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.
Is it those who learned their lessons,
From the oppression?
The ones who kill their citizens,
At their discretion?
The ones who use racism,
As a weapon?
And got the entire country,
Suffering from depression?
They use retribution,
As the solution.
Got us bound by chains,
In institutions.
Therefore, the slave remains,
No constitution,
They wanna wash away my complexion,
Like an ablution.
I learn to rob and kill,
From “The Establishment.”
Same way they took this country,
They were some savage men.
They said me and my people,
Were less than average men.
When they kill my entire race
What happens then?
When the world turns yellow,
How will they segregate?
Will they then eradicate,
The word miscegenate?
When the country gains balance,
How Will they legislate?
Tell me, what group of people,
Will they then confiscate?
Last night i dreamed i was talking to Huey
P,
told him how tired i was of amerikkka & what it’s doing to me.
Got me feeling like every white cop is my enemy,
Consumed by hatred & it’s killing me.
Wanna pick up my gun & put some pig on my plate,
Tell the judge “He tried to kill me!” & see if i can skate. (yeah
right)
But there’s gotta be a better way & i was hoping you could
help me find my Revolutionary State of Mind,
So i can become a proud supporter of Revolutionary
Suicide!
i’d gladly die for my People just to see them on top, Black Lives DO Matter!!! Brothers & Sisters so we
can’t stop.
Educating our minds, strengthening our bodies & spiritually filling
our souls,
Storming across amerikkka screamin “Let My People
Go!!”
The world isn’t ready for a Black Movement such as this,
But they’re poking us with bullets & the people are getting
pissed.
They want us to accept these targets on our backs,
But i’m loading up my mind & my clip. (click/clack)
Didn’t want violence to begin with but we’re tired of talking it
out,
Breonna Taylor, George Floyd it’s a damn shame we gotta burn
down buildings just to make’em feel what we’re about.
All we want is what was promised when Honest Abe said we were
free,
You know, Protection, Justice, Equality,
Might as well be living in France;
Cause that shits foreign to me.
i want to teach my folk how to rise & stand tall,
with All Black Everything there’s no way we’re gonna
fall
So Mr. Newton will you teach me the Revolutionary facts?
He just chuckled & said, “Young Brotha you’re already on
track.”
Democracy is an illusion of the mind that
misleads the blind.
Who are they fooling? What are we doing? What are we
actually pursing? They’re talking about equality and
we dying in the trenches. Starving on the sidelines.
Aches and pains while the rich is completely full, staring
out of the skyline. How do we rise above the equation?
A broken nation with no vision. Our only dreams is to have
bricks of cocaine in the kitchen. Oh, and residue on the
dishes. How can this be a democracy and the homeless got
bread and water on their wish list? And the rich got the
poor on their diss list. And you want me to turn christian so I
can be like my ancestors praying for a “white” Christmas?
When the symbol of the church represent a white supremacist.
A blonde hair and blue eye’d lie… Naw. I’ll take my chances
with the Revolution. These hungry kids got thirty round drums
and they’re shooting. And Black Lives Matter protest turn into
looting? This is not the rise of amerika– We are living
in the days of its ruins.
I was told that commissary prices went up here in Oregon, but wages
for prison jobs have mostly remained the same. At least the
administration in Oregon pays prisoners for labor, because back home we
don’t get paid shit, as is the case for most southern prisons. I’m
curious to see how inflation is effecting other prisons in the United
$tates. Is there anything that we (prisoners) can do about inflation? Do
we just sit back and let it slide?
On another tip, I’m actually gettin’ ready to file an Americans with
Disabilities Act class-action to try and get disabled prisoners, like
me, disability checks in prison, because non-disabled prisoners get paid
for working, but disabled prisoners, who can’t work, aren’t able to
participate in such monetary programs and services. A $50 disability
check, per month, would work. Fifty bucks is probably the average amount
of money that non-disabled prisoners earn per month in Oregon.
