Under Lock & Key

Sadly, we as prisoners, in many instances take the judgment of our enemy, the injustice system, as truth even when knowing first-hand their ability to get a conviction has little to do with facts or justice. This knowledge should be enough that we not begin to persecute or torment any member of the lumpen class based on convictions and charges that derive in these kangaroo courts. The contradiction is that actual violations of this nature by any member of the lumpen class is a violation against us all. I have served justice on a street level against such violators. Yet I am in prison due to a sex crime conviction that was racially motivated. Even when the alleged victim was impeached for lying and video was shown proving my innocence a jury of 12 whites found me guilty of the crime. I have continued to defend my innocence, lead many groups in prison and stayed politically engaged. Yet I have to deal with the stigma that is created by this label. I continue to use my voice to awaken members of the lumpen class about the poisonous beast of capitalism and educate them about the benefits of socialism.

In the book Soul on Ice, Eldridge Cleaver has a chapter called "The Allegory of the Black Eunuchs," which I would advise all revolutionaries to read. Also to all my New Afrikan comrades our politics are clear on this issue as it was dealt with in the Ten Point Program produced by our revolutionary forefathers, The Black Panther Party for Self-Defense. Point #8 of the program states, "WE want freedom for all Black men held in federal, state, county and city prisons and jails."

Marc Lamont Hill, author of Nobody: Casualties of America's War on the Vulnerable, from Ferguson to Flint and beyond, commented in the August 2016 issue of Ebony Magazine on p. 109:

"To many people, including Blacks and radical activists at the time, the call for releasing all prisoners was the most controversial tenet of the Black Panther Party's original Ten-Point Program. After all, how could we justify releasing criminals into society?

"For the Panthers, however, it was impossible to separate 'criminals' from the circumstances that criminalized them. Racist police forces, unjust laws, unfair trials and biased juries all made it impossible to determine whether someone was truly guilty or simply the victim of a rigged system. Even those who were guilty, they argued, had their hands forced because of the oppressive conditions of capitalism and White supremacy. Essentially, the question was, How can you blame someone for becoming a thief when he or she doesn't have a fair shot at an honest job with honest pay?"

But the Panther Program did not end with releasing New Afrikan prisoners. Point #9 continues to explain:

"We believe that the courts should follow the United States Constitution so that Black people will receive fair trials. The Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution gives a man a right to be tried by his peer group. A peer is a person from a similar economic, social, religious, geographical, environmental, historical and racial background. To do this the court will be forced to select a jury from the Black community from which the Black defendant came. We have been, and are being, tried by all-White juries that have no understanding of the 'average reasoning man' of the Black community."

Here Huey P. Newton was referring to the tenets of the United $tates Constitution to justify a move towards building independent institutions of the oppressed. Newton was always conscious to not get ahead of the masses, but to lead them towards viable solutions. And the Black Panther Party leadership knew that getting justice for New Afrikans in the United $tates was not viable; that only the New Afrikan nation could apply a just morality in judging the actions of its people in the context of being an internal semi-colony of the United $tates white power structure.

So my conclusion to the sex offender debate for issue 61 of Under Lock & Key is that at no point should we take our enemies word or level of injustice over members of the lumpen class, when those lumpen maintain their innocence. Yet we should stand against these violations if they are knowable facts. We should get to know each member of the oppressed lumpen on a personal and individual basis, while understanding the history of the white supremacist criminal injustice system of labeling political prisoners with these kinds of charges in their effort to get them assassinated by other members of the oppressed. Just think of how we lost big Yogi a year or so ago.

There are certain things that I have zero toleration for. But I still try to be an overall understanding and wise guy, especially towards those individuals who are younger than I, and who face/faced similar or identical struggles. I have MIM(Prisons) to thank for helping me to acquire knowledge and information, which I have used to overcome my lifelong resentment and fear of "sexual predators" and "sex offenders" (SOs).

I have faced sexual abuse as a young child, and throughout various points of my life, and have been forced to undergo all the intricate and complex issues ramifying from such things. Initially, these same SOs were the main individuals that I struggled against, held intense hatred for, and who I held zero toleration for and towards, without any question or afterthought involved into any types of factual, evidential or considerational circumstances of their cases/charges, etc. I agree entirely with the ULK 55 articles concerning "unity with sex offenders" and unifying with sex offenders. I have developed brand new beliefs about such things thanks to MIM(Prisons)'s ULKs.

