have arrested someone or conducted a search without
a military-style raid, police blast into people’s homes, typically in
the middle of the night, throwing grenades, shouting, and pointing guns
and rifles at anyone inside, often including young children.”(8)
I would add to this that pig raids are much more than this for children.
Anyone who has ever experienced a pig raid, especially through the eyes
of a child, can understand what I mean. Personally I remember as a child
when the pigs raided my home. Seeing our home stormed guns a-blazing,
and having a gun pointed at me, watching my family be cuffed and beaten
by these predators. It’s not a matter of the pigs going in a house doing
their “job.” It is a much more brutal reality for most people facing
national oppression.
The oppressed nations people here in the United $tates have come to see
our social conditions as normal, but this is only because we have been
oppressed since birth. We grew up with our land occupied, and we have
never seen anything else but living under an imperialist society.
Mao
once said: “In class society everyone lives as a member of a
particular class, and every kind of thinking, without exception, is
stamped with the brand of a class.”(9)
This cuts right to the bone of the matter and dispels the revisionist
outlook of picking and choosing oppression to suit their agenda. What
Mao is saying is everything is stamped with a class brand. Some will say
art does not or should not be political but art will, like all other
phenomena, have a class character to it and thus will serve one class or
the other. This concept also applies to national oppression: if a nation
is oppressed in any given society, all ideas – and thus actions – are
stamped with the brand of national oppression. Pig terror is a form of
national oppression we face in the United $tates and actions taken by
Dorner are a result of the contradictions that occur when those from the
oppressed nations grapple internally with what the state is having them
do to other oppressed people.
On February 13, Dorner’s last stand took place, where he was surrounded
in a mountain cabin in Big Bear, California. He shot it out, taking down
another pig before he was finally killed. This was an unprecedented
event of an ex-cop declaring war on the state. But matter is in constant
motion and contradictions arise constantly. The fact that people are
products of matter tells us that there will continue to be contradictory
struggles like this in the future. Historical materialism tells us that
the oppressed will continue to resist in many ways. Even those who are
lured or bought off by imperialism will many times break with the
oppressor and instead serve the ruling class a taste of its own
medicine.
Like many of you who are reading this issue of Under Lock &
Key, I was saddened to hear about the senseless killing of 20 young
humyn beings at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut. They were
babies, taken away from us far too soon. After shaking off the initial
shock, my analytical Maoist mind kicked into overdrive. I went into my
locker and I retrieved my July/August 2012 issue of Under Lock &
Key 27. I would like to quote comrade Soso of MIM(Prisons) in
her/his piece entitled
“Trayvon
Martin National Oppression Debate.” “A recent report by the Malcolm
X Grassroots Movement cited at least 110 Black people killed by Amerikan
cops and security in the first half of 2012.”
Is this report not alarming? Should there not have been public outcry?
Did not President Obama state: “If I had a son he would look like
Trayvon.” Well then why the hell didn’t he form a special task force
then to address gun violence? Was not Oscar Grant enough? What about
James Craig Anderson in Jackson, Mississippi? What about young Jordan
Davis of Jacksonville, Florida, murdered in cold blood because his music
was “too loud”? All these young men of color murdered by white men,
however, for some reason their deaths did not solicit the same response.
Five hundred murders on the streets of Chicago this year! One fourth
were under age 18. President Obama barely mentioned the gun violence in
Chicago during his campaign. Why?
Comrades, the sad truth of the matter is, a Black life is not equal to a
white life in Amerikkka. And it is not just the lives of Black youth
that are under-valued. Latino, Arab, Asian, all are viewed as less than,
undesirable, or expendable by the Amerikkkan Injustice System. This
problem is pervasive and saturates the racist news media. Now here comes
new gun legislation and “new” task forces. Who do you think the alphabet
boys are going to be carting off to U.$. penitentiaries? Not white bread
gun fanatic NRA members, that’s for sure. It’s going to be us! The
Black, Brown, Asian and Arab lumpen underclass.
I recently was listening to a Houston hip-hop radio show on KPFT (90.1
FM) called Damage Control. The host “young Zeke” said “if a Black man
shoots a bunch of people in Amerika he is a criminal. If a foreigner
does it, he is a terrorist, and if a white man does it he’s classified
as mentally ill - that’s bullshit!” Remember comrades “to be aware is to
be alive!”