Let Under Lock & Key know how inflation has affected
prices in your prison. And what is being done about it by prisoners or
the administration? [We’ll be covering this issue in more depth in
ULK 81 if we can gather more info from you.]
The FEDs gave me 20 years in prison
For being a high ranked GD
And other alleged GDs committed crimes
But that didn’t have nothing to do with me.
They say when others commit crimes
Allegedly under your chain of command
This is what they do.
But I just have one question to ask, shouldn’t
This apply to those running the system too!?
Because Derek Chauvin kneeled on
George Floyd’s neck for 9 min and 29 seconds
A blatant murder for the whole world to see.
So why isn’t his superior officers
Locked in a KKKage doing time right next to me?
OH!
Because they took no part in it?
Well let the records show neither did i
Court document 3580-107
Clearly states “Remaining GD” is my only crime.
But if that’s not enough
i have some more hypocrisy to show you
that i’m sure will blow your mind.
Where are the superiors of the officers
Who savagely murdered Amadou Diallo?
What about brother Michael Brown?
Are the superiors of those who murdered sister Breonna Taylor
Ever going to be held accountable for how that lynching went down?
Who is going to be held accountable for Oscar Grant
And let us not forget Ramarley Graham.
And WE can’t even get criminal justice reform passed
Proving once again that this system is a sham!
How many of you remember Michael Taylor in Naptown?
Handcuffed behind his back and shot in the back of his head?
And what about Major Davis beaten in his front yard and left for
dead!
The hypocrisy of this system disgusts me!!
Ain’t no such thing as Equal Justice Under the Law.
Or else Donald Trump would’ve been charged with RICO Conspiracy
For all those under his chain of command that committed fraud..
My Big brother Christopher Calhoun
Was shot over 30 times at the West End Mall in Atlanta
My baby brother Grant King was murdered in Indianapolis the same.
My little sister Khalalah was stabbed multiple times in the neck and
survived
And all this was done by UNIFORMED POLICE!
My first cousin Kevin Hicks
Was shot in the eye
This was done at point blank range.
My “FAMILY” has been the target of political repression
Body cams, ain’t stopped a damn thang!
But you want to give me 20 years
Just for remaining in a so-called gang.
Nah the real reason you gave me all that time
Was because I was organizing these so-called gangs
To bang for change.
You saw me organizing voters registration drives
You saw me marching down Bankhead in Atlanta
Chanting “I can’t Breath”.
You got scared because you seen Stones, Lords, Crips and Bloods
Marching right along-side of GDs.
And don’t try to lie because I seen the video and pictures on my
discovery!
You saw us standing together protesting police brutality.
You saw us at Stone Mountain in 2016
Standing against the Klu Klux Klan
You saw all OUR flags tied together
Black fist in the air screaming
“Free the Land”,
Yeah, you can jail the revolutionary
But you can never silence me.
You ain’t nothing but a bunch of hypocrites
And I’d rather die on my feet than live on my knees.
by Melo x August 2022 permalink
This drawing is a response to one of the questions from our intro study
program on the materialist method of knowledge
[Responding to “What did you disagree with?” when studying “Where Do
Correct Ideas Come From?”]
I disagreed with the basis of idealism not being action. To think is
action. Thought can be provoked by stimuli collected by the body’s
sensors, which is more reactionary. Or you can create a thought or an
idea, but this is action. Mental action nonetheless but action
all-in-all. And it must be understood physical action comes from mental
action. As I write this I understand the materialist method is physical
action. Well I guess I don’t have a disagreement but rather a question,
is ideas placed on paper in book format considered materialism?
Wiawimawo of MIM(Prisons) responds: As comrade Melo X
explains, we can have thoughts that are reactions to physical stimuli,
or we can create thoughts. But this “creation” of thoughts is also a
response to the physical world. What we might call reason, abstracts
concepts based on our experience with real phenomena, or physical things
we can interact with.
