MIM(Prisons) is a cell of revolutionaries serving the oppressed masses inside U.$. prisons, guided by the communist ideology of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism.
Under Lock & Key is a news service written by and for prisoners with a focus on what is going on behind bars throughout the United States. Under Lock & Key is available to U.S. prisoners for free through MIM(Prisons)'s Free Political Literature to Prisoners Program, by writing:
MIM(Prisons) PO Box 40799 San Francisco, CA 94140.
In yet another act of terrorism, Shareen Abu Akleh, a
Palestinian-amerikan journalist, was targeted and killed by the
illegitimate state of I$rael and its military. The I$raeli state, its
occupation of Palestine, and its armed forces are and have been backed
by the united state’s ruling class since 1932. On 11 May 2022, while on
the job, covering an I$raeli military raid on the Jenin refugee camp in
the West Bank, she was maliciously assassinated.
Shareen Abu Akleh became a thorn in the side of the I$raeli state as
a result of her continuous on the spot coverage of daily state
repression, human rights violations, and Palestinian genocide. She
covered many detentions, home demolitions (which Palestinian homes were
targeted in, and demolished to force them to relocate for I$raelis)
military raids of schools and universities, and Masjids, and killings of
Palestinians. This brave frontline work placed her on I$raeli hit
lists.
Shareen Abu Akleh was a journalist for decades and a Palestinian
revolutionary-nationalist, who being a trailblazer in her field,
inspired many Palestinian and Arab wimmin to serve their people through
the work of liberation journalism.
Her funeral brought out tens of thousands of supporters, mostly
Palestinian, in Jerusalem. As pallbearers carried sister Shareen, the
I$raeli military attacked them, and further disrupted the occasion with
malicious zionist violence against Palestinian nationals.
Sadly, the colonization of Palestine, the Apartheid regime of I$rael,
and violent and fatal repression of native inhabitants is all apart of
the imperialist system. What does imperialism look like? It looks like
land theft, it looks like millions of people living without power or
plumbing, it looks like bombing and shelling of homes, schools,
hospitals and finishing the job by attacking refugee camps. It looks
like storming universities, confiscating study materials, it looks like
the process of erasing an entire human group, and that’s exactly what’s
taking place in Palestine. There will be many who call for justice for
Shareen Abu Akleh, but the sad truth is that justice for her and justice
for the Palestinian nation can only be achieved with the end of the
I$raeli occupation.
FREE THE LAND!!! FREE
PALESTINE!!!
The Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement is a grassroots
initiative that began in the early 2000’s to gain international support
for the occupied Palestinian nation against I$rael’s continued military
suppression, genocide and land theft.
In recent years the BDS movement has indeed gained international
support, even in the face of reactionary pro-imperialist backlash from
the states who support genocide, land theft and military crimes.
The goal of BDS is to isolate I$rael on the international field by
upholding the “simple principle that Palestinians are entitled to the
same rights as the rest of humanity”.
Students around the world have been pressuring their schools and
universities to join the ‘Academic Boycott’, initiated in 2004 by the
Palestinian campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of I$rael
(PACBI). As student activism again comes to life here in the United
$tates, it is important that students engage in internationalist
frameworks. Amerikan student activists should support the academic
boycott of I$rael, which is part of the overall BDS movement. Students
should do this not as a mere moral cause, but the understanding that
over 50% of the U.$. states strongly support the I$raeli
military-apartheid-colonization, so much so that 35 states have Anti-BDS
laws. They support the frequent military raids of Palestinian
universities under the pretext of ‘countering terrorist activities’, the
imprisonment and murder of student activists peacefully protesting,
closure of schools and the recent I$raeli military move to arbitrarily
control what is and isn’t taught in universities. A new government
procedure allows the military to restrict visiting professors who teach
subjects supposedly ‘not relevant to Palestinians’.
In the United $tates, the free flow of ideas has begun to be brought
to an end. Book bans, Don’t Say Gay laws, the backlash against Critical
Race Theory, what’s next? Will the same reactionaries rally police/
military force to suppress your student demonstration? The book Chican@ Power and
the Struggle for Aztlán has been banned in prisons in many parts of
occupied Aztlán. Will the reactionaries prevent your free thought?
NEWSFLASH THEY ALREADY ARE! Students in North America should pressure
their institutions to join the Academic boycott and the wider BDS
movement. END ALL COLLABORATION WITH THE ILLEGITIMATE STATE, until
Palestine is free.
MIM(Prisons) adds: One of the first essays many
students of MIM study is On Contradiction by Mao Zedong. In it
Mao explains how change must come from within. The liberation of
Palestine depends on an effective national liberation struggle from
within Palestine, but it can be assisted by resistance to the funding
and arming of the I$raeli state by Amerikans whose government is the
primary prop of I$rael. A strong anti-imperialist movement in this
country would be able to limit the sale of military goods to I$rael,
Ukraine and anywhere else where the empire wants to fight wars against
its enemies without sending its own troops.
Notes: (1) ‘Palestinian-american journalist
assassinated,’ Monical Hill, FreedomSocialist,vol.43,no.3 (2)
‘Academic fortify boycott of Israel’, Raya Fidel,
FreedomSocialist,vol.43,no.3
“We can’t afford rent and we’re sleeping outside. The youths are
jobless” -Yaw Barimah, Ghanaian taxidriver
In late June 2022, street protests erupted in Ghana’s capital city,
Accra. The above quote matches the general feel and demands of the
masses who took to the streets. Most lay persons are aware of the
current effects of inflation on the daily lives of the average people.
Many of us have not made the necessary connection that such inflation
and other tricks capitalists use to increase the amount of surplus value
extracted from the populace, are inherently apart of the internal
dynamics of capitalism itself. Our failure to understand this brings our
protests, and dissent to a screeching halt once the point of economic
reformism is reached.
In countries dominated under imperialist neo-colonialism, such as
Ghana, the weight of economic exploitation is maximized. As conditions
sharpen, the exploited classes of Ghana are beginning to stir. On July
4th four teacher’s unions went on strike in opposition to the
neo-colonial government’s refusal to pay ‘cost-of-living allowances’ of
at least 20% of their wages.
The government holds the position that due to ‘Annual inflation’ now
reaching 27.6% and the accompanied reduction in value of the Cedi(1),
they’re unable to pay this allowance. The system of imperialism works in
a way that parasitic countries like amerika hold economic hegemony over
Third World countries like Ghana. This allows for the U.$. currency, the
dollar, to dictate the value of the national currencies of Third World
countries. What this means for the Ghanaian and other Third World
workers is that because their wages are paid in money, the national
currency, the amount of their pay, although the same on paper, is
devalued along with national currency.
Month-on-Month inflation rates for the Cedi
So the exploitation of the Ghanaian worker has intensified. Their
labor is still required to be done at the same rate, same hours labored,
same amount of labor, and same wage paid. What has changed is the value
of their labor power; with inflation, the amount of cedi it takes to
maintain the worker’s needs is greater. Yet wages have not increased, or
not increased as much.
To allow the common people to overstand our common interest in
overthrowing capitalist dictatorship it is necessary to understand and
breakdown plainly, the inner-working of capitalism and how it effects
the lives of the people.
In Ghana, as described above, and many other places around the world
right now, the mechanism being used by capitalist exploiters is the
depression of wages. This generally occurs when the wages of the worker
are below the value of their labor power. Labor power here means human
work, the sum total of a person’s physical and mental effort.(2) Labor
power is the primary factor in society’s production. Uniquely however,
only in capitalist society is labor power a commodity.
The process of commodification of labor power manifests itself in two
conditions: (1) The worker is ‘free’ in that they can ‘choose’ to sell
their labor as a commodity. (2) The worker owns nothing aside from their
labor power (what the mind/body can produce). They have no means of
productions, or means of living and must sell their labor power to
live.
Therefore, what we know as ‘employment’ in the capitalist economy
consists of capitalists buying the labor power of the laborer and
converting them into hired slaves.
The exploitation of workers is examined by the advent of surplus
value. The degree of exploitation is examined by the rate of surplus
value. The capitalist devises ways to maximize this rate of surplus
value, which brings me back to depression and deduction of wages.
To comprehend wages, we must first overstand that wages are a
‘disguise’. They are a way to fool the people into thinking they’re
getting equal value for their labor.
Marx said, “wages are not what they appear to be. They are not the
value or price of labor, but a disguised form of the value or price of
labor power.”(3) Therefore the capitalists notion that they pay the
worker the price of their labor is completely fabricated.
A key in understanding political economy is to comprehend the
distinction between labor and labor power. Under capitalism what the
worker is selling isn’t labor, but is labor power, which is capable of
being commodified, while the former (labor) isn’t.
The next logical question is why? why is labor not a commodity?
Commodities exist in their final state prior to being sold, labor
doesn’t. Also commodities are exchanged for equal value, according to
the law of value. Therefore if labor was a commodity the capitalist
should pay the full value created by labor, which would eliminate
surplus value (the source of profit), which would eliminate
capitalism.
If labor was a commodity, it would have value and that value would be
determined by the amount of embodied labor. This can’t happen. How can
the value of a phenomenon be determined by the value of itself?
What labor is is the process of labor power. Therefore the wage paid
to the laborer is equal to the value of the labor power. In other words,
it is the amount required to keep the proletariat as a class alive and
working – that is the value of labor power. Whatever extra the worker’s
labor power produces above the value of labor power (the wage paid to
keep the proletariat alive) is called surplus value and
it is what is ‘exploited’ by the capitalist. The wage itself is the
chain that binds the exploiter to the exploited. The revolutionary
demand must be to abolish the wage system.
The term ‘cost of living allowance’, caused me to think of our need
to overstand where the idea of ‘cost of living’ or ‘standard of living’
has its roots.
We begin by concluding that these are two distinctive wages. In the
political economy of capitalism, there are nominal
wages and there are real wages. Nominal wages
are expressed by the wage payment of money.
In our quest to find the ‘cost of living’, we can’t use nominal wages
as representation. The cost of living will only be reflected by the
amount of means of livelihood which can be bought by the money wage
(nominal wage). What the nominal wage can purchase is the cost/standard
of living and is called real wages.
Declining value of Ghana’s cedi priced in U.$. dollars
What is taking place in Ghana is that there is a contradiction
between the nominal and real wages. The nominal wage is being held in
place, while the real wage is in a downward trend, a decline.
“When the purchasing power of money declines and the prices of the
means of livelihood go up, the same amount of the nominal wage can only
be exchanged for a smaller amount of means of livelihood. Then the real
wage falls. Sometimes even if the nominal wage goes up a bit, but less
than the increase in prices of the means of livelihood, the real wage
will still decline.”(4)
This is essentially what we observe playing out in real time in Ghana
and elsewhere. As the above quote alludes to, simple economic reforms
like increase in wage will not end this phenomenon, the elimination of
surplus value is the only solution. The bourgeoisie will always use the
tools of inflation, price increases and rent increases to increase the
contradiction between the nominal wage (money paid) and the real wage
(what can be bought) to increase the rate of surplus value accumulation
(the exploitation of the people).
In conclusion, I want to point out that while the protests organized
by Arise Ghana and the work strike by the four teacher’s unions are
significant struggles for the daily hurdles of life for the Ghanaian
people, the people must be made to distinguish between the causes and
effects of economic hardship. When a sick person has a cold and a
running nose, they don’t merely get a tissue for the nose without curing
the cold itself. The people exploited by imperialism must synthesize the
economic and political struggles.