MIM(Prisons) adds: Since this comrade wrote this reflection,
there was an incident in New York City where an Amerikan womyn pushed an
Indian man in front of an oncoming train and killed him. She’s been
widely quoted as saying, “I pushed a Muslim off the train tracks because
I hate Hindus and Muslims – ever since 2001 when they put down the twin
towers I’ve been beating them up.” The victim, Sunando Sen, was Hindu.
Sunando Sen’s funeral in Queens, New York.
Erika Menendez was charged with murder as a hate crime, but has been
ordered to have a mental health exam. Whatever Menendez’s mental health,
it is not like she said she killed Sen because he had brown eyes, or was
too tall. She killed him because of his perceived religion and
ethnicity, which are both proxies for national oppression. Sen would not
have been murdered if Amerika did not promote hatred of other nations
who try to free themselves from the grip of U.$. imperialism.
Just because most Amerikans aren’t sophisticated enough to distinguish
different religions and cultures does not make their national oppression
any less real. Islam has been branded by Amerikans as the culture of a
dangerous foreign enemy people. Armed resistance against imperialism has
been strong across South and Central Asia for over a decade and it
continues to spread. This is the material basis for Menendez’s actions.
Some theorists that dabble in Maoism have hypothesized that
nation
is no longer principal in the age of neo-colonialism (simply defined
as white power in black/brown face). But MIM(Prisons) still holds that
the principal contradiction remains nation under imperialism today, even
if it is not as black and white as it used to be. In the discussion
around Trayvon Martin, we already said that
George
Zimmerman’s Latino family does not preclude him from being associated
with white supremacism. Similarly, we do not need more info on
Menendez’s background to state that she was clearly acting within the
ideology of white supremacism. Neo-colonialism isn’t just for those with
political power anymore. There is a whole movement to enlist young men
from Latin America to fight for U.$. imperialism in the Middle East.
The concept of nation is based in social conditions, not in phony ideas
of genetics as race is. So while Amerika was a nation built on a racist
ideology, it is in constant flux, like all things are. Similarly,
nations can be transformed through assimilation. And even as separate
nations exist in the United $tates, different segments of those nations
will have different interests at different times. Those who use identity
politics and simplistic expectations to negate the national
contradiction ignore these ever-changing and interacting forces. In the
United $tates the national contradiction is at a bit of a crossroads,
but internationally the contradiction is stronger than ever. This is why
the internal semi-colonies would be smart to stay on the right side of
history and stand against imperialism as their ancestors did.
As we’ve discussed elsewhere, there is ample evidence that
most
“mental health” problems are social problems, which can be addressed
with a re-ordering of the society we live in. By ending national
oppression, ending militarism and ending the competitive individualism
of capitalism where people get left behind and become alienated from
society, we can prevent the types of incidents that happened in New York
and Connecticut.
“The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood
of patriots and tyrants.” - Thomas Jefferson
“Give me liberty or give me death.” - Thomas Pain
The above two quotes are admired citations that most Amerikans with any
educational degree deem to be master slogans this country’s freedoms are
based on. But these same quotes or those similar, if stated by Black men
or Black women, are deemed contraband and gang related.
On August 2, 2012 the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals handed down a
decision aimed at silencing and caging the spirit of the Panther. The
court ruled that the
ten
point platform that the Black Panther Party (BPP) cited in every
newspaper and later put forward as the core demands of the New Africans
in the Amerikan ghettos, is gang-related when found in the possession of
Black men. This decision was rendered from a case in one of the most
racist and oppressive prison systems in Amerika: Wisconsin DOC.
The 7th Circuit Court’s ruling in Tani Toston vs. Muchael Thurmer et
al, no# 10 cv 288 stated that Waupun prison officials in Wisconsin
could punish a Black man who allegedly has a tribal background (they
used the pejorative, “gang”) and who checked out two BPP books from the
prison’s own library, and purchased a 3rd book (To Die for the
People) and copied from all three the Panthers ten point platform.
