Under Lock & Key

Bilal Sunni-Ali (13 July 1948 – 30 December 2024) was a revolutionary and dedicated citizen of the Republic of New Afrika (RNA). That dedication took various forms, from eir clandestine organizing to eir contributions to revolutionary culture via eir jazz, blues, and spoken word performances aimed at challenging the status quo and building up a revolutionary nationalist consciousness among the people.

From eir youth, Bilal partook in pro-people activities from eir time as a musician in the Youth Division of the North East Bronx NAACP, to eir later activities as a founding member of the New York City Black Panther Party fighting housing issues, police brutality, and recruiting street L.O.s into the movement. Dedicated to the self-determination of New Afrika, Bilal Sunni-Ali went underground in 1968 with the Black Liberation Army. In 1982, ey would be charged and acquitted in RICO charges related to the freeing of Assata Shakur and a bank robbery by the Revolutionary Armed Task Force (RATF) for which Sekou Odinga (who died 12 January 2024) and Silvia Baraldini were convicted. Bilal was successfully defended by the late Chokwe Lumumba in the politically charged trial, where they charged the U.$. government with conspiracy on behalf of the RNA. The RATF is described in detail in the book False Nationalism, False Internationalism as the last attempt at the radical militancy of the 1960s by members of the RNA and the euro-Amerikan May 19th Communist Organization. Prior to this, Bilal was locked up in Soledad prison from 1970-1972, where ey struggled to develop both the general and political education of prisoners. Bilal’s support for prisoners continued throughout eir life, as before eir recent death, ey was involved in the Jericho Movement and the Imam Jamil Action Network – organizations dedicated to the struggle of political prisoners.

Bilal was a devout Muslim who truly lived in accordance to eir faith – not only by embodying the Islamic practice of standing up for the oppressed, but by raising their consciousness at the same time; drawing the connections between imperialism and white supremacy to the oppressed youth.

Sifting through Bilal’s tenor saxophone performances online, one will come across em performing at many events centered around prisoners. The usual song of choice that ey perform is entitled “Look For Me In The Whirlwind” (a title inspired by Marcus Garvey). The lyrics are as follows:

It is said that Bilal also went by the name “Spirit” and I believe that to be an apt name for an individual who epitomizes the spirit of eir people in all that ey do.

Rest in Power Bilal Sunni-Ali!

Long Live the Republic of New Afrika!

The methods of oppression are ever evolving to suppress the masses. The people must realize that revolution and resistance is a science, not rooted in emotion. Being a prisoner of war, enslaved by the state of Illinois, I have learned that resistance to my oppression must be calculated and strategic.

To all comrades held by the beast, learn the law! Stop allowing the State to offer you meaningless distractions that prevent you from fighting against this system. We must learn to use the weapons we got. Understand, comrades, the pigs are trained and equipped to handle any form of physical resistance, but they lack any true method to handle a revolutionary mind.

Resist by challenging all conditions of your enslavement, use their laws against them. Utilize every tool available to you. All peer advocates/jailhouse lawyers must unite to teach all that they know. Don’t let false titles keep us from uniting. Don’t let organizational ties, race, ideological stance, or religion stop us from coming together to fight against this system.

We must be organized and disciplined in our approach. Educate yourselves, train your mind & bodies, read every day! Write every day! Fuck that TV or tablet, get in the law library! All corporate media is a lie! Unburden yourself from that illusion. A pig’s nature is to consume uncontrollably, don’t be a pig or a pig sympathizer by allowing their oppression of you to go unchecked! Master everything you commit yourself to studying, revolutionize your mind. If the system doesn’t fear your physicality, it fears your mind, or should I say, the potential of what your mind can become!

“The heart of a soldier with the brain to teach a whole nation…” 2pac/No More Pain

In Solidarity

My intentions here isn’t to give a dialectical and historical context of the relationship between today’s Lumpen Organizations (gangs) and past revolutionary movements, although there is an inextricable link between the two. The origins of today’s Lumpen Organizations (L.O.s) were strongly influenced by the original Black Panther Party (BPP) and other similar organizations. They were formed to uplift and protect their communities from outside threats, threats that were typically imposed by law enforcement and the U.S. government.

With the destruction of the BPP, combined with the influx of drugs and firearms within their already oppressed communities, members of these organizations were lured into “gang-bangin’” against each other and a fratricidal and suicidal criminal lifestyle that resulted in the abandonment of the ideals and principles that were brought forth and established by the organizations’ founders. Ideals and principles that mirrored those of the BPP and the Black Liberation Army (BLA). Today there are a limited few who diligently impress upon their “homies” the importance of espousing the organizations founding ideals and principles. Overall, a majority have been derailed from the organizations initial revolutionary path, which has been detrimental to the youth who romanticize today’s “gang” culture and their communities. Moreover, the absence of these ideals and principles has engendered a culture of disunity, violent competition, and the romanticizing of the “gang-banging” mentality, which renders us incapable of redressing the conditions we find ourselves subjected to within these razor-wire plantations.

There is no silver bullet or magic wand that can be used to magically expedite the transformation that must be made. Transforming the criminal mentality into a revolutionary mentality is a protracted process that demands accountability and rigorous educating.

i am dedicated to assisting with this transformation any way that i can. One way is to shed some light on the draconian policies and procedures that governs those of us who have been labeled “gang members,” labels known as Security Risk Group (SRG) or Security Threat Group (STG), so we can begin to seek redress to said policies and procedures.

Gang Validation Process

Those of us who have been validated as SRG/STG often suffer significant unfair prejudices due to the officers who are responsible for the validating opinions often basing these opinions on sweeping generalizations and stereotypes about “gang members” generally, unreliable methodology, and/or the officer’s racial bias.

Here in North Carolina the Department of Adult Corrections (DAC) has “certified” twenty-one alleged prison gangs as Security Risk Groups. Prisoners are validated as members of SRG’s by Prison Intelligence Officers (PIO) who are usually white, whose discretion reigns supreme in determining who is validated as SRG members and who isn’t. These subjective decisions lead to disproportionate validations of New Afrikan prisoners and those from other oppressed nations. A stark example of the racially uneven application of SRG validations is evident in the percentage of “white” prisoners who have been validated compared to New Afrikan prisoners. White prisoners make up 1.9% of the prisoners validated in NC prisons.

Around the world gangs are studied by those with specialized training in areas such as ethnography, anthropology, and psychology. In these fields, researchers are often subjected to ethical standards that warn against manipulating data to advance their personal objectives and required to employ social science field research best practices in relation to data collection, analysis, and interpretation. The officers responsible for validating prisoners are not held to any such ethical standards and lack the fundamental knowledge to determine if a prisoner is actually a SRG member or not.

