People who run prisons know they intend to do us harm. The proof? They put fences around these places before we ever get here. The reason they put the fences up is, they know they intend to harm us, and they know that any reasonable person would try to run away. They aren’t “helping” us or making us “better” people. They’re hurting us. They’re making us less likely to succeed. And they know it. So that means people who run prisons know they are making future crime more likely, not less. They know they are creating future crime, future victims, future imprisonment, future losses for society all the way around. If they were helping us, if they believed they were helping us, they wouldn’t put the fences up. They wouldn’t need fences. If they offered us wisdom and skills and empowerment, we’d all stay violently. There would be no need for a fence. You don’t put fences around a pizza party. You put fences around a torture factory.
They know how to help us. They could help us and empower us if they wanted to. People go into basic training in the military and leave there after 8 weeks, instilled with a whole new way of living, a whole new sense of themselves, a whole new vision and set of skills. Our sentences are longer than eight weeks. We leave prison without all that wonderful stuff that only takes eight weeks. They would help us if they really wanted to apply the science of that they know. They don’t want to. They want things the way they are. They profit off of human suffering. If they are protecting the public from us, who protects the public from them? Maybe the responsibility falls to us to take them down. There’s that fence. We’re locked in here with them. We might as well do something to change the world. We outnumber them. ~Anarchist Prisoner Sean Swain
Category Archives: Letters from prisoners
What I Know
I know how cold steel feels when the handcuffs are so tight you loose all feeling in your hands
I know how it feels to have no friends, to be surrounded by prisoners who will pretend
I know how it feels to have a pigs boot in your back, to write letters and never get non back
I know how it feels to be hungry at night, because the shit they feeding us just isn’t right
I know how it feels to be locked in a cell 24-7 for years at a time, how it feels to need love but in this place there’s never none around
I know how it feels to want to kill the oppressor, but these doors are their protectors
I know how it feels to be abandoned and neglected, to be dehumanized and disrespected to be reactionary and reckless
I know how to tell the time by the sounds around me, the screeching of the wheels on the food cart means its time to eat, the jingle of the keys means the pigs are trying to creep
I know how it feels to wait on mail call all day and when its time the pig passes you right by, and you tell yourself you’ll get some next time, but you know that’s a lie
But I don’t know how my daughters voice sounds, I’ve been deprived of my phone calls for years at a time
I don’t know how a hug feels, because I’m confined or the color of my mama’s eyes because I’ve been gone for a long time
I don’t know the name of my sister’s kids, we lost contact a long time ago, nor do I know if my brother is back in prison, my mom dont write to tell me so
I don’t know how freedom feels cause I have none, nor do I know my father so I’m a bastard just like my son
I don’t know what’s right when all I’m surrounded by is wrong or what family is when all mine are gone
I don’t know the smell of spring when the foul smell of solitary confinement is all I smell, I don’t know if there is a heaven but I know there is a hell. Because I live there.
Dare to Struggle Dare To Win
Shine White
More Reports of Abuse from DeKalb Jail: Blocked Windows, Overflowing Toilets, Religious Discrimination, Dirty Water
Atlanta ABC and Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee have been collecting reports of abuses within the DeKalb Jail. One incarcerated man, HL, called a number that had been chalked on the sidewalk outside the jail on May 15. He wanted to publicize abuses but without his name attached since he is afraid of retaliation by guards. HL said that during the protest on May 15 guards came into the cells with paintball guns and threatened to shoot inmates for banging on the windows. During that protest, people incarcerated in the jail put signs up in the windows for the public to read. Some smashed holes in the windows and shouted to the protesters or attempted to pass messages and examples of the rotting food through. Another man who called ABC on May 21 says the windows have since been blocked by some kind of film, a sticky paper or plastic. Protesters tabling below confirm that the windows are opaque in a section of the jail facing the sidewalk. This will prevent imprisoned people from sending messages using signs or seeing the ABC number. The United Nations has a “Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners” signed by the US that requires windows to allow in fresh air, and keeping prisoners in the dark is also prohibited. ABC also received a report on May 17 that the lights in many cells are broken.