The oppressors argued that these ten points were being used to construct
a gang structure simply because of the DOC’s slant that he had a tribal
background of defunct Gangster Disciples. They offered no evidence but
their ethnocentric opinions. They punished the prisoner and gave 90 days
segregation for learning Panther knowledge.
The plaintiff, who I call the Panther seeker, argued to the 7th Circuit
Court that the ten point platform could not be a gang related security
concern because the two books in the library recited the same program,
and prisoners are permitted to get the books and to buy them. They were
not on the state’s book ban list.
In opposing the Panther seeker and rationalizing their reactionary
measure, the prison defenders in the 7th Circuit stated: “…prison
librarians can not be required to read every word of every book to which
inmates might have access to make sure they contain no incendiary
material. There is no reason to think that a librarian or other employee
of the prison read cover to cover any of the three books that contain
the ten point program.”
Yet, they expect prisoners to know they could not write down the same,
though they did reverse and remand the due process claim that the prison
never told him he could not do so.
They further stated: “And even if the prison read the books and made a
determination the book was not gang lit. on whole, that does not
preclude disciplinary proceedings if an inmate copies incendiary
passings from it.”
It seems the court took issue with point #8 of the program, which calls
for “freedom for all Black men held (implicit also women) in federal,
state, county and city prisons and jails.” The court states the seeker
is Black and that the BPP were implicated in many acts of violence
including murder, and Huey himself may have killed a cop. Their source
is Hugh Pearsons The Shadow of the Panther: Huey Newton and the
Price of Black Power in America.(p. 145-46 1995). They also cited
the case People vs. Newton, 87 Cal. Rptr, 394 (CA), app. ct.
1970) and the case in which Black Panther leader Richard Moore was
convicted of assault in a shootout between Black Panthers and Oakland
police (Clener vs. Superior Court, 594 p.2d 984, 985-86 (Cal.
1979), In Re Cleaver, 72 Cal. Rptr. 20, 23-24 (Cal. App. Ct.
1968)).
They even went so far as to cite a coloring book as their source
research in coming to this ethnocentric ruling. “Black Panther coloring
books” depicting children murdering police, which were developed and
distributed under their own FBI’s COINTELPRO.
Then they had the disrespect to cite our beloved brother Fred Hampton’s
estate lawsuit which was filed after the Chicago pigs’ assassination of
the beloved. Hampton vs. Hanrahan 600 F. 2d 600, 654 (7th Cir.
1979) (dissenting opinion).
They wish to project they are fair. But how fair are they when they cite
all these biased cases and omit the fact that the police, FBI, and
others were actively seeking to destroy the BPP and even pacifists like
MLK, and these incidents were self-defense. The BPP was a self-defense
response to a racist system. How can you fault a people who stand up for
their human and constitutional rights and label them criminals for
defending the same principles this country was established on? The
answer is clear: what white leaders say, Black ones cannot say.
The court defended their ruling by saying: “The BPP is history. But the
ten point program could be thought by prison officials as an incitement
to violence by Black prisoners - especially since there is a new BPP
active today, which claims descent from the original. And like its
predecessor both advocates and practice violence.”(Citing: Southern
Poverty Law Center, New BPP).
They go on to cite disputing evidence to their conclusion by stating:
“In context, in the book of Huey’s writings, point #8 is much less
inflammatory than when read in isolation on the paper the plaintiff
wrote down and had in his foot locker.” They claim, in all three books,
there are explanatory commentary around each of the ten points and that
explanation is “innocuous” on point #8. “We believe that all black
people should be released from the many jails and prisons because they
have not received a fair and impartial trial.” (To Die for the
People. Bk. At. p5)
They seek to soften the blow of their ethnocentric cudgel: “…although
Newton’s book advocates revolution, it could no more be regarded as a
criminal incitement than the Communist Manifesto could be. But this
underscores the difference between a book as a whole and an arguably
inflammatory nugget plucked from it.” So what say they if we cite Thomas
Pains “give me liberty or give me death”? Same as Huey’s statement in
point #8.
The court went on to justify their favoritism to a ethnocentric/racist
prison by stating: “Not being experts in prison administration, but
aware of the security problems in American prisons, judges sensibly
defer within broad limits to the judgements of the prison
administration.”