The qualification, the degree of specialized knowledge for these officers to be qualified as “gang-experts” is particularly lacking. An officer can be qualified as a “gang-expert” after having only a couple months on the job, as long as they have some formalized training. You would think these “gang officers” would be required to demonstrate a basic overstanding of the complicated dynamics at issue where gang membership and behavior are concerned beyond stereotypes and prototypes, being that these validations subject prisoners to indefinite sanctions and restrictions that not only affect the lives of the prisoners but also the lives of the prisoners’ families.

These “gang officers” employ a worksheet which lists seventeen criteria for determining gang involvement, each of which is assigned a point value. Prisoners may be labeled as “suspects/associates” or “members”. A qualifying score is not difficult to achieve: prisoners bearing tattoos “thought” to signify gang affiliation and who socialize with “confirmed” gang-members may be regarded as members themselves.

False positives are likely to arise under this criteria, because while they may indicate a correlation with gang membership, they do not establish causation. Because gang membership cannot be reliably inferred from the factors aforementioned, these “gang officers” should not be allowed to opine about gang membership based on these factors alone.

Completed validation worksheets are forwarded to the NCDAC’s Chief of Special Operations, Daryll Vann, who reviews the worksheet, confirms that “relevant” documentation is attached, and validates the identifications. Prisoners who wish to contest the validation are not afforded the opportunity to do so. Prisoners receive no notice of their validation, no procedural due process, nor a periodic review that would enable the prisoner to have the validation removed. Therefore, prisoners who have been validated, remain validated for the duration of their incarceration and irrevocably are subject to SRG policy deprivations.

There are only two ways to have the SRG validation removed. There is a SRG program that’s accessible to a limited number of prisoners. It is a 9-month program at Foothills Correctional, a prison located in the rural mountainous region of Western NC. The staff employed there are exclusively white, live in race segregated communities and are out of touch with the cultures of the prisoners they oversee.

When these “gang officers” walk through the doors of the prison, many of them, knowingly or unknowingly, hold negative biases towards those who have been validated and those who don’t look like them.

The media perpetuates inaccurate narratives of violence, criminality, and dishonesty among racial minorities that many of these “gang officers” unknowingly internalize. It shows in how they interact and deal with the prisoners.

The DAC describes this program as being a program that “targets those beliefs (cognitions) that support criminal behavior ….” and seeks to shift the thinking that supports these beliefs. Prisoners who complete this program must undergo a debriefing and renounce their affiliation, if any, before the validation is removed. This program is not available to prisoners who have been labeled problematic.

The other way to have the validation removed is to complete your prison sentence and be discharged from NCDAC custody. Of the 1,343 prisoners released from NCDAC’s custody last year, 564 were alleged SRG members.

Draconian Gang Policies & Procedures

The ostensible purpose of the DAC’s SRG policies and procedures is to avoid prison disturbances supposedly fomented by gangs. Nonetheless it is obvious these policies and procedures have the effect of incapacitating significant numbers of prisoners and has cultivated an environment opposite from what prison officials claim to be “safer”.

Those who have been validated find themselves subjected to draconian sanctions and restrictions, such as being prohibited from receiving visits from anyone beyond immediate family. This excludes aunts, uncles, cousins, and the mother of your child(ren). If you have no immediate family members to accompany your child(ren) to visitation you will not be allowed to visit with them. Our childrens’ interests are not, as a matter of right, factored into SRG validation determinations. The fact that parent-child visitation can help children overcome the challenges of parental separation and reduce recidivism rates is well-documented. However, prison officials find it plausible to implement such a policy that prevents parent-child visits.

As with the prisoners who have been validated, New Afrikan children are the ones greatly affected by this policy. NCDAC has implemented this policy without any cognizance that such a restriction may implicate the parent-child relationship, which is typically subject to extraordinary protection by the courts. But yet this policy goes unchecked.

During my incarceration i’ve been unable to visit with my daughter due to me having no immediate family willing to accompany her. This has prevented her and i from developing a meaningful relationship. This is something that a majority of us are experiencing.

Moreover, this policy has an outsized impact on New Afrikan families and other members of marginalized communities who bear the brunt of mass incarceration.

Limiting a prisoner’s visitors to immediate family only effectively cuts a prisoner off from family members who may have raised them. As we know in marginalized communities there are an overwhelming amount of fractured families, where grandparents and others play the mother-father role.

Then there are the prisoners who were raised in foster care, who have never had the opportunity to meet their immediate family. There is no exception for foster care parents.

Although these restrictions are sometimes justified, they are being used indiscriminately without individual analysis.

On 19 February 2019, a policy was implemented that prohibited validated prisoners from receiving monetary support from anyone who wasn’t an approved visitor.

Prison officials claimed that this was done to curtail “Black Market” activities and strong arming. It’s not difficult to see how such a policy would increase said activities and, moreover, would create an environment where those who do have means of receiving financial support become victims of strong arming and other acts of violence.

This policy was implemented 8 months prior to now-retired Director of Prisons Kenneth Lassiter requesting more funding for security and control weapons. During these 8 months, violence amongst prisoners drastically increased, i know because a majority of the close-custody facilities were placed on lockdown due to the increased violence.

Validated prisoners are prohibited from attending all educational/vocational programs, compelled to serve idle prison sentences. They are locked in their cells virtually all of the time and otherwise maintained in extremely harsh conditions. Unable to have their custody level reduced to medium or minimum security. And job opportunities are non-existent. Common sense would tell prison officials that there are many reasons to believe that these policies and restrictions will produce unfortunate results both inside and outside of prison.

The Ramifications of these Policies

Motivated by an inaccurate conception of gangs and how they operate, the NCDAC has adopted policies that have enhanced group cohesiveness and the identities of gang-affiliated prisoners. These policies have promoted new gang connections for prisoners who, due to the difficulties inherent in gang identification, inadequate procedures and racial stereotyping, are misidentified. The validated prisoner tells emself “they think i’m a gang member, i might as well be one”. Of course these policies raise obvious moral and ethical questions. However, i would like to focus on how these policies make no sense from a correctional perspective. Even if these “gang officers” are creating or enhancing gang identities, why does it matter? Validated prisoners maintained in these locked down blocks, after all, are effectively disabled from committing acts of misconduct when locked in their cells.

Validated prisoners are denied access to visitation, financial support, transfers to medium or minimum custody, as well as parole. They have nothing more to lose so they are not deterred by any threat of punishment, what else can be taken from them? They have no incentive to refrain from gang involvement?