I am in prison for selling drugs and armed robbery; but since I've been incarcerated I have stopped all stealing/thievery and I don't mess with any drugs. So I believe that even if a sex offender is guilty of their crimes, I think that it's actually possible for changes in these individuals to manifest, with sufficient circumstances. I did not believe that before reading ULK 55 and I loved the insight in this same issue addressing the issue involved with not being able to go off the state's/fed's jacketing alone.

For one thing, those same fed/state officials are often involved in fraudulent/fabricated bullshit/schemes, lying, conspiracies, etc. So their word alone is never to be trusted or relied upon. Their essential nature is to assume false masquerades undercover, utilize deceit/manipulation tactics, cheat, lie, rob, etc., so that they can win. During my lifetime they've hit me personally with all of those tricks, plus some, so I know firsthand how it goes. They're often all about setting people up and bending their own rules to get ahead, or to win, and so forth. There's no end to the madness.

Even so much as simple socializing with SOs has been alien to me, but I'm taking steps in the direction of overcoming old habits involved with interacting with these types of prisoners. Only through MIM(Prisons) has this been possible for me. The only catch is that I don't wish to live in a cell with one of these individuals; but I think that I could try to do so under certain circumstances. My main concern (if and when all of my previous inhibitions were/are done away with) is still present, which involves me being targeted by prisoners/staff for such an interaction with SOs. I'm not saying that I fear any adversity. They can't do anything to me that hasn't already been done to me, other than killing me. But, with the way that things already stand, as for my work and projects, I already face a substantial amount of retaliation and opposition coming from every possible angle.

MIM(Prisons) responds: It is difficult for all of us to overcome our past and look at things objectively when we have intense subjective experiences that cloud our judgment. We know that sexual abuse is particularly traumatic and has a very strong impact on most people's perceptions. So it is no small thing that this comrade is working to overcome subjective fears and instead evaluate people objectively when they have been labeled as sex offenders.

We agree wholeheartedly with this comrade's analysis that people can change. It's not an easy process, but even those convicted of anti-people crimes that they really did commit can wake up to their mistakes, educate themselves in revolutionary politics, and take a stand on the side of the oppressed. It takes courage to admit to one's errors, as it isn't easy to overcome ego. But this is part of the process of criticism and self-criticism that is so vital to any revolutionary movement. We applaud this comrade for setting an example of pushing our struggle even further, after ey had already given up eir own anti-people and self-destructive acts.

[MIM(Prisons) prints the following as background info on a group that has been engaging with us and with the United Front for Peace in Prisons and Agreement to End Hostilities in California prisons. The purpose is for our readers to have more information on what this group is about. We like their focus on the state as the enemy, while serving to defend transgender prisoners from all reactionary elements. Though we disagree that the state exploits prison labor. We hope to continue to build with 36 Movement to promote integration and inclusion of transgender prisoners into the evolving progressive and revolutionary prison movements.]

The 36 Movement is an in-prison transgender political resistance with a column of militia (Red Roses). We fall with the broader category of the revolutionary movement and including the prison movement. Our origin is in the prisons: by their oppression of us, we acquired a revolutionary political consciousness, tempered mind and resolute endurance, cadre tested in the fire.

Our first principal agenda is the accurate analysis of the concrete conditions in which we live in society and in prison, which guides us in our second principal agenda, that of confrontation with the oppressor. Towards the first, political study is key. Adamant discipline fortifies us and facilitates success in our endeavors. These culminate in initiative. Our current political initiative is that of resistance against our oppression and to educate transgender people in the moral right and obligation to oppose our oppression and to do so proactively and within a revolutionary framework.

Our condition of being oppressed and persecuted in prison by the pigs and the reactionary element must be effectively challenged for our survival and peace of mind, a united and organized effort with learned and experienced leadership. Where pigs are concerned, we employ the tactical political weapons of knowledge of the rules and the laws to counter their maltreatment of us and hold them accountable, filing administrative complaints and lawsuits about our needs in prison in retaliation to our transgender status and discrimination against us, and outreach for public support and to educate of our conditions and our resistance. Where the reactionary element is concerned, we function as needs be. Although we are not on a military offensive, a military wing under the control of the political wing is indispensable within a revolutionary party formation. For one, it serves as deterrent. Establishment of a citizens' militia is not against the law; in fact, it is a constitutional right. Many exist.