How can the court make a fair ruling if they don’t acquire some
expertise in prison administration? That is the court’s job as
arbitrators of the case. We as prisoners need to present evidence on the
expert level of how prison administrators exaggerate the facts and cite
spookisms in their affidavits and summary judgement motions. As
prisoners we are and should be experts in prison administration
operation and the lies they tell. So why are we not illustrating the
same in our litigation.
On the question of the “security problems in american prisons,” again,
these perceptions are all based upon what the prison officials report
and claim; hardly a fair assessment as to what is really going on. This
is possible because we are not disputing and putting the truth out
there. We are not uniting and pooling our resources to fight the lies
the prison system puts out.
The Beard vs. Banks case illustrates this fact. The
lawyers/prisoners did not submit anything disputing the alleged facts in
the defendant/prison official’s summary judgement motion. As such, the
court accepted all their exaggerations as true. Though they probably
would have accepted the prison exaggerations anyway, we cannot make it
so easy or allow them to justify it without exposing their favoritism
and bias. The fact is that this case had lawyers, so the court could
have given the disputes more weight than pro se disputed facts.
This is the litigation war we are engaged in. No capitulations allowed.
The Van den Bosch case shows how censorship is allowed when we write
articles like this one here. There, an article on how Wisconsin is #1 in
creating conditions in segregation for petty stuff and these conditions
leading to what I call intentional conditions for “suggestive ideation”
(suicide). The court accepted the Wisconsin prison administrator’s
exaggerated security claim that criticizing these conditions could be
viewed as incitement because people were killing themselves and the
article stated officials were to blame. We cannot even complain or
express our opinions.
We see how the court forgets that the BPP was attacked by the pigs and
FBI, and they also forget all the cases in which the prison
administrations have been proven busted and exposed for presenting lies.
However, I stress again, it is our job to present such overwhelming
facts/evidence to not allow the courts to easily accept the judgements
and defer to the prisons, because we know they are straight up liars.
This is war in facts.
This fact is shown by what the court wrote: “The nexus between
plaintiffs copying the ten point program from”To Die for the People” and
gang activity may seem tenuous, but the defendants argue that the
likeliest reason the plaintiff copied the ten point program was to show
it to inmates whom he hoped to enlist in a prison gang, a local cell as
it were of the Black Panthers, the ten point program would be the gang’s
charter”. They go on to say “this is merely a supposition, but it is not
so implausible that we can dismiss as groundless the prisons concern.”
They support that racist logic on the affidavit submitted by the
prison’s so-called gang coordinator, a racist named Bruce Muranski, who
has been discredited in at least one case as possibly manufacturing
so-called informant statements. “In the U.S. the main organizations that
monitor intolerance and hate groups are the Anti-Defamation League (ADL)
and the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) have deemed the new BPP as a
hate group… there would be no other purpose…in the ten point program
other than recruiting group members and establishing, reinforcing and
maintaining an organizational structure for furthering gangs…”
In another part of the affidavit Muranski claims: “isolating the ten
point from these library books allows it to be taken out of context,
easily circulated and simultaneously possessed by gang members and
changed or adopted for the specific needs and activities of the group…
(another prisoner, other than plaintiff) was alleged to have
unsanctioned security threat group items in his cell…(including) a hand
written paper titled ‘notes on African American leaders’. This sheet of
paper contained the ten point which was identical in content to the ten
point found in plaintiff cell…”
There we have it. All Black leaders who were willing to say in their own
words or actions “give me liberty or give me death” are deemed
contraband. Yet, I can have all the quotes I wish of white
revolutionaries and Amerikan founding fathers. White “inciteful”
language against the British crown is protected expression while George
Jackson, or a Hoover or Malik, or Huey Newton is contraband.
The fact is that damn near every BPP or associated case, in law books or
on the computer, has the same ten point program in it. So all we would
need to do is buy a Panther case and circulate it if we wanted to share
the ten point program. We see this decision is about intimidation and
instilling inferiority. For even the cases the court cited have the ten
points in them. Surely they knew that.
Still more, the case in which they made this racist ruling itself can
now be used to promote and propagate the ten point program. So it’s
clear: the prison has no lawful reason to exclude the ten points even if
they subsequently ban the books, which I’m sure they might try. The
ruling is a joke and more about suppression and control.
