MIM(Prisons) is a cell of revolutionaries serving the oppressed masses inside U.$. prisons, guided by the communist ideology of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism.
Under Lock & Key is a news service written by and for prisoners with a focus on what is going on behind bars throughout the United States. Under Lock & Key is available to U.S. prisoners for free through MIM(Prisons)'s Free Political Literature to Prisoners Program, by writing:
MIM(Prisons) PO Box 40799 San Francisco, CA 94140.
We had another support strike here on Calipatria’s A-Yard from Aug 26 to
the 28th. The July 8th support strike went on for 7 days and involved
all races. There was also broad refusal to go to work or school. This
time around, however, only Mexicans refused food and people still went
to work. On top of all that, the food strike was called off right after
a race riot broke out on the yard between us (Mexicans), and the whites.
We skipped 9 meals but I’m not even sure that the pigs reported this as
a hunger strike.
The pigs have clever ways of manipulating our numbers here. During
normal program we get a sack lunch as we exit the chow hall after
breakfast and I believe they lump this together as one meal because
during the July strike they didn’t come around to acknowledge that we
had skipped 9 meals and ask if we were participating in a hunger strike
until after we skipped breakfast on the fifth day. By then about half of
the strikers had started eating and going to work. They also followed
their question of whether we were on hunger strike by asking if we would
allow them to take the food we had in our cells. Many answered “no,”
others answered “yes.” The following day the pigs came around and only
bothered with the cells that answered “yes,” going right by the cells
that answered “no.” CDCR claims that confiscating food is done in order
to monitor our food intake. They can say that they couldn’t start
monitoring our food intake until they confiscated the food. If they
start counting how many meals you skipped after they took the food then
you’re not even counted as a hunger striker because we only lasted a day
and a half after that.
When they asked if they could remove food items they only accepted yes
or no answers. I told the pig over and over that there was no food for
them to take but that wasn’t even a question. If you answered no then
they could say that you acknowledged having food in your cell but
wouldn’t allow them to take it. They pretty much don’t have to count
anybody by using these tactics.
We need to go on an indefinite work strike that should last as long as
they insist on having indefinite SHU terms, but there’s not enough
people with jobs in level 4 yards making it easy for CDCR to target
those few inmates who refuse to work and replacing them with people from
lower levels or PC yards.
MIM(Prisons) responds: This discussion of the latest action
in Calipatria underscores the importance of our work to build unity and
a United Front before engaging in serious actions. We commend everyone
who stands up against the system and puts their lives and health at
risk, but without unity we end up with small numbers of protesters and
struggle to present a united position to the prison system. As we
discussed at length in our article
summing
up the strike suspension, we don’t anticipate the state will meet
the strikers demands, but the struggle against torture
continues.
As a mail-based prisoner support organization, the ability to get our
mail in to our comrades and subscribers is an essential part of our
ability to organize. If we can’t get mail in, we can’t help lead the
anti-imperialist struggle behind bars. We are under no illusion that
we’ll ever be free from censorship; if our enemy hates us, we’re
probably doing something right! But the U.$. Constitution and our
humynist morality support our insistence on fighting censorship as much
as possible so that we can have as big of an impact on the international
revolutionary movement as we can.
Often times our subscribers don’t even know how much censorship they
persynally are experiencing, let alone what’s going on around the
country. Our annual censorship report gives our subscribers an idea of
how much political repression we’re facing overall.
This year we started recording our mail in more detail, and removed a
lot of flaws in how the data is aggregated (although it’s not perfect!).
At the bottom of the chart, “% Unconfirmed” tells you how accurate the
snapshot is for that reporting year; the lower number the better,
because a lower percent of unconfirmed mail means we actually know what
happened to more of the mail we’ve sent in. Unconfirmed mail not only
covers up censorship in cases where the prisoner never got the mail but
we haven’t been made aware of it; it also may exaggerate the level of
censorship we’re actually facing in a particular facility or state where
our mail is actually getting in to some people but they haven’t told us.
Of course we know the content of our literature is not held in high
regard by most prison staff, so assuming we’re being censored when we
aren’t sure what is going on is probably more accurate than not.
