Under Lock & Key

“Ash: The solid residue left when material is thoroughly burned or oxidized by chemical means; The last traces of something: ruins.”

“Land: The solid part of the surface of the Earth; realm, domain.”

The above definitions from the Merriam-Webster school dictionary describe the reality that prisoners here at Federal Correctional Institution - Ashland are forced to contend with on a daily basis.

With all of the illusions of criminal justice reform being propagated by law makers, as well as the President of the United $tate$, to secure votes and appease their constituents, the reality here at ground zero tells a very different story.

Created in the 1940’s as part boy’s reformatory and part pig and horse farm, FCI Ashland is now a place where a basket of society’s deplorables (to borrow a phrase from Hillary Clinton) can come to work, and with impunity, exercise their politically repressive tactics, racism, and white supremacist ideology over New Afrikans (black people) and other people of color.

Even poor whites who maintain a spiritual or political comaraderie with New Afrikans find themselves subjected to harsher treatment than their European counterparts who hold the line of white supremacy.

Since my incarceration, I have not received one conduct infraction! So in June of this year, after completing more than 15 programs, my security level was reduced from a medium to a low security.

At that time, I was told by the administration that I had to transfer to a low security institution. I requested to go to USP Atlanta since it is now a low security, plus I live in GA. However, completely against the language written in the First Step Act of 2018, I was transferred here to FCI Ashland, KY over 500 miles from my home.

Since I have been here, I have not personally been attacked in any way. But I’m sure by the time this article hits press, all that will change. Because that’s how the administration operates here. The “good ol’ boy” network is alive and well here, and anyone who dares to speak out against the injustices taking place in this land of ruin is retaliated against in a number of ways. But I am a war correspondent behind enemy lines, and must brief comrades and the masses on what’s happening so we can create this opportunity for systemic change through national unity and action.

Different Uniform, Same Mentality

There are about 60-80 correctional officers and other administrative staff working at this prison. However, only 3 are black, 2 are Hispanic, and 1 is Asian. This presents a very antagonistic atmosphere as this super majority white prison staff oppressively police their majority black and brown kkkolonized nationals by openly expressing their “Trumpian” views; ransacking their living quarters and destroying their private property by pouring out “hot sauce” and “Asian sauce” all over their books, legal work and pictures, and opening up sealed items like potato chips and dumping them all over their floor.

They falsify statements and manufacture conduct infractions against prisoners who are not afraid to file grievances on them and expose these injustices. Like one brother who would help brothers beat these false conduct reports, as well as those filed against him. In retaliation for this, and for him refusing to withdraw his civil suit he filed against them, they manufactured false allegations that he “attempted to escape”, had him placed in the SHU (Secure Housing Unit - Lock Up) and he has since been shipped to another prison! This brother is at least 400 lbs and can barely get around, let alone try to escape!

I have personally witnessed white officers call an elder New Afrikan “stupid ass” because he was walking with one of his shoes untied! I’ve also observed as a white officer harassed a white prisoner about his locs telling him “you need to stop trying to be one of THEM and be who you were born to be.” And about a month ago, while attending the Moorish Science Studies Class in the Chapel, a brother began having breathing problems as we were leaving the building. The Chaplain called for support while a couple brothers stood beside him to make sure he was ok. About 5 C.O.’s showed up, and one officer B. Ross took it upon himself to begin yelling “get the fuck out! Go on, get!” None of the other officers that were present even attempted to correct his unnecessary and belligerent conduct. Instead, they just stood with him, with angry demeanors as if we had done something wrong and they were prepared for war.

I, and the world renown militia commander of NFAC comrade Grand Master Jay, who had just finished teaching the class, just looked at each other and shook our heads and left. As this is what we were already in the process of doing anyway. We refused to allow them to provoke us into any response, as it was obvious that this is what they were trying to do.

Here at FCI Ashland, members of the KKK have obviously traded in their white hoods and robes for correctional officer uniforms but the mindset is still prevalent. There isn’t any black counselor or case manager, and there is only one Hispanic case manager, so people of color constantly are being denied institutional transfers to prisons closer to their release address or that offer FSA rehabilitative programs that meet their needs assessment(s) when they absolutely qualify for it. And white prisoners are constantly being transferred when they absolutely do not meet the criteria. White prisoners get all the benefit of the First Step Act.

I have personally been told by the counselor that he would not even consider me for an institutional transfer until I have been 18 months misconduct free in General Population. Well, I have been in General Population for almost 8 years, misconduct free! Along with many accomplishments as I stated earlier. Meanwhile, a white nationalist prisoner, who has wigged out on K2 at least 4 times since I’ve been here, and sent to the SHU each time, was just approved to go to a “camp”, which is a lesser security level than a “low”!

These racist practices go on on a weekly basis as far as these transfers go. There is no one here that represents our best interests! When New Afrikans and other people of color complain about these issues, they are retaliated against by having a “management variable” placed on them for alleged “population control”, which forces them to have to stay on this yard a mandatory 18 months, no matter how long they’ve been at this prison, or a counselor or a caseworker will suddenly show up at your living quarters and add points to your classification sheet for “inadequate living conditions.” Then when you go to your 6 month unit term review, you get denied a transfer for 18 months. For you who have studied my brief autobiography, “Our Struggle Goes On”, which can be purchased on Amazon, already know how this is bound to turn out if there is no systemic change in our conditions. History is our best teacher.

Health Concerns

There are absolutely NO certified medical doctors on this yard. There are several RN’s, but that’s it. The prison is completely understaffed and prisoners are routinely turned away from medical because there is no one available to address their health concerns. I know of several New Afrikans who are having kidney and/or liver issues and have been placed on the waiting list for a year until they can be seen! They have all filed grievances but their medical issues persist, and they have since filed complaints in Washington DC to the central office.

There are only 2 dorms out of 12 units, HA and HB, that have an air conditioner! These same number of dorms also have inadequate ventilation. Several prisoners on the SHU and throughout the prison have fainted and received severe injuries over the extremely hot summer months. At least 1 out of every 5 men here are coughing and/or sneezing throughout the day, myself included. Probably due to all the mold throughout each unit. R-unit, which I was in for 2 months when I got here, is the biggest dorm on the yard, is actually an old movie theater which now holds over 130 prisoners stacked on top of each other in bunk beds. It looks more like the hulls of slave ships trying to cross the middle passage. Therefore absolutely no space for prisoners to even walk around without constantly bumping into one another.