MIM(Prisons) adds: While it is a set back for revolutionaries
when important historical literature is banned or access limited to
sharing this literature, it is something of a public admission of the
strength and value of the
Black
Panther Party political line that this court felt the need to decree
it as gang material. Prisoners who are labeled as part of a “Security
Threat Group” are often actually organizing for the betterment of
oppressed people, and promoting the peace and security of prisoners.
This exposes the lie of the prison’s claim that they want security. The
only security prisons promote is job security for the guards and other
prison workers. Prisoners’ lives are far from safe and secure, due to
conditions created by the guards and the criminal injustice system in
general.
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.
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.
Occupied America: A History of Chicanos 7th Edition by Rodolfo F
Acuña
A well read book in its 7th edition, “Occupied America” is a history
book for the Chican@ nation. This book has been a leading text for
Chican@ studies for decades. It is an in depth analysis of Chican@
history. It is also important to note that Occupied America was
one of the books banned in 2012 in Arizona and has since been a hot item
for the libro trafficantes (book traffickers) who have been defying
Arizona and smuggling this book back into Arizona and into the hands of
Chican@ youth.
It’s clear uncut content about Amerika’s treatment of Chican@s along
with accurate history of Chican@s rising up in resistance has Amerika
scrambling to censor this work.
Occupied America was first published in 1972, emerging from a
peak in national liberation struggles in the United $tates. In 1981 the
second edition was released and Acuña wrote in the preface:
The first edition of Occupied America followed the current
of the times, adopting the internal colonial model that was popular
during the late 1960s and early 1970s. The works of Frantz Fanon greatly
influenced the tone and direction of the book. Since then, just like the
Chicano movement itself, I have undergone dramatic changes. I have
reevaluated the internal colonial model and set it aside as a useful
paradigm relevant to the nineteenth century but not to the twentieth. …I
decided to return to the basics and collect historical data.
This quote would lead us to believe that we would have more unity with
the political line put forth in the first edition. Though more recent
editions will have more updated information, and would likely be more
valuable references for that reason. It seems that the changes between
editions 2 through 7 are mostly in factual content, with an attempt to
avoid polemics.
So what gets the white supremacists so disturbed about Occupied
America? I chose to find out and decided to read it again.
Acuña starts the 7th edition of his book in the pre-Columbian times when
civilization first started on this continent going back 50,000 years.
One learns of the Aztecs, Olmecs, Zapotecs, Mayans, Incas and other
natives. This naturally leads to the European invaders and the
beginnings of the forging of the Mexican and then the Chican@ nation.
With the Spanish occupation and genocide that soon followed their
arrival in North America, Acuña takes you through the social relations
of the natives at the hands of the church.
The quest for more gold and silver and thus the mines soon led to a
decimation of the native population and with this process came the
resistance. But there was development as well in the economic arena. In
the states that comprised “northern New Spain” at the time, like
California, the Spaniards had Mestizos and natives working and so these
oppressed peoples were, as Acuña explains on pg 33, the “vaqueros, soap
makers, tanners, shoemakers, carpenters, blacksmiths, bakers, cooks,
servants, pages, fishermen, farmers as well as a host of other
occupations.”
And so on the one hand the people were worked sometimes to death but on
the other hand they developed economically across the region, which is a
precursor to nationhood.
Acuña takes us into the Mexican revolution of 1810 when Mexico won its
independence from Spain which was a great event but didn’t bring
socialism to Mexican@s and so the exploitation would soon return. Acuña
explains the theft of Texas which was spearheaded by the white
supremacist Stephen Austin starting in the 1820s. This is where the 2nd
edition of the book opens up, leaving out the history above.
The myth of the Alamo is cleared up by Acuña on pg 41 where he states:
“Probably the most widely circulated story was that of the last stand of
the aging Davy Crocket, who fell ‘fighting like a tiger’ killing
Mexicans with his bare hands. The truth: seven of the defenders
surrendered, and Crockett was among them. The Mexican force executed
them, and, one man, Louis Rose, escaped.”
This book explains the myth of the oppressor nation propaganda that
consumes the “history books” we read in public schools.