HL also reports that the jail is “nasty, there is mold in the shower. They feed us on brown trays they’ve had for probably 20 years. The trays themselves are moldy and smell bad.” The trays have holes in them that water seeps into when they get washed, so mold grows on the inside.
Sheriff Man, the administrator in charge of the jail, has said protesters are being unproductive because he says they do not file formal complaints. But reports from those who have tried to use the complaint system show it to be a sham. HL says he has complained via the kiosk and filed a formal grievance. No complaint number is given when a grievance is filed. It is supposed to take 14 days but actually takes 60 days to get a response. When a response is finally given, you are required to accept their answer no matter what and cannot complain again. There is a note that the issue is going to be addressed but no one ever actually follows up, and the issue is never addressed.
HL says the toilet in the cell works, but they lock the door to the cell during the day and the toilet in the commons area doesn’t work and overflows with sewage. He has digestive health issues and needs to use the toilet frequently and the broken toilet gets in the way of this and creates an unhealthy condition in the jail.
Protesters have been setting up tables outside of the jail and speaking to people coming out since mid-April. Last week they spoke to a Muslim woman who had been arrested for a traffic ticket a few weeks before and held overnight. Her headscarf was immediately confiscated when she arrived and was never returned. She also was served nothing but a pork sandwich which she could not eat, so she did not eat for her whole overnight stay before being bailed out.
Also on May 21, ABC got a call from a Muslim man in DeKalb jail, KR. he reports that according to regulations Muslims are supposed to receive meals before sunrise and after sunset during the month of Ramadan, but they have not been getting their trays until after sunrise. This means they’re not able to eat before the day. KR says Muslims do not receive evening trays until 10 p.m. or later. This means they get one meal a day. The meal is supposed to be larger for Muslims during Ramadan, who are only eating before sunrise and after sunset, but they are not. It is the same meager tray that the other prisoners get for each meal, and previous reports have indicated that these trays are not enough food for the day even when they receive three a day.
KR also says that about a week ago, there were signs up in the common area saying not to drink the water or shower in it, and it was coming out of the faucets brown. But there were no signs in the cells themselves, so he woke up in his cell and did not see the signs before he made soup with some from the cell faucet. He says these signs were up once about a week ago and twice the week before that. Water was provided in orange coolers in the common areas.
Another man wrote in a post card from the jail, “The officers don’t respond to the call buttons and sometimes treat us inhumanely”. He mentioned mold, poor food, and unfair disciplinary procedures as well. “Just because we are inmates and prisoners our lives matter too!! It’s so much goes on in between these walls it’s not being brought to the light!! I’m praying and hoping I can change that!!”
Knockin Doors Down For The Mental Health
“The primary cause of suicide is not individual temperament but forces in the social environment. In other words, suicide is caused primarily by external factors, not internal ones.”
~Revolutionary Suicide – Huey P Newton~
Revolutionary Greetings,
In adherence with the beloved Komrade Keith “Malik” Washington, Deputy Chairman of the New Afrikan Black Panther Party-Prison Chapter. This is the year of “knockin doors down”, and we must start with the doors of solitary confinement. It was estimated in 2017 that over 87,000 prisoners across Amerika are being held in solitary confinement. Despite the many studies done by neurologists around the world proving that solitary confinement is a neglected social-ecological-environmental risk factor that worsens and causes mental illness.
I ask the readers to take a ride with me to North Carolina the home of 56 razor-wire plantations, where a prisoners life can be measured with a grain of sand and the tyrants rule with atrocities. Where the walls of several of these razor-wire plantations snatched the life away from nine prisoners in the year of 2018. According to North Carolina Department of Public Safety (NCDPS) news release nine prisoners died in 2018 by suicide:
Benhamin Williford, died Dec 18 at Mary Correctional, Williford was serving a 35-year sentence for arson and second degree murder.
Brandon Lineberger, died Nov 2 at Pasquotank Correctional Lineberger was incarcerated for assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill, inflicting serious injury. He was to be released in 2033.