A facility is considered to be banning our literature for that reporting
year if they have censored two or more items, and no items have been
confirmed as received. An entire state is considered to be banning our
literature if they have censored any mail, and no mail has been reported
as received. Another note on the chart: it is only a snapshot of what is
going on with our mail. A facility might be banning us in the same state
where we also had victories, or a complete statewide ban may only
actually affect a few subscribers (plus the potential new subscribers we
might gain if our lit wasn’t censored).
To improve our data on the level of censorship we’re experiencing, you
may receive a list from us of mail we’ve sent you, asking you to confirm
receipt or censorship of each item. This list is called an Unconfirmed
Mail Form (UMF). We recommend everyone keep a log of all your mail,
incoming and outgoing, with dates received/sent, from/to who, and
contents. That way if your mail with us, or anyone, is tampered with,
you are one step ahead of the game. And if you get a UMF, you will be
able to fill it out accurately rather than guessing. But do not wait to
receive a UMF to tell us what you’ve gotten! When you write to us, you
should always tell us what you’ve gotten from us since the last time you
wrote. That will save time and money so we can send in more books and
literature.
Facilities banning all our mail in the last reporting year:
Colorado - Arkansas Valley State Prison
Connecticut - Northern Correctional Institution and Northern Supermax
this is the second consecutive year in Northern Supermax
Florida - Suwanee Annex
Illinois - Menard Correctional Center (two years in a row)
Michigan - Gus Harrison Correctional Facility
South Carolina - Leiber Correctional Institution
Utah - Central Utah Correctional Facility
Virginia - Hampton Roads Regional Jail (two years in a row)
Wisconsin - Green Bay Correctional Institution and Kettle Moraine
Correctional Institution
Facilities banning ULK in the last reporting year:
Connecticut - MacDougall-Walker Correctional Institution Reason:
“Rejected publication per the Media Review Board”
Florida - Franklin Correctional Institution Reason: MIM investigated
as Security Threat Group
Florida - Jackson Correctional Institution No reason given
Illinois - Menard Correctional Center Reasons: “Threat to safety and
security”
Michigan - G Robert Correctional Facility No reason given
New York - Riverview Correctional Facility Reasons: “Incites
disobedience, describes gang activity”
North Carolina - Marion Correctional Institution Reasons: “MIM
Distributors on disapproved publication list,” “encourages
insurrection”
North Carolina - Warren Correctional Institution Reason: “On ban
list”
Pennsylvania - State Correctional Institution Waymart Reasons:
“Unauthorized enclosure” and no reason given
Wisconsin - Wisconsin Secure Program Facility No reason given
Florida is also attempting to classify Under Lock & Key as
a “Security Threat Group,” which would likely make all mail from MIM
Distributors banned as gang-related, and subject anyone in possession of
mail from us to disciplinary action. We have not received an update on
this process since
April.
We do know that for a couple years Florida was a booming United Struggle
from Within state, and some of our more active comrades have recently
asked to be removed from our mailing list for fear of repression. We
aren’t sure whether the administration is threatening parole eligibility
or physical abuse, or other forms of torture such as solitary
confinement; or if they’ve already gone ahead and beaten the shit out of
these comrades to get them to stop talking to us. Yet we’ve seen this
enough times to know that something like that is going on. It’s
incredible the lengths Amerikans will go to to keep someone who’s
already locked up in prison from doing something as innocuous as reading
a newsletter, participating in a study group, and talking to other humyn
beings.
A popular reason for citing censorship in Nevada has been “Per AR 750…
Address labels are unauthorized.” Our guess is that this policy of the
Nevada Department of Corrections would not hold up in court as being
reasonably related to penological interests and the safety of the
institution. A subscriber in Nevada who has been missing mail due to
this rule should take on this struggle in a lawsuit! Another comrade in
that state reported that prison officials have admitted ULK is
not banned, but now they are resorting to “unofficial censorship” by
simply throwing out incoming and outgoing mail. This is another reason
why it’s important to track your correspondence.