We are a multiethnic formation. We discourage drug and alcohol use among our cadre as a matter of political discipline and to foster good health and a clear mind towards our objectives, and discourage criminal thought and behavior. We respect on a mutual basis. We practice genuine unity among ourselves by sticking close together, trusting and sharing. Each of us is accountable for our individual and collective responsibilities.

Having first educated ourselves as to the best way to live our lives under a prison and political system tyrannical and genocidal towards us because of our transgender disposition and prisoner status and lack of political power, we likewise educate other transgender people and organize them to struggle together in a united offensive for our freedom from oppression and for our livelihood and to have political power.

We hold that as a people oppressed from multiple quarters, the principal enemy is the State. The State is always the first enemy. We acknowledge other enemies in the form of the reactionary element within and without. Whatever our engagement with these, we are not diverted from political confrontation with the State.

By the State is meant the economic and political system of capitalism that has resulted in millions of economically oppressed people, and both the domestic law enforcement apparatus that protects its interests and the military complex that ensures its foreign resources and dominance of nations otherwise known as imperialism, capitalism's most advanced stage: the bourgeois strata that dominates the means of production and access to them and thus the flow of the domestic economy and that includes economic and financial blocs, the bureaucratic political apparatus that allows for and is corrupted by the bourgeoisie; the militarism that forces itself upon and exploits nations for their natural resources and cheap labor and as strategic geopolitical location for capitalist control of the world economy and warmongering, briefly. Prison is government, a State enterprise, and represents and upholds all of this, is a part of it, itself exploits the cheap or free labor of prisoners for capital gain. Who fights against prisons, fights against capitalism and imperialism.

Our prison experience has been one of heightened consciousness: we perceive prisons as camps of systematic indoctrination and training for a revolutionary outcome, prison-spawned revolutionary consciousness and organization along a political matrix, restructuring criminal mentality into revolutionary political consciousness, the revolutionary weaponization of prison, turning the State's prisons against the State. Our experience is one of becoming and creating revolutionary cadre out of one of the most degrading features of the State, its prisons, filled to over capacity with wretched souls; how to see and economize on the concrete reality of our misery to forge a new type of human being, an upgrade of the species, a more worthwhile person, one to construct and partake in a more worthwhile and humane socio-economic-political reality.

This is our theory and practice within the revolutionary theater at this time. We have politicized our minds, indoctrinated and trained, which enables us to discern and analyze our circumstances concretely and so live our lives. This is the space our formation occupies and is putting into practice, the accurate development of revolutionary cadre in prison, and tactical political engagement with the oppressor.

Trans prisoners in all prisons are encouraged to become politically aware and politically active against our mistreatment in prison and to join the 36 Movement. Our power lies in our organized unity. 36 cadre must be vetted through the leadership at this location. Refer: Natalie Alvarez / 3102 E Highland Ave #25 / Patton, CA 92369. All power to the people.

I am a transsexual female who has been in these trenches 37 years, have walked close to 30 yards and several SHUs, EOP, DMH. I want to add to Legion's presentation regarding SNYs (ULK 58, p. 19) and how they came to proliferate in Cali, and with regard to the people who walk SNY.

When I first came to CDC in the early 1980s, there were four formations that governed all the maximum security yards: Black Guerrilla Family, Nuestra Familia, Mexican Mafia, Aryan Brotherhood. Notwithstanding the wars among them, there was order and discipline within each, and the tone of the yards was one of respect and honor, an old or original tradition. There was a lot of fighting and killing at San Quentin, where I did four years in the Adjustment Center (AC) SHU. Extreme warfare proliferated as the formations fought each other, especially in AC, where Comrade George executed pigs and reactionary enemies and was martyred in 1971. It was the same AC I stepped into in summer 1982 — nothing had changed: extreme warfare through the bars (there were no solid doors, though there are now) and tiger cages instead of AC yards. In 1985, a white sergeant was speared in the heart through bars and died on the tier, which was attributed to BGF. That's when CDC went bonkers and conceived the Pelican Bay SHU monster to deal with everything (opened in 1989). It was also because of the killing of this sergeant that all SHU pigs had to wear protective vests, beginning in 1986. (Years later, alias Crips did a mass stabbing attack on yard pigs at Calipatria, and now ALL pigs have to wear vests.)