Asbestos fills the ceiling of the unit, while underneath it is the prison’s kitchen, which presents an extremely dangerous fire hazard. On top of the heat coming up from the kitchen adding to an already extremely hot environment, prisoners are essentially sleeping in a crematory, because if the kitchen were to ever catch fire they would all burn alive in a matter of seconds!

Conclusion

I could go on and on about conditions and corrupt practices going on at Ashland, like how members of the “Proud Boys” who just came to this yard after trying to overturn the 2020 election results have already been awarded and rewarded with the best strategic and tactical jobs at the yard. While New Afrikans who have literally been here for months are told no jobs or programs will be available until mid 2024!!! Except for a kitchen job of course. They don’t mind New Afrikans being cooks or cleaning. But if I continued on this it would easily become a book. So let me conclude with this:

We are asking you to write to the office(s) at the bottom of this message and DEMAND and inquire into the racist practices taking place here at FCI Ashland. DEMAND to know why so many people of color are having management variables placed on them compared to their European counterparts. DEMAND to know why so many black and Hispanic families are turned away from their visits because of their clothing when white families have on the same clothing or something completely unauthorized. Ashland is located in the mountains, surrounded by an all white community on the border of West Virginia. It is totally unsafe for black families to travel here, and although we can purchase tablets on commissary, we are not allowed video visits. So if black people can’t get visits, they will go years without any contact with the outside world, which leads to a host of mental and emotional issues.

As I stated from the outset of this communique, this institution used to house animals. The dorm I’m in, “JA”, as well as “K” across from me is still called by the administration, “The Barns”. I’m literally living in a barn, like my enslaved ancestors, with bunk beds in it. Sometimes when it gets really hot in here, you can still smell the residue of the livestock that occupied the space. We are treated like animals, and without your DEMANDS for change, we will continue to be subjected to these inhumane conditions. And by all means, check up on me and make sure that after almost 8 years of incarceration there is not a “sudden change” in the quality of my living conditions. Remember, all that is necessary for evil to prevail is for men and women to do nothing.

The theme of this issue of Under Lock & Key was inspired by recent essays and interviews by Orisanmi Burton, previewing material from eir upcoming book: Tip of the Spear: Black Radicalism, Prison Repression, and the Long Attica Revolt. Comrades in MIM(Prisons) and United Struggle from Within (USW) have been studying Burton’s work. Though we have not had the opportunity to read the book yet, which comes out end of October 2023, we like a lot of the ideas ey has presented so far and the overall thesis that prisons are war.

As we go to press the genocidal war on Palestine is heating up. We have reports inside on Congo, El Salvador, Ukraine and Niger; and we don’t even touch on Guatemala or Haiti. History has shown that as war heightens internationally, war often heightens against the oppressed nations within the empire as well.

In this issue we have reports of political repression as war in U.$. prisons. We also feature articles from comrades who organized around, and reflected on the Attica rebellion and Black August. This is the history that Burton analyzes in eir work, exposing the state’s efforts to suppress the prison movement and how both sides were operating on a war footing. For over a decade readers of ULK have commemorated the beginning of Attica on September 9th with a Day of Peace and Solidarity, as part of the campaign to build the United Front for Peace in Prisons. But how do we get to peace when we find ourselves the targets of the oppressor’s war?

Burton pushes back against some Liberal/reformist lines that have been advanced onto the prison movement to oppose the line of liberation. Burton’s ideas harken back to V.I. Lenin, recognizing prisons as a repressive arm of the state, and the state being a tool of oppression and warfare by one class over another. War is one form of political struggle, and a very important one at that.

It is this framework that we have used to push back against “abolitionism.” Our organization emerged from the struggle to abolish control units, a form of prisons that is torture and inhumane. We see the abolition of control units as a winnable, if difficult, battle under bourgeois rule. In a socialist state, where the proletariat rules over the former bourgeoisie, we certainly won’t have such torture cells anymore; but the abolition of prisons altogether is a vision for the distant future. We find it questionable that Burton frames revolutionary communist martyrs like George Jackson as an “abolitionist”.

Where we have more unity is when Burton takes issue with building the prison movement around the legalist struggle to amend the 13th Amendment of the U.$. Constitution that abolishes slavery except for the convicted felon. Burton points out the history of Liberal thought in justifying enslavement of those captured in just wars. As most in this country see the United $tates as a valid project, it could follow logically that it is just to enslave the conquered indigenous and New Afrikan nations, as well as nations outside the United $tates borders. We see how settlers in Amerika and I$rael are now justifying all sorts of genocidal atrocities against Palestine.

The challenge we have repeatedly made to the campaign to amend the 13th Ammendment is how this contributes to liberating oppressed people? How does it build power for oppressed people?

In one essay Burton draws connections to how the state was handling the war against the Vietnamese people at the same time as the war against New Afrika at home.(1) We have a draft paper out on the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement that discusses the counter-insurgency in Peru, and how the fascist U.$.-Fujimori regime locked communist leader Comrade Gonzalo in an underground isolation cell and then used confusion around political line to crush the People’s War in that country. In Under Lock & Key 47, we reprinted an in-depth analysis of the use of long-term solitary confinement against the revolutionary movement in Turkey and the use of hunger strikes to struggle against it from 2000-2007. All of these historical examples, including to some extent New Afrika in the 1970s, involved an armed conflict on both sides. Today, in the United $tates, we do not have those conditions. However, we can look to the national liberation struggle in Palestine, and the connection to the prison movement there as a modern-day example.

Burton spends time exposing the politics of the federal counter-insurgency program PRISACTS. And one of the things we learn is that PRISACTS is officially short-lived as the counter-insurgency intelligence role is taught to and passed on to the state institutions. We see this today, especially in the handling of censorship of letters and reading materials we send to and receive from prisoners. We see the intentional targeting of these materials for their political content, and not for any promotion of violence or illegal activity. Our comrades inside face more serious consequences of brutality, isolation and torture in retaliation for attempts to organize others for basic issues of living conditions and law violations.

The arrest of Duane “Keffe D” Davis for involvement in the murder of Tupac Shakur has also been in the news this month. Keffe D is a known informant who confessed to driving his nephew to murder Tupac years ago in exchange for the dropping of a life sentence for an unrelated charge. Author John Potash notes that there were many attempted assassinations of Tupac prior to his death, at least one that involved the NYPD Street Crimes Unit. This unit was launched following the supposed “end” of COINTELPRO.(2) This directly parallels what we see with the “end” of PRISACTS and the passing of intelligence operations on to state pigs.