Aside from prison concerns, the impact of these policies’ ramifications will be felt most profoundly on the streets and communities to which these prisoners will return. As i pointed out, 564 of the 1,343 prisoners released from NCDAC’s custody last year were alleged gang members. In general, 96% of all prisoners return to society. To my knowledge there are recidivism studies focusing on gang affiliated prison releases, there is evidence that gang members may retain their gang identity upon their release. (see: Salvador Buentello et. al, “Prison Gang Development: A Theoretical Model”, The Prison Journal, Fall-Winter 1991, at 3.8.) Thus, these policies not only fail to enhance prison security, they also undermine public safety.

We Have A Responsibility

All across the United $tates, prisoners themselves are subjected to similar sanctions and restrictions under the guide of enhancing prison security. i’ve revealed how these policies target New Afrikan prisoners and others of the oppressed nations and how they effect not only the prison but their families and communities as well. We have the numbers, we have the capability and we have the know how to bring about change. But as Komrade George Jackson expressed:

“We all seem to be in the grip of some terrible quandary. Our enemies have so confused us that we seem to have been rendered incapable of the smallest responsibility. I see this irresponsibility, or mediocrity at best disloyalty, self-hatred, cowardice, competition between themselves, resentment of any who may have excelled in anything….”

Because of the inexorable nature of our overseers, nationwide demonstrations on the outside and within these walls is presently necessary if we are to correct the correctors.

We have united fronts such as the United Front For Peace in Prisons, the United Struggle Within (USW) and Prison Lives Matter (PLM). PLM is a united front for political prisoners, prisoners of war, politicized individuals behind the walls of these razor-wire plantations and their organizations, as well as any outside formations in union with the struggles of prisoners, that has made it possible for us to address and redress the inhumane living conditions we find ourselves subjected to. It’s on us to initiate the process, it’s on us to communicate and network with one another, to get on the same page, so we can unite a page in the history books.

A Call to Action

As we grapple with an expanding and increasingly repressive prison system here in North Carolina, any hope for change lays in perfecting ourselves – our physical care, intellectual acumen, and cultural proficiency – while simultaneously confronting our overseers. And as i aforesaid, “There is no silver bullet or magic wand that can be used to expedite the transformation that must be made.” We have a personal responsibility to contribute to the confronting that must be done.

Some of us don’t seem to know what side we’re on. We’re obsessed with near-sighted disputes based on race, gang affiliation and so on. We expend our energies despising and distrusting each other. All of this is helping the NCDAC. We permit them to keep us at each others throats. i am calling for unity. We out number them. Wake up!!! Put your prejudices, biases, and gang affiliation aside for the purpose of OUR fight with the NCDAC. i’m asking we start by submitting a grievance concerning NCDAC’s SRG policies and procedures (an example has been provided below).

Of course i’m not expecting and redress from submitting grievances. NCDAC’s Administrative Remedy Procedure process is ineffective and honestly a waste of time if you are seeking redress. However, i’ve not asked you to submit said grievance with hopes that NCDAC officials will correct their wrongs.

i’m currently in the middle of litigating a civil suit against NCDAC on behalf of all prisoners who have been validated as a SRG member. By submitting a grievance you will be supporting the claims i have made. Thusly i entrust you take the time and submit the following grievance:

Free The Land

In the early hours of Wednesday, December 4th, a masked gunman shot the CEO of United $tates insurance company UnitedHealthcare, Brian Thompson, to death in the bustling streets of New York City. By midday, CCTV footage of the act had gone viral across the internet and traditional news media, spawning endless narratives and theories. Simultaneously, the high-profile nature of the shooting prompted a national manhunt to search for the suspect. The shooter evaded capture for five days, but ey was eventually arrested after a tip was called in by a McDonald’s employee in rural Pennsylvania.

As communists operating in the United $tates, how are we to understand this event? What does the event itself and its resulting fallout tell us about the political landscape we work within? If we wish to live up to the title of being Marxists, the only answer to these questions is that we must conduct a, as Lenin put it, “concrete analysis of concrete conditions.” Let us begin with the facts of the case.

The Facts

The name of the alleged shooter is Luigi Mangione. As laid out in eir so-called ‘manifesto’, Luigi’s motivation for the shooting is a disdain for U.$. healthcare insurance companies in general and UnitedHealthcare in particular. The origin of this disdain likely lies in a combination of Luigi’s persynal interactions with health insurance companies through eir struggles with back pain as well as the more widespread antagonism between the U.$. population and health insurance companies.

Luigi comes from a well-connected family which has its roots in the suburbs of Baltimore, Maryland. Eir grandfather ran several successful business ventures which guaranteed employment and prosperity for the next generations of the Mangione family as they have now taken the reins on the family businesses. Luigi emself attended a private high school before attending the Ivy League University of Pennsylvania where ey got eir degree in computer science in 2020. According to Luigi’s family and friends, ey ceased all communication with them in July 2024. Presumably, Luigi spent the time between then and December planning the shooting, which we will now focus on.

As mentioned, the shooting itself took place on the morning of 4 December 2024. Interestingly, Luigi employed a 3D-printed firearm to commit the shooting, which marks the first time such a weapon has been used in such a high-profile case. Immediately after, Luigi evaded the swarms of police by traveling via foot, cab, and e-bike before boarding a train towards Philadelphia. Not much else is known about Luigi’s whereabouts and travels during the 5 days between the shooting and eir arrest in Altoona, Pennsylvania.

The biggest takeaway here is how easily Luigi evaded both the NYPD and the FBI for an extended period of time. If Luigi had continued traveling, discarded the evidence ey carried on em, or put any effort into changing eir appearance, it’s likely that ey would have never been caught. But this is simply speculation on our parts. Let us now turn from the objective facts of the case to the realm of ideology.

Luigi’s Ideology

To understand why Luigi Mangione shot Brian Thompson, we must first understand eir ideology. The only clues we have towards this understanding are scattered social media posts as well as the aforementioned “manifesto” Luigi had on em when ey was arrested. While we’ll primarily focus on the “manifesto”, we will first highlight one of Luigi’s social media posts where ey reviews the writings of Ted Kaczynski, also known as the Unabomber. In this review, Luigi highlights how Kaczynski was “rightfully imprisoned” because ey “maimed innocent people” but that these were the actions of an “extreme political revolutionary.” Luigi’s review finishes by quoting multiple paragraphs from a Reddit comment expounding how violence is the only method we have at our disposal to fight back against “our overlords.”