CDC's idea of an extreme control environment was a strategic mistake. First, because it could not and did not break the spirit of those who count, but reinforced their endurance. Second, it created a massive vacuum on the yards as all the OG formations were swept up and stuck in Pelican Bay SHU; soon, independent factions popped up on the untended yards, and compared to previous, the yards went haywire, like kids at a carnival. There was no discipline, no respect, no honor; SNY yards opened and grew as many stepped back from that mess. Now, wherever there is a General Population (G.P.), there is an SNY or two. Third, all of this cost CDC millions of more dollars than average, with nothing gained. Fourth, under the extreme oppression of Pelican Bay SHU, the consciousness of the formations heightened and they united against CDC. And fifth, the courts eventually let the formations out again.

A lot of the people who went from G.P. to SNY in the heydays of chaos were not bad apples but were just more serious about doing time, that the G.P. was so ruined it would've been futile to try to get it back on track.

As much as the G.P. has progressed, however, it still has some backward baggage to sort out. Trans prisoners cannot be on the G.P. because of threats of death, BECAUSE they are trans; only that. There are some progressive prisoners on G.P., the Kata, who do not persecute us. In fact they politically educated me in Pelican Bay SHU in the early 1990s. (A kata is a martial arts stance that Comrade G. practiced in his cell and disliked the pigs to see him in. Here, it connotes a revolutionary position and cadre.) But the general practice on the G.P. towards trans prisoners is transmisogyny and gender oppression; reactionary. To promote a prisoner's human rights platform, that platform must include the vested interests of all oppressed prisoners and have representation of all interests, including trans, and must extend into SNY and women's prisons. The G.P. has yet to address its position towards trans prisoners publicly.

I am with the Red Roses Transsexual Political Party (alias 36 Movement), which I founded. We are a political resistance movement, with critically vetted members. We do political work to challenge CDC's genocidal treatment of us as trans women with administrative complaints, lawsuits, and educate trans prisoners for unity and resistance. We consider ourselves a part of the Prisoners Human Rights Movement (PHRM) founded by the united G.P. at Pelican Bay SHU. Our voice needs to be heard, our situation on the G.P. hashed out. PHRM needs to extend into the women's prisons, where contradictions have peaked, with a series of suicides at the California Institution for Women.

There is no question that we are in a new era of doing time, across the whole landscape. The biggest difference is the new collective consciousness of who is the real enemy in terms of our fundamental vested interests, produced by the overbearing of the state on the oppressed. The current unity of the OG formations — and especially the Kata, as BGF and other New Afrikan unity — illustrates this.

Unfortunately, SNY is beset with wars among factions, and there have been some killings. I would advocate the PHRM shoutout to SNY factions to call a cease fire and work out a Peace Accord, to acknowledge a higher need for unity against their conditions, such as, they can't get into any self-help rehabilitation groups unless they debrief. PHRM's voice will resonate with those who count on SNY.

Red Roses urges all trans prisoners to acquire political consciousness and join the 36 Movement to resist CDC oppression as a united force. We are political, not criminal, politically educate ourselves and do for self and support each other for our collective good. Stop squabbling. We are being killed on the yards, as Carmen Guerro, who was killed on this very yard, and others (rest in peace). The 36 Movement is one for all and all for one. Let that be your motto.

This is in response to an article from ULK 55 titled "Maintain the Trust in the United Front" by a Delaware prisoner. Legion is United Struggle from Within (USW). Legion used to be ranking general in a Damu organization here in California. Then life happened and Legion began to question the line. After consulting his peoples, Legion decided to become once again a NGE 5%er. In doing so, Legion wound up on a Special Needs Yard (SNY). Never ever snitching on any former comrade from the lumpen organization (LO) he was representing.

Legion first began re-educating deaf, dumb and blind members of the Black Nation by giving them the knowledge of themselves, then using United Front for Peace in Prison (UFPP) via ULK and other publications to show and prove to these young Gods the reality of the material conditions we are living in.

In the article mentioned above, a Delaware prisoner is worried about a rapist or a snitch when this comrade is compromised. This comrade is using the state-issued labels to disenfranchise potential comrades. This comrade must not know how to turn base metal into gold. Every persyn we built with has become a valuable asset to the movement.

You can't have a united front without having every class of inmate represented because in California, SNY is a reality not a myth [having grown to one third of the prison population - ULK Editor]. And some counties are requiring gang members to PC up in county jail to get plea bargains without snitching. There are entire Aztlán hoods SNY because they refuse to pay taxes to the mob.