As we’ve discussed in drawing lessons from the repression of Stop Cop City, we need to take serious strategic precautions in how we organize. We must recognize the war being waged on us. If we treat this as something that can be fixed once people see what’s going on, or once we get the right courts or authorities to get involved, we will never accomplish anything. And as always we must put politics in command. There is an active intelligence counter-insurgency being waged against USW and the prison movement in general, and the best weapon we have is grasping, implementing and judging political line.

Prison is War is not just a topic for ULK, it is a political line and analysis. We welcome your future reports, articles and artwork exposing the ways this war is happening in prisons today.

<sup>Notes: 1. Burton, Orisanmi (2023).“Targeting Revolutionaries: The Birth of the Carceral Warfare Project, 1970-1978.” Radical History Review. Vol. 146.
2. John Potash on I Mix What I Like, 16 October 2023. (author of “The FBI War on Tupac Shakur and Black Leaders”)</sup>

The minimum security prisons out there afford some freedom of movement. To the 85%er this freedom of movement, no matter how limited, is interpreted to the 85% as freedom in its totality. This is partly due to the knowledge that he doesn’t have a free-dome. So let’s now focus on freeing the dumb by giving them the correct knowledge. So far the one who isn’t “free” mentally, we’ll now explain the difference between freedom and the illusion of freedom.

True freedom means liberation. The illusion means reforms. Liberation is an exodus or a migration from the system that it springs from – slavery. Reform is an adaptation to the slave system that makes it seem that since you received a trinket, you have received freedom. The difference is based on the truth vs the illusion. The world over, there are still struggles that stem from a lack of freedom. This lack of freedom is different for those who aren’t free, I’ll explain.

You see physical freedom does not preclude mental freedom. But mental freedom can only come from a free-dome. Ask yourself this, will the person who enslaved you free you? If you look at the history, the role between captor and the captured only changes when those who were captured unchain themselves. So the question answers itself. In Amerika a so-called war for the emancipation of Blacks was fought. However, we know that Ol Abe Lincoln only freed the slaves because ey had to not because ey wanted to. In fact Texas celebrates Juneteenth because they were the last state, 2 years after everyone else, to free their slaves. The North, who wanted to industrialize Amerika, saw that the South if it had the manufacturing industries like cotton gin etc. that they could take over Amerika because of its free slave labor. So they fed on the moral factor of the slave as an incentive to fight for the cracker. But what happened after the war?

Well let’s see, vagrancy in Amerika was illegal because you couldn’t pay taxes, so whitey invented black codes and then came up with convict leasing camps for anyone who couldn’t pay taxes. Brothers were right back where they left and convict leasing led to the legislation of the 13th Amendment that put us back into slavery in the penitentiary. So are we free or were we ever free? The answer must be no.

Yesterday marked the 52nd year anniversary of the assassination of comrade George L. Jackson. George bravely gave his life to the revolution. Let’s not let his legacy die. In the spirit of George and all our other beautiful comrades, let us usher in the true freedom, not the illusion but the true freedom. First acquire knowledge of self so that you can mentally be free and then once we acquire mental freedom we can physically take back what is ours. If we don’t know what to fight for we’ll keep ending up in prison well the maximum security prison. To change that we must transform our communities from minimum security prisons to people’s collectives. Get the devil out & destroy him.

Power to the People

MIM(Prisons) responds: Peace, Comrade. We thank this comrade for covering the importance of the subjective forces with regards to the liberation of the oppressed.

We would like to comment shortly with regards to the Civil War. This comrade states that the Civil War was fought between the North and the South due to the former’s rivalry to the South and its fear that the South’s industrialization would beat the North quickly due to the latter’s chattel slavery. However, we would say that the chattel-slavery mode of production of the U.$. bourgeois dictatorship in the South was an impeding factor for the development of the productive forces (what is often called industrialization) and that the U.$. empire found out that this backward relations of productions far out-lived its usefulness and need. Not only did it keep the South in a backwards agricultural economy, it also bred the new Black nation inside the U.$. borders which would to this day remain an intense problem population for Settler-Amerika.

There are many discussions today in U.$. society of what the Civil War was over. The neo-confederate fascists obscure the line and muddy the waters by saying that the Civil War was a war over “state’s rights.” The bourgeois Liberals say that the Civil War was a war where Amerika’s democratic values were restored to the fullest and united the empire. As Marxists, we see the class forces behind these conflicts rather than the psychological state/goals of individuals participating in it. The truth is, that the chattel-slavery relations of production was more bad than good for the U.$. empire by the time the war erupted. The class forces that wanted to keep it in the South such as the landed aristocracy (i.e. family bloodline plantation owners) and the agricultural bourgeoisie (i.e. modern capitalists who operated in cotton and other various industries of agriculture) were in antagonistic contradiction against the industrial bourgeoisie of the north who was leading the development of the productive forces in the country. We tell the fascists that if there was no slavery, then there would have been no Civil War. We tell the liberals that enslaving oppressed nations for parasitic superprofits is as Amerikan as apple pie. The Civil War helped release the New Afrikan masses to become a true proletariat, selling its labor power on the market.

And as the author above alludes to, the empire continues its war against the internal semi-colonies within the United $tates as well as the oppressed nations around the world, and the only solution to this contradiction is liberation.

27 January 2023: At about 5:30-6:00 PM the nation watched the horrific video of 5 policemen who beat a man literally to death weeks prior. The man, Tyre Nichols, was handcuffed and had no way to defend himself as 5 large officers beat the man far beyond what anyone could call humane. Dogs don’t get beat this bad.

I saw this in my dorm from USP Tucson, in the day room. Of the seven televisions in the dorm, four was on the CNN broadcast of the vicious beating. At least half the dorm of over 100 prisoners in here watched in horror and shock, witnessing the same thing the rest of the United $tates (and the world) was viewing. I have never seen such interest in a television event outside a sports event.

I sent an email to the Warden of the prison, challenging him if he approved such methods. This could be seen as an insult, but what we see on the streets of America is simply a reflection of what commonly happens in the prisons of the United $tates. For decades staff brutality has been common, and often overlooked in prisons, because many may believe that the victim probably deserved it, or the prison staff will lie and cover up the act.