Now, turning to the “manifesto”, we wish to give our readers the fullest picture possible, so we have included below a full copy of the writing that was recovered when Luigi was arrested:

“To the Feds, I’ll keep this short, because I do respect what you do for our country. To save you a lengthy investigation, I state plainly that I wasn’t working with anyone. This was fairly trivial: some elementary social engineering, basic CAD, a lot of patience. The spiral notebook, if present, has some straggling notes and To Do lists that illuminate the gist of it. My tech is pretty locked down because I work in engineering so probably not much info there. I do apologize for any strife of traumas but it had to be done. Frankly, these parasites simply had it coming. A reminder: the US has the #1 most expensive healthcare system in the world, yet we rank roughly #42 in life expectancy. United is the [indecipherable] largest company in the US by market cap, behind only Apple, Google, Walmart. It has grown and grown, but as [sic] our life expectancy? No the reality is, these [indecipherable] have simply gotten too powerful, and they continue to abuse our country for immense profit because the American public has allwed [sic] them to get away with it. Obviously the problem is more complex, but I do not have space, and frankly I do not pretend to be the most qualified person to lay out the full argument. But many have illuminated the corruption and greed (e.g.: Rosenthal, Moore), decades ago and the problems simply remain. It is not an issue of awareness at this point, but clearly power games at play. Evidently I am the first to face it with such brutal honesty.”(1)

Let us take a closer look at this writing. Luigi begins with saying:

“To the Feds, I’ll keep this short, because I do respect what you do for our country.”

To those who proclaim Luigi is spreading “class consciousness” or that ey is a revolutionary, this single sentence should shatter all illusions. If an ally of yours said ey respects federal agents (of the FBI, CIA, etc.) for what they “do for our country,” would you be on eir side? Our answer to this question is a resounding Fuck No.

What else does Luigi write about? Ey brings up some rudimentary statistics about life expectancy in the U.$. and market capitalization before asserting that U.$. corporations have “gotten too powerful” and “they continue to abuse our country for immense profit because the American public has allwed [sic] them to get away with it.” This strikes us as similar to the proposition that the Amerikkkan public is “brainwashed” (how? by whom? why?) into merely passively accepting the capitalist-imperialist world-system. This stands in opposition to our political line which is that Euro-Amerikans actively embrace imperialism (consciously or not) as the primary source of their wealth via super-profits extracted from the Third World proletariat.

Luigi ends eir writing by admitting that ey is not “the most qualified person to lay out the full argument” for the issues of U.$. health insurance system but assures us that ey is, “evidently […] the first to face it with such brutal honesty.”

How high and mighty! Luigi is “evidently” the first to break through the veil of ignorance which plagues the rest of us. Though we would contend that there are perhaps a few people who have come before Mr. Mangione who have faced the “corruption and greed” of the healthcare industry (which is only a particular form of capitalist industry in general) with “such brutal honesty.” Off the top of our heads, we can think of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Fred Hampton, Malcolm X, or Huey Newton, just to name a few. These are of course only the most popular figureheads of past communist movements. In reality, there are millions who have stood their ground against the imperialist-bourgeoisie and lost their lives for it. But no matter their sacrifice, for we have been blessed with the gift of the wealthy Euro-Amerikan from Maryland showing us the path forward!

So where does all this leave us? Is Luigi really a Marxist revolutionary who has been sent down from the Heavens to end the oppression of the masses? Of course not. Luigi’s writings and musings are nothing more than regurgitations of the same social fascist populism that is reminiscent of the messaging around Bernie Sander’s presidential campaigns combined with an impetus towards political violence. Discontent with the healthcare insurance industry is normal everyday politics for people living in the United $tates. All Luigi did was elevate this discontent from the level of complaining on the internet or attending protests to killing a CEO. An escalation of force, to be sure, but not one that is qualitatively different in its nature.

The Public’s Reaction

However critical we may be of Luigi Mangione, ey is only an individual. It would be an error to narrowly focus on the individual agents of hystory rather than the political trends and their material causes which compel individuals to act the way they do. So what trend underlies the actions of Luigi? And how has this been reflected in the public’s reaction to the killing?

Broadly, reactions to the shooting can be grouped into one of two camps: condemnations of Luigi’s actions or celebrations of them.

Those who condemn Luigi tend to do so from a position of superficial pacifism wherein you must be totally against violence in all situations – unless it benefits yourself or your nation. A vast majority of U.$. politicians fall into this group as well as a sizable portion of the U.$. citizenry. Typically hailing from the upper strata of U.$. society, these individuals are largely hypocritical and uninteresting for our purposes here. After all, even a child can identify the contradiction that’s present when one mourns the death of a single CEO while simultaneously advocating for imperialist armies to indiscriminately murder the oppressed.

On the other side, there are large swaths of people who view Luigi as a “folk hero” or a “savior” and exist somewhere on the spectrum between sympathizing with or admiring Luigi. Typically viewed as part of the Amerikan “left” (though we have observed both Democrats and Republicans expressing these views), this group wishes for healthcare reform in order to ease up on the contradictions intrinsic to the capitalist system. More specifically, these individuals fall into the same category of social fascist labor aristocrats as Luigi. Their class status as labor aristocrats is being threatened by the “greedy” capitalists of the health insurance corporations who want to take away their hard-earned wealth (i.e. superprofits from the Third World) and Luigi’s actions are simply one response to this threat. So long as their aim is narrowly limited on what can be done to improve the lives of Amerikans rather than taking a revolutionary approach to understand what can be done to improve the lives of all humyns, they remain enemies of the international proletariat.

This graph helps illustrate the demographics of either group as well as the proportions of the U.$. population that fall into either side. We also must wonder if the 20% support for Luigi Mangione among Amerikans would translate to support for retribution for the killing of Robert Brooks by New York prison guards and the slow genocide of New Afrikan men in U.$. prisons? We probably all know the answer to this question.

Though there is a real ideological divide between the two aforementioned groups, it would be wrong to overstate the width of this divide. Both groups are merely two factions of the white supremacist Amerikkkan establishment which exploits the Third World in order to secure their own prosperity.

Our Thoughts

Where do we lie in this divide? You certainly won’t find us shedding tears over a dead CEO, disavowing violence, or proclaiming pacifism, but you also will not see us celebrating Luigi Mangione as some sort of hero of the oppressed. Instead, we view Luigi as merely the latest manifestation of labor aristocracy angst towards the imperialist leaders of the United $tates. If either of Luigi’s actions or political line were rooted in revolutionary politics, we’d be a bit more sympathetic to em. But as it stands, Luigi’s lone wolf killing is both tactically inept and ideologically confused.

More broadly, we understand the struggle of people in the United $tates for more comprehensive healthcare. But rather than trying to secure healthcare for Amerikans only, why don’t we set our sights on securing healthcare for all people? Why should we advocate for petty reforms like getting earlier colonoscopies for middle-aged Amerikans when millions die each year in the Third World from easily-preventable diseases because of imperialist wealth extraction? or when U.$. weapons are used to murder doctors and bomb hospitals in Gaza? This is a topic comrades have written on before in relation to the Affordable Care Act(3), and it clearly remains relevant today. Even if we limit our scope to be within U.$. borders, the lack of healthcare that’s available for prisoners is a much more pressing issue than the reforms which the social fascists are seeking. For prison bureaucrats, it’s well documented how healthcare, and lack thereof, is used as a tool to punish and torture prisoners(4) rather than recognizing it as a constitutional right.