Closing with a word from Marx,
“The working class should not forget: in this daily struggle they are
only opposing the effect, but not the cause that produces this effect;
they are only delaying the downward trend, not changing the direction of
the trend; they are only suppressing the symptom, not curing the
disease.”(5)
DOWN WITH CAPITALIST-IMPERIALISM!!!
Notes: (1) The Cedi is the national currency of
Ghana. (2) Fundamentals of Political Economy, edited by George C.
Wang,;Chapt.4,pg.59 (3)K.Marx,Critique of the Gotha Program,selected
work of Marx &Engels Vol.3 (4)Fundamentals of Political
Economy,chapt.4,pg72 (5)K.Marx, Wages,Prices and Profit, Selected
Works of Marx &Engels, Vol.2
Revolutionary greetings to u all! We hope everyone is prepping for
the upcoming action(s) of Juneteenth, and otherwise doing well. Comrade
FireWater posed a question, “How can i help Tx TeamOne with a class
action suit to have Our grievances heard or to get independent oversight
of the grievance system?” i’ve decided to share Our answer with all of
you as it may be helpful to the Tx lumpen populace at large.
In the past few months, Tx TeamOne’s founding committee has been
forming working relations with a few liberal and petty bourgeois groups
for progressive improvements within the Texas Department of Criminal
Justice (TDCJ). These groups include some elected officials, christian
sympathizers, lawyers, radio personalities, and policy groups.
One such group is Tx Prison Reform (TPR), with whom one of Our
founding committee members was able to conduct an extensive interview,
establishing the basis of Our and the prison masses possible working
relationship with this group. The interview will be published in their
monthly newsletter and We hope to share it with u all as well. TPR is
focused on the destruction of Restricted Housing Units (RHU), but is
also collecting grievances and other forms of documentation to showcase
the foul nature of TDCJ.
Many of u may be familiar with Tx CURE. If so you’ll know the Tx
branch has been M.I.A. for awhile, but now has been reorganized by a
recently released TDCJ ex-prisoner. This persyn was a leading figure
behind the RACK II air conditioning lawsuit. Ey hasn’t established an
actual mailing address but we have the help of a family law attorney
who’ll send mailings to the head of Tx CURE. Right now, We’re looking
for documented complaints regarding major issues in TDCJ. These
grievances will be read in front of and by the Tx legislator at the next
session. The persyn from Tx CURE will be persynally speaking on behalf
of Tx inmates.
The issue of the grievance process is not a new one to us nor the
state officials. The grievance system in Tx and in fact many prison
systems around the country were the direct result of the Ruiz Litigation
(Ruiz v. Johnson, 37 F. Supp. 2d 855 (S.D. Tex. 1999)), and
since it was instated the same issues have been present. Accompanied
with your grievances you should write an official statement which may
also be read for/by the legislators and others. This statement should
articulate the need for independent oversight of TDCJ grievance
system, and make specific reference to Representative Jarvis Johnson’s
2019 House Bill which called for said oversight but has never been heard
by the House. We want the 2019 House Bill 363 heard and approved by the
Texas House of Representatives.
Other key points of emphasis are the excessive censorship and mail
tampering and its socio-political nature. With the recent escape &
man hunt We’ve found that censorship due to supposed security threats
has picked up. MIM
materials have been the target of much excessive censorship.
For those who don’t know the demographics are slowly but surely
shifting. Due to national gentrification, the thriving industries in the
state, and no state income tax, among other things, Texas is becoming
younger, darker, richer, and slightly more progressive, particularly
among youthful citizens. An essential contradiction in Tx is that of the
rural vs. urban population and the culture wars, and fight for resources
this intensifies. Urban populations tend to be darker, more
liberal/progressive (not revolutionary though) and lean left of center
on prison issues among others. Bernie Sanders’ organization “Our
Revolution” has been pushing campaigns by petty bourgeois, Democratic
Socialist elements around the country for the last several years and now
this present election cycle they have several candidates who’re
challenging the districts of the old guard Democratic Party
establishment. These districts are in both rural and urban areas but
mostly rural, which if successful will shift state electoral bourgeois
politics for the next decade or so.
A key point of emphasis for these so-called New Left Democrats is
Prison Reform. This will open organizing doors for revolutionaries
within the walls and those who support us.
i share all this because elements from the New Left Democrats and
some from a more moderate approach have championed and made possible a
new committee to ‘Study Tx Criminal Justice Issues.’ They’re excepting
documentary information from now until October on a wide range of issues
covering initial interaction with police, to jail policies &
conditions, Grand Jury issues, sentencing, and finally prison
conditions. Below i will include their addresses along with those of the
lawyer, and the groups i mentioned have been establishing working
relationships with.
p.s. We’re also happy to announce the present development of a Tx
TEAMONE committee in Smith Unit.
Jerney Coe Law Office/423 S. Spring Ave/ Tyler,
TX 75702
Tx Prison Reform/ Box #671/ Kaukana, WI 54130
Fairchanges/2407 S. Congress Ave, Ste E-434/ Austin, TX 78704 (send
reports on current conditions, at least 3 recommendations for change,
deadline 7/4/2022)
RealLife Ministries/ Box #328/ Forney, TX 75126 (also does RealLife
Radio, write to find out where you can tune in)
Dist. 141 - Senfronia Thompson/ 10527 Homestead Rd/ Houston, TX 77016
(Interim Study Committee on Criminal Justice reform ahead of
legislation)
i hope this information is useful.
MIM(Prisons) responds: We agree with Triumphant that
a shift in demographics and elected officials could create more space
for prison organizing. In theory an independent review board
could create space for organizing as well. However, there is no
historical example of such in the United $tates. Police review boards
have never been effective nor independent. How could they be? The point
of the criminal injustice system is to leverage the force of the state
against those that pose a threat to the bourgeoisie’s and the state’s
interests. This is a bourgeois dictatorship afterall, just like the rest
of the world today.
Revolutionaries should campaign on the issues. If petty bourgeois
reformers are willing to do the work to set up review boards and
oversight and change rules, good for them. We should support them in
doing so by campaigning on the issues that matter to us. As Triumphant
mentioned, censorship and torture units (RHU) are among these issues. If
we can campaign on these issues in ways that align with and support the
bourgeois reformers that is a good thing. If revolutionaries take up the
mantle of electoral politics and bourgeois reform, that is a very bad
thing that leads to a never-ending cycle of oppression.
Within the prison movement there is much talk about ‘political
education’ and ‘raising consciousness’. Truthfully, even when We reflect
on recent and distant episodes in Our collective struggles against the
bourgeoisie, many of us often lament upon the fact that a key ingredient
that has always been lacking from Our movements, parties, organizations,
and the unorganized masses, is the lack of a systemic and organized
framework to political education. Assata Shakur expressed her criticism
of the Black Panther Party for the same reason. Veterans of the Chican@
movement i’ve spoke with have expressed the same criticisms, stating
that had more deliberate, organized approaches been given back in the
days it may have progressively altered the cultural nationalist
tendencies of the movement towards a revolutionary nationalist praxis.
Yet and still, today We’re still stressing, and rightly so, the
paramount importance of political education. However, the question has
become, must become, what is political education, how do we apply it,
and why is it so important?
Political education takes many forms, and phases, and the correct
application of it, or what is paramount for a persyn to know is
dependent upon the conditions one finds themselves in. Thus i begin with
Fanon,
“It is commonly thought with criminal flippancy that to politicize
the masses means from time to time haranguing them with a major
political speech…But political education means opening up the mind,
awakening the mind, and introducing it to the world…To politicize the
masses is not and cannot be to make a political speech. It means driving
home to the masses that everything depends on them, that if we stagnate
the fault is theirs, and that if we progress, they too are responsible,
that there is no demiurge, no illustrious man taking responsibility for
everything, but that the demiurge is the people and the magic lies in
their hands and their hands alone.” (1)
Now as i was saying conditions will determine quite alot. So it is
the line of USW, and many others, that amerika is a settler-neo colonial
imperialist empire, and as such holds actual nations of people
subjugated, meaning their/our self-development is thwarted, within its
borders as well as in the Third World.
Hystory indicated that this line is right and exact. When We recall
the process of how amerika was established we understand that it (nation
of euro amerikan settlers) settled upon this land, removed, and
committed genocide against the native nations of people, some of which
are still among us today. So those (the indigenous) are just one group
of nations within the borders of amerika, which We call the First
Nations. Of course We all know about the forced migration of millions of
Africans, and We know they underwent slavery at the hands of those same
settlers, as did some Natives. What We often fail to analyze is that
slavery, is only an economic system, it is a mode of producing social
value, however, to describe the plight of the African people in amerika
by mere economic lingo alone is highly insufficient. What is the term
that would encapsulate the experience of the economic exploitation,
social and political repression that the African people in amerika
eventually triumphed over? Slavery? No, servitude? No. That one word
which encapsulates that struggle is COLONIALISM.
Well, what the heck is colonialism? Quoting from the Black Liberation
Army Political Dictionary;
Colonialism - foreign domination of a country or a people, where the
economic, political and military structure is controlled and run by the
occupying force. (2)
So African people residing in the United $tates are not merely the
offspring of enslaved people, but a colonized people, and because of
that diametrically opposed nature of a colonized people to its
colonizer, the African people residing in amerika developed organically
into a nation, that is a people distinct from the settler by its
culture, its language, its land, and thus We call this nation today New
Afrika, but others call it Black Amerika, or Black nation, or a host of
other titles. No matter the title New Afrikan people are deep down aware
that they’re distinct and separate, but the reality of a nation within
an empire doesn’t register to some, to most, after a substantial time
frame of this reality being obscured from the public consciousness.
Having roots in, but eventually developing distinct from the First
Nations, there is the Chican@, and Puerto Rican nations/colonies.
Overtime all these domestic colonies subjugated by the settler amerikan
empire have developed thru struggle, and have reached a new and
different phase of colonialism, called neo-colonialism, which can be
characterized by the power structure now formally allowing
representatives of these oppressed peoples to integrate into the
economic, political and military structures, and in many ways act as a
buffer between the ruling class and the masses of neo-colonized
people.
This brings me back to Our discussion on organizing, and political
education. See, depending on what We organizing for, one will require
different political understanding. Fanon says,
“A political informed [person in a colonial situation] is someone who
knows that a local dispute is not a crucial confrontation between [them]
and [the system]”
“It is the repeated demonstrations for their rights and the repeated
labor disputes that politicize the masses.” (3)
So basically what Frantz Fanon is saying here is that first one must
understand they are indeed colonized, and this understanding disallows
them from settling for any ol’ concession that can come from a ‘local
dispute’. And here when he says local, We can put it in Our immediate
context and understand it to mean, ‘prison struggles’.
What does this mean? It essentially means that We utilize, and in
fact manufacture these ‘repeated demonstrations for their/our rights’ as
a means to politicize the masses. However, if We are organizing the
masses utilizing such demonstration alone We run into a few pitfalls.