As for the "snitch," I know known snitches who are walking on GP yards and are protected by policy put in place in the 90s by these pigs to "keep the peace on yards." And I know some real revolutionaries, who, because of a Delaware prisoner's line of thinking, had to tap out because of unrealistic politics.

Legion is fed up with PC politics on both sides of the fence. There are so-called leaders who are further dehumanizing victims of U.$. imperialism by not letting people prove why they should be in good standing on the line. Being GP don't make you active! If you were put in a cross this is for you. If you kept quiet and wound up SNY this is for you.

Legion demands a recall of all "leaders" of New Afrikan movements who adopted white supremacist politics instead of self-determination. Hugo "Yogi" Pinell (Rest in Paradise) demanded his right to walk the line head held high because he was innocent of his controlling charge. There are a number of revolutionaries who caught cases and were accused of rape/molestation/murder/trafficking/domestic violence, etc. Yet, some woke up because of such maneuvers and became stalwarts of the movement. It is part of the setup!

Comrades can be re-educated and most take up revolutionary politics because they become aware of the injustice system that pits self against self, fast against slow, wealth against poverty, and male against female. We have to take a real scientific look at the reality of one's incarceration before we discard a 'rad as no good. Let the measuring stick be his/her/its actions now vs. what a greenwall/pig say. We can't limit our resources because a few feel superior over a group of misguided revolutionaries; that's class warfare within the prisoner class, which represents a contradiction in need of resolution.

What if a person was witness to some foul shit and the DA/Judge/PD and public pretender tried to coerce a solid kat to testify on his brother at arms but he stayed silent? Took a deal that even though evidence suggested otherwise, he had to take a deal to secure his release because a jury of 12 would have killed him off. When told on, he stayed solid. When framed — solid. When forced to be SNY — solid. How does that make sense?

California Department of Corrections (CDC) is rolling back archaic policy that says you foul for XYZ. Why? Because real revolutionaries who have been isolated for years are now running the show again. I hope every Afrikan dig deep to figure out if he/she/it/they are active or just want to go home. In the 5 we are told your square is where you live and where you die. So I would rather die on my feet than live on my knees. What I speak is the principal contradiction of convict vs. the system. Class warfare under the most unfavorable conditions.

If you want revolution it's all or none. It takes time, effort and resources to build a revolutionary advocate. Real snitches are free men. Think about that.

MIM(Prisons) adds: Here, Legion echoes what we have been arguing for years about not writing off whole sections of the prison population, such as Special Needs Yards (SNY) in California, which still have a stigma among some comrades. That's not to say that there are not prisoners who have snitched or raped. Both are serious crimes against the people. Snitches, have given us a very good reason not to trust them. But we need to guard against snitch-jacketing, which the enemy will use to divide good comrades. Those who have committed rape and other serious crimes against the people also need to earn our trust and demonstrate an understanding that what they did was wrong. But again we can’t just take the injustice system's labels and convictions at face value.

Society is quick to condemn the oppressed nation lumpen. But being a hot target for the criminal injustice system can lead to making compromises that most Amerikans would never imagine having to make. Organizing the imprisoned lumpen inherently means organizing people who have committed anti-people activities, many very serious. As we say in every issue of ULK, we don't propose letting all prisoners automatically free. Under a future dictatorship of the proletariat all people will be given the opportunity to become productive members of society. We should all see ourselves as reforming criminals in this country. Whether we've been convicted by the imperialists or not, reforming ourselves requires a deep commitment to fighting patriarchy and imperialism.

When it comes to unification in prisons, there is one topic that needs to be addressed: discrimination. For some reason, prisoners have a tendency to discriminate against other prisoners for a plethora of reasons. Race, color, creed, ethnicity, and sexual orientation are just a few. The one I would like to discuss here is sexual orientation.

I use the word "orientation" instead of "preference" because this is a unique situation in prison. So many times people become homosexual in this environment out of necessity, or force, rather than by choice. Unfortunately, the prison systems in this country are disproportionately black, and this largely contributes to the large number of whites who fall prey to and are trapped in the prison sex slave industry. Some do it for protection and security, and some are just bullied and coerced into it. For many it's just a means of survival.