- David Atkins, who died Oct 1 at Piedmont Correctional, was serving two years for a probation violation.
- Larry Bowman, died Aug 30 at Maury Correctional, Bowman was serving a life sentence for first degree murder
- Matthew Howlett, who died Aug 9th at Bentie Correctional was serving time for breaking and entering
- John Dalton, died April 19 at Central Prison, he was serving seven years for habitual felon
- Jermaine Johnson, died April 7 at Marion Correctional, he was serving a life sentence for first degree murder.
- Michael Grant, died Feb 5 at Maury Correctional, he was serving a life sentence for first degree murder
- Robert Spricer, died Dec 31 at Nash Correctional, he was serving a 77-year sentence for first degree sexual offenses
These are the nine prisoners that (NCDPS) claims died from suicide, but there is one prisoner that (NCDPS) doesn’t list as a suicide for the year 2018. That’s the komrade Freddie Pickett, who died April 29 at Polk Correctional, he was to be released 2021 after surviving twenty years within these razor-wire plantation. In a previous article I wrote are the details of his gruesome murder, it can be read here. But (NCDPS) officials documented his death as a suicide. Komrade Pickett’s family was told by (NCDP) officials that his cause of death was suicide, (NCDPS) officials told reporters that his cause of death was suicide. If this was true at all then I question why isn’t Freddie Pickett’s name amongst the other nine prisoners? Because Komrade Pickett didn’t commit suicide he was wantonly murdered.
Suicide Nothing New
In the last 28 years there have been over 93 suicides reported (I’m sure there were may that weren’t reported) to had taken place within NC razor-wire plantations. Since 2015 there have been 25 suicides in NC prisons, three in 2015, seven in 2016, six 2017 and nine in 2018. All these prisoners were being housed in solitary confinement. Take note that three out of the nine prisoners listed above were being housed at Maury Correctional. Maury Correctional is one of the only three close custody camps in NC to provide mental health services; there were four but Lanesboro Correctional is in the process of being shut down and transformed into a womyns facility due to the corruption of staff and the many deaths that occurred there. Maury Correctional is said to have adequate mental health services that provide programs that focus on serving prisoners suffering from mental health disorders. Being that the prisons are over populated and there is a staff shortage, a majority of prisoners suffering from mental health disorders are impeded from participating in these programs. They’re forced to be house at facilities that don’t provide adequate mental health services. Being that Maury Correctional houses regular population I was housed there for a brief stint in 2017. I know it to be factual that there is a security risk due to the lack of staff. A reporter for the Charlotte Observer reported that in 2018 Maury Correctional had an average monthly vacancy rate of 14 percent. But there are several staff psychiatrists employed there. So why are there more suicides at this facility? Simple…neglect.
Broken Promises
In 2016 (NCDPS) claimed that they were releasing a plan to curb prison suicides. The plan was to train staff to recognize suicidal tendencies, teach staff how to respond to suicidal attempts and better monitor prisoners who are released from suicide watch. Reported by a reporter for News & Observer starting Sept 1 2016, apart from the aforementioned plan (NCDPS) would ensure that (Level 2) mental health prisoners seeking psychiatric help and (Level 3) mental health prisoners taking psychotropic medications would no longer serve more than 30 days per year in solitary confinement and are not to be housed on Super-max (H-Can) where I’m currently being housed. To the contrary, there have been no changes but only increases in the number of suicides. This is supported by the fact that 2018’s suicides marked the highest in the state’s history. So much for the plan to curb suicides. Prisoners aren’t monitored after being released from suicide watch, they aren’t’ even being monitored on suicide watch. Prisoners who attempt suicide are placed in a cell with video surveillance (with a camera that may or may not work) for twenty-four hours or until a psychiatrist comes to ask the prisoner if he is having suicidal thoughts. Often times the prisoner tells the psychiatrists no even though he may still be having suicidal thought because being that he has been stripped naked, placed in a cold cell that’s filthy, forced to eat his food with his fingers and often humiliated by the officers, telling the psychiatrist that he is not having suicidal thoughts means the prisoner is then placed back in his cell. Still there he’ll have to fight the demons of solitary confinement alone. 70% of the prisoners housed here at Polk Correctional Super-max unity are either (Level 2) mental health seeking psychiatric help or (Level 3) mental health taking psychotropic medications. This is a unit where prisoners are confined to a small cell (6×9) 23 hours a days and the 24th hour is spent in a small sally port to pace back and forth. No outside recreation, no phone calls, and no contact with others besides your sally port roommate. 63% of the prisoners housed in solitary confinement here in NC are (Level 2) or (Level 3) mental health who are being forced to serve long-stints in solitary confinement.