The one which i’ll deal with here can be understood by the old saying,
“Be careful what you ask for you just might get it.” So in Our context,
in the prison movement, what happens to the momentum of the masses, of
the people as a whole if We as organizers manufacture a or a few
demonstrations and the administration actually concedes? If the masses
don’t understand the complexity of Our situation, that We’re colonized,
dehumanized, an alienated sub-class, the dregs of the society, and that
not only must these realities change, We must change within Ourselves,
and We must take part in changing these realities, then the masses the
people will quit the struggle after what they’ve perceived to be
success, and they’ll resume their normal ways of existence. This pattern
is counter-productive to the cause of revolution. We must at all times
possible keep the masses active, and that activity pertaining to the
struggle. Fanon said, “The colonized subject is at constant risk of
being disarmed by any sort of concession.”(4)
So an understanding of what Our issues are, colonialism,
neo-colonialism or racism, or individual wrong decision making, will
determine the strategies and tactics We take moving forward. If We begin
Our study of literature proceeding from the perspective that We’re
colonized nations of people, We study how anti-colonial struggles have
developed, failed and triumphed around the world. Furthermore We realize
that unless an action fundamentally eradicates Our colonial existence
than it is only a reform and does not solve Our fundamental problem(s)
which stem from Our thwarted development under neo-colonialism. Thus We
don’t even seek certain reforms, or concessions, and the ones We do are
to advance Our strategic goal.
The question now becomes again HOW to maintain the masses attention
before, during, and after demonstrations? The answer leads us to
ORGANIZATION. Those who have a study level of political vision must take
the initiative in forming real organized organizations. Within these
organizations leaders should allow for activities to be carried out by
the rank & file and must be sure that activities assigned to a
comrade are in alignment with the talents, interests, and abilities of
said comrade. In this way one keeps the masses involved and engaged. If
able weekly or bi-weekly meetings should be established. Minutes should
be kept of the meetings, meaning, write down what you’re doing, what
you’re talking about, what are the plans going forward, etc. At said
meetings each comrade should have a progress report, which entails what
they’ve been doing since the previous meeting.
If a comrade can draw, they should be assigned something to draw. If
a comrade can write, they should be assigned something to write. If a
comrade has a typewrite they should be tasked with typing up the
documents of the group. In fact it is good to take up one project that
the entire collective can attribute to. Say a pamphlet, of course you
need writers, We need art work, and We’ll need a typist, We’ll need some
donations of stamps to circulate it to publishers, and in this way every
one not only feels involved, but more importantly feels that
immeasurable feeling of accomplishment. In understanding the
complexities of Our class (lumpen) We must understand a lot of us have
not accomplished much of anything in the way of real world
accomplishments. A lot of us have been caged, stagnated in a state of
arrested development, since Our pre-teen and teen years, and thus are
persynally under-developed in many ways. This feeling of accomplishment
motivates and inspires one to continue to chase that good feeling, and
particularly when the feeling is derived from doing something
productive, it overtime alters a persyn internally, and this is what We,
as revolutionaries especially within the lumpen class want most.
Organizations in their many varieties are the vehicles of the people
and their struggle. Vanguard elements must seek to organize all aspects
of the people’s struggle, all aspects of the people’s lives under their
leadership and influence. This doesn’t mean everyone has to or will be a
member of a particular leading organizational body. What it means is
that organization must make itself seen & heard & felt in each
aspect of the people’s lives. The musician they listen to should be
expressing some theme derived from the organization. The farmer should
have the organization’s line on collectivizing agriculture and land. The
prisoner and their family should know that the prisoner, if deemed
capable can/will have a place of refuge, work, and re-humanization with
the organization. The womyn must know she has a group trustworthy and
capable to care for her kids collectively, and ensure her access to safe
abortion if necessary. Those in the LGBTQ community must feel at one
with the organization, enabled and empowered.
In a nutshell the proper organization will galvanize the popular
masses of the people, educating and organizing the most capable from
every and all sectors, and from there synthesize the aspirations, and
ambitions of the people’s struggle with practical and concrete measures
to realize these objectives.
With the formation of Texas T.E.A.M.O.N.E., the Texas USW re-branded,
We have formed the vehicle for the Texas prisoner’s struggle. We have
thus far established multiple wings which can/will be used to activate
the stored away genius of the masses. We have the legal wing for those
writ-writing jailhouse lawyers, a space for like minded cats to put
their heads together to attack certain aspects of the system that can
help us better build the movement. We have established, in its early
stages, a wimmins & LGBTQ wing, which is again an avenue for certain
people to step up and utilize what they already know how to do, in
concert with the rest of the organized body to get what We want. We’ve
established the Worker’s wing a lane where people around the state can
collectively struggle for worker’s rights, and incorporate those
struggles with the others and in combination gain bigger gains…We’ve
established and/or influenced the establishment of numerous committees
with the members therein playing roles in the ‘wings’ mentioned above.
In all this We’ve done well in applying lessons learned from
MIM(Prisons), and some of Our own experiences, thus synthesizing theory
& practice.
It must be said however that We have made many mistakes. We began
organizing as Fanon said, around demonstrations. We learned in practice,
some of us without ever having read Fanon, that the masses, and
Ourselves could easily get complacent after concessions are made. The
mistake came by not initially focusing on ideo-theoretical questions. We
had to learn that the truth of the matter that prior to any organization
the people in question must sit down and individually intake
information, after a certain amount of information has been accumulated
they must come together and discuss their findings and thoughts,
establish their points of unity, modes of organization, and other such
matters. Of course this isn’t to say that all organizations come
together like this. Many take on a more spontaneous approach to
development and this approach is observed in their style of work.
The re-occurring theme will always be political education, the need
for it will never cease, and the need to bring all the people to an
active level of consciousness, that is a level where they can be/are
active in the struggle.
In Our campaign to end RHU, it was selectively chosen for a multitude
of reasons. One of which is to show & prove We can shut it down if
& when We organize Ourselves and the people correctly. Because of
conditions that prevail in long-term isolation, many of the most radical
and politically astute people are in or have been in long-term
isolation, if We could multiply those types of elements, and then get
them out on the pop city We can make conditions more conductive to
politicizing more and more prisoners sending more and more of these to
the outside. To illustrate the contradiction that despite the various
levels of illegality present within the solitary confinement apparatus,
it still continues, and yet We’re the so-called criminals. There is of
course the fact that if We can eliminate the punitive answer for dissent
then We leave the enemy with little recourse once Our collective
resistance picks up. In this way We take a tool out of their tool kit.
However, the underlying goal is simply to shut seg down, what if they
just capitulated and gave us what We wanted? What becomes of the
struggle then? IF that was Our actual GOAL and not a MEANS TO AN END,
then Our entire struggle would have been defeated, at least temporarily,
not by bullets, or bombs, but by sugar-coated bullets, by concessions,
by reforms, which weaken the intensity of contradictions rather than
increase them. Mastering this delicate balance will determine the
successes and failures of Our organizing methods.
“At first disconcerted, they then realize the need to explain and
ensure the colonized’s consciousness does not get bogged down. In the
meantime the war goes on, the enemy organizes itself, gathers strength
and preempts the strategy of the colonized. The struggle for national
liberation is not a question of bridging the gap in one giant stride.
The epic is played out on a difficult, day-to-day basis and the
suffering endured far exceeds that of the colonial period. Down in the
towns the colonists have apparently changed. Our people are happier.
They are respected. A daily routine sets in, and the colonized engaged
in struggle, the people who must continue to give it their support,
cannot afford to give in. They must not think the objective has already
been achieved. When the actual objectives of the struggle are described,
they must not think they are impossible. Once again, clarification is
needed and the people have to realize where they are going and how to
get there. The war is not one battle but a succession of local
struggles, none of which, in fact, is decisive.” (5)
We’ve articulated previously that one’s method to organization is
logically dependent upon one’s goals, and also one’s circumstances or
conditions. It is Our view that the conditions and circumstances being
what they currently are in North amerika, the lumpen-prisoner class is a
highly dynamic entity. This class, Our class is also a vacillating
class, meaning its members can be like see-saws, moving from one side
(revolutionary) to another (reactionary) as their emotions and whims
take them. However, We assert that the other classes of North amerika
have become so bourgeoisified that the social vehicles for social
revolution are so slim to none that the last objectively repressed class
in amerika, the class that still has little to no stake in the bourgeois
democracy, is the lumpen.
We’ve reached this conclusion by analyzing the social forces and
classes within North amerikan society. Observing their material benefits
of being cozied up to their bourgeoisie. We’ve observed how and why
social movements only advance so far, being largely unwilling, or
sometimes unable to carry the struggle to higher levels, due to a
certain level of comfort in the status quo. And We logically look to Our
own class and see that these factors, though still present are vastly
diminished. Therefore, arriving at this class analysis We say that it is
most conductive to Our goal of social revolution to invest time and
resources into the lumpen in order to politicize them, and that
investment should be in proportion to the classes potential to lean
towards a revolutionary line and practice.
Now We reach the basic question, how do we maximize the dynamic
potential of this vacillating lumpen class? How do We ensure that the
majority of lumpen are progressive, neutral, or all the way
revolutionary and not objective enemies of the people? The answer again
points to ORGANIZATION. The only way to maximize the people’s initiative
in general and the lumpen in particular is to formulate them into
tightly organized units/groups. The lumpen struggle is a class struggle,
and thus We must organize the First World Lumpen on a class basis.
What does this mean, what does this look like? What is a class? There
is often mention of the prisoner class, or a particular class of
prisoners. However, very rarely do comrades utilize class in a Communist
framework.
A ‘Class’ 1) shares a common position in their relation to the means
of production; common economic conditions, relative to their labor and
appropriation of the social surplus; 2) that they must share a separate
way of life and cultural existence; 3) that they must share a set of
interests which are antagonistic to other classes; 4) that they must
share a set of social relations,;i.e. a sense of unity which extends
beyond local boundaries, and constitutes a national bond; 5) that they
must share a corresponding collective consciousness of themselves as a
‘class’, and; 6) they must create their own political organizations, and
pursue their interests as a ‘class’ (6)
We must also clarify that Marx differentiated between a ‘class in
itself’ and a ‘class for itself’. The difference between the two can be
summarized by saying that a class in itself simply shares a common
economic position but lacks the other listed criteria. Whereas a class
for itself is an entity fully organized and meeting all listed
criteria.
Therefore, what We are saying here is that We must organize in a
manner that will bring the lumpen from the level of class in itself, to
the elevated level of a class for itself. Our organization should be
modeled in a way to obtain the collective mobility, ingenuity, and
potential of the lumpen as a whole. We must ‘nationalize’ these
structures, meaning expand them state-to-state, with each one developing
its own relative strength locally.
The next question is how do We get there? How do we reach this point
of mass participation and organization? We’ll quote Fanon here:
“The duty of a leadership is to have the masses on their side. Any
commitment, however, presupposes awareness and understanding of the
mission to be accomplished, in short a rational analysis, no matter how
embryonic.” (7)
Here he stresses the basic conscious political education of the
people. We continue:
“The people should not be mesmerized, swayed by emotion or
confusion. Only [under-developed people] led by a revolutionary elite
emanating from the people can today empower the masses to step out
onto the stage of history.” (8)
I’ve put the above in bold to illuminate certain mistakes We often
make. We often capitulate to the weaknesses of the masses in Our good
intended desire to win them over. One of the weaknesses of this sort is
the masses never-ending desire to be entertained. This desire almost
always precedes from a desire to escape reality, and when done too much
establishes a state of complacency with oppression and exploitation and
undermines revolutionary or productive/progressive activity. When We
reach out to the masses We often make the mistake of trying to move them
into immediate action with a fiery speech, with the showing of the video
of the latest police killing, or whatever We believe may move them.
Although We have good intentions this method has hystorically proven
inadequate for carrying out revolution. Instead, because it relies on
emotions, which fluctuate, the activity it renders, if it renders
activity at all, is necessarily fluctuating, and vacillating.