The drug trade is also thriving in the prison environment, which is another trap for those who struggle with addiction issues. They are able to support their habits by exchanging sexual favors for a "fix." In addition, the drug dealers are able to get their hands on female hormones such as estrogen, which they dose their sex slaves up with. These drugs can have long-term, even life-long effects which increases a lot of the guys' sense of worthlessness.

Many times, the reason that white prisoners are abused this way is due to black prisoners' desire to retaliate against the predominantly white-run system that has oppressed and persecuted them throughout their life. While this desire is certainly understandable, their attacks are misdirected. We shouldn't discriminate against anyone for any reason because, as prisoners, we are all ultimately in the same situation. We should struggle together toward the same goal.

There are definitely people in prison who elect to practice homosexuality out of their own free will. We shouldn't exclude them as comrades either. We must all unite and fight the system that has taken everything away from us.

Let's put our differences aside, regardless of what they are, and let's stand united as equal partners and bring this tyranny to an end. We're all human beings and none of us are better than the rest. It's time that we realize that and stop judging and classifying each other. Let's focus our energy on the proper target: Imperialism and the Prison Industrial Complex. United we stand, divided we fall!

MIM(Prisons) responds: This is an excellent reminder of the importance of fighting against gender oppression within prisons. This comrade is right on that we need unity, and we must fight the use of sex to coerce, punish, or just overpower others. We don't care if people are straight or gay or any other form of queer, as long as they are on the side of anti-imperialism and building unity rather than division.

While the U.S. Department of Justice affirms this writer's assertion that many victims of sexual assault are white (and numbers are even higher for people who are "two or more races"), we don't have access to data on the national background of perpetrators.(1) Even if it is true most perpetrators are New Afrikan, we also can't conclude whether this would be because of a psychological desire for retribution, or simply a statistical likelihood because so many prisoners are New Afrikan in the first place.

To push the fight against rape in prison forward, we have the example of Men Against Sexism (MAS), a prisoner organization in the 1970s that fought sexual assault, providing protection for vulnerable prisoners and attacking the culture of sexism. Ultimately MAS had a significant positive impact at Washington State Prison which in turn impacted prisons across the state. MAS demonstrated the potential power of conscious prisoners coming together for an important cause.(2)

The USW-NV study group spent much time discussing the topic of gender, sexuality, and what our position on it must be. This discussion came about because a comrade heard SCO Franco and another officer discussing two trans women that live in another pod. SCO Franco, with a number of racial and homophobic slurs, stated that he was looking for a reason to write them up because "no fag would be on my tier prostituting themselves unless I am getting something." These pigs were making a big joke out of it. This comrade spoke up, and as a consequence his cell was searched, and he lost some items.

We have determined, through our discussions, that gender is more than simply genetic. It is not a matter of choice, nor can one be "cured" of homosexuality. We are born who we are, and any person or institution that challenges this must be struggled against.

Based upon this and many other discussions, we have reached out to the LGBTQ community both within the Nevada DOC, and the greater community, in an attempt to build solidarity, and show them that they are not alone.

The LGBTQ community, especially within prison, is a very preyed-upon community. Inmates avoid them, assault them, or simply exploit them, while the pigs ignore them. Within prisons, members of the LGBTQ community have lost any identity, and instead have become "them," "fags," or "MOs." This is unacceptable. As such, we have taken an active role in promoting a call for the organization of the LGBTQ community into statewide groups. This call was put out by a great LGBTQ group called Black and Pink.

We have aided in the formation of a NV LGBTQ group, have and will continue to associate with them openly to show our solidarity, and will, if the need arises, defend this group or its members, in whatever ways needed. Be it from the pigs, or other inmates.

We call on all to follow, stand up against all forms of oppression, exploitation and hatred. Contact Black and Pink and show your support, and reach out to the LGBTQ community at your prison. Stand with them, help them organize, and join our United Struggle from Within.

Black and Pink is an LGBTQ organization that publishes a monthly newsletter, and helps those members of the LGBTQ community who are incarcerated. The NV-USW has reached out to them in hopes of starting an open chain of communication. We have not heard back as of yet, but please contact them and call on them to join the United Struggle from Within. You can contact them at Black and Pink National Office, 614 Columbia Rd, Dorchester, MA 02125

In response to Sex Offenders Reconsidered in ULK 55, I am both in agreement as well as opposition. Let me explain. I am a sex offender who hates and believes that pedophiles and rapists should stay pariahs. But yet I am stuck in that category even though what I did, in 1990, should not have been a sex crime. I dated a girl who was 15 years old when I was 17.5 years old. We were in high school together. A 2.5 year difference. I turned 18 and she was 15.5 years old, 6 months shy of Florida's 16-year-old consent law. Anyway, I was convicted and am now considered a CHO-MO (child molester) who has to register for the rest of his life and can never go into the general population, where I feel I should be so that I can join the struggle for better prison conditions.