“the faculty of understanding is not a ‘thing in and of itself,’
because it becomes real only in contact with some object.”(1)
Dietzgen explained how the idealists see the mind as separate from
the sense perceptions of the material world. So Melo X is correct to see
the unity between them. The comrade also distinguishes creating thoughts
from more passive perception. This realization demonstrates the role of
reason in developing scientific understanding from our perception of the
physical world around us.
We also agree that our thoughts impact our actions. Hence we stress
class consciousness as an educational process that is a product of our
interactions with the class system.
So, are ideas in a book part of the materialist method? Well, it
depends on what ideas. A book can promote contemplative reasoning.
Bourgeois books will promote bourgeois thinking that harbors much
idealistic reasoning in order to deny the contradictions inherent to the
capitalist system. All that said, 99% of our materialist understanding
of the world is based in history, and therefore must come from books (or
other historical record). If we discarded books in our scientific
pursuits we could not continue to build on the knowledge of the past,
but would be stuck relearning the same things with each generation.
It is a crass form of materialism that says everything must come from
persynal experience and direct interaction with the physical world.
Rather we must learn from the actions of the people who came before us,
and as we develop new theories they must be tested by us in practice
through action and not just tested in our contemplative, subjective
minds. Another way to look at this is that books are recorded practice
and direct experiences of other people. Frederick Douglas’ writings are
from eir practice with chattel slavery, and Lenin’s writings are from
eir practice with the first proletarian revolution. When we say that all
knowledge is 99% history, we’re not saying we should spend all our time
learning using books but to see it as a starting point so we can make
new practice in the future.
Notes: 1. Joseph Dietzgen, The Nature of Human Brain
Work: An Introduction to Dialectics, PM Press, 2010,
p.58.
As a first time writer for MIM(Prisons) I must confess that, it’s
absolutely a blessing to have found such a space/medium to expose what’s
currently taking place within the Georgia Department of Corrections
(G.D.C), hereinafter “Georgia industrial slave complex”. Because
honestly, with every issue of Under Lock & Key, I thirst to
develop a political cadre, in order to establish a vanguard party among
the (lumpen) prisoner class.
Here at Telfair State plantation, there’s no real sense of political
consciousness among the masses nor is there any form of unity among the
street tribes, whom all proclaim to have been birthed out of Black
struggle to combat against oppression from a political perspective to
protect their community. To which I ask, isn’t the slave plantation
environment currently their community? Then why is it that their claims,
tends to seem as though nothing more than “persuasive rhetoric” produced
from the tenets of a force with every form of materialistic/imperialist
reason to divide the common? and yet, it gets worse.
There’s a massive staff shortage at the root of many Georgia
industrial slave sanitation failures and the problems don’t stop there.
It’s beyond the crisis point and something needs to change. Because
there’s a real humanitarian crisis. In which homicide and suicide rates
has already reached “unprecedented levels.” At Least 25 slave prisoners
deaths on plantation compounds in 2020 were suspected homicides, 7 at
Macon State plantation, according to “G.D.C.” and 19 slave prisoners
supposedly killed themselves in 2020, twice the national average.
The “G.D.C.” annual report for fiscal year 2019 (there was a lack of
access for 2020 FY report) reveals constant churn. According to the OF,
78% of the department’s new hires are (overseers) “Corrections
Officers,” and 71% quit before the year ended. Gov. Brian Kemp, just
proposed a 9.1% pay increase for plantation(overseers) guards that would
raise their entry level salary from $27,936 to $30,730. The experienced
staff are leaving as fast as they can to get out of here. What we’re
left with is kids trying to supervise slave prisoners they’re afraid of
and that has a domino effect. Without adequate staffing, the maintenance
begins to suffer, food service suffers. Because they don’t feel safe,
it’s created a circular problem.