The U.$. war on Mexico of 1848 is explained very well and one sees the
birth of the Chican@ nation in these pages. Along with this birth the
layers of state propaganda are peeled back and Acuña highlights the
resistance in the Chican@ nation, people like Juan “Cheno” Cantina,
Francisco “Chico” Barela and Gregorio Cortez are discussed and one sees
how they rose up in militias as revolutionary groups to fight yankee
imperialism.
Groups like Las Gorras Blancas (the white caps) came together to defend
the people with arms from white supremacy and oppression. In
Occupied America we read of the early Chican@ proletariat and
the militant Chican@-Mexican@ labor struggles. The ‘Plan of San Diego’
is discussed which was the basis of a revolutionary group that fought
the U.$. government in Texas around 1915 with the goal of establishing
an independent Chican@ nation, Black nation and First Nations upon
victory.
We also learn of how the Treaty of Guadelupe Hidalgo was signed and
Amerika stole what is now called the “Southwest.” We learn that “the
depression” for Amerika was normal program for Chican@-Mexican@s. Our conditions did not change
and when the “New Deal” came post-depression and Amerikans were put to
work on public work projects, because Chican@-Mexican@s were not allowed to
participate in the “New Deal.” At the time of the New Deal, the
Communist International was criticizing social democracy in Europe as
social fascism for appealing to the labor aristocracy interests in line
with the rising fascist powers. In North America the fascist forces were
not well developed, but social democracy still served to benefit the
labor aristocracy to the exclusion of the oppressed nations.
The book explains the 1960s and the eruption of a new generation of
Chican@s that brought the Chican@ movement on the scene. All the Chican@
groups are discussed: Masa, Mecha, Brown Berets, Black Berets, Mayo,
Umas, Alianza, Crusade for Justice and many more. These fiery groups
along with the many Chican@ publications that are mentioned show the
times of this period and the heightened political consciousness in
Aztlan.
The “teatro campesino,” plays and improvised theater by and for
farmworkers out in the fields, showed that Chican@-Mexican@s taking on agribusiness added
to the times and Chican@ culture.
Although he provides tons of data and information on the entire history
of Chican@s, the colonization process, the early development of Chican@s
as a nation, and Chican@s resistance, where Acuña falls short is in this
book is in failing to point out a correct path forward on how Chican@s
should liberate ourselves. Oddly he only provides a short paragraph on
communism and only to discuss how the state blamed communists for
Chican@ activism. And so Acuña leads Chican@s to the edge of the cliff
but does not tell the people how to proceed and what will liberate us.
Aztlan will only be liberated in a socialist society, when socialist
revolution arrives we will finally taste freedoms. Any struggles short
of this will only lead to a bourgeois revolution and a continuation of
oppression, only under a new management, as happened to Mexico after the
Mexican revolution.
Learning one’s history is a necessary step towards liberation but once
we are conscious we must then grasp how to move forward and Occupied
America leaves this most important element out of the book.
Occupied America has been required reading in Chicano studies college
courses in many schools across the United $tates for many decades and
will continue in most schools for some time, it has a wealth of
information that will continue to awaken and educate Chican@ youth and
as a Chican@ historian Acuña has helped the nation in learning our
history. Anyone else who wants to learn about the development of
Chican@s will also enjoy this book. It is clear why the oppressor nation
is so scared of this book - because it’s truth!
Greetings. The struggle is long and arduous, and sometimes we do etch
out significant victories, as in the case of our brotha in In re
Crawford, 206 Cal.App.4th 1259 (2012).