Victories and Struggles
Appealing censorship and filing grievances can lead to small but
significant victories. The victories in Arizona, Pennsylvania, and on
the Federal level are attributed solely to prisoners filing appeals of
the censorship, without any supporting letters from MIM Distributors. Of
course not all appeals will be granted, and we don’t expect to ever be
completely free of censorship from the state. But we encourage everyone
to at least attempt to appeal all censorship of their mail. Send us
copies of your documents and we can publicize and track them on our
website
www.prisoncensorship.info.
In the last year we’ve focused much energy on fighting censorship in
Missouri and North Carolina. In Missouri we’ve met some success with
letter writing, but in North Carolina it has been a different story.
After a surge in USW activity in North Carolina, every issue of
Under Lock & Key has been placed on their ban list for over
3 years straight. Upon appeal, not only do North Carolina prisoncrats
tend to simply uphold the decision of the lower level with no
explanation, but when asked to explain how their “independent” review
process works, we are given no response. When we filed a public records
request with the state, the only documents they had to demonstrate that
the independent review process existed was a stack of the original
censorship notifications, further putting into question the existence of
the “review process.” We have comrades working on this case in North
Carolina who could benefit greatly from some additional legal
assistance.
Multiple
subscribers
in Illinois have volunteered to assist MIM(Prisons) in fighting
censorship in that state, and one has two lawsuits pending on this
issue. While ULK is not getting in at all in some facilities in
the state, some of our subscriber-volunteers are able to receive
ULK and copies of the censor documentation. Also they are
intimately familiar with the mail rules and appeal procedures in their
state. Although it is a slower process for volunteers on theinside
working via mail, this has been a very beneficial campaign, and one that
anyone with legal knowledge can contribute to in their own state.
MIM(Prisons) facilitates a Prisoners’ Legal Clinic (PLC) to help
jailhouse lawyers plug into projects that will push forward the
collective legal knowledge and experience of the anti-imperialist
movement behind bars. Write in to get involved! Any lawyer or law
student who is interested in helping prisoners push forward these
anti-censorship lawsuits should
contact us.
For the annual day of peace we pulled together approximately 70
prisoners scattered around the institution. We avoided the cafeteria at
all costs and kept our contact with the pigs at a minimum. We had a lot
of cats who faked or simply broke weak because of their watered down
hearts, but as a whole we are proud to say that you can add
Arkansas/Varner unit to the list of participants.
Next year we’re going to expand with a stated goal of at least a
thousand participants crossing all lines toward producing unity among
the poor and oppressed is a struggle that we must take step-by-step,
making small gains with each step until we’ve achieved our goal.
Our struggle here in the belly of the beast continues! I’m writing to
update you on the recent communication I received from the U.S.
Department of Justice (DOJ) concerning the
petition I
sent them in regards to the grievance system. In the DOJ’s response
to my petition, they wrote, “The Special Litigation Section only handles
cases that arise from widespread problems that affect groups of people.”
I have not received a response from the many other mailing resources you
indicated on the petition. Therefore I suggest that those engaged in
fighting against this unjust Texas grievance system gather all petitions
and send them to the U.S. Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division,
Special Litigation Section, PHB 950, Pennsylvania Ave NW, Washington DC
20530. Comrades, let’s flood their office with these petitions!
MIM(Prisons) responds: The imperialists will use every excuse in
the book to justify their oppression. So one piece of our struggle
involves making it harder for them to make excuses, which further
exposes them as the willful oppressor. In that light we are promoting
this comrade’s suggestion as a next step for the campaign in Texas.
UPDATE: Texas prisoners also need to send formal
complaints letters/I-60’s to the Central Grievance Office, PO Box 99
Huntsville, TX 77342-0099. Also, MIM(Prisons) has a new guide available
for the Texas grievance system combining the information from a couple
supporters of this campaign.
Each and every prisoner should remember this day as the anniversary of
September 9, 1971 because of these comrades and freedom revolutionary
fighters, who fought and died in the prison uprising at Attica to fight
the oppression, exploitation, abuse and inhumane treatment of prisoners.
A lot of rights and privileges prisoners have today came about through
these warriors and true liberation soldiers at war with this corrupt DOC
throughout this country.