I have to believe that what happened to Tyre Nichols that horrible night, which resulted in his death a couple of days later, could have happened in part here at USP Tucson… multiple times, and happens in many jails and prisons in our country.

I believe this likely happened to a prisoner here back in November of 2022, shortly after an incident in a nearby camp, where a prisoner managed to acquire a gun. He would have likely shot and killed an officer were it not for the fact that the bullets did not match the gun. We at USP Tucson went on a lockdown for 3 days, although we had absolutely nothing to do with that incident. That was a different facility, yet we were punished anyway, which led to a second incident.

A few days later, on November 18th, we went on a month long lockdown because we heard there was a “staff assault.” If this was the case then the usual protocol for prison staff is to beat that prisoner physically, then throw him in the SHU until the wounds heal… it is what they do.

How bad did they beat the prisoner here? Did they cuff him, and like cowards, beat that man with sticks, tase him, kick him and slam him on the walls? It’s pretty easy to beat a man if you outnumber him 5 to 1, and cuff his hands behind his back.

We have to compare what happens in prisons to what happens in the streets. We seem amazed that what happens to George Floyd, Rodney King or now Tyre Nichols, is so unusual. This is very common in the prisons, and you have to ask the staff here at USP Tucson if this is the method they approve of.

It must be, if it continues to happen.

Why would law enforcement treat humyn beings so horribly? And to be stupid enough to do it with a BODY CAM on? Did they not know that this would be viewable to anyone in time? Why would you beat a man to death, with the cameras on?

This is an idea that prisons fear greatly; they fear that if society knew what happens in prisons, coupled with how law enforcement is clearly losing the ethical training they have, there would be such a cry for justice that the country may not be able to contain it.

But consider: some don’t sympathize with prisoners being brutally beaten because in some way, they think that the sentence of prison comes with the brutality of abuse. Yet the Constitution clearly disagrees. No human being deserves to be treated like that, to be beaten by another officer. No officer working in the United $tates is given a green light by the government to beat prisoners. Yet, it happens, and many excuse it because maybe we believe that deep down, the prisoner must have deserved it.

So reflect back to Tyre Nichols, why would those cowardly officers beat a man to death? Could it be that maybe they felt that Tyre “deserved” to be beaten… but if so, why?

Here’s one idea, one I have seen from the prison point of view: In prisons, where there is a disturbance, they call it “hitting the deuces.” When this happens, for example from a fight, officers come running from everywhere. In seconds, you can see up to 50 officers on the scene.

But note, when this happens, these officers get into a different frame of mind. The adrenaline rush puts many of these officers in an almost rage. Once that rage sets in, that officer is looking for a reason to release it. They are almost HOPING for a physical altercation, so that they can release that rage that is created because the situation could be a violent riot where a life may be lost.

The problem here is that once an officer gets into that adrenaline they don’t know how to come down, and so they are looking for a release. This happens very often in prisons, and no doubt, it happens in society. The problem is that these officers are not taught to TALK down to de-escalation, rather they are looking to make demands and argue.

Prisons prove this happens all the time, and many prison officers are not trained to de-escalate a situation; they are left to act on their anger and rage, which results often in physical violence, most times on defenseless prisoners.

So, I asked the Warden, does he approve of the methods we saw in Memphis… based on how staff treats prisoners, I think we know the answer. Their advantage: they don’t wear body cams, so they can get away with murder, literally. All they have to do is blame it on the prisoner, lose the footage and lock everyone down for a few weeks, so they can clean up the mess.

The Warden, as of August 10th, never responded.

UPDATE: On 12 September 2023 the five pigs were indicted on federal civil rights charges in addition to the state charges of second-degree murder they are already being tried for. The four-count indictment charges each of them with deprivation of rights under the color of law through excessive force and failure to intervene, and through deliberate indifference; conspiracy to witness tampering, and obstruction of justice through witness tampering.

The first topic I’ll like to respond to in Issue 81, is the article that reads “Colorado Prison Censors New Afrikan Literature”. The brother pointed Colorado’s contradictions with allowing certain white reactionary novels as opposed to the Black revolutionary ones. The Wisconsin DOC for a long while was banning books like Know Thy Self by Na’im Akban, Revolutionary Suicide, Soledad Brother, Blood In My Eye, Assata, Seize the Time, A Taste of Power, This Side of Glory, We Want Freedom, Isis Papers, Destruction of Black Civilization, and all of Amos Wilson’s books until the courts got involved and the WDOC reasoning was that the books were inciteful and accusatory towards Amerika and people of European descent. Yet they allowed in all of Donald Goines, ICE Berg Slim and often “hoodbooks” that promote Pimping, drug dealing, Black on Black homicide and anything that glorifies the “Black Criminal Mindset” because it keeps us in Lumpen-criminal-colonial state of mind. This state of mind justifies the mass incarceration of anyone of Alkebulan (indigenous word for the continent commonly named Africa today) diasporan descent, while the Revolutionary mindset poses significant threat to Uncle Sam’s “Economic Station.” The brother who wrote MIM needs to know ICEBerg Slim, Donald Goines and anyone of Alkebulan (Black & Brown) Diasporas descent promoting and glorifying the exploitation of our people and all oppressed nationals are unhealthy and they are just as much enemies to our own people as Adolf Hitler, J.B Stone, David Duke, Richard Spencer, Donald Trump and the like, you dig? I would advise the brother to read books by Black authors who believes and write about the advancement of Black people oppose to the destruction of us. It’s impossible to discuss pimping, drug dealing, gang-banging without mentioning white supremacy, OK.

The next topic from Issue 81 is “ULK 80 Responses on Sex Offenders, Pedophiles, Gunnas and Gangstas”. In it you write that sex offenders don’t practice reactionary thug life politics (drugs, shootings, etc) and that’s completely false. Most sex offenders claim to be part of lumpen organizations (CRIPS, Bloods, Vice Lords, GD’s, BD’s LK’s, etc). I believe sex offenders are irredeemable and permanent enemies of and to the “people”. By sex offender, I don’t mean a 17 year old dude having sex (consensual sex) with a 16 year old girl because I do not consider that rape. Some of these Gunnas who rape other Kaptives are sex offenders, homosexuals and the list could go on, OK. I would argue that both groups are enemies to the people. Those who refuse to abandon the thug mentality for a revolutionary one are enemies of and to the people. I do concur with your assessment regarding how the fascist system use both lifestyles as political points to further the dehumanization of these groups. I’m not against homosexuals, transgenders and what have you, I’m against those who hunt and oppress women and children. Those I do not condone their lifestyles.