Circling back to the central topic of this article, the question still stands: will this shooting actually change anything about the healthcare industry? Almost certainly not. But it has provided an opportunity for the fascism of the labor aristocracy to rear its head in a particularly brazen fashion through the actions of Luigi Mangione. As the U.$. labor aristocracy is faced with political chaos both at-home and abroad, they will resist the ever-looming threat of proletarianization. Will they recover and maintain their position in the imperialist world system? Will the U.$. population come face-to-face with proletarianization as global inter-imperialist conflicts intensify? We cannot say which is the case. The only thing we are sure of is that the actions of Luigi Mangione have provided a unique insight into the political terrain we operate in within U.$. borders. As communists, we must harness this insight and use it to guide our political action so that we may empower the international proletariat in their struggle against capitalist-imperialism. The only path forward is revolution.

^{(1) Ken Klippenstein, 10 December 2024, Exclusive: Luigi’s Manifesto}

^{(2)YouGov Poll, December 2024}

^{(3)ULK 38, April 2014, Affordable Care Act Underscores Need for Global Health Coverage}

^{(4)ULK 12, September 2009, Basic Healthcare Threat to Security}

Some of the problems I have run into organizing are being targeted by administration for conducting a study group. Some times there’s too many people interested for the space available, then when you’ve got 15-20 people huddled up and no violence is occurring, it scared the C.O.s. They are not used to that type of unity and they don’t encourage anything that has to do with building a collective consciousness. I try to do study groups in smaller circles and more discreetly because some dudes are eyes and ears for the oppressor. Repression is not a good thing at all and I must say that before I continue. However, when they do crack down, that’s when I pay close attention because certain responses help me inventory the caliber of men I’m studying with. The ones who know and understand the full magnitude of what the consequences can be for orchestrating a study group but are still willing to carry on are my type of comrades. In other words, the targeting helps me see who’s who.

[…] As far as the question of being surrounded by enemies, we can list the various forces inside prisons similar to classes/nations outside because there are different types of people and not everybody is on the same page. For example, if in the prison I am housed at I did a united front for Palestine solidarity, certain people would not even consider it because that’s not the level of struggle they are interested in. But if I did one for, let’s say, advocating for more quality programming inside the institution, you will see a different crowd. Even in this crowd, you will have some who fully identify with capitalist principles (even fascism) and their oppressor.

Different initiatives will attract different people. I feel like it’s important to dichotomize because not everybody is qualified for revolutionary work. You’ve got some people who are so broken and battered they will utilize this as an opportunity to gain favor with the oppressor. United fronts can be formed that resolve around us understanding our personal experiences within the criminal injustice system, and putting it in a larger context of abolishing the prison system and all other oppressive, capitalist-imperial systems. By us connecting this link to the outside world, we will see how these systems overlap and the need for a united front for all the oppressed. The fight continues.

MIM(Prisons) responds: Last issue we asked for feedback on what it was like to build support for Palestine in prisons. As this comrade indicates, it can be a hard sell. To focus on quality programming can be a better place to start, but is not inherently going to build the movement. More programming can lead to more state control over what prisoners are doing with their time, more brainwashing. So such a campaign would need to have a component where you were also building programs, or just space for discussion, that serves the movement for it to be a progressive campaign; a campaign that serves the international proletariat. Rather than something that just helps a small group of people get jobs when they’re released or whatever. Campaigning for Palestine is much more inherently internationalist in its content, and does not present these challenges – it presents the challenge of being harder to mobilize people around instead.

Just a few months ago we reported on the ongoing illegal funding of I$rael by the United $tates, with a recently announced $8.7 billion funding package. As Biden prepares to leave office later this month, it has been reported that another $8 billion is being sent to fund the imperialist outpost in the Middle East. Axios reports:

“The State Department has notified Congress ‘informally’ of an $8 billion proposed arms deal with Israel that will include munitions for fighter jets and attack helicopters as well as artillery shells.”

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) responded in part:

“Only racists who do not view people of color as equally human, and sociopaths who delight in funding mass slaughter, could send Netanyahu even more bombs while his government openly kidnaps doctors, destroys hospitals, and exterminates the last survivors in northern Gaza.”(1)

The Palestinian resistance has drawn the line in the sand, and are continuing to expose the racism of Amerikans and others in the imperialist countries who support this ongoing genocide. But it is especially the people in the United $tates who benefit from the funds feeding the military industrial complex, as most aid to I$rael is spent here.

In further support of militarism on his way out of office, Biden has once again begun direct bombing of Yemen by U.$. war ships despite a pledge to end the war on Yemen when campaigning for the presidency. As part of Operation Prosperity Guardian U.$. aircraft carriers have been in the Red Sea for over a year to safeguard international trade in general, and shipments to I$rael in particular. Recently, the Amerikans bombed the only airport in Yemen, killing 6 and injurying 40, as well as the main port that is the lifeline for supplies to Yemen. This port was already largely damaged in the ongoing war with the U.$.-backed Saudi regime. The airport attack was timed by I$rael to happen while the World Health Organization General Secretary was there, though ey was not injured.(2)

Despite over 22 years of continuous U.$.-sponsored attacks, the people of Yemen stand strong, and Ansar Allah are clear they will not stop rerouting ships in the Red Sea and attacking I$rael until genocide in Gaza stops.

There is no hope of the U.$. imperialists cutting off I$rael on their own volition, and everything in our power must be done here in the heart of empire to stop the funding of genocide and the expansionist settler colonialism spreading across the region. Palestine, Yemen and others in the region are at the front lines fighting imperialism and oppression.

<sup>Note:1. CAIR, 4 January 2025, CAIR Calls Biden Admin’s New $8 Billion Arms Sale for Israeli Genocide ‘Racist, Sociopathic’.
2. Democracy Now! 3 January 2025.</sup>

A group called Americans For Tax Fairness posted an announcement online that:

“The wealth of the four richest Americans hit $1 TRILLION yesterday.

“It’s the first time in history the net worth of just four men – Musk, Bezos, Ellison, Zuckerberg – has hit the trillions.

“These four men were worth $74 billion twelve short years ago.

“Tax billionaires.”

A startling increase in wealth for sure. And who could possibly use so much wealth? Have their lives even changed with this increase of wealth of two orders of magnitude? Did they even notice? In related news people are up in arms about one of the 4, Jeff Bezos, putting on a $600 million wedding.