Access to healthcare is more limited than ever and mental health
counselors are afraid to come in the dorms. Under-staffing has led to
more slave prisoners being stationed in temporary holding cages, going
extended periods without food, water or even bathroom visits. Often
we’re left in those cages to urinate and defecate on ourselves. If the
situation persists, lives will continue to be at stake. It’s just a
matter of time before we see causalities among the staff and slave
prisoners.
Urban street tribes have filled the power vacuum. The G.D.C.
estimated it housed 15,000 tribe members; nearly a third of it’s total
population. In the five previous years, authorities said tribe members
were responsible for 1,700 assaults in Georgia industrial slave
plantations. The pandemic has only made the situation worse, as COVID-19
continues to spread throughout the slave plantations. Recently 24 slave
prisoners tested positive for the virus; 3,100 have been infected so
far, 88 have died. Another 1,482 staff members have test positive and
two died from the virus, according the the G.D.C Those figures are
likely 10 times below the actual number of infections, according to a
recent study by the Center of Disease Control & Prevention.
I believe (the G.D.C.) is tolerating levels of chaos we have not seen
in the last 20 years. The scale of the problem is so great that federal
interventions is necessary and warranted. (Side note, the Department of
Justice continues investigation into Georgia prisons.)
Please family, friends and those on the inside report on what is
happening inside the walls of Georgia Department of Corrections prisons.
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced in September a state-wide
civil investigation into conditions at facilities across the state. The
DOJ investigation is focused on determining whether state prisoners are
reasonably safe from physical harm at the hands of other prisoners. DOJ
is also investigating whether the state offers reasonable protections
for LGBTQIA prisoners from sexual abuse by corrections officers and
other prisoners. If you or someone you know has information that could
raise awareness to this cause, submit tips to:
DOJ email community.georgiaDOC@usdoj.gov.
Dept. of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Ave. NW
Washington DC 20530
MIM(Prisons) adds: This comrade’s report echoes what is
being reported
from Alabama from prisoners organizing there. Georgia is one of the
five states with a higher incarceration rate than Alabama, and of course
both are in the Black Belt south. Prison systems across the country are
crumbling and failing. It is our purpose to support those who are trying
to organize for change amongst this chaos. These contradictions create
opportunity for change.
If you did not receive a copy of the JFI petition to the Department
of Justice that we mailed out with Under Lock & Key 78,
write us to get copies and use them to organize a collective voice in
your prison. It is only by independent, collective organizing that we
can stop these unnecessary deaths and abuses.
Have you ever opened the door to a hot oven and felt dizzy and
overwhelmed from the intensity of the heat hitting you in the face? That
is how it feels for people incarcerated at Augusta, Nottoway, and
Buckingham Correctional Centers every summer, but especially during the
current heat wave sweeping the country.
But get this: prison staff at these facilities do not experience
excessive heat conditions because the areas in which they work and
frequent — the control booths, school areas, medical department,
education department, administration offices, etc. – are all equipped
with air conditioning (AC).
While the U.$. and other parts of the world, like Western Europe, are
experiencing unprecedented deadly heat waves, people trapped in prisons,
jails, and detention centers not equipped with AC in the areas where
they housed are suffering exponentially from these sweltering
conditions.
For instance, if it is 100 degrees for those of you on the outside,
the temperature is always several degrees higher for those of us
confined in prisons not equipped with AC. With the lack of AC, poor
ventilation, substandard medical care, unsafe drinking water, big slabs
of concrete that trap heat, antiquated sewage systems that regularly
back up and spew raw sewage into the cells and housing units, and the
persistence of COVID-19 which is still spreading and infecting people at
these facilities, all of these conditions on top of record high
temperatures create unbearable conditions that are tantamount to the
kind of cruel and unusual punishment prohibited by the eighth amendment
to the U.$. constitution. Sick and elderly people confined under these
conditions suffer the most.