We can see this in real time if We observe the ebbs and flows of
social movements in North amerika. George Floyd’s taped murder shook
people emotionally. It awakened pent up anger and frustration from many
sectors. People took that, and nothing else, no political education, no
political organization, no political vision, only anger and frustration
into their protests, and rebellions, and uprisings. Soon, the only
people left in the streets were politicized people. Anarchists,
Socialists, Abolitionists, and this sort. The masses however, had long
since retreated back into the comforts of their amerikan life of escape,
and leisure, isolating what was then allowed to be percieved as
extremist/terrorist elements.
This what Fanon calls the ‘weakness of spontaneity’ showed its face.
We must learn from this. In the quote above the ‘under-developed people’
are those masses of North amerikans. They reside in the land of excess,
material excess, but the land of political sleep-walkers. These are the
people Fanon says must be led by a REVOLUTIONARY elite. Now what does he
mean by this? Because of the under-developed state of the people’s
sociopolitical consciousness, those cadre elements who’ve struggled to
grasp the complex concepts of political-economy, and revolutionary
theory, although not desiring to be perceived as an elite, meaning above
the rest, they actually do represent a higher stage of development, and
in that context ONLY are they ‘elite’. The key phrase of the quote is
the necessity that these ‘elite’ emanate from the people, meaning they
must be one of their own, or perceived as such. The cadre-organizer must
take care to balance its level of understanding with the level of the
masses. There will be a contradiction between these masses and the
politicized persyn, there should be, but this should not be an
antagonistic contradiction. The people should be able to look to you for
example, not look at you in disdain. As one might do to someone who
thinks their shit don’t stink. Now we move to exactly HOW does these
cadres, EMPOWER THE MASSES,
“…On the condition that We vigorously and decisively reject the
formation of a national bourgeoisie, a caste of privileged individuals.
To politicize the masses is to make the nation (or class) in its
totality a reality for every citizen. To make the experience of the
nation (or class) the experience of every citizen.” (9)
“Only the massive commitment by men and wimmin to judicious and
productive tasks gives form and substance to this consciousness.”
(10)
“No leader, whatever their worth, can replace the will of the people,
and the national government, before concerning itself with international
prestige, must first restore dignity to all citizens, furnish
their minds, fill their eyes with human things and develop a human
landscape for the sake of its enlightened and sovereign
inhabitants.” (11)
It is Our intention as USW leaders in Texas, as Tx T.E.A.M.O.N.E.
cadre, to have Our organization act as a vehicle to organize and
mobilize and educate the masses of lumpen in North amerika. We hope you
will be inspired to join us.
Sources:
1) Wretched of the Earth, Frantz Fanon, pg.138,
chapt.3
2) Black Liberation Army Political Dictionary,
pg.4
3) Wretched of the Earth, Frantz Fanon, pg.63
chapt.2
4) ibid, pg.90, chapt.2
5) ibid, pg.90, chapt.2
6) see; Karl Marx, The 18th Brumaire; also Karl Marx, The
Holy Family;also, Meditations On Frantz Fanon’s Wretched of the Earth,
James Yaki Sayles, pg. 286
7) Wretched of the Earth, Frantz Fanon, pg.140,
chapt.3
i am taking the time to write this because i would like the
readership to know the truth about what’s been going on recently at the
TDCJ Allred unit in regards to COVID-19 and targeted repression of
socio-political leaders.
Many of you reading this are already aware of the spike in COVID
infections related to the emergence of the Omicron variant. Here at
Allred, particularly in the restrictive housing unit, which houses some
six hundred plus people in conditions internationally recognized as
inhumane, there has been a dangerous and life threatening pattern of
administrative negligence in regards to the effort (lack thereof) to
quell the spread of this aggressive virus.
Back in August of 2021, captive persyns held on the Allred RHU and
other units held a hunger-strike protest. One of the issues raised and
forwarded to unit, regional, and state level administrators was, ‘#10-
follow all CDC COVID-19 protocols’. Even after people have literally
starved themselves, the unit administration still has refused, and
neglected to implement, and re-implement basic CDC COVID guidelines.
On January 6th, Comrade Ozomatli, co-founder, and key figure of the
TX TeamOne organization, was strategically targeted for harassment, by
way of an unlawful search and seizure, and purposely exposed to
COVID-19. On the above date Ozomatli was taken from his cell and placed
in a holding cage in the building’s main hallway for five hours!
i am not too good with math and measurements, but i know the cage in
question is absolutely too small to place a full grown human in for that
amount of time. There is no where to relieve ones self, not anywhere to
comfort ones self. Regardless, Ozomatli remained in this holding cage
while a multitude of agents of repression searched his usual abode. i
raise the question, what possibly could they be looking for, and not
find if it were there, in such a small space, for such an extended
period of time?
To even begin to analyze this question We must first point out that
the incident on January 6th was the second such incident targeting this
same comrade in the last few months. Previously the only thing
confiscated were the comrade’s contact information written down on
various papers and inside books. On January 6th, the comrade’s entire
cache of persynal property was confiscated, and he would remain
property-less for a week.
During this ordeal, Ozomatli was placed in danger, recklessly, of
catching COVID-19. Agents of repression who escorted him from and
returned him to his cell weren’t following proper COVID guidelines.
Afterwards, in the matter of days, a new COVID outbreak ensued on the
RHU building, and unsurprisingly the outbreak has been largely centered
on the pod which Ozomatli inhabits. When other prisoners on other pods
show symptoms they’re re-housed on the same pod as Ozomatli.
Furthermore, prisoners are being constantly moved around, leaving and
being brought to the unit and thus constantly exposing more and
spreading more and more COVID. Daily so-called ‘integrity checks’ are
still in operation, along with unnecessary cell extractions, and are
also inducing the spread of COVID.
Administrators are refusing to test or even symptom check prisoners,
as was done in the mid 2020 days of the pandemic. There’s this untrue
belief that the pandemic is over, despite the fact that less than 70% of
people (prisoners & guards combined) are vaccinated. An untold
number of prisoners have mass filed grievances, but of course appealing
to the same source of Our predicament has rendered little to no
results.
i would be remiss if i didn’t acknowledge the underlying political
undertones of Ozomatli’s being harassed, and also pinpoint other similar
patterns adhered to by the unit administration sometimes at the behest
of the state level agents of repression.
Ozomatli, as i have said, is a leader with the Texas TeamOne
Organization. TeamOne is an organization of politicized prisoners
dedicated to politicizing prisoners and consolidating those in TX into a
class that can actively struggle for its interests, as well as, and more
importantly, reinsert people into the larger society as assets to
communities which are all too often neglected in the realms of social,
political and economic development.
Ozomatli is an abolitionist, a Chican@, and a leader that leads by
example. Thus it goes without saying that Ozomatli’s very existence as a
Chican@ revolutionary imprisoned in tekkk$a$‘s gulags, is seen as a
threat to the enemy-state and the prison administration, and this is the
underlying politics of his harassment. Ozomatli has recently been
working with other comrades and formations, independent of his work with
TeamOne, in mobilizing a Texas prisoners’ political action committee, it
is during the time span of this work in that sphere that the
administration has targeted him.
The clearly politically motivated repression tactics, in a supposedly
‘free’ country, do not stop there. i myself have been a constant target
for similar tactics of intimidation, and retaliation. i have been
‘sentenced’ essentially to LIFE in TDCJ’s RHU. This repression came on
the immediate back of Our collective hunger-strike effort in August
(thru September 9th). i was seen in absentia by the State Classification
Committee four days later. i was denied release to general population,
after having been without any disciplinary incident in over four years
time. The reasons given for this miscarriage of justice was that i am
staff assaultive, and prone to possess weapons, and the main one,
written in large bold letters, was the fact that i am currently serving
an unjust sentence of Life Without Parole. The third reason was provided
as the main reason for my denial of release. The catch is that i can
not, on my own accord, alter my sentence therefore this decision
summarily acts to confine me in isolation for the remainder of my
sentence (life).
Of course the timing and the fact that these issues have never been
previously brought up at these hearings, testifies to the fact that the
decision is a retaliatory measure being used to quell the momentum being
built up among the captives here and around the state. IT WILL NOT
WORK!
Other measures of retaliation such as illegal mail
tampering/disappearance are common place. Outgoing letters of even a
neutral nature take up to two months to even leave the unit, and
incoming mail, including books and other packages have the same waiting
time. The former mailroom supervisor was made to resign for ‘undisclosed
reasons’, yet mailroom negligence, and deliberate tampering continues
even under the watchful eyes of one, Major Murdock, whose been made to
keep eyes on mailroom staff.
By no means is this all the repressive tactics utilized by
administrators, nor is it only TeamOne affiliates, or political
prisoners. For the sake of time however We will hold these slights as a
small example. it is important i say that none of this is meant to
discourage activism and justified rebellion. In fact the contrary is the
intent. i assert here that if more of the captive populace took
liberatory ideals and practices more seriously We could actually begin
to pose a threat, not only to the prison institution, but the
established order as We know it. As George said:
“If we can reach each other through all of this, fences, fear,
concrete, steel, barbed wire, guns, the hystory will commend us for a
great victory won…” - Soledad Brother
As a sign of solidarity, We call on the public to report the
administrative negligence surrounding Allred’s handling of COVID-19 to
the following; (prisoners should write complaints regarding their own
units):
Dept. of Health & Human Services, region6,
regional director
Marjorie McColl Petty
1301 Young St. ste#1124
Dallas, Tx 75202
or call 214-767-3301
Also, outside supporters should be sure to make a report to the
following:
David Blackwell, regional director-region 5 @ 806-296-4500(ext
400)
In the forthcoming piece We would like to point out the particular
inter-connectedness of many of the enemy-states’ recent
counter-offensive to Our collective progress. When We speak to
‘progress,’ we’re speaking to the strategic goal of establishing a
national prison movement - a revolutionary oriented prison movement. A
national revolutionary prison movement that is intrinsically connected
with a national revolutionary oriented united front on the outside. In
this piece We’ll attempt to illuminate to the reader that recent and
present ‘security’ and censorship methods enacted by the enemy-state are
indeed counter-offensives and are intrinsically inter-connected both
outside and inside.
Any conscious observer will readily concede that in recent years,
particularly within the prisons across the empire there has been an
increase in censorship tactics. In some cases these methods border on
extreme.
For all intents and purposes We can understand that the current
prison movement took its first primitive steps forward towards
nationalization with the hystoric hunger strikes organized in California
from 2011-2013. The underlying blueprint for these actions, the
Agreement to End Hostilities, showcased the way forward for many around
the empire. Furthermore, and what’s harder to measure, is the amount of
inspiration that those actions initiated.
We have a small window into this reality, as it has been recorded
that prison officials in other states, by the advent of the third and
final strike, began pleading with CDCR to settle the issues the comrades
in Califas raised, as they had began dealing with similar unrest in
their state’s prisons.
Here it may be necessary to pinpoint that the prison movement as We
know it today didn’t begin in 2011. Rather there have been other
organizations that have connected the functions of prison to the human
rights movement. A notable organization is the Human Rights Coalition
led by elder BLA and BPP veteran political prisoner/prisoner of war
Russel Maroon Shoatz. [Rest in Power, Shoatz died on 17 December 2021,
at age 78, less than 2 months after eir release from prison with
cancer.] However, beginning with the Califas hunger strikes there was a
substantial qualitative leap forward in both participation and interest,
inside and outside countrywide.