I’m not bothered by referring to a transgender man who see’s himself as a woman and a transgender woman who see’s herself as a man as She and He. The problem is that most transgender men-women in prison are sex offenders, they are in for preying on children. I’m a former Black Gangster Disciple (from 1983 to 1998) and I’ll be the first to say that Growth & Development literature reflects Elijah Mohammad’s “Message To The Black Man” and that it was not founded to destroy our communities, yet that’s what it’s doing and I am against it and any gang (its not an organization) that terrorizes its own people or people period. Members of these groups are “Redeemable” and we must not turn our backs on them unless they refuse to open their eyes and do the work of the civilized.

As you know, I am the Founder and Chief Advisor of Freedom Fighters, Inc and we do not condone the distribution nor usage of alcohol and drugs nor any lifestyle that poses a threat to the moral fabric of humanity/the human race. In closing, though I understand the nexus you made with brother Comrade Slaughter regarding drug dealers and sex offenders, I still feel that it’s out of context. The drug dealer and gangbanger is “redeemable”. The sex offender isn’t. I was molested, violently, from the age of 7 to 11 by a female relative who is still alive and to this day, in her 60’s (I’m 47 and have been enslaved since the age of 17 - 1993). She’s still sick.

Even though a sex offender is capable of coming to terms with his or her own sickness, they remain sick in the head and sick in the heart, maybe. Tookie was a byproduct of his environment and when he woke up he didn’t fall back asleep. The sex offender falls back asleep because he or she is innately. The vast majority of sex offenders was never molested or raped, it was in them. I know a lot of bothers/men who were molested and never became molesters themselves. I have never raped nor molested anyone, never even had the thought to do so. I have never sold drugs either, but its different. I’m mentally ill, I was raised in mental institutions (and it could be said that prisons are also Mental Institutions) and I was exploited by the older members of BGD to rob and kill white people and once I came to terms with this, I renounced black racism and I will never rob or kill someone based on race. I was sentenced to life for killing a woman who robbed my guy and charged at me with a machete, and though my actions could be justified, I still partook in the genocide of our people and I’ll never engage in such idiocy ever again. And though I see the nexus you made, I just don’t agree with it. I do, however, respect your position. Disagreement is healthy and we should never tear each other down due to it unless the disagreement becomes detrimental to the organism, you dig?

Wiawimawo of MIM(Prisons) responds: We welcome critiques of certain “hood” writings as the comrade offers above. Yet we still recognize their biased censorship as part of national oppression, and the struggle against censorship in prisons can make strange bed fellows as we’ve discussed with the struggles around nude and non-nude pictures.

As for the sex offenders issue, this comrade has been debating us on this since back in ULK 64. I welcome the correction regarding sex offenders practicing thuggish anti-people activity as well. There is certainly an overlap between the two behaviors that i was ignoring in my sloppy language in ULK 81.

Next point, no one is arguing that “those who hunt and oppress women and children” are communists or allies. So that’s a moot point. Nor are those who are hunting, killing, poisoning, and oppressing men for that matter! And we seem to have agreement on that, as far as various forms of anti-people activity go. Yet, this comrade echoes the point made by Slaughter that it is only the sex offender that is unredeemable. The argument being that the sex offender is innately oppressive towards other humyns. Yet no evidence is offered to support this. In fact, we can point to statistics that sex offenders have the lowest recidivism rates.(1)

It is also odd that you seem to favorably cite Elijah Muhammad who is a known child predator who never atoned for the abuses he committed against at least 9 young girls and wimmin, and exploited eir cult of persynality to cover up those crimes while using metaphysical interpretations of the Quran/Bible to justify the acts. This was exposed by el-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz (Malcolm X) shortly before he was brutally murdered for promoting a revolutionary nationalist interpretation of Islam separate from the NOI.

If we look at socialist China we see the virtual elimination of all sorts of crime, drug abuse, prostitution, etc, in a very short period of time. We addressed this in more detail in ULK 59 on drugs.

We are the last ones to say that everyone is a comrade. Usually we are being criticized for being too pessimistic about the revolutionary potential in this country. But we are engaged in the project of uniting all who can be united in the prison movement.

We aren’t saying we can reform all anti-people criminals today. But we are saying that we can under the dictatorship of the proletariat, which is what we are fighting for. And to get there, we need to break down these phony barriers between the oppressed based on idealism.

^{Note: 1. Wendy Sawyer, 6 June 2019, BJS fuels myths about sex offense recidivism, contradicting its own new data, Prison Policy Initiative. In numbers from a 9-year follow-up on people released from state prisons (2005-2014), rape/sexual assault recidivism rates for any crime were less than 67%. This is 20% lower than all other categories. Only about 7.7% were re-arrested for another sex offense.}

I’m listening to an N.P.R. news report. An “African-Amerikkkan” woman is ruefully recounting the January 6th, 2021 right wing attack on “our” democracy. I wanted to laugh and cry that this sister was so lost that it was pitiful. So many confused and deluded people, even at this late hour, don’t know that Amerikkka has never been a true democracy, in the way that most people have been led to believe. Amerikkka has assassinated more legitimately elected leaders, around the world, than all other world’s states combined. They have installed dictators who starve the childred, and propped up those colonial/neo-colonial police states so that the First World can live like royalty on the stolen labor and natural resources of those Shanghai-ed and enslaved societies. Throughout the past century, these overthrown dictators always seek refuge in the U.$. or Britain. The rats always run back to the nest. (From Baby Doc, to Jair Bolsonaro, the Shah of Iran, and many more.) That is not what truly civilized, freedom and justice-loving democracies do. That is what Nazi police states do.

Even if Amerikkka could be a democracy – which it never can – it would not be “our” democracy. Judge Roger B. Taney declared as much in 1857 or so. Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist reiterated this, in 1987 or so. It is now 2023. It’s time to wake up. Marcus Garvey clearly stated, in 1923 or so, what most people still have not heard: The first piece of toilet paper was invented in 1786 or so. It was called “The United States Constitution.”