MIM(Prisons) responds: We get a lot of letters like this one, from people who were convicted on sex offenses but do not fit the stereotypical image of a violent rapist or child molester. This is good evidence for why we never trust the criminal injustice system to tell us who are the real criminals. There is a long Amerikkkan history of convicting people from oppressed nations in particular of false sex crimes just to put them "in their place." We refuse to allow the Amerikan government this power.

With that said, there are definitely people who have committed terrible crimes against the people, both sex offenses and other offenses, both inside and outside of prison. This is something that a revolutionary government will need to address. We do not think that there is some essence of a person that makes them incorrigible and a criminal for life. Instead we think the capitalist patriarchy molds people to do terrible things, and it will be up to a revolutionary society to re-mold these folks into productive members of society. That will start with self-criticism and a solid understanding of one's errors and then agreement on how and why ey needs to change.

We're not in a good position to enforce this right now because we just don't have the resources or the power. And we know that it will take serious work for people who have committed anti-people crimes like rape and murder to reform and become productive members of a revolutionary society. But anyone who has committed crimes against the people and wants to take up revolutionary work today can still be judged by their work and their political line. We encourage these folks to engage in serious self-criticism. We are here to help with that. But we know that thorough reform and change will be very difficult under the patriarchy/capitalism. In the mean time we are only able to judge people by their practice. Even people who used to be cops, or fought for the Amerikan military, or committed serious sex crimes can take up revolutionary work and we will welcome that work.

There is no genuine or legal justification for still using strip searches in prisons today, except to breed homosexuality and cause aggressive sexual assaults, using it as a punishment to humiliate someone. I can prove without a doubt that times have changed/evolved and this strip naked prison rule is outdated. Modernized technology has invented what is called x-ray machines, which are used to search/see the body without forcing nude search. Prisoncrats provided prisons with sufficient funds to purchase and provide such x-ray machines. Prison staff, in their sadistic practices and policies to punish captives, refuse to use the x-ray machines for body searches.

Metal detectors are stationed throughout the prison, checkpoints forcing captives to walk through them, in their policy to confiscate any and all illegal metal objects. Captives are never asked if they are allergic to the radiation of the metal detectors or x-ray machines, which explains the prison staff's complete disregard for the physical or psychological effects on the captives.

We captives of the Pennsylvania state prisons ask for legal advice in our desires to sue the Department of Corrections for forcing the strip search policies. We live during advanced technologies and modernized minds, which dictates, strip searches are outdated, violates religious rights, breeds sexual predators, and are methods used to harass, humiliate and harm captives. Not to mention strip searchings are methods used identical to the times of slavery.

If for no other humane reasons, prison strip searches needs to be abolished, eliminated, minimized, because state prisons have been provided with the necessary machinery and manpower to secure prison grounds and facilities. The time is here. We the state captives in Pennsylvania prisons ask any and all judicial scholars and students of civil law, for legal advice, and to petition the courts to abolish all prison strip search policies.

There is the questions raised about prison security being vulnerable, and breached, if the strip search policy is eliminated. Such positions, beliefs or arguments are simply said to continue this long practice of psychological slavery in prisons. When in fact, x-ray machines detect any metal or foreign objects and contraband. Therefore, since state prisons have x-ray machines and metal detectors on facility grounds, it shows any need to search a subject can be done without the need of such said subjects being forced to disrobe, strip naked. Which means, if the metal detectors and x-ray machines they have are not successful to secure the prison facilities, then their machines are obsolete and obtained falsely.

However, if such machines and technologies are vital and essential to the security orders of running the prisons, then strip searchings are deemed obsolete and performed falsely. It is our contention, challenge, calling, that because x-ray and metal detector machines are used, that shows strip searches are no longer needed or necessary. Which proves strip searching are being used simply as a form of the prison's psychological punishments.