It’s necessary we reconstruct our thoughts on imprisonment of New
Afrikans or Latino Nations. In reality the reason there is so little
discussion or debate concerning this topic is because far too many of us
are engrossed and trapped in major media for our information. Simply by
investigating alternative news/information, we would find factual
information on various experiments being conducted on our New Afrikan
prisoners across the country. Prisoner modification specialist are
performing massive “biological” and “chemical” experiments illegally and
daily on New Afrikans, for the sole purpose of controlling their minds.
For example, a large number of New Afrikan prisoners were forced to
undergo electro shock treatment under orders of a Dr. Martin Groder. The
same Groder who in 1962 gave a seminar on brainwashing prisoners and,
according to Jessica Mitford’s article “Kind and Usual Punishment,” the
treatment only targeted New Afrikan prisoners, because they were labeled
as trouble makers for refusing to follow rules which stripped them of
any thought of humanity, viewing themselves as less than human. (Truth
Telling Report of 2007 by Bro. Najee J. Ingian. Aldaurum Publishing,
St. Louis, MO. Aldaurum pub.)
Ever since the rebellion at Attica, the Department of Criminal justice
has been coming up with ways and ideas for controlling prison
populations. In the state of Michigan, MDOC instituted tasers to control
prisoners and they have a lot of snitches feeding the pigs information
and many prisoners are getting cases and put in the hole or transferred
to other institutions, and there are no communications throughout the
prison system to other prisoners. In addition, if your people from the
outside send you a message, if the inspector catch it, your pay will be
closed down for months at a time.
Many rights and privileges the comrades at Attica and others fought and
suffered and died for are being overturned by the MDOC. I will extend
honors to all the comrades of the Attica rebellion and other prisoner’s
struggles throughout the United $tates. All I can say is fight on,
struggle on and all you have to lose is your chains!
USW leaders I want to thank you for standing up strong behind the enemy
lines and working to educate the lumpen because I know these comrades
are very hard headed and think they know everything. But being upright,
independent and fearless, against all odds and not fearing the outcome
of whatever, this is what a true USW is all about. So free your minds
from the control of the belly of the beast! We got to continue and
strive, struggle and fight in this world revolutionary war that is going
on against oppression, exploitation, racism, sexism and injustice and
demand freedom for all prisoners throughout the world. This is truly a
day of solidarity and every September 9 is a day of remembrance for all
comrades in every prison throughout the world.
On 21 August 2013 I was doing research as part of my challenge to my
illegal perpetual imprisonment – officially I am being kept in prison
forever only because I have no birth certificate, i.e. I am a prisoner
of the war on terror.
Upon leaving the law library, I was groped/sexually assaulted by a
senior CO under the guise of a “pat search.” After the incident (and
collecting my wits) I made a written complaint to the unit caseworker.
Since then I have had my cell searched, been given a notice of charges,
been sanctioned, and have received special attention from the good ole
boys in the form of attempts at intimidation, verbal abuse, and derisive
sexually charged remarks concerning my sexual identity and persuasion.
In the wake of this incident, however, something else has also occurred,
and that is an unexpected level of support from both comrades known and,
until this incident, unknown.
It is my hope that this incident will galvanize people and raise their
awareness of the need for unification. I’m not the only prisoner,
transgender or otherwise, to be sexually assaulted at this prison by
guards. It is only one of the many abuses we are exposed to, one of the
many symptoms of a degenerate system that thrives on violence and
exploitation.
It is my hope that in time our solidarity will prevent abuses rather
than merely tend to the damage caused by them.
MIM(Prisons) responds: Prisoners are in a unique position of
gender oppression in Amerika. While the vast majority of prisoners are
male, they face gender oppression on the scale otherwise experienced by
biological wimmin. This is because prison guards use sexual harassment
as a power tool, and a form of abuse. It is good to hear about people
coming together to help this comrade in this battle. This is the kind of
unity we need to build against all forms of oppression. We can look to
the struggles in Washington state from
Men
Against Sexism as an example of prisoners coming together to fight
gender oppression.(see
]ULK 29)
I don’t read much in ULK about Florida prisons. This is
unfortunate because readers may believe the Florida Department of
Corruption (FDOC) is like the California, Texas or Arizona systems. This
is not true. There are conditional differences as well as attitudinal
differences between the north and south Florida prisons.