In 1940 or so, a lot of Amerikkkan leaders, at the highest levels of U.S. government and industry, supported Adolf Hitler. The antics of ex-President Donald J. Trump and many U.$. leaders of government and industry (and many millions of oppressor nation Amerika alongside their oppressed nation allies) proved that, in 2021 – and for the foreseeable future, I’m sure, – the status quo shall remain!

Truly, the most productive years of my life were the 9 years that I lived on various “Indian” reservations and on “hippie” communes, which modeled much of our lifestyle on First Nations’ (Lakota, Diné, etc.) beliefs, and some African and Gaelic beliefs. There was the occasional Taoist or Buddhist, but we all realized we are all guests in our First Nation sisters’ and brothers’ home.

I gave up on Amerikkka in the early ‘90s. I wanted my kids’ mom to come away with me to Indonesia or somewhere in the South Pacific (Fiji, the Solomon Isles), but she would have none of it. She still believed that the U.$. was a good country; like so many naive “dreamers” today. I honestly believe that many migrants who come to the U.$. are not seeking freedom; they’re seeking money, and are probably loaded down with contraband they’ve stolen from someone else, or are on the run from justice. The rats always run back to the nest.

I used to think that if Africans made significant cultural and economic ties to First Nation sovereign communities, that, by now we could have established our own sovereign communities; but very, very few Blacks that I broached the subject to would even consider living around a “bunch of poor ass Indians,” and struggling to build a community from scratch, when there’s a McDonald’s right around the corner. Besides, the Alaska and Wyoming wilderness is not Stacey Adams and Cadillac-friendly. I guess it was just too big of a sacrifice to make for the honor and love of our children. We don’t want to empower the police state, but who can live without Tangueray and Louis Vuitton?!

If the U.$. would switch the military/police/prison budget over to health and education, and give the paltry health and education budget to the pigs and politicians, Amerikkka could quite possibly be a good country. Maybe even a great country! But after 500 years of this shit, I’m not gonna hold my breath. Like I said, Amerikkka has destroyed every nascent, true democracy that opposes white supremacy.

In yet another act of terrorism, Shareen Abu Akleh, a Palestinian-amerikan journalist, was targeted and killed by the illegitimate state of I$rael and its military. The I$raeli state, its occupation of Palestine, and its armed forces are and have been backed by the united state’s ruling class since 1932. On 11 May 2022, while on the job, covering an I$raeli military raid on the Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank, she was maliciously assassinated.

Shareen Abu Akleh became a thorn in the side of the I$raeli state as a result of her continuous on the spot coverage of daily state repression, human rights violations, and Palestinian genocide. She covered many detentions, home demolitions (which Palestinian homes were targeted in, and demolished to force them to relocate for I$raelis) military raids of schools and universities, and Masjids, and killings of Palestinians. This brave frontline work placed her on I$raeli hit lists.

Shareen Abu Akleh was a journalist for decades and a Palestinian revolutionary-nationalist, who being a trailblazer in her field, inspired many Palestinian and Arab wimmin to serve their people through the work of liberation journalism.

Her funeral brought out tens of thousands of supporters, mostly Palestinian, in Jerusalem. As pallbearers carried sister Shareen, the I$raeli military attacked them, and further disrupted the occasion with malicious zionist violence against Palestinian nationals.

Sadly, the colonization of Palestine, the Apartheid regime of I$rael, and violent and fatal repression of native inhabitants is all apart of the imperialist system. What does imperialism look like? It looks like land theft, it looks like millions of people living without power or plumbing, it looks like bombing and shelling of homes, schools, hospitals and finishing the job by attacking refugee camps. It looks like storming universities, confiscating study materials, it looks like the process of erasing an entire human group, and that’s exactly what’s taking place in Palestine. There will be many who call for justice for Shareen Abu Akleh, but the sad truth is that justice for her and justice for the Palestinian nation can only be achieved with the end of the I$raeli occupation.

FREE THE LAND!!! FREE PALESTINE!!!

The Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement is a grassroots initiative that began in the early 2000’s to gain international support for the occupied Palestinian nation against I$rael’s continued military suppression, genocide and land theft.

In recent years the BDS movement has indeed gained international support, even in the face of reactionary pro-imperialist backlash from the states who support genocide, land theft and military crimes.

The goal of BDS is to isolate I$rael on the international field by upholding the “simple principle that Palestinians are entitled to the same rights as the rest of humanity”.

Students around the world have been pressuring their schools and universities to join the ‘Academic Boycott’, initiated in 2004 by the Palestinian campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of I$rael (PACBI). As student activism again comes to life here in the United $tates, it is important that students engage in internationalist frameworks. Amerikan student activists should support the academic boycott of I$rael, which is part of the overall BDS movement. Students should do this not as a mere moral cause, but the understanding that over 50% of the U.$. states strongly support the I$raeli military-apartheid-colonization, so much so that 35 states have Anti-BDS laws. They support the frequent military raids of Palestinian universities under the pretext of ‘countering terrorist activities’, the imprisonment and murder of student activists peacefully protesting, closure of schools and the recent I$raeli military move to arbitrarily control what is and isn’t taught in universities. A new government procedure allows the military to restrict visiting professors who teach subjects supposedly ‘not relevant to Palestinians’.

In the United $tates, the free flow of ideas has begun to be brought to an end. Book bans, Don’t Say Gay laws, the backlash against Critical Race Theory, what’s next? Will the same reactionaries rally police/ military force to suppress your student demonstration? The book Chican@ Power and the Struggle for Aztlán has been banned in prisons in many parts of occupied Aztlán. Will the reactionaries prevent your free thought? NEWSFLASH THEY ALREADY ARE! Students in North America should pressure their institutions to join the Academic boycott and the wider BDS movement. END ALL COLLABORATION WITH THE ILLEGITIMATE STATE, until Palestine is free.

MIM(Prisons) adds: One of the first essays many students of MIM study is On Contradiction by Mao Zedong. In it Mao explains how change must come from within. The liberation of Palestine depends on an effective national liberation struggle from within Palestine, but it can be assisted by resistance to the funding and arming of the I$raeli state by Amerikans whose government is the primary prop of I$rael. A strong anti-imperialist movement in this country would be able to limit the sale of military goods to I$rael, Ukraine and anywhere else where the empire wants to fight wars against its enemies without sending its own troops.