The Pennsylvania Department of Corrections state prisons has implemented a new policy against sexual assaults/harassments, called the Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA). This PREA policy exposes its own ineffectiveness and prejudicial punishment, under the disguise of prosecuting sexual harassment and/or predators. To prove that this new PREA policy has been designed to minimize and eliminate sexual assaults in all of its manifestations on prison grounds, strip searching would also be minimized or eliminated as a means to sexual assaults and sexual harassments on state prison grounds.

MIM(Prisons) responds: This writer makes an important point: guards use strip searches as a form of gendered power that humiliates and degrades prisoners. But we don't agree that this abuse of power causes guards (or prisoners) to become homosexual. And even if that was possible, it's patriarchal society that teaches people to use gender for power and abuse which is the problem. There is no evidence that any sexual orientation is more predatory than any other. We need to focus on the real enemy here: the patriarchy which trains people to enjoy the abuse of gender power.

Prisoners are in a unique position in that they face gender oppression as a part of their imprisonment. This is true of both male and female prisoners. Strip searches are a good example of this gender oppression. This writer raises a good point about the abuse of power, and specifically gender power, that happens every time there is a strip search. This degrading practice is not for security, as this writer clearly demonstrates.

Identifying this form of oppression and calling it out for people to see is the first step in fighting back. The idea of using PREA to fight strip searches is an interesting approach. We'd like to hear from others who are fighting strip searches about what tactics are and are not working. Ultimately gender oppression in prisons isn't going away while we have a criminal injustice system serving imperialism. The patriarchy is an integral part of this system. But we can sometimes win smaller battles against these forms of humiliation and degradation.

The May 2017 issue of the Family Fun magazine (owned by the media conglomerate Meredith Corporation) has produced and distributed an advertisement that meets the federal definition of child pornography. The ad shows a boy duck-taping a prepubescent girl to a garage wall. The image does not depict any nudity or sexual activity, but this does not matter under the law, which defines "sexually explicit conduct" to include "sadistic or masochistic abuse."

[One prisoner] found out the hard way. He is serving a 97-month federal prison sentence, to be followed by a lifetime of "supervised release" and registration as a dangerous "sex offender" for having received a similar but less explicit image. "All I remember about getting it was that it was in some ZIP file," said [the prisoner]. "I didn't think anything of it, as there was no nudity or anything sexual about it. But the government has destroyed my life."

"Then a friend of mine in prison saw this ad for Capri Sun," [the prisoner] said. "It is worse than the image I was sentenced for in every possible way. It shows clear and unambiguous active bondage; the girl is younger; her legs are spread; and there is a masochistic smile on her face." [The prisoner] wrote Kraft Heinz, the President, congress and as many civil rights and legal assistance organizations as he could. [The prisoner] continued, "Although the Capri Sun ad is tasteless, sexist, and more than a little disturbing, I don't think anybody should go to prison over it. Yet I am in prison and the rest of my life is destroyed for receiving an image that is mild by comparison."

MIM(Prisons) responds: Although we couldn't find a copy of this magazine ad, we don't doubt that this and many other magazines and so many other capitalist advertisements include pornographic images. Even billboards feature girls who look like they are 10 modeling skimpy clothing with a sexy pout on their faces. It is this patriarchal culture that puts pornography out in everything we see. And it is this culture that teaches people to enjoy pornography, coercion and sexual assault. Essentially capitalism is creating rapists while pretending to be shocked and offended by them.

People who get locked up for sex offenses are right to claim a double standard. That doesn't make what the sex offenders did right, it just makes society so very wrong. And as a result we're left with a criminal injustice system that gets to pick and choose who they want to prosecute. No surprise we end up with a disproportionate number of New Afrikan and [email protected] men locked up for these crimes.

It will take a revolutionary culture, and many years of fighting to eliminate the patriarchy, before we can truly eliminate pornography and sexual assault from humyn society. We will need to not only revolutionize our culture, but also re-educate everyone who has been inundated with patriarchy from birth. And those who internalized it to the extent of acting out violent sexual assaults and other crimes against the people will need even further re-education and rehabilitation before they can safely re-integrate into society.

For now, whether you are locked up justly or unjustly we urge you to take a hard look at your views about gender, how you treat people and how you view people, and consider how this is conditioned by patriarchal culture. We welcome all revolutionary activists to take up the struggle, regardless of your past, but we all need to be conscious of the effects of the patriarchy on our actions and beliefs.