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         THE MAOIST INTERNATIONALIST MOVEMENT

     MIM NOTES 113                 MAY 1, 1996


FIGHTING PRISONS, POLICE BRUTALITY AND POLITICAL 
REPRESSION: PRISONS AWARENESS WEEK IN SE MICHIGAN


During Prisons Awareness Week in April, MIM hosted 
a speaker from Eastern Michigan University (EMU) to 
speak on the University of Michigan Ann Arbor 
campus about a case of police brutality at EMU and 
about police brutality and intimidation of Black 
students on campuses in general.

MIM has written about this case of police brutality 
in MIM Notes in issues 108 and 110. One student, 
Aaron Johnson, was beaten by an EMU pig while 
attempting to break up a fight among some other 
students. Johnson is now awaiting trial for trumped 
up charges of aggravated assault and obstruction of 
justice. Other students who protested Johnson's 
treatment by the campus pig were suspended from 
school or had to face hearings to defend themselves 
against suspension. According to the speaker, Black 
EMU faculty and administration members who stood up 
for the students were fired on technicalities.

Johnson's trial was initially set for February 12 
in Ypsilanti, but it has since been moved to May 20 
and will take place in Ann Arbor, approximately 15 
miles away. It is possible that the trial was moved 
and postponed to avoid demonstrations by EMU 
students, because school will be out for the 
summmer by the trial date. But community leaders 
will be bringing junior high and high school 
students to watch the trial as they will still be 
in school. MIM will also continue to publicize 
Johnson's case and the political repression on the 
EMU campus generally. MIM works to organize people 
around individual cases of repression like this one 
because it is very important to develop 
understanding of the injustice system overall and 
to oppose it on all fronts.

The speaker defined police brutality and terrorism 
as being based in instilling fear in Black people, 
so that the natural response when a Black person 
sees a pig or a police car is fear. The speaker 
agrees with MIM that there is no way within the 
current system to eliminate police brutality. In a 
system in which the cops are the prime drug 
dealers, a choice between the major political 
parties is a choice between "the devil and his 
brother."

Johnson's case is a classic example of how the pigs 
are not there to "protect and serve" the Black 
community--these swine are not even answerable to 
the Black community: 

* Officer Hardesty, who beat and arrested Aaron 
Johnson also pulled his gun on a woman during the 
incident in which he arrested Johnson. 

* EMU Department of Public Safety (DPS) procedures 
on when an officer can draw her or his gun are 
public information, yet students who requested to 
see these procedures were refused. 

* Students were denied access to Hardesty's 
individual record

The speaker outlined the way he thinks the Black 
community should go about rectifying this type of 
treatment by the pigs: the Black community needs to 
police itself. MIM agrees with this completely, 
although we do disagree with some of the speaker's 
surrounding theory. The speaker and MIM agree that 
Black people need sovereignty in their own 
communities, but the speaker disagrees with MIM on 
the need to seize power through armed struggle. 
While MIM does not relish the thought of violence, 
the violence which was the subject of this 
evening's discussion is clear evidence that the 
pigs and their masters are not going to give up 
without a fight. At this time, MIM is building 
public opinion and a vanguard party to the stage 
when armed struggle will be appropriate, but we do 
not have any illusions that the imperialists will 
turn over power peacefully.

In a discussion following the speaker's 
presentation, MIM and the speaker agreed that all 
prisoners are political prisoners, but got some 
disagreement from some audience members on this 
point. One audience member agreed that many 
prisoners are locked up for the wrong reasons but 
suggested that people who steal cars ought to be in 
prison. The speaker pointed out that the reason 
people steal cars in the first place is inseparable 
from the determination of whether they belong in 
prison or not. MIM agrees: it's not good enough to 
say that some crimes are just pointless when the 
government imposes poverty on people and deprives 
them of national self-determination.

Another audience member asked if there are any 
current examples of decent prison systems that MIM 
upholds. There are none, as there are no states 
that MIM currently upholds as socialist. But MIM 
did point out that China under Mao had a good 
prison system which promoted and carried out 
genuine reform of individuals and rehabilitated 
them. At an earlier event during Prisons Awareness 
Week, Allyn Rickett spoke about his own positive 
experiences inside a Maoist prison from 1950-54. 
See MIM Notes No. 112 for more on Rickett's talk.

Films MIM and RAIL showed later on during Prisons 
Awareness Week addressed prisons more directly as 
tools of political repression. We showed both ** 
The FBI's War on Black America ** and ** Attica **.

Both of these films document the reaction of the 
state to organization and struggles of the 
oppressed. MIM recommends these films to those who 
believe there is "free speech" in Amerika. For the 
oppressed, speech is silenced when it advocates 
self-determination or improvement in one's living 
conditions. For more information on state 
repression of the Black Panther Party and the 
American Indian Movement, see Agents of Repression, 
available from MIM for $18. Also, see the Under 
Lock and Key section of MIM Notes for current news 
written by prisoners about the inhumane conditions 
in Amerika's gulags.

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