Some notable conditional differences are in what has been referred to in
ULK as SHUs and the unity among Florida prisons. The FDOC has
Control Management Units (CM). One can find these on CMI, CMII, or CMIII
for 3, 2, or 1 year, respectively. In the beginning, the early 1990s,
these were sensory deprivation cells. During the CM heyday of the late
1990s you didn’t even have to commit a disciplinary infraction, just be
considered a ‘management problem.’ Torture was the name of the game.
Suicide was frequent. With help from the outside, lawsuits were filed
and settled, and the CM system changed at the close of the 90s. This did
not bring a close to the shattered lives of the survivors of these
imperialist torture cells. FDOC still has CM, but it is not as easy to
put someone on CM status, and they are not sensory deprivation any
longer. Brutality and rampant use of tear gas sill happen, but not as
bad or often as before. I urge comrades in the other states to keep up
the struggle and to not think any sacrifice you may make is too much. A
couple of my friends lost their lives trying to get out of those torture
cells and two more took their own lives after release from prison due to
continuing mental instability after years in CM. It doesn’t go away when
the door opens!
It appears to me, after reading several issues of ULK, that
there is more unity in other states. There is no organization among
different prisons nor even among individuals within a single prison here
in Florida. They are more like cliques operating for extortion purposes.
Unity is virtually nonexistent against the administration.
Unity is not even a concern of the guards. In my present experience, I
am a peer facilitator in a certain program. The institution requires
everyone in the program to live in the same dormitory and to meet at
least once a day, 25 at a time in a separate classroom, to complete
character based programs, i.e. imperialist brainwashing, that I then
conduct unsupervised - Ha! Comrades, you would think this is the perfect
opportunity to organize and unify, but it doesn’t work that way. There
is much inner struggle. When I speak of how the imperialists define a
box and then they say it is our own fault that we don’t fit in it; that
we are here, I am met with scorn. I have started a slogan: Power to the
poor people, but it is slow to catch on - no one is poor? When I filed a
grievance on an officer for not doing her job it was labeled as
‘snitching on the police’ as if that’s even possible! When the water
cooler broke and we needed it fixed, I asked who all will file a
grievance. No one would: no one did. There is a fear about unifying to
file grievances.
Furthermore, as I stand up and speak on oppression and revolutionary
ideas; about socialism and communism, I alienate myself more and more
from my fellow white nation. It is just like a comrade from MIM wrote me
recently - I am committing class suicide (a small sacrifice indeed). I
am labeled communist as if that were a dirty word! If any comrades know
of a technique I can use to get these guys united, let me know.
North Florida prisons vary from south Florida prisons in the general
attitudes of the guards and administrators. The north Florida prisons
are mostly operated by the white nation. These prisons are more
structured, restrictive, and command more discipline. The south Florida
prisons are mostly operated by the Black and Latino nations and are not
as well organized, loosely run, and more laid back. It is not so easy to
get a disciplinary report or go to disciplinary confinement while in a
south Florida prison.
I said that to say this; keep the struggle against the man, not
yourselves. Remember who the enemy is no matter what type of prison you
are in, be it a north or south Florida type. Just because some of you
have better conditions than others doesn’t mean be pacified, it means
you can struggle more; struggle harder.
MIM(Prisons) responds: This comrade raises a good point about
analyzing the conditions where we are at. Each state, and even each
prison, has different conditions with different contradictions and
struggles. While this comrade is frustrated by the current lack of unity
in Florida prisons, s/he gives a good example of unified struggle from
the 90s and so we can see that conditions we face change over time. We
do have the power to affect these conditions. It won’t happen overnight,
but through education we will build unity. Where there was unity around
a shared struggle against Control Management Units, we might look to
build unity today around another common struggle. This is a challenge
for USW comrades in Florida: to determine what issue will be best to
focus on at this time. Regardless of the issue, spreading Under Lock
& Key and other revolutionary material, and talking to others
about their situation and the system, will help build consciousness.