So, is there a need for an intersecting movement for prison
abolition? The short answer is “Yes,” because when environmentalists
talk about how climate change is caused by the burning of fossil fuels,
and how the impact of this is felt most by people in Third World
countries least responsible for climate pollution, the ways in which
climate change impacts people in confinement are often left out of
conversations about climate justice. This is a blind spot that will
cause incarcerated and detained people to suffer and die in silence and
invisibility during future heat waves.
Of course, I believe prisons in general should be abolished and
demolished, but right now, due to the immediacy of the current
situation, we need prison abolitionists and climate justice activists to
unite, and once united, collectively raise your voices to bring
awareness to this issue and demand change to prevent the needless
suffering and death of incarcerated human beings amid record high
temperatures due to global warming.
One way you can do this is by signing and sharing this
online petition to close Nottoway, Buckingham, and Augusta
Correctional Centers.
This petition can be used to raise awareness about this public health
crisis and as the foundation for a state-wide campaign to shut these
prisons down.
[CORRECTION: This article was published stating that Yogi was
Puerto Rican, when ey was actually of Nicaraguan descent.]
Peace Comrades. Recieved the latest issue of the newspaper &
passed it off to one of my comrades who just recently got into some
trouble. So if possible, I would like to receive that issue & the
one before it. Thanks with much love in revolution.
I’m writing this as an article that I’m hoping will get published for
the Black August Memorial in hopes that my earnest effort could perhaps
clarify things a bit further in terms of matter of perspective &
also to educate brothers/sisters on the legendary history of fallen
comrade George Jackson.
I read an article that began somewhat vacariously about the fallen
comrade & his connection to Hugo Pinnell who was also BGF & how
because of George’s wide encompassing views on race & its place in
standing to building political/military cadre’s, that this somehow means
that we need to abandon the rhetoric that is connected with groups who
are primarily concerned with fixing the “Black issue”.
I strongly disagree with the content of that article & not
because my views are just so diametrically different, but because I too
have wide encompassing views concerning race. However, I’m not under the
impression that we need to abandon our quest in building the support
that is needed to eliminate the black problem altogether. My first
reason for this is largely because I see that Blacks are the only group
who is told to forget about the monumental issue that we faced & are
still facing. But its also because of the fact that before we can ever
hope to build in the concept of global Asiatic unity & eventually
begin to merge our support with Europeans, we must first unify among
ourselves & use that unity to destroy the Black problem & then
we can go on to build with others & help others in their quest for
the same sort of thing.
You see, revolution is tied to long range politics. This is so
because revolution is so complex due to the fact that everything –
places, people, religion, economics, and sociology – will be impacted in
a major way. It’s not as simple as a government takeover & let’s be
real, if you cannot make revolution into a transmitter that spreads
through all cultural variations, then a government takeover here &
abroad will never be possible.
George was a people’s revolutionary & by people’s revolutionary I
mean people in terms of all humanity. However, even he had to develop
into that sort of personhood. Let’s not forget either that George
Jackson was a huge history major & for those who really know about
George, they attest to the fact that he loved being Black & even
wanted to be Blacker. That is not proof that he ever abandoned his
concern for his people’s plight nor did he have a lack of pride what
comes from a lack of knowledge. Through his studies on Afrikan history
as evidence through both of his books, I know he saw the connection
between the Original man globally. That means that he saw the black,
brown, yellow, red (a variation of brown) as Asiatics & all being
the same people, & the fact that we suffered at the hands of the
same forces & people was largely his reason to connect with these
people.
The Black Guerrilla Family was initially started to combat racism
within the confines of an openly oppressive prison system designed
against Blacks. Yeah, sure, George did overcome the counterproductive
effects of racism that would have surely stunted his growth as a
communist revolutionary. But when did the Black Guerrilla Family ever
become a family that forgot about the Black issue?
I think for a lot of people who became politically aware, they became
like Utopian anarchists in a way. I say this because a lot don’t see the
fact that whatever issue they faced like slavery here and abroad is what
fueled their passion to become revolutionaries in the first place. I get
that we cannot stay blinded by that issue alone, but how do you walk on
a broken leg? You have to heal that leg first. It’s like Malcolm said
“You can’t stab a man with a 12-inch knife and pull it out 3 inches and
ask him why he’s still complaining.” One issue doesn’t trump the next
one, however until we get free completely its righteous for brothers to
complain and use that concern to solve their problems.