It is true that any of these individuals could take a chunk of that wealth and ride off into the sunset, never to be heard from again. But like any one of us, we can only operate within the laws of the world we were born into. And the laws of capitalism would just fill that slot with another individual.

We’ll let Engels explain this in more depth:

“The capitalistic mode of production moves in these two forms of the antagonism immanent to it from its very origin. It is never able to get out of that”vicious circle” which Fourier had already discovered. What Fourier could not, indeed, see in his time is that this circle is gradually narrowing; that the movement becomes more and more a spiral, and must come to an end, like the movement of the planets, by collision with the centre. It is the compelling force of anarchy in the production of society at large that more and more completely turns the great majority of men into proletarians; and it is the masses of the proletariat again who will finally put an end to anarchy in production. It is the compelling force of anarchy in social production that turns the limitless perfectibility of machinery under modern industry into a compulsory law by which every individual industrial capitalist must perfect his machinery more and more, under penalty of ruin. But the perfecting of machinery is making human labour superfluous. If the introduction and increase of machinery means the displacement of millions of manual by a few machine-workers, improvement in machinery means the displacement of more and more of the machine-workers themselves. It means, in the last instance, the production of a number of available wage-workers in excess of the average needs of capital, the formation of a complete industrial reserve army, as I called it in 1845, available at the times when industry is working at high pressure, to be cast out upon the street when the inevitable crash comes, a constant dead-weight upon the limbs of the working class in its struggle for existence with capital, a regulator for the keeping of wages down to the low level that suits the interests of capital. Thus it comes about, to quote Marx, that machinery becomes the most powerful weapon in the war of capital against the working class; that the instruments of labour constantly tear the means of subsistence out of the hands of the labourer; that the very product of the worker is turned into an instrument for his subjugation. Thus it comes about that the economising of the instruments of labour becomes at the same time, from the outset, the most reckless waste of labour-power, and robbery based upon the normal conditions under which labour functions; that machinery, the most powerful instrument for shortening labour-time, becomes the most unfailing means for placing every moment of the labourer’s time and that of his family at the disposal of the capitalist for the purpose of expanding the value of his capital.” - Frederick Engels, Anti-Duhring

For those four people to keep increasing their wealth, is to fulfill their destiny in the system of capitalism. It is not a question of persynal greed, nor of humyn nature, rather it is the natural law of the current economic structure.

The call to tax billionaires is ultimately a futile act in opposition to the laws of the capitalist machine. It is possible to do, and could change the balance of wealth among those living in the most wealthy country in the world. But the tendency of the laws of capitalism is to go back to this point, and surpass it, in terms of the concentration of wealth. This tendency to concentrate wealth, to maintain profitability by out-competing others, is one of the inherent contradictions in the capitalist system that require its end.

To live in such a time is exciting. The opportunities increase as capitalism becomes top-heavy and crisis looms. It’s terrible, but it’s fine.

Engels also talks about how the inherent contradictions of capitalism build a “reserve army” of labor, excluding more and more from participating in the wage system. Even in the richest country of the world, where there is virtually no proletariat like that described by Engels above, these laws of capitalism apply and we have a class we call the First World lumpen. A class that is excluded by capitalism – the only economic system that has ever had a thing called “unemployment.” The idea that there is no work for some people to do is unheard of in most of humyn history, as well as in socialist countries of the past like the USSR and China.

In 2024, homelessness increased 18%, following a 12% increase in 2023. The official count is over 770,000 people, meaning real numbers are approaching a million.(1) That is still less than half the people we have locked in prisons and jails in this country. And both numbers may continue to surge with proposed plans under the second Trump regime. However, mass deportations could also contribute to a decline in homelessness, as migrant raza make up a significant portion of those without houses.(2)

Most of the people in the United $tates raise their pitchforks at these billionaires in hopes of raising their taxes to maintain the standard of living here. These people believe in the system, just think it needs to change a bit. The First World lumpen are at least torn, in that they benefit from operating against the rules of the system, while also receiving some benefits from it. As contradictions spiral up, as Engels describes, the lumpen will be some of the first to see opportunity in the destruction of the old and the creation of something new, in particular the oppressed nation lumpen, who we identify in our analysis, “Who is Lumpen in the United $tates?”

<sup>1. Michael Casey, 27 December 2024, US homelessness up 18% as affordable housing remains out of reach for many people, Associated Press.
2. Communist Party of Aztlán, November 2024, On Homelessness: A Growing Site of Lumpen Organizing, Under Lock & Key 87.</sup>

Robert Brooks, a 43 year old New Afrikan man, was beaten to death by Correctional Officers (C.O.s) in Marcy Correctional Facility in upstate New York on 9 December 2024, dying in the hospital the next day. On 27 December the New York Attorney General’s office released body camera footage from 6 C.O.s and 2 Sergeants involved in the beating. They show Brooks being pinned to a gurney, while handcuffed, and beaten on-and-off for many minutes by the pigs.(1) Thirteen staff members of the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (DOCCS) are being investigated in the beating.(2)

Marcy C.F. is in an area of upstate New York known for its racist rednecks, a very white area abutting the Oneida Nation Reservation. Just down the road is the infamous Clinton Correctional Facility as well as the Mohawk Correctional Facility offensively named after the neighboring Mohawk nation of the Iroquois confederacy. A comrade struggling with addiction was moved from Mohawk last year to a Secure Housing Facility where ey reports:

“I still am recovering from the brutal assault, battery, torture and sexual assault by the gang of pigz here at Upstate C.F. I am physically healing slowly and taking some drug to help with the brain damage I suffered from all the fractures in my face and forehead. I’m doing physical therapy for my arm. My studies with you all have given me the focus and strength to recover. I am no longer on the Suboxone program, smoking cigarettes, marijuana or PCP. I still struggle with K2, but the more time I spend grounded in studies, writing and reading with you all, the less time I have to think about wanting to get high. I thank you all and hope my struggle is an example to those whoa re sick themselves and struggling.”

Brooks had recently been transferred from Mohawk as well, and sent to Marcy this month.(2) The state investigation indicates that Brooks did not attack the officers or do anything to warrant the use of force, which the videos show as well.(1,2) Brooks’s death is suspected to be a result of “asphyxia due to compression of the neck.” New York State Correctional Officers are required to wear body cameras and have them running whenever encountering a prisoner. While many involved covered their cameras, the beating continued despite the presence of the body cameras in the room. The Times Union reports that the C.O.s seemed to be unaware that their body cameras could be passively recording the incident.(2)

People posted pictures of Mario and Luigi cartoon characters online in response to pictures and videos of the beating posted online. The outrage at this state-sponsored lynching is somewhat encouraging, but posting images online obviously won’t solve the brutality waged against oppressed nations, and against prisoners in general, in this country. Organization is needed. Only together can we protect ourselves.