When we are met with scorn when we talk about the imperialists, we may
need to take another approach, start from something that is bothering
someone. Try to tie this back to the imperialist system so they can see
the connections. And remember that even if we don’t gain a comrade
today, we may have planted the seeds for revolutionary consciousness.
Under the pretense of not allowing any harm to befall me, I was placed
in Administrative Segregation (Ad-Seg). Texas law states inmates in
Ad-Seg must be afforded at least one hour a day, every day, out of their
cell for exercise and/or meaningful recreation. I stayed in Ad-Seg for
approximately nine months, and at no time was I granted any time out of
my cell. I suffered significantly due to this cage. Without exercise my
muscles atrophied and now cause me severe pain. My mental state declined
greatly, with horrible depression, thoughts of suicide, all around
mental anguish.
Well, I wrote several grievances about these deplorable conditions, all
of which were denied (of course). Then, I filed a formal complaint
against Harris County Jail with Texas Commission on Jail Standards
(TCJS). TCJS then responded that the “24 hour” lockdown was appropriate
and they will not pursue the issue any further. I took the next step and
filed a lawsuit (form 1983) against the jail, the Sheriff of Harris
County, the Mayor and Captain over the detention bureau. I stated that
they violated my 8th Amendment right (to be free from cruel and unusual
punishment) as well as my 14th Amendment right (the right to due
process). This civil action was filed 4 April 2012. There have been
multiple motions filed both on the plaintiff’s side and the defendant’s.
One mistake got me close to the case being thrown out. It seems inmates
in county jails on “detention centers” are not protected under the 8th
Amendment. They get to decide who is worthy or not of receiving rights
guaranteed by the Constitution.
My case is still in the works, but when I get my day in court in front
of a jury I’m confident I will win this lawsuit. I am suing not only for
monetary compensation, but I’m trying to help my fellow comrades by
asking the judge to declare this 24-hour lockdown illegal and immoral,
and order the jail to cease and desist this barbaric practice.
MIM(Prisons) adds: In our ongoing struggle against
control
units we have seen the dramatic and detrimental health effects of
this system of torture for social control. Even the United Nations has
condemned long-term solitary confinement in Amerikan prisons. But still
prisons and even jails continue to use this practice. This is not
surprising since we see these units used as a tool of social control.
Prisoners who fight the system in any way, or are perceived as educators
or organizers of other prisoners, are isolated to try to limit their
work. We have been collecting
statistics on
control units because there are no public numbers on the scope of
this torture. To help with this project write to us for a survey about
control units in your state.
In late August 2013, in an unprecedented move, the head of the Texas
Prison Guard Union, Mr. Lance Lowry, joined a lawsuit filed against TDCJ
by Scott Medlock of the Texas Civil Rights project. Mr. Medlock has
filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Brad Livingston, the Executive
Director of TDCJ on behalf of the families of 14 prisoners who died
because of neglect and the oppressive extreme heat in Texas prison
facilities.
This announcement comes on the cusp of many revelations that TDCJ
continues to engage in behavior which shows a blatant disregard for the
health and safety not just of prisoners housed in their facilities, but
a blatant lack of care or respect for their employees also. However, my
focus is on the prisoner because I am a prisoner. I stand in solidarity
with the prisoners housed on the Connally Unit in Kennedy, Texas whose
water supply was taken from them by a Warden who has ignored the basic
human needs of the prisoners in her care.
Prisoners at Connally Unit are on water rations, they are being denied
showers, and they can’t flush their toilets! They are being forced to
live in the heat and the filth because TDCJ decided to give the water
well that serviced the prison to the residents of Kennedy!
In August we learned that Brad Livingston approved the spending of
$750,000 on 5 climate controlled buildings for pigs! Literally, the
Agency of TDCJ has spent three quarters of a million dollars on pigs
which prisoners raise for consumption in TDCJ. Prisoners are dying down
here Brad, what the hell are you doing?