Also as revolutionaries, it’s supposed to be our aim to help others
to eliminate their problems, not to beat them over the head for doing
so.
I also disagree with the fact that August 21 and the Attica uprising
were not events solely about George. Even if you believe the bullshit
“story” that the state concocted to assassinate George, this still means
that the events that took place and led up to the assassination were
about George and this means that the San Quentin 6 coming together was
for George. Perhaps it was solidarity across “national” lines but, if
Hugo Pinell was Puerto Rican, then how wasn’t he Black? Now I agree that
the revolt of Attica was already brewing, however George’s assassination
was the match that struck an already heavily gasolined situation.
If anything, no one needs to forget the Black issue, but I mean this
in a global sense, not an Amerikan sense, because the original man is
everywhere and everywhere he has come into some form of struggle. Read
the history books, don’t just get immersed into revolutionary theory.
How can you say that you agree with George or any other revolutionary
leader if you don’t understand their philosophies which are the result
of history and the masterworks of theorists who came before them? I
don’t think those who are excited about Juneteenth are wrong at all. But
it’s an Amerikan tragedy & that’s what Juneteenth should be
about.
For Black August, we shouldn’t be bickering over Black this, Puerto
Rican that, we should be trying to show how we all the same people and
use that to connect with each other. Globally the Black man is 11 to 1
there’s no reason to argue over why brothers should deviate from Black
revolution. If you don’t understand that either you didn’t go through
the process of going from A to Z or you understand revolution only as
its all inclusive, which is good, but there’s a process to
inclusion.
So if you really champion George, then try to understand the core of
his philosophy, not by separating Blacks from other Asiatics, but seeing
them collectively as one globally.
Peace.
Wiawimawo of MIM(Prisons) responds: This comrade
writes, “Blacks are the only group who is told to forget about the
monumental issue that we faced & are still facing.” We hear this a
lot from people of different nationalities, that they are told to, or
that their own people fight for the liberation of others but not
themselves. So I would say this is a misperception that probably stems
from the overall lack of revolutionary nationalism among all nations
entrapped by the United $tates at this time and a result of oppressor
nation chauvinism telling the oppressed to essentially “stop
complaining.”
We wholeheartedly agree with this comrade on the need to unify within
oppressed nations in order to build strong alliances between the
oppressed and especially with forces in the oppressor nation (who are
most likely to lead us astray). USW has a slogan, “Unity from the Inside
Out”, and this is one of the many meanings of that slogan. Like this
comrade states, we find the work of prisoners (and oppressed nations in
general) finding unity and inclusion amongst each other to be of great
important work. We also find it important for two oppressed groups to
100% understand/accept each other’s qualitative differences while
building unity as blind unity is bound to fall apart. Malcolm X used the
term “Black Revolution” as happening in Asia, Africa, and Latin America;
so from that angle we see the positive and internationalist application
of this model of thinking.
As we explain in another response on single nation organizing, the
main reason we think this is true is because imperialism is the
dialectical contradiction between oppressor and oppressed nations. To
resolve that contradiction, and to end oppression of all forms in the
world today, means prioritizing the struggles of the oppressed nations
to overcome the oppressor nations and end imperialism.
As to the term “Asiatic”, we don’t subscribe to the ideas of a
differentiation between original or aboriginal people and white people
being a demonic derivation of that. And i’ve never seen any indication
that George Jackson did either. We would use the term Third World
oppressed nations, as the Black Panthers did. It is the contradiction
between nations, which is an historical phenomenon, not a biological
difference.