<sup>Notes:
1. https://ag.ny.gov/osi/footage/robert-brooks
2. Brendan J. Lyons, 27 December 2024, Court records confirm inmate was beaten while handcuffed, The Times Union.</sup>

I recently read a writing titled: “Law, Prison and Double-Double Consciousness: A Phenomenological View of the Black-Prisoner’s Experience” by James Davis III. This led me to write the following:

“What I pondered was my own double-double consciousness! The development of the”New Afrikan” within the greater black populace of captives. From the taking of the Afrikan attribute(s)’s learning of Ki-Swahili, the mandated study of all things dealing with black culture, history and struggle, to the daily remaking of one’s world view through study and application…the identity of “New Afrikan” implores one to rise above the lowly station of inmate, of n-word.”

In reading this piece by Mr. Davis, I was reminded of the innate power of a man. The power to literally reinvent oneself within an environment designed to annihilate the soul of a man. Prison(s) are created with a purpose to force a human to willingly acquiesce to half-man existence.

To develop a double-double consciousness is to resist such inferior station(s), to be a man! One who stands on principle(s), personified purpose, and willingly accepts his responsibilities to both uplift and reeducate the masses, which is a revolutionary ideal!

To embrace a revolutionary ideological precept is to strive even harder at evolving this “double-double consciousness”. Aside from the aforementioned character improvement(s), the revolutionary-minded man immerses himself in all things dealing with progressive politics and the science of struggle.

As his prison cohorts grow comfortable living captive man half-lives (i.e. embracing typical prison activities: gambling, drug usage, etc.) the revolutionary-minded captive creates a compass of consciousness which guides him daily. He spends his time always pushing himself to excel, regardless of tasks or conditions.

This is the cat who aligns with other men who reject the half-lives and/or inferior designations expected of the captive class. Whenever he/they are seen, they’re reading something, writing something, attending college, engaging in some form of constructive dialogue, or physically training their bodies. Forging his new self: the unbroken, unbowed man that’s living and potentially dying, upon revolutionary standards and practices.

The identification of oneself as a militant, as a revolutionary theorist, anchors oneself. As those around him list to-and-fro, uncertain of their next move(s), the innate belief within the mind of the man moving by a revolutionary compass is that he represents something greater than himself. That he is a soldier that happens to be behind enemy lines if you will: captured! It is through this perception, that he re-imagines his reality, and in turn finds purpose in his every action. He discovers the reservoir of resistance within which moves him to set his personal bar of daily exemplary conduct higher than those around him. Understanding his calling, devoting himself to the people. To meeting their needs.

I find all of the above to be quite close to describing myself. Though admittedly, I fall short of the mark most days. Being human, with all of the subjectivisms that accompany it, at times, my objective conditions threaten to overwhelm me. Yet it is the will to win, to resist the “colonial mentality” which has historically impacted my ilk, propels me to stand firm. Existing within a perpetual mode of resistance!

In looking back, I can really see that I’ve been in a state of rebellion my entire life! That I have never been one of those “go along to get along” type of brothas. Unfortunately, this ingrained sense of recalcitrance has led to many years of imprisonment and designations by those of the oppressor class, as being anti social and/or suffering some mystery “personality disorder”. To not be a shoe shine boy, a buck dancing coon, a tom! The conventional roles assigned to the U.$. man/woman of color! Is to be castigated by those in power, and/or positions of authority.

I now fully comprehend this whole “double-double consciousness” as it pertains to myself individually and my New Afrikan/black kinfolk! Collectively! All colored folk whom live in capitalist society, which is governed by those who use race and class as measurements of worth! Not only adjust to the double consciousness of faux citizenry…they also develop their own “double-double consciousness” to cope!

However, the one brutal fact which distinguishes the U.$. Black man/woman from any other ethnic groups is the historical miscarriage of chattel slavery! Our socio-cultural creation of a double-double consciousness is our collective survival mechanism if you will. A way to figuratively stay rooted in our Afrikan beginnings! Whilst literally standing on the shoulders of the many, many activists, struggle-ists, revolutionaries, and average citizens whom were wounded, imprisoned, tortured, and murdered! For daring to dream of having freedom, justice and equality! We repay the debt to our martyrs by clinging fiercely to their memories, living within our “cocoon’s” of double-double consciousness! Forging bonds with other forward thinking folk of Afrikan ancestry. And then, united in purpose, teach others how to “escape” our half life existences! Moving towards a revolutionary ideology and corresponding actions as the conditions reveal the time to manifest them! I stand firm within the confines of a satanic creation! Striving to be the catalyst for progress and change. As I survive, only through my own “double-double consciousness” cocoon.

MIM(Prisons) adds: Davis’s double-double consciousness is a product of alienation through oppressive structures. These oppressive structures isolate people from “the world”, putting them in a new reality, with new rules and norms, that are generally worse than “the world” they know in every way. This is in contrast to prisons in socialist China – where people were encouraged (you might say coerced) to study the outside world, to better understand their own actions and find a new way to be in that world that is in line with the interests of the people. In a socialist prison, criminals can focus on struggling with themselves because they aren’t forced to struggle against the oppression of the prison environment first.

We offer comrades support in developing the consciousness that is in rebellion against the oppressive system. We offer Under Lock & Key as a forum to connect with and share ideas with other like-minded individuals. We have our Revolutionary 12 Steps that is one tool for those trying to transform themselves into new people. And we have books on revolutionary societies like China, and their prison system, and how they were able to radically transform a whole society. So if this comrade’s essay resonates with you, get involved and get plugged in with these resources today!

Spoilers

A Thousand and One is a drama film set during the years of 1994-2005 in New York City. The movie follows a hairdresser and recently released prisoner Inez de la Paz (played by New Afrikan rapper/actress Teyana Taylor) who has spent the past years imprisoned in Rikers Island. A persyn who has been part of the foster home system growing up, Inez returns to her former care in Brooklyn where she sees her son, Terry (who is also in a home), out on the streets. Trying to escape from the home, Terry is hospitalized and Inez secretly visits him and takes Terry to illegally raise him as her child under a false birth certificate/social security card in Harlem.

Inez reunites with her former romantic partner/lumpen associate during her times as a petty thief named Lucky. At first, Lucky is hesitant to join in on this plan to build a new family with his former street partner, but eventually marries Inez and promises to take care of Terry. At the time, Pig Rudy Giuliani has begun his campaigns to start an improved New York City which they place much hopes for as life-long residents of NYC.