Moving forward towards the 2016 National Prison strike; the
collective action, along with its subsequent 2018 sequel, did wonders in
nationalizing the Prison Human rights movement gaining corporate media
attention and subsequently grasping the attention of previously
uninterested parties. Some of these parties were prison officials, C.O.
unions, police unions, and others intrinsically woven into the criminal
injustice apparatus. Others were concerned persyns: a new generation of
abolitionists began to spring up, usually deriving from the college
campus sector. The spokesperson of the national prison strikes, Sis.
Amani Sawari, along with imprisoned activists within key organizations
like Jailhouse Lawyers Speaks, Free Alabama Movement, and many in
Califas helped bring the key “Ten Demands” of the National Prison strike
to the mainstream as these issues began to be debated among presidential
candidates throughout 2019 and 2020.
Before We move on it is important to pinpoint here that the Prison
Human Rights Movement, has had and continues to have much stratification
within its ranks. The first and major stratification point derives from
differences in political line surrounding the role of the movement.
Similar to the days of the Civil Rights movement, when the question
of ‘non-violence’ was seen by some as a philosophical or theological
commitment, while for others it was simply a tactic, one to be discarded
if/when it proved un-useful. The current prison movement has many of the
same components. While there are many more revolutionary oriented
groups/persyns who see the success of the prison movement with the
advent of voting rights, or other prison reforms. Instead many of these
groups agree that prisons can not be reformed, as it is an intrinsic
part of the state apparatus. These groups agree that revolutionary
consciousness and commitment are the most meaningful things that can
come of the prison movement.
Simultaneously, in recent years there has been an upsurge in radical
activity on the outside. Much like in the prison movement there are many
youthful combatants, and much decentralized activities. The fact that
these movements have risen parallel among each other should not be
considered a coincidence, nor should the corresponding and parallel
counter-offensives be seen as unrelated coincidences.
As BlackLivesMatter and abolitionist praxis protests arose around the
country, particularly in the aftermath of the George Floyd murder,
reactionary lawmakers (persuaded by reactionary constituents) began
implementing new repressive laws to quell protest. Federal lawmakers,
led by the Trump-Pence duo led the way and most states followed suit.
Such laws, or rather counter-offensives, included making the blocking of
traffic, as had been done repeatedly in recent years, a first degree
felony. In states like Tekkk$a$ that means that such protests would be
punishable with sentences of 5-99 years!
Also, in a move to revamp Black Liberation era counter-offensives,
federal legislators (followed by various states) felonized crossing
state boundaries to partake in protests. Some students of the movement
may recall that this measure was first enacted against Imam Jamil
Al-Amin, the former H. Rap Brown of SNNC, BPP, and RNA at the apex of
the Black Liberation struggle.
These are only a few key examples of the criminalization of radical
dissent as it pertains to those on the outside. However, C.O. unions,
DOC headquarters, and various reactionaries began their countervailing
efforts on radical and revolutionary forces on the inside first.
In the almost immediate aftermath of the 2016 National Prison Strike,
DOC’s around the empire all began complaining of the same issue: an
illusionary influx of drugs coming through the mail. Reading from the
limited research materials i have in my cell, it seems that the
counter-offensive attacking prisoner mail under the pretext of a major
drug influx began in 2017, and the first states to initiate this
offensives were Indiana, Pennsylvania, and Florida. States like
Tekkk$a$, initiated a different sort of attack on prisoner
correspondence by severely
limiting indigent mail in 2015. However, relating to the “influx of
drugs” ruse, many other states have since followed suit. Another related
component to the attack on prisoner mail is the wide spread switchover
to digitized mail services. States have begun denying all physical snail
mail and mail that have implemented this repressive tactic have also by
and large prevented prisoners from receiving books from “unauthorized”
vendors, basically mandating that reading material be sent from a sole
approved vendor.
All these measures described above are ‘on trend’ among the various
states around the empire, meaning these measures are likely to be making
their way to a prison near you. What We’re experiencing now is a proving
ground for the state, in which they’ve been observing to see which
countervailing measures will stir the masses the most, which ones will
survive the initial jailhouse lawyer onslaughts.
Again, it must be understood that the major drug influx cited by
(all) these state DOC’s is illusionary. That isn’t to say drugs aren’t
in prison, but they’re flowing in the same frequency as prior to 2016
(national prison strike). So why now? Why suddenly the state-to-state
focused attack on prisoner correspondence, and the digitizing of mail,
only after 2016? The answer points to a New-COINTELPRO type program
(NCTP). Part and parcel with this NCTP is the widespread, coordinated
countervailing attacks against progressive and revolutionary prisoners.
From Califas, Oregon, Nevada to New Mexico, Indiana to Pennsylvania;
from Virginia to North Carolina, South Carolina to Florida, Alabama to
Tekkk$a$, dissident prisoners are under attack. These attacks range from
down right malicious assaults to poisoning of food/water supplies, from
permanent solitary placement to the systemic silencing of these
militants. In places like TDCJ’s Allred Unit, which Texas uses to
isolate and torture political prisoners and captive journalists. They’ve
employed a specialized individual, ex-military/ex-cop, to survey
‘specific inmates’ mail and book deliveries. Is it clear yet?
As the 2020 summer uprisings raged on into the late fall in some
areas of the empire the Trump-Pence regime had already began laying the
foundation to begin the mass warehousing of political dissidents on the
outside utilizing some of the new laws mentioned above. As these
protests raged on, political radicals have filled up prisons and jails
around the empire. Do you all understand what this could mean for the
prison movement?
The last time in movement hystory that We experienced a mass influx
of militants and revolutionaries entering the prisons was during the
Black Liberation era (late 1960’s into the 1970’s). Atiba Shanna, and
the New Afrikan Prisoner’s Organization did a superb job illustrating
the effect political prisoners entering the prisons in mass had on the
already bubbling prison movement:
“As a result of the repression exercised upon the struggle taking
place outside the walls in the late sixties and early seventies, leaders
and activists in these struggles were captured and imprisoned. These
were the political prisoners and prisoners of war. Their initial
imprisonment was a result of consciously motivated political
actions.
“The escalation of struggle outside the walls also resulted in a
significant increase in the number of politicized prisoners already
inside the walls… We can admit that the economic and socio-psychological
ties that these politicized prisoners had with the oppressive system
were such that they represent the most conscious element among us - the
most conscious, that is, of the presently waging undeclared war between
themselves and those who rule. Thus, they are the most receptive and
responsive to the need to become ‘the people in uniform.’ BUT, their
politicization resulted primarily from their being members of oppressed
nations!” (1)
The people who are responsible for holding people in cages, and
keeping us in cages, are acutely aware of the possible and very likely
culture shock that is to overtake U.$. prisons that experience an influx
of political radicals. Never forget that in the time frame mentioned
above by Comrade Atiba, that the activities of the BLA and other similar
formations eventually led to the U.$. moving to build more newer, more
‘secure,’ and high tech prisons designed to keep Our political prisoners
and prisoners of war within them, and to prevent anymore political
prisoners of war from arising from among the captive populace.
Therefore i concur that We’re currently experiencing such
countervailing efforts by the enemy-state so that they may monitor
captive militants, their networks and families (with the design to turn
them into captive militants themselves) and prevent the rise of a more
militant, more ideologically consolidated, more revolutionary national
prison movement that is intrinsically inter-woven with a more militant,
ideologically consolidated, more revolutionary outside united front.
By this point We hope it is clear that just as the prison movement
and the movement on the other side of the walls have a dialectical
relationship; the enemies on both sides of the wall also have a
dialectical relationship, they also work together to the detriment of
Our progress. As more revolutionary oriented comrades advance the
national prison movement forward, repression will increase in intensity.
We must begin to operate in a way that one’s struggles become all Our
struggle. If comrades in one state are being overly repressed We must
band together in multiple states, letting the pig power structure know
“WE SEE YOU AND WE WON’T STAND FOR IT: 1LOVE 1STRUGGLE!” We must reach
such a level of organization and operation, and We are on the cusp of it
NOW. I encourage progressive and revolutionary captives to begin
dialoging, corresponding, with each other. Seek out the means to do so.
We must keep each other abreast to the local happenings from unit to
unit, state to state. Comrades that is why publications like Under
Lock & Key, San Francisco Bay View, and others are so
important. However, We aren’t utilizing these platforms to their
greatest extent if We aren’t constantly sending in reports, articles,
informing other comrades on what’s happening. And We must also begin to
support these institutions more effectively as a whole. I challenge all
ULK subscribers to raise at least 10 stamps to mail to
MIM(Prisons)! Which state can raise the most funds? TX where ya’ll at!?
Those 10 stamps can go a long way towards prisoner organizing and
educational efforts.
RE-BUILD TO WIN
1. Notes from a New Afrikan P.O.W. journal #1 by Atiba
Shanna
In the recent history surrounding Texas prison reform there has been
an erasure surrounding the plight of those held captive in solitary
confinement as it’s practiced by the Texas Department of Criminal
Justice’s(TDCJ) Restrictive Housing Units(RHU). There are numerous
groups and persyns who proclaim that they advocate for the interests of
the Texas prisoner class, but their class interests prevents them from
aligning themselves with the objective struggles of this prison system’s
cast-a-ways in RHU.
Many of these groups whom i’ve had the choice opportunity to dialogue
with via correspondence, or have spoken to captive representatives of
these groups, have fallen into the keeper’s trap of the ‘violent’
offender as the new boogey man. This line of thought ultimately concedes
that those of us trapped in these isolation tombs deserve such
conditions, that we’re beyond redemption. Sometimes, such persyns spew
the rhetoric that We in solitary are actually well-off, and living a
privileged existence. They say, ‘your food is brought to you, your
laundry, and everything else’ They assert that all We have to do all day
and night is basically chill, and We should be appreciative. Some
officers express a form of jealously, that We don’t pay bills, yet have
a handful of privileges, and seemingly unlimited downtime.
What people like this do not understand is that solitary confinement
as it is practiced via TDCJ’s RHU, is an artificial environment. By
artificial this means that it is an unnatural habitat. It is unnatural
to relinquish all civil and domestic responsibility from humankind. We
must also pose the question as to whether or not such circumstances are
productive for the individual or the society? Of course not! Who
benefits from the cultivation of a sub-class of people who’re forcefully
and entirely dependent upon everyone else in the society, and do not
provide any sort of productive function in return? When humans
cultivated civilization the world over and social responsibility was
entrusted to those of the peer group, these responsibilities were not
merely for the betterment of the social cohesiveness, but also for the
better and more balanced function of the individual as well. In short,
humyns need to be engaged in meaningful and proactive activities in
order to function at their highest levels of consciousness.
The conditions of TDCJ’s solitary confinement debilitate rather than
rehabilitate thousands of people each day. i’ve spent 8 1/2 of the last
ten years in solitary confinement. At no point in this time frame have i
ever had the opportunity to take part in any form of organized
instruction. i entered these isolation tombs as a politically ignorant
cast away. i’ve evolved, and redeemed myself via my own independent
efforts, without the interference or assistance of my keepers. Despite
the state’s stated mission to have the best interests of the general
public at heart, their true motives and intentions for their warehousing
of so many prisoners is clear. This class of people who at any time find
themselves confined in RHU are intended to be kept in an unending state
of dependence and politico-economic alienation. This is even, and
especially, after release. It is with this notion that i assert that it
is this class of prisoners whom embody ‘paper-citizens’ in amerika, as
coined in the ‘New Afrikan Declaration of Independence’.
New Afrikan revolutionary nationalist political prisoner Mutope
Duguma articulated one profound statement, ‘Ask yourselves why is it
that so many New Afrikans who have a strong political line just happen
to be locked up in solitary confinement units. We know they are not
terrorists, We know they are not gang members & We know that they
are not criminals.’