For Afrikan people in the United $tates, captivity began in Afrika
when we were captured and confined in slave forts like the Gold Coast’s
Elmina and Goree Island’s “House of Slaves”. From those colonial forts
we left Afrika in chains and shackles through the “Door of No Return”
and we were transported to the Americas in the bowels of slave ships.
Afrikans were dropped off in various places around around the world, and
what is now referred to as North America, in chains and colonized here
to work as slaves on the plantations of the settler-colonies of European
imperialists.
As slaves we were chattel owned as private property, becoming the
first commodity that gave rise to a global colonial-capitalist system.
Slavery was absolute captivity with complete deprivation of life. The
only means by which Afrikans could seek freedom was by revolt or escape,
which is something we’ve struggled to do since our first initial capture
from our homeland.
Colonizers’ plantations were forced labor camps where Afrikans slaved
in the fields and were housed in hovels and fed slop. We were forced to
work day in and day out, suffering severe beatings and some of the
greatest acts of cruelty to force our submission. If we
escaped, we were hunted and tracked by slave catchers with guns and
bloodhounds. Once caught, we were brought back to the plantation from
which we fled. Escaping slavery was a crime that was punishable by
flogging and lashing, branding, mutilation and death. After 13 of the
settler-colonies within North America consolidated into the “United
States,” slavery was expanded to new territories as the colonizers
continued stealing more Indigenous land, or killing them, like the case
in the Caribbean island of Puerto Rico. It continued to reap the filthy
lucre of the dirty business of the flesh-peddling slave-trade and the
human trafficking of slavery until slavery was finally abolished after
the Civil War – an intra-conflict between two rival settler-colonialist
groups – the Union versus the Confederacy. With the abolition of
slavery, Afrikans ceased to be formally held as slaves, but we remained
colonial subjects all the same as colonialism continued to rule and
regulate every aspect of our lives through the brutal exploitation of
our labor through sharecropping, peonage and court-leasing.
As we have seen, U.$. administrators – Republican and Democrat alike
– asserted their right to interfere directly in the domestic affairs of
countries in Central America and the Caribbean for the sake of “national
interest”. One island nation, however, remained under permanent Amerikan
control. Puerto Rico became part of the United States as a result of the
Spanish Amerikan War. In July 1898, in retaliation for the sinkage of
the U.S. vessel Maine in Cuba, Amerikan troops disembarked in Puerto
Rico, instigating the country’s first act of European-style colonial
expansion. The island thus became the pawn in a war between Cuban
patriots and Spanish garrisons. It had not expected military occupation,
quite the contrary, Spain had already agreed to grant Puerto Rico
autonomy and to devise some sort of “house rule” for the island. The
U.S. invasion changed all of this. Suddenly, Puerto Rico became a
crucial factor in U.S. global strategy – not only because of its
potential for investment and commerce, but also because of its
geopolitical role in consolidating U.S. naval power.
But there remains a basic question: Why did the U.S. take Puerto Rico
as a colony while helping Cuba achieve independence?? The difference may
well reside in the histories of the two islands. There was a large
standing armed insurrectionary movement against Spain in Cuba. Puerto
Rico, however, was on the way to a negotiated settlement and could
present less resistance to outside forces. Puerto Rico thus became
caught in a complex struggle between major powers and Cuba’s
insurgents.
During the colonial period, the island had served as a supporting
military garrison and commercial center for Spain, roles that
intensified as the slave trade reached its peak in the 1700’s. Sugar
production became the predominant agricultural enterprise. There were
also small farmers, jibaros, rugged individuals who cultivated staple
crops and helped maintain a diversified economy. Because of this, the
slave population always remained a minority. After 1898 residents of the
island had no clear status of our land. In 1917 they were granted
citizenship in the U.S. due to W.W.I. In 1947, nearly half a century
after the invasion, Puerto Rico was permitted to attempt
self-government. In 1952 the island was granted “commonwealth” status
within the United States. Puerto Rico at this moment is the oldest
colony in the world.