By 2001, Pig Giuliani’s attacks on the New Afrikan masses of NYC through the stop-and-frisk policies are coming down hard and we see Terry, now a teenager, being affected by this. Despite being a soft-spoken kid excelling at school, the street pigs frisk him and his friend with no other reason than being New Afrikan. Alongside Terry’s entrance into young adulthood, Inez’s marriage begins to meet difficulties as Lucky has become involved in affairs with other wimmin.

By 2005, Lucky succumbs to cancer as Terry prepares for college. The effects of gentrification are beginning to take the offensive against the masses as Euro-Amerikans begin to move in and Inez’s new landlord attempts to drive them out of the apartment using loophole methods to evict them early. In school, Terry’s guidance counselor asks for his birth certificate and social security card for a job program for underprivileged students. Without telling his mother, Terry submits his forged papers which comes back as invalid. After Terry confesses that the government documents were fake, the counselor calls social services who enter Inez’s home. Terry warns his mother about this and she begins to flee as under the imperialist law, despite caring for and stepping up to be the mother for Terry, Inez has committed a kidnapping of a ward of the state. The social services agents reveal to Terry that Inez is not his biological mother and that the two have no real blood relations. The pigs exposes Inez’s lumpen past to Terry leaving him distraught and in tears.

In the end, Inez confesses to Terry the truth. Inez was not the womyn who abandoned Terry on the street corner in his memory. She had found Terry for the first time lost in the streets when she was recently released as a prisoner from Riker’s island. Inez explains to Terry that she saw her younger self in him and that she could not stand to see another child go through the system that she was put through: the foster homes, the juvenile centers, the prisons, etc. Terry, crying, expresses the fear that he feels in becoming independent as he enters adulthood and affirms to Inez that he still loves her as a mother. The two separate on their own paths and before leaving, Inez promises Terry that “this isn’t goodbye.”

Down With Gentrification, Wimmin Hold Up Half the Sky

At the beginning of the movie, we see Inez de la Paz work as a street hawker offering hair/beauty services on the streets. We would say that this is a good portrayal of who we mean when we talk about the First World Lumpen or semi-proletariat who might not participate in overtly anti-people or parasitic ways of self-subsistence (such as sex work or drug peddling) and lives similarly to the semi-proletariat we see in the Third World. In our modern times of the 2020s, we see many folks using social media pages for these grey area side hustles while also maintaining a lower labor aristocrat level minimum wage job (oftentimes in the service industry). In the 1990s when this movie was being set, holding a cardboard box and approaching passer-bys was the common move. Readers might imagine Inez de la Paz to be in an extremely vulnerable political-economic situation as this semi-proletariat/First World Lumpen who had just been released from prison and not much support. However, the movie makes clear that Inez is a tough womyn and avoids both the traps of a damsel in distress needing a male figure out in the dangerous streets nor the over-masculinized New Afrikan womyn whose humynity is stripped away. In an artistic and political sense, we would say the movie did a great job in this regard and is an example we can look up to for creating socialist art/realistic portrayal of the masses under oppression.

Another trap that the movie avoids well is the habit of ruminating on the sensationalist/traumatic pain of New Afrikan life under U.$. imperialism. Mich art which depicts stories of the oppressed nations will fall victim to depicting a suffering masses who suffer like how the sky is blue. A Thousand and One refuses to show Inez, Terry, and Lucky as part of a faceless hoard of suffering while also refusing colorblind individualism: it intertwines the national oppression Black people face (the gentrification, the foster system, the prison system, the education system, etc.) while showing the deeply impersynal effects imperialist institutions have on these very humyn characters and how they take control over their lives without letting the system win. Because of this strong humynization of unapologetically New Afrikan characters, what might seem like a sensationalist plot twist at the end where Inez is revealed to not be Terry’s biological mother is welded to the material reality of the masses’ conditions.

The humnynization of these characters (the foster orphan, the former prisoner, the cheating husband, etc.) that this film undertakes fights against the dehumynization that already exists on these archetypes within the Amerikan imperialist-patriarchal superstructure (especially the oppressed nations and, in this case, principally New Afrika). We as Maoists believe that despite the great storytelling and care that A.V. Rockwell has put in for this story, this film is still part of the U.$. imperialist-patriarchal machine. One persyn and their creation (in this case a film director and her film) will be swept into the wave of the bourgeois superstructure. There will be many Euro-Amerikan viewers of the film who might watch this during February while it is being recommended to them by Netflix in their petty-bourgeois suburbia homes. Would they appreciate/recognize the persynal revolution that Inez has underwent throughout this story? Would they understand the self-determination that Inez has taken over her life against these social forces for the new generation to find happiness? Or would Inez’s motivations and reasons become watered down to a story of the strong independent Black womyn whose intentions were good but her methods of trying to find happiness for Terry was just wrong and too radical? Or worse, they might just paint her as a criminal con artist whose vicarious happiness to a boy she never met gave her a chance to play the act of a mother and a stable family the system eventually took away from her as well. Ms. Rockwell has put great effort into the humynization of these characters, we are afraid that a film alone is not enough to change the consciousness of most people in the level necessity for a society without oppression. That would be a job for a cultural revolution under a proletarian dictatorship.

One thing that interested me as a Maoist revolutionary is the role of motherhood that Inez was able to master over Terry despite her having the knowledge that Terry was not her biological son: a fact that is so overemphasized and shoved down the masses throats when it comes to their legitimate claim over a child. Biological determinism (like in “race”) is a core principle of the imperialist-patriarchial superstructure: gender, motherhood, etc. is determined by one’s bloodline or something they are “born with.” The reality however, is that conditioning of individual by an entire society’s relations of production and class struggle is the true driving force for these roles. For Inez de la Paz, an individual New Afrikan womyn who has recently been released from Rikers Island, to use what she has learned as her life as a lumpen to fight against this broad society’s conditioning and condition herself using individual determination is a great depiction of the social potential of the lumpen class. Historically, abandoning the bourgeois quest of giving orphaned children a nuclear family for them to go into and instead giving them a new environment to live on as orphans has been the successful practice of solving the problem of orphan street kids in the Soviet Union. While a Maoist telling of this story would perhaps depict independent institution building for people like Terry and Inez, the story that is told instead serves good medium for studying and appropriating bourgeois individualism of the Amerikans for the interests of the oppressed nations.

I would like to conclude the review of this movie with two quotes:

“The world is yours, as well as ours, but in the last analysis, it is yours. You young people, full of vigor and vitality, are in the bloom of life, like the sun at eight or nine in the morning. Our hope is placed on you. The world belongs to you. China’s future belongs to you.” - Mao Zedong

“Our revenge will be the laughter of our children” - Bobby Sands