It’s important to emphasize that this victory is a significant step in
reaffirming that prisoners are entitled to a measure of First Amendment
protection that cannot be ignored simply because the state dislikes the
spiel. New Afrikan prisoners have a right to identify with their
birthright if they so choose, as does anyone else for that matter –
Black, White or Brown. …
[California prison officials] have gone so far as to boldly proclaim
that the term New Afrikan was created by the Black Guerilla Family (BGF)
and that those who identify as or use the term are declaring their
allegiance to the BGF, which has been declared a prison gang. They have
sought to suppress its usage by validating (i.e. designating as a gang
member or associate) anyone who uses the term or who dares mention the
name George Jackson. …
Our brotha’s case In Re Crawford was filed June 4, 2012, and
certified for publication June 13. In a brilliant piece of judicial
reasoning, a panel of justices in a 3-0 decision finally reaffirmed a
prisoner’s First Amendment right to free speech and expression, stating:
Freedom of speech is first among the rights which form the foundation of
our free society. “The First Amendment embodies our choice as a nation
that, when it comes to such speech, the guiding principle is freedom –
the unfettered interchange of ideas – not whatever the State may view as
fair.” (Arizona Free Enterprise Club v. Bennett (2011) 131
S.Ct. 2806). “The protection given speech and press was fashioned to
assure unfettered interchange of ideas for the bringing about of
political and social changes desired by the people … All ideas having
even the slightest redeeming social importance – unorthodox ideas,
controversial ideas, even ideas hateful to the prevailing climate of
opinion – have the full protection of the guaranties, unless excludable
because they encroach upon the limited area of more important
interests.” (Roth v. United States (1957) 354 U.S. 476, 484.”
The programs embodied in the New Afrikan Collective Think Tank, New
Afrikan Institute of Criminology 101, the George Jackson University and
the New Afrikan ideology itself are inclusive programs emphasizing a
solution-based approach to carnage in the poverty stricken slums from
where many of us come. The CDCR Prison Intelligence Units (PIU) have
sought to suppress these initiatives simply because they do not like the
message. They have marched into court after court with one standard
line: New Afrikan means BGF and these initiatives are promoting the BGF.
In re Crawford continues,
As recently noted by Chief Justice Roberts, “[t]he First Amendment
reflects ‘a profound national commitment to the principle that debate on
public issues should be uninhibited, robust, and wide-open.’ [Citation.]
That is because ‘speech concerning public affairs is more than
self-expression; it is the essence of self-government.’ [Citation.] …
Speech on public issues occupies the highest rung of the hierarchy of
First Amendment values, and is entitled to special protection.”
(Snyder v. Phelps (2011) 562 U.S. , [131 S.Ct. 1207,
1215].
In re Crawford is a very important ruling because the justices
said these protections apply to prisoners as well. …
George Jackson cannot be removed from the fabric of the people’s
struggles in this society any more than Malcolm X can or Medger Evers or
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. or Harriett Tubman or Sojourner Truth or Ida
B. Wells, Rosa Parks or Frederick Douglass, or the countless others
who’ve fought and struggled for a brighter future for generations to
come.
What CDCR and its PIU are trying to do is make a run around the First
Amendment by shielding its suppression activity under the guise of
preventing gang activity, just as it’s done historically, which gave
rise to Procunier v. Martinez (1974) 416 U.S. 396, 413.
In In re Crawford, CDCR argued for an exception to the Martinez
test for validated gang members. The court declined to make such an
exception, holding: “Gang related correspondence is not within the
exception to the First Amendment test for censorship of outgoing inmate
mail.”
The fact that they even argued for such an exception shows their
mindset. Their intentions are to suppress that which they believe to be
repugnant, offensive and that which they believe a prisoner ought not be
thinking! In their minds we have no right to think or possess ideas,
concepts or vision beyond that which they believe we should possess.
Until In Re Crawford, these highly educated judges were
sanctioning this nonsense with twisted, perverted rulings permitting a
newspaper article or magazine layout or book to be used against a
prisoner for validation purposes [to put them in torture cells -
editor]. They issued twisted rulings like those in Ellis v.
Cambra or Hawkins v. Russell and In Re Furnace,
where the petitioner was told he has no right to his thoughts and the
First Amendment only protects a prisoner’s right to file a 602
[grievance form].
These kinds of fallacious rulings ought to be publicized so as to show
the skillful manipulation of the law by those sworn to uphold it. In
Re Crawford reestablishes that First Amendment protections apply to
prisoners and that we too enjoy a measure of free speech and expression.
We ought not be punished with fabricated notions of gang activity for
merely a thought!