The organization and movement proactively mobilizing Texas’ captive
population is known as Tx TEAMONE. We’re an organization founded for and
by the captives themselves, not by opportunistic outside (or inside)
elements, but by proletarian conscious prisoners. One of Our main
tactics in Our Mission of elevating the socio-political commitment and
awareness of Texas’ lumpen class, is the prisoner-led mobilizing for the
abolition of solitary confinement as it’s practiced by TDCJ’s RHU.
A Case Study on Why RHU must
Go!
Beginning with the general and moving to the particular, a conscious
observer can readily notice that around the empire, from state to state,
politically active prisoners are being held in the most barbaric, and
unthinkably repressive conditions imaginable. Almost invariably these
captives are sitting in solitary confinement cells. The few that aren’t
are being shipped from state to state, sea to shining sea in a federal
effort to ostracize these captives from their political base(s).
Solitary confinement advances the same purpose within each prison
facility. A politically active captive’s political base begins with
their peers whom are also in captivity. The productive revolutionary
behind the walls is the one who’s successful in organizing their peers
behind a revolutionary program. (think; Attica; Angola BPP etc)
Therefore, the tactical use of solitary confinement to quell
revolutionary organizing has been a re-occurring reality in prisons
around the world in the imperialists’ task of keeping the masses of
people blind, deaf, and dumb to the socio-political truths of Our
collective predicament as oppressed nation people in the era of
imperialism.
Whether We look to Califas, where revolutionary New Afrikans were
kept warehoused in SHU’s, or in Indiana were Bro. Kwame Shakur is being
tortured in a SHU, or the domestic exile of Shaka Shakur, or the
thousands of unnamed, lower-profiled politically active prisoners, New
Afrikan or otherwise, it is clear that long-term and indefinite solitary
confinement is being utilized to strategically remove political dissent
off the face of the amerikkkan empire.
In tekkk$a$, there is a long hystory of not only warehousing
political dissenters, but assassinating them. In June of 2000, innocent
death row captive, Shaka Sankofa s/n Garry Graham, was murdered by the
state of tekkk$a$. Not only had evidence came out that Shaka was
innocent but he, unlike most of death row prisoners or prisoners in
general, had become politicized while in captivity. Garry Graham
revolutionized his self into Shaka Shakur, a New Afrikan revolutionary.
Consequently, tekkk$a$ saw him as better off dead than alive as a
freedom fighter. Six years later Shaka’s comrade Derrick Frazier, aka
Hasan Shakur, another innocent Black captive whom while on tekk$a$’
death row revolutionized his self into a New Afrikan ‘revolutionary
socialist to the 10th power’. He too was subsequently executed on Black
August 31st 2006, while serving as both the founder of the Human Rights
Coalition-TX chapter, and Minister of Human Rights of the then-named New
Afrikan Black Panther Party. Lastly, yet not for lack of more victims,
there is the case of Sandra Bland, a New Afrikan womyn and activist who
was mysteriously found dead in a tekkk$a$ county jail.
i think it is logical to pose the question that, if the deceased
freedom fighters had not been politically active New Afrikans, would
they’ve still met the same fate? For We know and it has been
substantiated by the recent
International Jurist’s verdict, that there has been/is a systemic
genocide against New Afrikan, and indigenous people in north amerika. We
also know that those who possess a revolutionary orientation are the
people’s only hope of defeating this genocide, and of course this
reality renders such political prisoners as prone to enemy attack and
sabotage.
tekkk$a$ has warehoused and isolated political prisoners in what is
now called RHU for decades. Revolutionary Chican@ political prisoner
Xinachtli has been in such a predicament for over 20 years. Xinachtli
was signaled out for assassination by sheriffs in Brewster County
tekkk$a$, for his legal advocacy for a Chican@ death row prisoner who in
turn wasn’t killed by the state. Xinachtli defended his self by
disarming the pig sent to murder him and for exercising his humyn right
to self-defense this comrade has languished in prison for over two
decades, most of which in solitary confinement.
Recently officials of tekkk$a$’ prisons have identified Texas TEAMONE
cadre as ‘enemy combatants’ and singled key members out for indefinite
solitary confinement (for those who weren’t already serving indefinite
terms), unprovoked cell raids, in which the only confiscated materials
are ones’ outside contact information. Cadre have been victims of
harassment by illegally confiscating typewriters of journalist comrades,
illegally disappearing mail, and upping the level of publication
censorship – specifically that which is politically orientated.
In a recent twist, this writer was recently sentenced to ‘life
without parole’ in solitary confinement. After some officials had
elected to release Triumphant from solitary, those in the know regarding
ey’s political orientation and activity demanded this comrade be
retained in such conditions. Even going as far as scratching out the
handwriting which stated that Triumphant shall be released. When asked
for the reasoning for said continued confinement, officials listed
‘LWOP’. Of course this sentence, placed on Triumphant’s shoulders
unjustly, will not remove itself from reality in six months when the
next arbitrary hearing is to take place. Therefore, the state has
announced that it intends to confine, isolate, and destroy, yet one more
New Afrikan political prisoner in order to perpetuate amerikkka’s
genocidal campaign against the oppressed nations of the globe.
In case it still is not clear to you. All freedom fighting peoples,
those outside and inside, have in their best interest to work with TX
TEAMONE as We struggle to politicize tekkk$a$’ captive population, while
doing just that We are even more determined and justified in Our quest
to abolish long-term and indefinite solitary confinement in TX prisons
and prisons around the globe.
In ULK #73, MIM (Prisons) published one of my articles
entitled: Da
Struggle Continues: We Still Charge Genocide. In said article i
announced the coming of the international tribunal 2021, which took
place October 22-25, and has now passed. In this article we will look to
a few of the events that have taken place since that previous article,
and how it pertains to Our plans going forward.
For those who do not know, the verdict given by the International
Jurists was an emphatic GUILTY of all charges. These
charges include:
Police racism and violence
Mass incarceration
Political prisoners and prisoners of war
Environmental racism
Health inequalities
In the wake of the hystoric verdict leaders of this campaign
announced the next step forward being the establishment of what they’ve
coined a ‘People’s Senate’. This infrastructure is a key stepping stone
for New Afrikan, Indigenous, and Chican@ nation citizens to formulate
the common unity needed to eventually conduct a U.N. supervised
plebiscite, which will finally legitimize Our quest for
Self-determination.
Ultimately, that is the reason the tribunal was so important. With
the advent of the guilty verdict the political line that seeks
revolutionary nationalism for internal semi-colonies in north amerika
has been legitimized within the eyes of the international community, and
the United Nations (U.N.).
While Our struggle(s) have long been legitimate in Our own eyes, when
establishing an independent nation it is prerequisite that a nation gain
international diplomatic support. In the past New Afrikans have had such
support. However in recent decades such support has waned as New
Afrikans have become increasingly more bourgeoisified, and more and more
assimilated. As a result other countries have been hesitant to step out
on a limb in support of amerikanized ‘negroes’.
Now with the advent of the People’s Senate We will possess the
infrastructure to properly seek out reparations, and independent
nationhood. Up until this point the reparation push in this present
landscape has been one which revolutionary nationalists would be
hard-pressed to support. This was because the institutions and
hand-picked persyns chosen as the voice for reparations movement were
amerikanized negroes, seeking further assimilation into amerika,
utilizing the economic plight of segments of New Afrika to advance their
own agendas. With the People’s Senate, We will guarantee a people’s
voice, and a people’s control of the direction of Our collective
movement. Incarcerated persyns may also take part in this People’s
Senate. You should contact the Jericho Movement for further details on
how to participate. # Power Moves
The above-mentioned international tribunal took place in Harlem, at
the Malcolm X and Betty Shabazz center, which is the exact location Bro.
Malcolm X. was assassinated.
Now, 56ADM (56 years After the Death of Malcolm), those men who’ve
languished behind bars falsely framed by the U.S. government for Bro.
Malcolm’s murder were officially exonerated 18 November 2021. This long
overdue exoneration came about after a February 2020 Netflix
documentary, Who Killed Malcolm X aired, and its startling
conclusion initiated calls from the Shabazz family to re-open the case
of Bro. Malcolm’s assassination. The basic conclusion is that the actual
shooter, along with others present were working on behalf of the FBI,
when they murdered Malcolm X on the orders of their masters.
Of course to many this is not ‘news’, but merely a confirmation of a
long-held belief. What is outrageous to this writer is that with the
government basically admitting to assassinating one of the greatest and
best leaders We’ve had for the New Afrikan liberation cause, the level
of outrage is basically zero. Brother Malcolm once said that We have
gone from a race of warriors and untamed runaways, to a race of
complicit house n___ers. Sad, but true. When the U.S. can for all
intents and purposes admit to assassinating Malcolm X, a liberatory
leader, when Kyle Rittenhouse can be found not guilty (more on this
later) and there is no outrage or sustained resistance, when Ahmaud
Arbery’s murderers begin trial and not ONE New Afrikan persyn is
selected on their jury in a county that is 25% New Afrikan (more on this
later) and there is no outrage nor sustained resistance, We’ve become
complicit in Our own oppression. We’ve capitulated to the will of Our
enemies. WILL THE REAL NEW AFRIKANS PLEASE STAND
UP!!!???
AS if Our case for Black secession, and a socialist Republic of New
Afrika weren’t clearly justified, events like Kyle Rittenhouse’s
acquittal, and the lack of Black jurors in the case of Ahmaud Arbery
underscore grievances issued by generations of neo-colonized Afrikans in
amerika. What We as a people must overstand is that these issues do not
persist because of racism. Malcolm X wasn’t assassinated by racism, but
by a corrupt power structure. Kyle Rittenhouse’s murderer of two Black
Lives Matter supporters and the wounding of a third, wasn’t acquitted by
a racist, nor because of racism, as his victims were white themselves.
Instead he was acquitted because the political orientation that led to
his actions (settler-colonial imperialism) is part and parcel with the
political identity of the corrupt power structure. And finally, the
murderers of Ahmaud Arbery are being tried by a jury of their peers,
while New Afrikans have been pleading for the same consideration for
literally centuries, because their actions were in furtherance of the
corrupt power structure’s sustained power. That is while some of us have
been struggling to ‘FREE THE LAND!’, a New Afrikan is unable to run
FREELY in the LAND. The devilish cowards that murdered brother Ahmaud
reinforce the colonial relationship between New Afrikans and the white
settler amerikans.
The time has come to move away from BLACK LIVES MATTER to the NEW
BLACK LIBERATION MOVEMENT. We are not fighting racism, We’re fighting
oppressive and exploitative POWER. In order to ever be FREE, in order to
have a REAL influence on whether or not incidents like those mentioned
here ever happen again, We must obtain POWER, and We must exercise POWER
in non-exploitative or oppressive manners. To accomplish this, the
formula is simple, We must organize now for people’s WAR, Vita Wa Watu,
to seize power, and implement socialist (non exploitative/oppressive)
power.
Sanyika Shakur, formerly known as ‘Monster’ Kody Scott, author of
three books and numerous articles, legendary street gang figure,
self-transformed New Afrikan revolutionary and communist, passed over to
meet the ancestors, Black August 2021. Sanyika was only 57 years of
age.
Sanyika is most known for his auto-biography, Monster, which
also was produced as a film. What most don’t know is that even at the
time of writing that book, Sanyika had begun what would become a
life-long struggle to evolve not only his thinking but to have his
social practice match his level of theoretical prowess.