The Oppressors Recipe for Killing a Prisoner-dies-in-cell-fire-as-guards-watch
Of course the dispiteous living conditions of solitary confinement is a main ingredient. No socializing, no contact with family members (only via postal mail), and idle time to hate the past and fear the future. A majority of prisoners housed in solitary confinement are prescribed some type of psychotropic medication. The most common drug prescribed to prisoners is Zoloft. It’s prescribed to prisoners who suffer from depression, obsessive compulsive problems; its used to treat post-traumatic stress and to treat social anxiety problems. All the aforementioned disorders derive from long-stints in solitary confinement. Do we really believe that the oppressor want to cure us? Of course not, there has to be a hidden agenda, but its only hidden to the unconscious one.
According to Clinical Drug Information LLC, Zoloft has an FDA Warning! This is due to the side effects and cautions of taking this drug. It raises the chance of suicidal thoughts or attempts. This risk may be greater in people who have had these thoughts or actions in the past. Some people may have very bad and sometimes deadly side effects when taking Zoloft. Taking this drug may cause low sodium levels like headaches, trouble focusing, memory problems, feeling confused, weakness, seizures or change of balance. Signs of bleeding like throwing up blood or throw up that looks like coffee grounds, coughing up blood, blood in the urine. Taking this drug can cause very bad health problems that may not go away and could cause death as well. All the aforementioned side effects and cautions were provided by Clinical Drug Information LLC. Other drugs such as fluoxetine and hydroxyzine have FDA Warnings and have similar side effects as Zoloft and are also prescribed to prisoners. If the oppressor cant mentally murder us then they count on the prescribed drugs to physically murder us.
The Heart of the Hydra
Kenneth E. Lassiter has been employed by (NCDPS) well over 20 years and was promoted to Director of Prisons after serving many years as the Superintendent (Tyrant) of Central Prison, where many prisoners have been murdered at the hands of his subordinates and where neglect and the rooms of solitary confinement have cause the death of many mental health prisoners. Kenneth Lassiter cooks up false information and serves it cold to the press and other concerned members of society. He claims that progress is being made, this so-called progress just continues their repression. And I’m duty bound to let you know what is really going on without allowing his reprisals to deter me.
I am being held captive at N.C.’s only Super-max Facility by his call, because I advocate for the suppressed prisoners and I strive to expose these miscreants for the vampires they are. Vampires hate the light and with this ink pen and the assistance of my komrades on the outside I intend to shed light on all their atrocities. The facts are that mental health services aren’t being provided, mental health prisoners are being neglected and wantonly abused. There are 96 prisoners housed on this Super-max unit where 60 of them are wither (Level 2) or (Level 3) mental health. But Kenneth Lassiter and his cronies would have the public to believe that there are no mental health prisoners housed on Super-max, that would lead the public to believe that their 2016 plan to curb suicides is being implemented. But its not and until outside organizations and activists start applying pressure on the outside nothing will change but the surmounting number of prisoners who kill themselves with each passing day.
As long as the oppressor is allowed to lie prisoners will die. As Huey P. Newton “suicide is caused primarily by external factors, not internal ones”. The external factors are these dispiteous living conditions: no outside recreation, no phone calls, and long term solitary confinement, all the above are a part of life in solitary confinement. So let’s start “knockin doors down” and liberate these prisoners’ suffering from the mental health disorders. For those of us who are resilient and strong of mind and body this is our duty. If you are not prepared to sacrifice then you’re not serious and if you’re not serious its best you get out of the way because the Panther and the Elephant are on the loose.