But it gets better comrades. The American Correctional Association (ACA)
has even made Brad Livingston the current chair of the organization that
makes policies for all Amerikan prisons and jails across the United
$tates. When the subject of heat-related safety precautions came across
his desk, Mr. Livingston decided no heat standards were needed! So as we
clearly see ACA is a sham and a fraud!
The fact that the head of the Prison Guard Union in Texas joined the
lawsuit against TDCJ is a sign that prison officials like Brad
Livingston have been passing misinformation and disinformation about the
conditions in TDCJ for years. Soon a murder cover-up will be exposed
with Brad Livingston being a chief culprit.
If you were thinking about joining USW and are housed in one of Texas’s
many gulags where inhumane treatment is the status quo and norm, now’s
the time. As Bobby used to say, we must Seize the Time! I don’t know who
got first down, but we got next!
MIM(Prisons) adds: This is a good example of the oppressed taking
advantage of contradictions among the oppressors. It is rare that we can
unite with part of the criminal injustice system against another part,
but in the case of this lawsuit, if we can play some prisoncrats off
against others, we can work this to the favor of the oppressed. Even
better, and rarer, is when oppressors see the injustice and side with
the oppressed, actively biting the hand that feeds them.
These preventable deaths from heat are a sad but clear example of the
waste of humyn life under imperialism. A system that values profit over
people, imperialism will never fix the problems with the criminal
injustice system. But we can win some small reforms, and prevent some
deaths, while exposing the system and building a movement that can take
it down and put a system of people’s justice in its place.
“Once again we are presented with a campaign to end third world poverty
and oppression that is incapable of confronting the roots of this
oppression because it is bound up in the cycle it pretends to
critique.”(1)
I couldn’t of put it better myself as those are the exact same
sentiments/thoughts that went through my head as I watched Girl
Rising, the highly touted new documentary film that is concerned
with drawing attention to, and putting a stop to the oppression of young
girls in the “developing world.”
Now, being that this special aired on the info-tainment CNN television
station I decided to watch to see just how exactly cable TV would handle
this topic. Predictably enough, CNN and their NGO partners (Non
Governmental Organizations) show us what most anti-imperialists are
already aware of: that most wimmin and girls in the Third World suffer
at exponentially higher rates than their First World counterparts.
Beyond that however, the film didn’t really make any poignant statements
relative to the emancipation of wimmin, neither did they explain to us
how these girls are supposed to rise, despite the film’s name. Instead,
the film-makers, the so-called NGOs, and the corporate sponsors they are
both in bed with, used the children depicted in the film as a way to
launch yet another offensive at the supposedly backwards culture of the
oppressed. The take away? “Just look at how miserable these girls in the
Third World are, look at how they suffer.” The reason? Backwards,
internal development, lack of First World ingenuity and innovation, and
the reactionary culture of the global south. And the answer? Immediate
imperialist intervention whether by bullion or by bullet.
Girl Rising is a movie centered around the life experiences of
five Third World girls whose stories are told to us in order to garner
much-needed attention to the endemic problem of gross patriarchal
oppression in the periphery. Yet the patriarchy is never even referred
to. Furthermore, the film leaves one with a rather pessimistic outlook
for girls in the impoverished zones absent a western-style bourgeois
democracy. And indeed, it would seem then that this documentary was
designed just to induce such feelings. Conveniently enough this film
fails to mention just how the oppressor of wimmin and girls in these
countries is not mere happenstance, but systematic and directly linked
to the uneven development of Asia, Africa and Latin America. Nor does it
mention that the systematic oppression of young children in these
societies (as the ones featured in Girl Rising) are a permanent
fixture and of complete necessity for the ongoing parasitic privilege of
beneficiary populations such as the United $tates. The perpetuation of
capitalism in these countries, and the finance capital that is sent
there and dressed in the veneer of “aid,” is part and parcel of keeping
these nations from developing self-sufficient economies independent of
the global status quo.