^{Notes:
(1) ‘Palestinian-american journalist assassinated,’ Monical Hill, FreedomSocialist,vol.43,no.3
(2) ‘Academic fortify boycott of Israel’, Raya Fidel, FreedomSocialist,vol.43,no.3}

Crime is a child of poverty and miseducation, which are both created and perpetuated by Plutocrat Policy(s).

The real criminals are too rich and too big for jail, while the poor are incarcerated for simply living a survivalist existence, for responding and/or reacting to poverty and miseducation in reactionary, economically desperate and miseducated ways.

Prison is mainly based on inflicting punishment and resentment, rather than cultivating genuine healing via essential self-criticism that has historically proven to decrease recidivism. Prisoners’ growth will defeat the purpose of spending or investing 20-plus million dollars building each prison. Genuine rehabilitation is a bad investment to the Plutocrats.

The entire so-called criminal justice system is nothing but a replacement and extension of slavery. A job-generating industry for all government branches and departments between the slave patrollers (street PIGs; Plutocrat Imperialist Goons) and Overseers (D.O.C.; Department of Cruelty) as was the case with post-Bacon’s Rebellion of 1676.

Crime, is all founded upon, and backed up by the exception clause of the 13th Amendment of the United States Constitution: “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude except as a punishment for crime…”

Thus, to genuinely heal or rehabilitate prisoners is to end the new slavery; meaning, leading to the shutting down of prison, and mass lay-offs within the entire so-called criminal justice industry system, made up of slave patrollers (street PIGs), judges, state and defense attorneys, counselors, doctors, nurses, canteen vendors, civilian food service and maintenance workers and county jail and prison overseers (DOC). Millions of jobs when tallied up nationally, all off so-called crime, the new cotton, tobacco and/or sugar.

Crime, as an industry, can only end by first and foremostly ending poverty and miseducation. Even rape is a result of miseducation, or psychological defects of miseducation by the system of patriarchy. However, poverty and miseducation will not end without first and foremostly ending and replacing the CIPWS (Capitalist Imperialist Patriarchist White Supremacy) with a Proletarian Internationalist Dictatorship.

Whenever and wherever there is poverty and miseducation, material conditions are ripe for the warrant of crime or revolution. For neither takes place without the desire for and/or the aspiration of better days, or a higher standard of living.

History is proof, that revolutions do not automatically occur and succeed with the collapse of the CIPWS elite and their Plutocrat’s superstructure. Revolution can, and will only occur and succeed when and where the revolt which leads to revolution is culture. When and where the masses are revolutionary conscious and active in every aspect of human life. When and where every human embraces the power to determine the egalitarian destiny of his and/or her own community. Revolution is when and where power changes hands, in our case, from CIPWS to PID (Proletarian Internationalist Dictatorship) ensuring egalitarianism meaning All Power To The People. Revolution begins with education like crime ends with education.

In egalitarian solidarity and struggle.

MIM(Prisons) adds: This is great summary of the connection between the system of mass incarceration in the U.$. and the need to end imperialism. We agree that this criminal injustice system is a replacement for slavery in relation to controlling New Afrikan populations, and that it funds millions of jobs for Amerikans. However, this system is very different from cotton or sugar in that no value is being created, rather the potential value that the oppressed nations could be producing to benefit their people is being squandered by locking them up in unproductive conditions for years and decades.

In ULK #73, MIM (Prisons) published one of my articles entitled: Da Struggle Continues: We Still Charge Genocide. In said article i announced the coming of the international tribunal 2021, which took place October 22-25, and has now passed. In this article we will look to a few of the events that have taken place since that previous article, and how it pertains to Our plans going forward.

For those who do not know, the verdict given by the International Jurists was an emphatic GUILTY of all charges. These charges include:

• Police racism and violence
• Mass incarceration
• Political prisoners and prisoners of war
• Environmental racism
• Health inequalities

In the wake of the hystoric verdict leaders of this campaign announced the next step forward being the establishment of what they’ve coined a ‘People’s Senate’. This infrastructure is a key stepping stone for New Afrikan, Indigenous, and Chican@ nation citizens to formulate the common unity needed to eventually conduct a U.N. supervised plebiscite, which will finally legitimize Our quest for Self-determination.

Ultimately, that is the reason the tribunal was so important. With the advent of the guilty verdict the political line that seeks revolutionary nationalism for internal semi-colonies in north amerika has been legitimized within the eyes of the international community, and the United Nations (U.N.).

While Our struggle(s) have long been legitimate in Our own eyes, when establishing an independent nation it is prerequisite that a nation gain international diplomatic support. In the past New Afrikans have had such support. However in recent decades such support has waned as New Afrikans have become increasingly more bourgeoisified, and more and more assimilated. As a result other countries have been hesitant to step out on a limb in support of amerikanized ‘negroes’.

Now with the advent of the People’s Senate We will possess the infrastructure to properly seek out reparations, and independent nationhood. Up until this point the reparation push in this present landscape has been one which revolutionary nationalists would be hard-pressed to support. This was because the institutions and hand-picked persyns chosen as the voice for reparations movement were amerikanized negroes, seeking further assimilation into amerika, utilizing the economic plight of segments of New Afrika to advance their own agendas. With the People’s Senate, We will guarantee a people’s voice, and a people’s control of the direction of Our collective movement. Incarcerated persyns may also take part in this People’s Senate. You should contact the Jericho Movement for further details on how to participate. # Power Moves

The above-mentioned international tribunal took place in Harlem, at the Malcolm X and Betty Shabazz center, which is the exact location Bro. Malcolm X. was assassinated.

Now, 56ADM (56 years After the Death of Malcolm), those men who’ve languished behind bars falsely framed by the U.S. government for Bro. Malcolm’s murder were officially exonerated 18 November 2021. This long overdue exoneration came about after a February 2020 Netflix documentary, Who Killed Malcolm X aired, and its startling conclusion initiated calls from the Shabazz family to re-open the case of Bro. Malcolm’s assassination. The basic conclusion is that the actual shooter, along with others present were working on behalf of the FBI, when they murdered Malcolm X on the orders of their masters.