Postscript: A Call to Action
Komrades, its a must that I echo the call of the Komrade Keith “Malik” Washington. All activists, human right lawyers, organizations, non-profits, cadres and revolutionaries who support the marginalized prisoners held captive within the many razor-wire plantations I entreat that everyone answer his call. He and komrade Jason Lenard are leaders and both are members of the New Afrikan Black Panther Party – Prison Chapter, which serves the people and is duty bound to transform these slave pens of oppression into schools of liberation. To quote our Minister of Defense “Cointelpro is alive and well. The political police are as active as ever in repressing dissent and the liberation struggles of oppressed nationalities within Amerika”.
People we must protect our leaders, by allowing the oppressor to suppress the voices of /Komrade Malik and Komrade Jason you are allowing the voice of over 2 million prisoners to be suppressed for they are the voice for those who don’t have one. I was transferred last year to N.C.’s Super-max facility for echoing last year’s Aug 21 prison strike. I don’t have many outside resources that support my cause. So I ride the wave of our leaders and strive to serve the prisoners here in N.C. to the best of my ability. Komrade George Jackson said, “it should never be easy for them to destroy us” so please help by offering a small amount of time to our struggle.
Dare to Struggle Dare to Win
All Power to the People
Joseph “Shine White” Stewart
Deputy Minister of Defense
White Panther Organization
NC-Branch
The Brain Washed
Written By: Jacorie Hinton
AKA Trigga 1000
We our own kind are our destruction in life! Worrying who got what and did what, and wanting to be the biggest and the baddest and freshest! But we were branded in the beginning as the most hated because of our mind and strength and we were tricked into a lifestyle we are cursed with til death that came with ignorance! The term we all hear today on April 1st is April fool! But do you know the history in the saying? The year 1555 on April 1st, we the black race were tricked into slavery and thats when the term April Fool was born! And we are so quick to call the white man a white cracker in disrespect when it’s a compliment. The term white cracker came from the whip crackin on the slaves back! And we want equal rights when the Declaration of Independence has not been changed, we are still considered half a person to be in office but Donald Trump is our president. Please wake up people, let’s fight the right fight!!!
Fascism and the War for Life in this Land of Death
Train to think by the concepts of misinforming guidance. The common sense in this land makes no sense because justice rectifies illegal actions of retribution. War on poverty allows exploitation of the labor class. War on Drugs is so broad any drug territory inhabitant can be “neutralize” by any means in attempt “tranquil” this hazardous social disease. War on terrorism is war on all potential internal and external. Internal threats are Muslims, Crips, GD’s, MS-13, criminal charges persons and any other people or group in conflict with the interest of the establish order.
This subjugation will last as long as the masses continue to disbelieve the truth. The obvious is being overlooked and the hidden is not being sought. In this time of day murder is a ticket of respect. At night the horror of walkers take the streets and terrorize their common kind. Babies are exchange for goods and education is secondary to the lesson of discipline. Crack, cocaine, and ecstasy has been made legal under prescription distributed by the pharmaceuticals department. New gun restrictions debilitate the constituted and god given right of self-preservation. To be free will cost some of your civil liberties. Or does it? If this franchise of corporate law is only affective consensually, then what will happen when consent is no longer given? When the sleep is awaken and the blind can see. When the deaf can hear and the lame of doubt is move by faith.
The matter of survival is constantly being infected with substances that enervates its neutrons. Your physical growth is stunt by “vaccines” of sterilization. Mentally your mind is buried in distress, agony and confusion. Enslaved by ignorance and raged by the madness it visualizes. Emotionally you’re on a steady imbalance frequently the process of decay takes a toll. Effecting the psychological state – now psychosis are diagnosis. Population control is in affect and is calculated every 10 years. Our country of opportunity; and freedom. Our nation of death as the right way… Damn this is the Amerikkkan Dream. In order for them to live we must die. The many for the few our means are justified by their ends…to be continued.