Almost every other commercial during this two hour presentation is from
some imperialist multi-national bragging about what they do for Third
World wimmin and girls, when in reality all they are doing is
commodifying these girls’ oppression. Capital One, BNY Wealth Management
and Intel all had their greedy hands in the cookie jar. Here’s a perfect
example: During an Intel commercial that aired during the movie, a
narrative states: “A girl is not defined by what society sees, but how
she sees herself.” Now, besides the obvious commercialization of its
product, Intel is just flat out wrong because, while that sweet
philosophical statement holds some truth here in the United $tates where
wimmin have “rights” (privileges) and know how to have them enforced, it
is a completely different story in the Third World where the gender
roles are not the same and are directly dependent on capital.
Amerika maintains the image that they are the gold standard when it
comes to gender relations, just as they maintain the gold standard when
it comes to how they treat their workers. Point in fact, the very first
commercial during the film is brought to us by a feminine hygiene
product maker depicting their version of how they see girls rising in
the periphery. They show us how they make an African girl’s dream come
true by giving her the chance to direct a commercial for the day. Surely
this dream is not reflective of the billions of Third World girls
currently toiling under the weight of comprador regimes, death squads,
sexual slavery, feudalistic landlords, and assembly line sweatshops. No,
from the looks of this girl it is the dream of a privileged sector child
whose parents might very well be a part of the technocratic
petty-bourgeois intelligentsia of this much hyped “developing world.” A
far cry from the realities of the lives depicted in the film.
From little Wadley in disease ridden and underdeveloped Haiti, whose
dream is to be able to attend school with her mates, but who is
unfortunately unable to because her mother just doesn’t have the money.
Or Zuma in Nepal who was sold into slavery as a child, was liberated
from her abusive masters by a teacher and now as a young adult organizes
other girls to liberate those still held in captivity. Yazmin in Egypt
who is no more than nine but is raped by some scumbag and then refused
help from the police because the chance of prosecution is little to
none. Azmera in Eritrea who narrowly escapes a life in bondage, and
Senna in Peru whose life seems doomed to mining for scraps of gold. All
these lives and their portrayal in Girl Rising are but glimpses
into the real yoke of imperialist oppression.
We are constantly told that the mode of production called capitalism is
the best humynity has to offer, and that a capitalist economy has
already been proven superior to socialism, yet whenever the mode of
production has been revolutionized and a socialist economy has been put
into effect the people of those societies have seen a tremendous growth
in the overall well being of their populations. This is most notably
true for wimmin who’ve been immediately pulled out of their traditional
roles as housewives and mothers and thrown directly into the production
process, in which they help their nation create not only sustainability
but wealth (in particular see socialist
China
and the USSR). The conditions created by wimmin’s participation in the
production process likewise creates the condition for participation in
the political process where they assume power utilizing revolutionary
politics to push people out of the middle and dark ages and into the New
Democratic period in which the people truly hold power.
Certainly wherever socialism has triumphed it has been only as a direct
result of wimmin’s role and participation as guerrilla warriors,
battalion captains and proletarian-feminist leaders in liberating her
nation from not only the imperialists but the patriarchy; as only by
defeating the one can she defeat the other.
The liberation of wimmin is not accomplished via equal pay for equal
work nor by the granting of “abortion on demand” as these are really
only
privileges
given to the gender aristocracy for their allegiance to empire.
Instead of advocating for more privileges that are contingent on the
backs of their Third World “sisters,” the NGOs and the
First
World pseudo-feminists at the helm of such propaganda like Girl
Rising and the “Because I am a Girl” campaign(1) should all aim
their guns at the imperialist rape and plunder of the periphery that
makes it possible for the First World pseudo-feminists to have “abortion
on demand” and equal pay for equal work! Real feminist leadership can
only come from the proletarian perspective and not from First World
wimmin who are really just globally gendered males who have a real
material interest in holding up the global system of oppression and
exploitation.(2)
“If this campaign actually wants to change ‘the plight’ of girls then it
should endorse wimmin’s militias and factory takeovers on the part of
women and girls. Such a revolutionary agenda, though, would put it at
odds with its corporate sponsors and so, like every NGO, it will remain
caught within an imperialist framework.”(1)
Liberation of the neo-colonies from the patriarchal grips of the
imperialists will set wimmin free in the global countryside; not charity
from the imperialist centers.