However, if we are to continue to meet with success, we need our
professors, historians and intellectuals to step up and provide
declarations that we can use in our litigation, defending our right to
read, write and study all aspects of a people’s history, like Professor
James T. Campbell did in In Re Crawford. This is the only way a
prisoner can challenge the opinion of a prison official. …
Much work remains to be done, like stopping the bogus validations based
on legitimate First Amendment material. We know that many individuals
are falsely validated simply for reading George’s books or a newspaper
article, for observing Black August or for simply trying to get in touch
with one’s cultural identity.
These legitimate expressions should carry no penalty at all. You’re not
doing anything wrong, and a lot of brothas who’ve been validated simply
shouldn’t be. Nor should folks be frightened away from reading or
studying any aspect of history simply because the state doesn’t like its
content. Judges who issue fallacious opinions permitting prisoners to be
punished for reading a George Jackson book or researching your history
should be exposed.
Literary content and cultural and historical materials are not the
activities of a gang; they are political and social activities that we
have a right to express, according to the unanimous decision in In
re Crawford.
The First Amendment campaign continues to forge ahead, although we still
don’t have a lawyer. The campaign still exists, and we anticipate even
greater successes in the future. … We’ve cracked one layer of a thick
wall. Now all prisoners should take advantage of this brilliant ruling
and reassert your rights to study your heritage, Black, White or Brown.
MIM(Prisons) adds: The issue in this case was one that we have
experienced first-hand as well. For example, in 2008 a letter from a
comrade in California was censored before it could reach us because it
discussed the New Afrikan Collective, which allegedly was a code word
for the Black Guerrilla Family.(1) But in reality, the New Afrikan
Collective was a new political organization in New York focused on
bettering the conditions of New Afrikans as a nation, with no
connections to any sort of criminal activity.
The first thing that strikes us about this case is a quote from the
proceedings cited by the author above, “Gang related correspondence is
not within the exception to the First Amendment test for censorship of
outgoing inmate mail.” Unfortunately this is not part of the final
opinion explaining the decision of the court, and it is specific to
outgoing mail from the prison. Nonetheless, it would logically follow
from this statement that anything that can be connected to a gang is not
automatically dangerous or illegal.
“Gang members” have long been the boogeyman of post-integration white
Amerika. The pigs use “gang member” as a codeword to excuse the abuse
and denial of constitutional rights to oppressed nation youth,
particularly New Afrikan men. And this has been institutionalized in
more recent years with “gang enhancements,” “gang injunctions” and
“security threat group” labels that punish people for belonging to
lumpen organizations. Often our mail is censored because it mentions the
name of a lumpen organization in the context of a peace initiative or
organizing for prisoners’ humyn rights. While criminal activity is
deemed deserving more punishment with the gang label, non-criminal
activity is deemed criminal as well.
As the author discusses, it becomes a question of controlling ideas to
the extreme, where certain words are not permitted to be spoken or
written and certain symbols and colors cannot be displayed. So the quote
from the court above is just a baby step in the direction of applying
the First Amendment rights of association and expression to oppressed
nation youth. Those who are legally inclined should consider how this
issue can be pushed further in future battles. Not only is such work
important in restoring rights to people, but we can create space for
these organizations to build in more positive directions.
Part of this criminalization of a specific sector of society is the use
of self-created and perpetuated so-called experts on gang intelligence.
Most of our readers are all too familiar with this farce of a profession
that is acutely exposed by the court’s opinion in this case. The final
court opinion calls out CO J. Silveira for claiming that the plaintiff’s
letter contained an intricate code when he could provide no evidence
that this was true. They also call him out for using his “training and
experience” as the basis for all his arguments.
The warden’s argument is flawed for two reasons. First, the argument is
based solely on the unsupported assertions and speculative conclusions
in Silveira’s declaration. The declaration is incompetent as evidence
because it contains no factual allegations supporting those assertions
and conclusions. Second, even if the declaration could properly be
considered, it does not establish that the letter posed a threat to
prison security.
As great as this is, as the author of the article above points out, they
usually get away with such baseless claims. More well thought out
lawsuits like this are needed, because more favorable case law is
needed. But neither alone represents any real victory in a system that
exists to maintain the existing social hierarchy. These are just pieces
of a long, patient struggle that has been ongoing for generations. The
people must exercise the rights won here to make them real. We must
popularize and contextualize the nature of this struggle.