Of course to many this is not ‘news’, but merely a confirmation of a long-held belief. What is outrageous to this writer is that with the government basically admitting to assassinating one of the greatest and best leaders We’ve had for the New Afrikan liberation cause, the level of outrage is basically zero. Brother Malcolm once said that We have gone from a race of warriors and untamed runaways, to a race of complicit house n___ers. Sad, but true. When the U.S. can for all intents and purposes admit to assassinating Malcolm X, a liberatory leader, when Kyle Rittenhouse can be found not guilty (more on this later) and there is no outrage or sustained resistance, when Ahmaud Arbery’s murderers begin trial and not ONE New Afrikan persyn is selected on their jury in a county that is 25% New Afrikan (more on this later) and there is no outrage nor sustained resistance, We’ve become complicit in Our own oppression. We’ve capitulated to the will of Our enemies. WILL THE REAL NEW AFRIKANS PLEASE STAND UP!!!???

AS if Our case for Black secession, and a socialist Republic of New Afrika weren’t clearly justified, events like Kyle Rittenhouse’s acquittal, and the lack of Black jurors in the case of Ahmaud Arbery underscore grievances issued by generations of neo-colonized Afrikans in amerika. What We as a people must overstand is that these issues do not persist because of racism. Malcolm X wasn’t assassinated by racism, but by a corrupt power structure. Kyle Rittenhouse’s murderer of two Black Lives Matter supporters and the wounding of a third, wasn’t acquitted by a racist, nor because of racism, as his victims were white themselves. Instead he was acquitted because the political orientation that led to his actions (settler-colonial imperialism) is part and parcel with the political identity of the corrupt power structure. And finally, the murderers of Ahmaud Arbery are being tried by a jury of their peers, while New Afrikans have been pleading for the same consideration for literally centuries, because their actions were in furtherance of the corrupt power structure’s sustained power. That is while some of us have been struggling to ‘FREE THE LAND!’, a New Afrikan is unable to run FREELY in the LAND. The devilish cowards that murdered brother Ahmaud reinforce the colonial relationship between New Afrikans and the white settler amerikans.

The time has come to move away from BLACK LIVES MATTER to the NEW BLACK LIBERATION MOVEMENT. We are not fighting racism, We’re fighting oppressive and exploitative POWER. In order to ever be FREE, in order to have a REAL influence on whether or not incidents like those mentioned here ever happen again, We must obtain POWER, and We must exercise POWER in non-exploitative or oppressive manners. To accomplish this, the formula is simple, We must organize now for people’s WAR, Vita Wa Watu, to seize power, and implement socialist (non exploitative/oppressive) power.

LONG LIVE THE SPIRIT OF MALCOLM X

WILL THE REAL NEW AFRIKANS PLEASE STAND UP

POWER MOVES

Down with Imperialism! And Power to New Afrika!

Clenched fist salute to all revolutionary New Afrikans! This coming October 2021, the United Nations(U.N.) will host the 2021 International Tribunal. At this tribunal many of Our countrymen/wimmin along with supporters will AGAIN charge the United Snakes government with committing genocide against Our New Afrikan nation before the world ‘court’ and denouncing them for their treatment of political prisoners and prisoners of war(PP/POWs).

This action comes on the 70th anniversary of the petition presented to the U.N. General Assembly in 1951 charging the U.S. with genocide against Our people. William L. Patterson, one of the original petitioners, also wrote a book based on the experience entitled, We Charge Genocide. Subsequently, in 1977, the New Afrikan Prisoner Organization wrote an essay entitled, “We still Charge Genocide,” to illustrate, among other things, that the genocide still continues.

We did not choose to scribe this brief piece as a news brief, to merely inform comrades of what other comrades are up to. Rather, We scribe this piece to discuss the significance of this tribunal and to also pinpoint the direction Our nation is going.

Significance: In any and all forms of struggle the effectiveness and significance of one’s tactics and strategies are dependent upon the conditions or circumstances therein. The current direction of the mass front of the ‘Movement for Black Lives’, and ‘Black Lives Matter’ and the like, has the nationalist tendency of Our people in a very subordinate position. As such it is paramount that a wide variety of movement media cover and disseminate the Tribunal and the events and discourse around it. It is extremely significant that representatives of Our Nation are expounding upon Our national reality on an international arena, and furthermore, it is important that younger activists witness a new form or avenue in struggle in this democratic stage of our liberation movement.

Some, in fact, have not witnessed us as a people claim and expound upon Our national identity as New Afrikans and the treatment We receive when captured as political prisoners and prisoners of war, and while acting in the capacity as politicized prisoners once in captivity. Some youths haven’t witnessed revolutionary nationalism take a center stage or act in what many deem as significant capacity, and thus we’ve been seen by many of the current generation activist as insignificant. This Tribunal CAN begin to shift those perceptions, as more of our people begin to view Our struggle in the light of the colonized nation struggling for its independence, and when those among us act in accord with the mandate to FREE THE LAND!!! We’re subsequently treated as any ‘enemy combatant’ of imperialism is around the globe. The difference being, that this is all hidden from the mass majority of the public within the empire and abroad.

Direction: As we struggle ahead it is a must that We, the revolutionary New Afrikans, understand and propagate the just cause of our liberation struggle in a way that links the genocidal acts of the empire, which we’ve resisted, fought, and will continue to wage war against until our goal is met, along with the reality that the carrying out of genocide is a prerequisite for occupation and imperialism. By this We mean that imperialism IS genocide!

Many incorrectly picture genocide as a single event; that a genocide must require a machivallian individual orchestrating the industrial murders of human beings for a delusional/cynical end goal. Rather, genocide is a process that evolves and moves and intensifies. Genocide is like all other social and natural phenomena in this regard. As such, genocide is one word that encapsulates the many symptoms of OUR national subjugation under U.S. imperialism. Furthermore, as articulated by the Spear & Shield Collective, We must COMBAT GENOCIDE! And this slogan encapsulates the direction we all must take collectively as conscious New Afrikan nationals.

We can/must combat this genocide in a multi-faceted manner. Creating community watch squads that can hamper police terrorism is one way of combating genocide. Building revolutionary base areas within and without the national territory is combating genocide. Establishing Black squads within those base areas supplanting the old parasitic lumpen orgs with them is combating genocide. In terms of Us behind the walls, mitigating acts of street organization warfare amongst different lumpen organizations within Our one nation is combating genocide. Practicing and promoting a New revolutionary way of doing and saying everything, as to go about breaking the cycle. Educating on health and nutrition practices is a way to combat genocide. Convert your ‘gang’ into a revolutionary vehicle.

As u can imagine there are many ways to combat the genocide of our nations. We are to keep this in mind as we go about our duties, that in all we do we do it to combat genocide, which is combating imperialism. CLENCH FIST