Sanyika’s story is a testimonial to what a lot of us, lumpen, go
through. He battled drug addiction, he struggled to navigate between his
evolving socio-political awareness and the loyalties embedded within him
during decades of hard-core gang-bangin’. In the end he stands as both
an inspirational, as well as a cautionary example, for those of us
lumpen who seek self-evolution, and revolutionary transformation. He is
an inspiration, showing how far We can bring ourselves with Our sheer
will power. When the brother entered prison in 1985, he was functionally
illiterate. A handful of years later he would author the first of three
books. This in itself is quite a feat.
However, Sanyika’s greatest feat was his determination to unify, and
organize gang members, and former gang members into revolutionary
formations. These formations he founded or took part in included, C.C.O.
(Consolidated Crip Organization), C.R.I.P.(s) (Clandestine Revolutionary
Internationalist Party (of Soldiers)), August Third Communist
Organization, and the New Afrikan People’s Liberation Army.
Sanyika obviously wished to be remembered, not as a gang bangin’
Crip, but as a New Afrikan revolutionary nationalist and communist who
sought to unify his people, New Afrikan lumpen, and he was thankful for
the ‘overstanding’ (as he would say) he was able to grasp due to the
knowledge and wisdom passed down by his/ Our ancestors. For his chosen
name, Sanyika, means ‘Unifier of the people’, while Shakur means ‘most
thankful’ in Ki-Swahili and Arabic respectfully.
In including the memory of this comrade-brother in Our newsletter,
Power Moves, We wish to call Our readers to dedicate self to
self-transformation, and more specifically to transform the criminal
mentality into a revolutionary mentality. In order to ‘Re-Build To Win’,
We must first Re-Build Ourselves. By this We mean, We must rectify and
re-orientate Ourselves with new and improved values, social circles, and
social habits. Without these traits of evolution, there will be no
revolution, if We think otherwise We’re merely kidding Ourselves.
REST IN POWER COUSIN
Sources: 1)Re-Build!: A New Afrikan Independence Movement
Periodical, Special Commemorative Issue, Black August
2021.
[This is re-printed with the author’s permission, from the internal
prison newsletter Power Moves, a publication of Black Independence
Taking Root (BITR), an organization taking root in Texas Koncentration
Kamps.]
For over a decade MIM(Prisons) has offered correspondence study
courses to help those trying to transform themselves inside the belly of
the beast. Yet, we struggle to keep these Serve the People Programs
running and ask those on the outside to contact us to help out. This
winter we will be releasing a Revolutionary 12 Step program that is
focused on transforming yourself from the lumpen/criminal lifestyle, to
the committed revolutionary. The first printing will go out to USW
leaders across the country to help implement self-transformation
programs in prisons and on the street.
When my brother first articulated the vision for the new venture,
Forever Protecting the Community, and his general desire to uplift Our
people, We were in a supermax prison, in the middle of nowhere. He
himself had just days prior been released from a similar prison and had
come to visit me. It was Our first time seeing each other in six years,
since my trial, in which i was unjustly sentenced to life without the
possibility of parole.
Thick, shatter proof glass separated Us in the visitation booth. i
expressed through the phone, between static, my approval and tipped my
head in acknowledgment of the self-development and maturation process
that i knew had led up to this point in his life. i knew the process
intimately, as i myself have undergone it as well in my own way. It is a
process of social and mental growth that many before us have gone
through. It is a process that sees one evolve from a state of self and
socially induced ignorance, towards a state of a more completely
functional humyn being, one who is engaged with the community and world
around them, being productive therein. It is this way which We were
meant to live among each other, but through the process of
social-economic development, from a communal economy, into a hyper
capitalistic society, We’ve become a mutation of Our true selves.
Individualism dominates collectivism, greed has taken the place of
contentment. Being as We are born and bred in such a world it takes a
process of re-education and re-commitment in order to shun these
counter-productive characteristics and act in the furtherance of
productivity and communal upliftment.
Sometime later after Our visit, Prisoner A asked me to make a
contribution to a collection of short stories that he wished to publish
under the banner of Forever Protecting the Community. He stated that his
vision was to correct those of Our homeboys behind enemy lines with the
movement that was/is in process in the streets. As it is, when Our
people are held captive by the state they’re often forgotten about, or
merely become just another hashtag, as the world moves on. Additionally
he figured, and i agreed, that brothers such as myself who are living
the effects of social alienation, political disengagement/dependence,
and economic insecurities, the combination of which has led to lives
tarnished by and through captivity, should have much to express in
regards to the direction of Our communities and Our nation (that is the
nation of Black people in Amerika which i refer to as New Afrikans).
In responses to my brother’s request i consciously refused to
contribute a ‘short story’. Reason being, short stories are fictional,
while the subject matter surrounding the necessity of Forever Protecting
the Community is far from fiction. It is real life that drugs and STD’s
have ravished Our communities. It is real life that millions of New
Afrikans – Black children, wimmin, and men are currently in captivity or
under the ‘supervision’ of the state. It is real life that the public
school system is failing Our youth, not providing the necessary tools to
live a self-sufficient life but only to enter the ranks of the wage
slaves. It is real life that in areas which We call ‘Our community’,
property ownership among New Afrikan people is less than 5%, this number
includes homes, commercial real estate, and ‘essential infrastructure’.
These property relations are significant, as it is this factor which
creates ‘social alienation, political dis-engagement/dependence, and
economic insecurities’, so it is real, very real, that many of us live
and die without having owned Our living spaces, and under the rules of
Amerikan settler-colonialism and imperialism, it is increasingly
difficult to own Our very identities, both collectively and
individually.
So because this is Our real life, and has been for sometime, i felt
what was/is needed more than mere entertainment is some ‘real talk’ as
it pertains to ‘us’. Therefore i’ve offered up this place to shed light
and open much needed communal discussion.
The word ‘protect’ means ‘to guard’; ‘to secure’; ‘to hold in safe
keeping’; all these definitions imply that there is a force, or forces
which seek to bring destruction, in whole or in part, to whatever entity
needs guarding, security, safekeeping, or protecting. In Our context We
are alluding to the need to secure Our ‘communities’, which are
essentially semi-colonized territories dependent upon and occupied by
outside forces.
It follows that if and when there is an entity that seeks the
destruction of Our territory, Our community, Our nation, Our family, Our
people, and Our self, that said entity is an avowed enemy to Our cause
and Our interests. So therefore i pose the question, ‘who are Our
enemies and who are Our friends?’ 402 years ago with the advent of the
Maafa (African slave trade; tragedy) an unresolved contradiction arose.
This contradiction has been characterized by the colonization of New
Afrikan Black people, first as slaves, a nation of slaves, and oppressed
and exploited free people, until now, where Our colonization is
characterized by the forced dependence upon the United States,
settler-imperialist neo-colonial empire, for the basic functions of
modern nationhood. That is free development of independent political,
social, and economic production and advancement.
During the last 402 years, what it means to be a New Afrikan in
Amerika has been tied to Our ongoing collective struggle to express
Ourselves in the full extent of Our humynity, to cast off the old forced
colonial relationship, which saw us as completely dependent pawns in the
‘game’ of world affairs, and to exercise a role and position which has
been guaranteed to almost all other peoples of the world, that is to
determine for Ourselves who We are, what We are (a colonized nation),
and how We wish to organize Ourselves for the daily survival of Our
people.
For the settler-empire’s part in this contradiction they’ve sought to
undermine Our natural, independent, development at every turn. All the
empire’s actions towards Our people, whether they be in the field of
military intimidation (police terrorism), propaganda, political
policies, and all other matters, they have all been to further the
relation of dependence upon their governance and economic structure.
Due to these simple truths and the multitude of ramifications that
they produce, it shouldn’t be lost on the reader that the enemy of New
Afrikan–Black people is the system of economic and political power that
has been FORCED upon us. This system is called capitalism-imperialism,
and the u.s. government at both federal and local levels is the world
leader of this system which is the cause of not only Our collective
misery, but that of the majority of the world’s people.
We, as a people, must come to understand that, ‘yes’, ‘protection’ is
needed and it is needed from the forces of power. Our enemies are not
those of another block, set, or turf who not only look like us, but more
importantly, are victims of the same systemic oppression and alienation
as us, which has fostered Our like conditions. Our enemies are not those
whom the real enemy has told us are the ‘gangs’ and ‘criminals’. These
We must begin to see as Ourselves, Our siblings, Our allies, in this
struggle. Allies whom have not yet been awakened to their place and
position within the ranks of Our New Afrikan Independence Movement.
Forever Protecting the Community, as many of you reading this already
know, has grown out of the legacy of the Forum Park Crips, in
particular, and that of New Afrikan-Black street organizations in
general. Modern street organizations within Our colonies (communities)
have for a long time possessed the tendency to re-imagine their
identities and the role in which they intend to play in the development
of Our people, that of destroyers or builders.
Prior to the creation of the original Crips of Los Angeles in 1971,
there were other street organizations. During the mid-1960’s as Our
nation was on a collective march to determine for Ourselves Our own
destiny, several Black Power organizations began to recruit effectively
within the class of people in Our colonies that were or would likely
become members of street organizations. These Black Power
revolutionaries impressed upon the sisters and brothers that the most
effective way to combat the mistreatment they all faced was to unite on
the basis of nationhood, and the shared quest for
self-determination.
On the West Coast, the main Black Power groups leading the shift in
social philosophy and participation among the ‘street class’, were the
Black Panther Party, and the US organization. The former would succeed
in consolidating ALL of the New Afrikan Black street organizations on
the West Side of South Central into one mass body. This effort was led
by Panther deputy chairman Alprentice Bunchy Carter: a former leader of
the ‘Slausons’ street organization, and convict, turned political
revolutionary while in California’s San Quentin Concentration Camp.
Bunchy Carter would help politicize most of his former ‘gang’ buddies,
recruiting them into the Panther organization and more importantly,
re-install the sense of common-unity (community) among the working class
of the surrounding area, with the former ‘destroyers’, the ‘gang’
element. This was only possible once the people could see that the 5,000
strong Slausons had made themselves a vehicle for productivity in
opposition to the people’s REAL enemies instead of assisting the enemies
of the people in the destruction of the people and Our areas of
residence. Forever Protecting the Community, if it lives up to its
calling, will follow down this same path of self-liberation, utilizing
the examples set by the Slausons and others to build upon the
advancement of Our nation in Our quest for self-determination and
independence.
“The time is NOW for a total refocusing of Our efforts, away from
non-productive distractions and other elements of temptations, and focus
towards those disciplines that will make us real [contributors] in Our
communities. We must stop the gangbanging and drive-bys. Our [nation] is
being destroyed by the killing [drugging and imprisonment] of Our own
youth. We must stop hating one another because of the block, hood, turf,
and color We represent, these actions only continue the cycle of
self-destruction.
“And finally, in my sincere appeal for peace and unity: Those of us
that have experienced being Our brother’s keeper – We must educate Our
members around Us. Education brings about awareness. Awareness generates
the ability to think. Our youth must know the end result of crime is
shame, disgrace, and imprisonment to themselves, as well as the
community. We must come to the point of outlawing those who willfully
disrupt Our communities and Our call [to Forever Protect the Community].