A Unified Gesture
Hello, May peace and blessings be with us all.
A unified gesture isn’t just a normal gesture it’s a scrutinized objective that symbolizes a change for humanity once viewed from a stabled mind or by those of common interests.
These common interests are to grow and develop, unify, improve poverty, and to make equal. Growth and development are a matter we find so predictable only because who can obtain growth for the right cause while dealing with misguidance and many other unethical casualties. If we do away with prevarication the truth will no longer be subtle. Unity among families as well as to our communities gives leadership to the up coming generation. Let’s not bring our kids into neighborhoods we regret growing in. The chance to change it lies within the speech of encouragement, motivation to change a mind set, and the teaching of self-dependency. Togetherness is the truth awaiting its revelation once unified we will expand hope. Improving the state of poverty, we deal with penury not only because of prejudice matters, but for the lack of building within our communities so that job opportunities will be available. We can improve the state of poverty by giving those whom get neglected the encouragement to strive for a better living, without criminal acts.
To make equal, we all seek equality in our own way. Each ethnic group is publicized for mostly their wrongs which leaves their rights never thought of. This causes each ethnic group to denounce the others for their wrongs that may have been afflicted in the past. Now they stigmatize one another which collaborate well with disunity, remember “Divided we fall, united we stand”.
Sincerely: Victor Moten
Lack of Unity in Prison: What the F Happened?
By: Charles Shepard
AKA ‘Su’hayb’
So, I started doing time in 1997 and I have been in prison in Indiana, Oklahoma and Georgia. I’ve seen the system change for the worse. On both sides! The convicts became Inmates and the movement has slowly become restricted. Its called ‘controlled movement’. Georgia prison system is the most fucked up I’ve seen from every aspect, but especially the prisoners’ mind frame. They allow sex offenders in population; its cool to ‘kick it’ with the police; and the Muslims protect the trash. I am a Muslim, but took my shahadah on the streets. In Georgia prison system it’s ‘cool’ to masturbate in the day room when females are around. What the fuck is that shit?! Gang members change flags like I change socks.
These cats will snitch on a person just because they don’t have anything going on, just to try to move into their position, but they are green and broke. Shits crazy!
I’m in a high max unit called Tier III (SMU) and can’t even pass a shot of coffee without a rat puttin in a kite. Haters! The prisoners don’t get paid to work. Only get 2 meals on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. No TV’s, hotpots or lamps on the store list. You can’t order books unless the money comes off of your account.
The prisoners wont stand up for shit, they mostly all have a slave mentality, they are afraid to be locked down. Just recently at Macon State Prison the warden came in all the dorms and told the Muslims they couldn’t pray in congregation and you know what happened? The brother had a meeting and said no one prays in the day room, pray in your cells! Are you fucking kidding me. I ask why and the response is we got too much to lose! Unfucking believable.
When I started doing time, you got your paperwork checked when you came in the door if you had fucked up charges- you gotta go! If you speak to a cop- you gotta go. If the police get slick with one prisoner – we ALL fall down, and if you don’t – you gotta go.
Georgia! Pick yourselves up! You gotta learn to sacrifice to get what you want. Everyone screamin Georgia on the map, but for what? Shootin your own? Snitchin on your own? Or maybe, the most sexual predators in the chain gang? Get it together!
Feel free to contact me at:
Charles Shepard #1001527186
G.D.C.P.-SMU-LE208
P.O. Box 3877
Jackson, GA 30233
Buried Alive
By: Frederick Radford
Wickedness, inside an iron fence.
That’s tailor made with razor blades.
Stuck inside a twilight zone
with herds of beast, that lurk for thrones.
I live within an episode of Frankenstein…
But I’m divine.
This origin of goons and goblins,
indexed in volumes,
who’s seen as numbers, instead of names.
These cell’s are hell, so let them burn…
Like a book of matches, as I turn to ashes.