The 13th Amendment to the U.S. constitution, often believed to have
formally abolished slavery, simply limited slavery, making it a
punishment for crime, and that punishment was imprisonment.
Therefore, slavery became a penal servitude and prisoners became
“slaves of the colonial state”. Prisons became slave labor camps and
being sentenced to prison was to be forced to do “hard labor”. It was a
sentence of forced labor in addition to a term of imprisonment. This was
where the term “hard labor” came from. As a direct result of black codes
developed specifically for our people, Afrikans were arrested for petty
violations of those codes (other ethnic groups of minority also:
Latinos) and sent to prison where we not only toiled in slave labor
camps and worked in chain gangs, but were also contracted out to private
companies to work for railroads, mines and mills.
We became the new slaves in a new convict lease system that was
created by colonial capitalism so that it could acquire a steady supply
of cheap labor to exploit for the greatest profit without paying for
that labor because we were slaves of the state. After enduring the
captivity of forced chattel slavery, Afrikans began to endure the
captivity of imprisonment under colonialism. We went from being slaves
on plantations to convicts in prison.
Colonialist law was established and created to protect the colonial
system and primarily criminalize and punish Afrikans and other colonized
peoples – Latinos.
During the Black Revolution of the 1960’s, the police arrested and
jailed Afrikans such as Fannie Lou Hamer for “civil disobedience”. They
arrested Huey P. Newton and Geronimo Pratt on trumped-up charges. At
that time the voices of Puerto Ricans to be recognized as a nation
joined hands with the Black revolution in the struggle against the U.S.
empire. Oscar Lopez, Alejandro Torres, Antonio Camacho, and many more
were railroaded to prison. The FBI asassinated leaders like Malcom X, Dr
Martin Luther King Jr., Fred Hampton through COINTELPRO. In 2005,
Filiberto Ojeda Rios, leader of EPB “Eercito Popular Boricua” better
known as the Macheteros, was assassinated in Puerto Rico by FBI agents.
Those who were captured and thrown in prison became political prisoners
and prisoners of war.
At the height of the Black Revolution, the CIA flooded Afrikan
colonies (to the United States Puerto Rico is considered another Afrikan
Colony) with heroin from the golden triangle in southeast Asia where it
had long worked to finance its covert operations against China at the
same time the U.S. was waging a war of imperialist aggression in
Vietnam. With this process of narcotization our communities fell
completely under control and influence of drugs: the illegal drug
business and drug traffickers began a deadly epidemic of addiction. The
war on drugs was escalated by Ronald Reagan with the beginning of the
crack epidemic, started after the CIA flooded the Afrikan community with
the drugs from Central America, funding dirty wars against Nicaragua. It
led to increased militarization of the police, tougher drug laws, and
the greatest prison build-up in history. Afrikans and Latinos became the
main causalities of that war.
As prisoners, we are just bodies that fill cells in prisons, situated
in economically depressed rural areas, producing jobs for settlers.
Today, Amerika has the largest prison system in the world. More
Afrikans are now convicts in prison in 2022 than they were slaves on the
plantation in 1852, and hardly have any more rights than we had when we
were slaves.
Crime simply provides the justification for locking us up behind the
razor-wire electrified fences. Imprisonment is an integral and
indispensable part of the colonization and of Afrikans and Latinos in
the United $tates. I was born and raised in Puerto Rico, my father a
black Puerto Rican and my Mother a white Puerto Rican; as colonial
subjects we have always been captives of Colonialism.
The imprisonment in the U.S. will only end when we throw off the
chains of colonial-capitalism and free ourselves from the rule of the
colonizer.
We, all minorities, Blacks, Latinos, etc need to come together under
the same line of thinking – I encourage every one to educate yourself,
know your history, know your past, know your culture. It doesn’t matter
how dark the color of your skin is, what state or country you’re from,
in prison there’s only two uniforms – the prisoners and the guards –
remember always which one you wear. The only way to beat this monster is
by uniting, and come together as one body.