Institutional Slavery - The Tool of Oppression

There is a popular saying that comes to mind 'Slavery isn't dead, it's just changed form.' Racism is now widely institutional across Amerika. There are so many brothers and sisters incarcerated in Amerikkka's prison systems held under the iron hand of the corporate elite. Many comrades have been captured in the struggle. Third World minorities are and have been targeted from all angles in Amerika nationwide. We (USW) recognize this as an act to finance corporate Amerika economically, at the expense of the underpriveledged of course.

Millions of tax dollars are being used to build these concentration kamps under the guise that it makes our world (society) safer. These prisons are built relatively clean in a sterile prison environment that only conceals a more pernicious type of confinement. The use of sensory deprivation, the use of mind controlling drugs, the use of behavior modification techniques, being given numbers (CDC ) like cattle. We are being treated as products instead of human beings. All this to bring about the deterioration of the prisoner in whole or in part.

The constant use of strip searches is not designed to ensure security because you are being watched 24 hours a day. They are used to humiliate someone probing into their body cavities is an act of rape, an act of complete dehumanization. It is done by prison staff and prison guards in an impersonal and very cold cruel and calculated way designed to destroy your self esteem. Instead of rehabilitating those incarcerated they are destroying people's minds and creating monsters for tomorrow.

You take a man, put him in a cage, deny him any right, any ability to grow. There's no teaching. There's no educational programs, there's no social programs, the only program is lock em up. So when these people in jail go home, they'll be a problem again. Where's the rehabilitation? Amerika loves to continually tell the world how they're doing something - we're taking care of the problem. Instead what you've done is created a problem that you cannot solve. The Amerikkklan criminal justice system is a farce, a fraud there's no correction being done. What is being done is corruption. Prison has become a booming money system, as well as an instrument to further oppression.

Prison is modern day slavery that effects not only one domestic group, but many third world minorities across the U.$. Comrades, we need to wake up and realize that we are up against a white power structure whose purposes are more political and economical than anything. Many Blacks and Latinos, as well as low class whites, make up the prison system's population. Amerika is functioning on imperialism. We are being labeled criminals, urban terrorist, social failures. The majority incarcerated come from poor families, broken homes, dysfunctional environments. Many are unable to find work due to the high unemployment rates in many areas of this country has become a breeding ground for hopelessness, anger and despair. All the traditional mechanisms for empowerment, opportunity and self-improvement have been closed.

Comrades, we are in the midst of a grand economic experiment to build more prisons and lock more people up because Amerika. The white power structure makes sure their power and jobs are secure through institutional slavery.

Comrades, one of the most important things we must do while we are under lock and key within these concentration kamps is to practice self growth: we must build our minds, bodies and spirits daily. We must maintain our resistance toward the European imperialist structure through our discipline and unity from within these prison walls as well as outside these prison walls. We must liberate ourselves by uniting through struggle to overthrow the hand of the oppressors.

We must wake up and realize what's going on comrades. We have the opportunity to empower ourselves through political revolutionary unity we must first want to grow. We must want our liberation. Once we come forward and embrace the struggle and work with our comrades towards overthrowing this oppression, only then will we realize that our freedom comes from within us. Our freedom can neither be given or taken by anybody, except ourselves. Comrades, let's work towards freeing our minds of the ignorance that pledges it. In times of struggle, resistance comes naturally.

- A California prisoner, December 2004