Crime must not be accepted as the normal way of doing things.” – Larry
Hoover’s 1993 ‘Call For Peace’
As articulated previously, there has been a tendency among New
Afrikan-Black street organizations to re-imagine their identities and
the role in which they play, or intend to play in the development of Our
people, that of destroyers or builders. Larry Hoover leading the
transition of his organization from ‘Gangster Disciples’ to ‘Growth and
Development’ is one of the most noteworthy and informative examples that
We can/should take lessons from. Yet before We delve more into the
lessons We can take from this grouping, it is important that We
illustrate the hands of the enemy in regards to the growth and expansion
of today’s street organizations and the sanctioned culture of
gangsterism.
Going back to the mid-60’s, as the Slausons and other similarly
situated groups began to cast off the self-destructive, and
counter-productive behaviors, they consequently began engaging in the
socio-political battles Our people faced at the local, ‘national’, and
global levels. Once it became clear to the masses that Our oppression
was/is political and economic and that the political reinforced the
economic, it became evident that the interests of Our people had to be
represented, by Our people, in the political sphere, and subsequently
political bodies were formulated. The Black Panther Party, along with
the Provisional Government of the Republic of New Afrika, were two of
the foremost leaders among these such groups. On a national level, the
‘street class’ began to be involved in the development of themselves,
and their people on an objective basis, as such naturally their
priorities began to shift, instead of clubbing, slanging and banging,
this class of people, many of Our predecessors, began to initiate
community political education classes, free health clinics, community
‘face lifts’, and clean up programs, free busing to prison for visits,
and a host of other ‘survival programs’.
It was during this time, because Our people had clearly drawn a line
of demarcation between themselves and the enemies of the people,
furthermore the same elements of the New Afrikan-Black Nation which had,
by force of circumstance, been most dependent upon the u.s. federal and
local governments couldn’t and/or wouldn’t. Such a development signaled
to the people that they themselves had the necessary power to liberate
themselves, hence the popularity of the phrase, ‘Power to the
People’.
Much of the oppressors continued rule depends upon the people’s
belief that they’re utterly helpless without the structure of the
settler-colonial imperialists. Once this illusion is unmasked and the
essence of the establishment is exposed, the oppressive state apparatus
must solely rely on brute force to maintain its illegitimate rule upon
the people, Our people. The establishment seeks to bypass such a
reality. Overt violence for the sake of political repression usually
swells the ranks of those in opposition to the illegitimate governmental
authorities.
It was this exact situation which saw the federal government
intensify the contradiction which began in Black August 1619 to the
level of a domestic war between two opposed and contradictory entities,
through the FBI’s declared war on the various organizations and people
within the Black Liberation Movement, by way of the Counter Intelligence
Program (COINTELPRO).
The u.s. government’s carrying out of COINTELPRO in order to prevent
the self-developed expression of the New Afrikan-Black experience as a
colonized nation held captive for centuries by the u.s. government,
resulted in numerous political assassinations of New Afrikan-Black
liberation combatants, the political/false imprisonment of various
souljahs and activists of Our cause, and the subsequent obliteration of
what has been up until this point the most progressive era of Our
collective struggle in 402 years (the Black Liberation Movement).
The defeat of the movement is important to this discourse on FPC,
because it was in the wake of the defeat of the movement that the Crips,
Bloods, Folks and Peoples established themselves. The establishment of
these street groups was facilitated by the war initiated on the
movement, and the subsequent elimination of progressive, productive, and
revolutionary leadership in the colonies which We call communities.
Ajamu Niamke Kamara (Stanley Tookie Williams), co-founder of the Crips,
said the following:
“i’m convinced that had the Black Panther Party still been recruiting
- uninterrupted by the duplicitous COINTELPRO… Huey Newton and Bobby
Seale would have salivated over the untapped youthful potential We
represented.
“Throughout this state and country, We embodied only a small divided
body within a multitude of reckless, energetic, fearless, and explosive
young Black warriors. Though we were often seen as social dynamite, i
believe We were the perfect entity to be indoctrinated in cultural
awareness and trained as disciplined soldiers for the Black
struggle.”
Unfortunately for the original Crips and Bloods, and the many
multitudes who have since followed in their foot steps, in 1971 while
Tookie Williams and Raymond Washington were establishing the teenage
clique that would become an international menace, the Black Panther
Party was enduring a major split within its ranks, which was caused,
partially, by the assault(s) of COINTELPRO, that would be the beginning
of the end for the Party and the movement.
In the wake of the defeat, the establishment initiated a wide variety
of methods to ensure that the widely dispersed wave of righteous
rebellion and the desire of an internal colony to free itself from the
forced yoke of imperialism and neo-colonialism, would never happen
again. To insure that Our people would remain collectively divided and
conquered, and sleep, the enemies invented and distributed crack
cocaine, and military grade weapons throughout the mid 1980’s and into
the 1990’s, allowed for the AIDS/HIV epidemic, created laws and policies
that would hold millions of Our youthful and vibrant siblings in
captivity based on fabricated and over-exaggerated portrayals of Our
colonized territories and peoples, and Our responses to Our colonial
oppression.
While the movement for self-determination was brutally crushed by the
u.s. government, that same government, wherever it could, assisted the
growth and expansion of the street organizations. The very industry that
was factually created by the CIA (the Crack Trade) was the vehicle which
drove Crips, Bloods, Folk, and Peoples factions in their growth across
the u.s. empire. This subsequent growth and expansion led directly to
the formation of the street organization, Forum Park Crips, an
independent Crip faction in Houston, Texas, along with countless other
similar factions and groups. What could have been the u.s.
establishment’s motive in instigating the growth of parasitic groups,
while murdering and torturing the productive organized bodies? The
answer can only possibly be the intended destruction of Our nation and
people.
With this realization that We have been manipulated, on a large
scale, to act against Our own interests and that of Our nation, the
formation of Forever Protecting the Community, though not the solution
within itself, surely takes a step in the correct direction.
“… Our women and children are suffering greatly at the hands of an
oppressive, dominant, racist political system… We can no longer afford
the forced luxury of non-involvement or non-participation. The question
remains: How can We contribute within Our limited capacities? .. i say
to you: If We accept a partial responsibility for the plight of Our own
people, then We must take an active role in the game of POLITICS.” –
Larry Hoover’s 1993, “Call to Action”
Where Do We Go From Here? As stated above, the formation of Forever
Protecting the Community is not a solution in and of itself, and it
remains to be seen whether or not this formation will live out its full
potential. What has already taken place however is the necessary act of
determining for ones self what your identity and purpose will be. There
will be naysayers who will point to all sorts of negative aspects of
those who are or become active with the new FPC movement. They will, if
hystory is any indicator, deter the general public from supporting and
identifying with the movement of Our people and colonies.
In order to get out in front of this foreseeable roadblock to Our
progress, We must do one of two things. 1) Abandon the words and
personification of ‘gang’, and ‘criminal’, to those who have defined
them (Our enemies) so that now they will have purely negative
connotations; 2) redefine those words/personifications - or create a new
word or phrase to describe organized groups within Our oppressed
colonies (communities).
Whichever choice is made, NEW concepts must be developed that
reinforce NEW forms of activity that should begin to appear on the basis
of the NEW concept. Forever Protecting the Community is the NEW concept,
and now what the leaders of this organization must act towards is
organizing a wide variety of people of the community to work
collectively to transform the ‘gang’ into a progressive organization of
New Afrikan people, which struggles and works in the interests of Our
people. The problem within Our colonies (communities) isn’t that there
are ‘gangs’, but it is the real problems which all peoples under
capitalist domination face, it is capitalism itself, and the social,
economic and political alienation it creates, which indirectly gives
birth to ‘gangs’ and ‘crime’.
Forever Protecting the Community has taken one step towards
empowerment – one critical step closer to a new sense of collective
identity, purpose, and direction – by using the power that We already
have, to define Ourselves, name Ourselves and speak for Ourselves –
instead of being defined and spoken for by others. The next step
consists of leading all the people of the community to share in the
responsibility for providing a NEW broader sense of collective identity,
purpose, and direction – for Our children and Ourselves. It is time now
to promote NEW ideas about the life We wanna live and the society We
wanna live in. Its time to promote NEW definitions of Our problems
(e.g. ‘racism’ or capitalism/colonialism) and the real solutions to Our
problems (e.g. ‘empowerment’ or genuine independence). We must begin to
promote among Our people the idea that Our purpose isn’t to simply own a
nice car, jewelry, a house, or even to quasi control a few city blocks,
but to share in Our control of entire cities, entire states, and
eventually, to share in the control of Our independent nation.
The task is to begin to formulate a community coalition behind the
idea/motto/slogan of Forever Protecting the Community. By a coalition i
mean connecting with a variety of people who identify with and support
the cause of the organization. Particularly, the following elements
within the community should be sought out for support and
assistance:
“What We have to do is get together the conscientious progressive
thinkers within these [street] organizations that know that they have to
make a change in order to survive… We have to put together a concerted
effort by all segments of Our community– clergy, business, activists,
and progressive thinkers within street organizations [local elected
officials, educators, health care providers]. You have to go within
these organizations to change them… You can’t just write off a
generation… It is time for [New Afrikans] from all over the country to
realize what has happened to Our people, and that while much of it can
be attributed to outside forces We have to begin to take responsibility
for Ourselves.” – Larry Hoover
As a politicized prisoner, and activist, co-founder of the prison
activist organization Texas T.E.A.M.O.N.E., i extend my hand, and that
of my comrades and supporters on both side of the walls, in support and
solidarity of the Forever Protecting the Community organization, and
more importantly i look forward to workin with my brothers, the 10’zzz,
on concrete actions both FPC and Team One can collab on that will suit
both Our missions.
We of TX T.E.A.M.O.N.E. believe the current United Struggle from
Within movement which We support, along with the general prison
resistance/abolition movements, align perfectly with Forever Protecting
the Community’s mission. As such, We humbly ask that if you are a part
of or support the mission to FOREVER PROTECTING THE COMMUNITY, that you
also contact and actively support the souljahs behind enemy lines within
the TX Team One formation fighting against legal slavery in Texas
prisons, and the inhumane use of indefinite, and long term solitary
confinement, as a toll of social and political repression.
Dare 2 Struggle Dare 2 Win; 1 Love 1 Struggle for LAND AND
INDEPENDENCE
“Look you a Blood, i’ma Crip, but i figure we can get back to that
Black shit, instead of killin and bangin for crack shit, is n****z too
stuck in they ways? i know We long overdue, but is We ready for change?
Stand under one flag like an ARMY brigade. Time to put the deuce-deuce
down and pick a ‘K’, and if We bangin on sum Black shit. Let’s ride for
the dead homies and get the burners for Malcolm and Nat Turner. Talkin’
to them other n*****z, my so called enemies We don’t own one block but
We live and die for these city streets. Even though the pain runs deep,
REAL n*****z know its time to make PEACE so We can FOCUS ON THE
PAYCHECK.” – Nipsey Hussle
“Now if We wanna live the THUG LIFE and the gangsta life and all
that, okay, so stop being cowards and let’s have a REVOLUTION. But We
don’t wanna do that, dudes just wanna live a character. They wanna be
cartoons, but if they really wanted to do something, if they was tough
alright, lets start Our OWN COUNTRY, lets start a REVOLUTION, let’s get
out of here [prison], let’s do something.” – Tupac Amaru Shakur
Triumphant
TX T.E.A.M.O.N.E Co-founder
New Afrikan Independence Movement
To contact/support/learn more about TX Team One:
TX T.E.A.M.O.N.E
113 Stockholm, #1A
Brooklyn, NY 11221
TexasTeamOne@gmail.com
MOwolabiIS@protonmail.com
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