Without a flame.
Who’s to blame?
The judicial system, that’s designed to keep us oppressed.
Lose your case, then lose your life,
whether you’re wrong or right.
The judge don’t lose no rest.
While he holds his wife,
I’m dressed in stripes.
Stand up for count I don’t get no rest.
Life in prison as I discern, is a living hell!
The dead are buried in caskets.
The lifer casket is my cell.
Defeating The Razor Wire Plantation Hydra
“Keeping prisoners violently divided and at each other’s necks is a policy calculated to maintain control and keep the prisoners focus off of the officials who are oppressing them all.”
~California’s Department of Correction Ombudsman Ken Hurdle
Greetings Komrades,
As the words are conveyed full of dedication, resiliency, and camaraderie, I hope there isn’t any hindrance so they may reach ya’ll in the same manner. I’m perplexed to find these razor wire plantations get away with doing shit to us that we’d never tolerate from each other. All of us continuously complain about prison conditions being “fucked up”, complaining how security threat group policies hinder us from receiving visits, but there’s nothing being done to rectify our situation.
Let me tell you what’s “fucked up”, is that the individual tyrants who make up the hierarchy of these street formations are plagued with the same characteristics of our oppressors. How many of you are confined to isolated tombs due to taking orders that wasn’t beneficial for you? But only beneficial for the one who gave you the order. Then once you were sentenced by the administration of these razor wire plantations to long stints of isolation, you’ve been forgotten and you’ve become one of the many whom has been exploited for the personal gain of the street formations leadership. But this is brotherly love right?
Why isn’t there never no orders given to obtain better food? Better medical treatment? Better programs or educational opportunities? Why are sacrifices being made to tear down the next man who shares the common oppression, but none to rectify this system?
Komrades we’re in a very sad state, and if we continue to allow the oppressor to atomize us, and assisting the oppressor to keep the yoke of oppression on our necks. The the future of prisoners may consist of us being whipped in the fields, ALL of us every race. The founding reasons these street formations were organized must return and these bylaws must be implemented.Most of these street formations were founded on revolutionary ideology, because of the economic, political and social conditions that the peer were subjugated to. These street formations were formed to be vigilance committees, to protect and uplift their communities. The vision of the founding fathers has been lost and we’ve become predators of the prey (oppressed). So are we really real right? or are we proxies for these miscreants?
Komrades we can surmount the barriers we’ve placed in our own way! This vicissitude (change) is reachable. It begins with us understanding the strength in our numbers. Envisage (envision) the ten demands put out by Jailhouse Lawyers Speak for the Aug 21 prison strike being implemented. This isn’t a dream this could be reality, but reaching this accomplishment falls on the leadership of the street formations.We must purge the separationism and individualism from our character. We musn’t compromise for taking victories, for individual privileges and incentives. Compromising didn’t win the revolution for China, compromising didn’t end slavery, it took a civil war. Our struggle won’t be romantic, I recognize that we must always make a choice between what is beneficial and what is pleasant. The coward would choose pleasantness because it don’t demand a struggle or sacrifices. But we know the choice that would make things beneficial for us as a whole. It isn’t skin color, the hue of the flag or a certain sect for these are the things that fuel separatism and competition. Competition amongst ourselves has destroyed us komrades! Instead of outdoing each other we must coalesce towards the common goals. Malcom X stated “we have a common enemy, we have this in common, we have a common oppressor, a common exploiter and a common discriminator, but once we all realize that we have a common enemy, then we unite on the basis of what we have in common”. I conclude this by quoting the komrade Benny Hannibal Rasun or the Free Alabama Movement, “its revealing that we are housed in institutions whose security is predicated on our remaining ignorant”
Dare to struggle dare to win
all power to the people
Joseph “Shine White” Stewart
Deputy Minister of Education
White Panther Organization
NC-BranchG.
Note: To circumvent the communication barriers to hinder prisoner to prisoner dialogue I can be reached at:
Joseph Stewart
P.O. Box 15401
Durham, NC 27704