Welcome to 4SM #15, a major voice of u.s. political prisoners. Whether you are checking us out online or are reading the hardcopy, you see that both editions are coming at you in an improved and updated form. With our upgraded hardcopy we are also initiating an effort to increase its outreach and subscriptions, to prisoners and outside people. Share your copy and spread the word about this unique revolutionary voice. Let us know what you think of our upgraded format and look.

We begin this issue with a major salute to International Woman’s Day (IWD – March 8th), and the contribution and struggle of the sisters.

Section 2 has book reviews. A new and important book on Fred Hampton’s murder is reviewed by Sundiata Acoli. A thought provoking artistic book of poetry, by long held political prisoner Wopashitwe Mondo Eyen we Langa, entitled The Black Panther is an African Cat, is also reviewed. A review of Will you Die with Me: My LIfe and the Black Panther Party will be included in the next (July) issue.

Section 3 covers revolutionary struggle, prison struggle and more. We salute May Day, bring you information from the Chairman of the New African Black Panther Party and have many other very interesting and informative articles.

The final section is a long, informative and analytical essay on the civil war in Sri Lanka. Bill Dunne lays out the struggle of the past 30 years and also draws broader conclusions and begins a discussion on the entire question of national liberation struggles. This discussion is begun by the article that follows, which I wrote, on nations, national liberation and revolution. 4SM will welcome further input on this question and will print readers’ thoughts, if we receive them, in future issues.

We have updates on various political prisoners throughout the issue. Check this out and do what you can to help.

See you in issue 16, out in July 2010. This will include our yearly salute and words on Black August, information on the Fall 2010 Running Down The Walls runs, and more. We welcome your thoughts and input on any ongoing 4SM discussions, as well as analysis and information on other revolutionary topics. 4SM wants your best, edited, well thought out and laid out writings — graphics also. See you in July.

Freedom Is A Constant Struggle!
Jaan Laaman, editor
10372-016
P.O. Box 24550
Tucson, AZ 85734

Sacred sisters, sacred brothers, my great family of all humanity – I love you all.

Tsi yo li ha – I greet you from this iron house, this old dangerous prison, that is now the new Marion or ‘SMU’ compounding the problems of negative thought, in these guards and oppressed men alike.

Gad a do lis di ha – I pray, in Cherokee – Tsa La gi every day. I start as soon as I wake up at 6:00 am. I pray for my sons Eduardo – Carlos – Shilo and my son with Jodie, then I pray for all sources of Ama – water and my spirit guides. I pray for all water in the Earth and Universe to be healed, making water pure again. As I splash my face 7 times and drink 7 times, thanking Creator and Mother Earth for all water. We have a ‘dire’ emergency here in the Earth my sisters and brothers – both people and animal-bird-spider Tree People. All of us. Yet I address the people warriors – I pray for everyone to rise up and shut these destructive industries down for good. Please everyone stop thinking of selfish matters. Consider ‘all life’ and place all life above and before yourselves. Also everyone needs to rush to the aid of the NYM (Native Youth Movement) up in Chase BC to shut off the power of trespassers playing games on their sacred mountains – go help Natukatnana and all her Sisters and Brothers. Now – please do not wait, no wasting time. Oh – my cellie Andrew has something to say. He is a Yupik Eskimo of Alaska.
…………..

My name is Andrew Adams Jr. My cellie is Oso Blanco. He prays in Cherokee and does some very special spiritual things I’ve seen done back home. He sits at his table all day, writing letters to try to inspire people all over the Earth. Sometimes he looks up at me, turns his radio off and gets very serious and says, “don’t worry bro, the revolution is coming. We are going to be free to go help our people.”

I really do hope this really happens. Because we really do need one. For the better of this Earth, this corrupt government needs to be crushed, and everyone needs to go back to the old ways and quit hurting Mother Earth. It has to happen for the better. If not, this Earth is going to die and there is going to be nothing left. Or the Mother Earth will smash us all.

Thank you. I love you all. Andrew Adams

[Oso Blanco writing again]

Ok be strong my brothers and sisters.

We are all sacred, so we must realize we are sacred beings. Please please rise up. I am praying for the economy to crash – so people will stop living as mindless, destructive slaves. Let us all get back to the garden – nature and higher consciousness. Before the animal, bird and spider brothers and sisters vote us off the Earth.

Yona Unega
Oso Blanco
de Aztlán
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Dear 4strugglemag,

Revolutionary greetings!

I’ve been receiving yall’s magazine for about 3 ½ years, and am truly blessed with all of the info and dialogue the network puts out. Thank you so much.

I wanted to touch base with all of you on the subject of juveniles serving life without parole (LWOP), as well as other harmful and unduly sentences given to youths.

As a 15 year old child, I was arrested and originally charged with murder – the charge was later upgraded to a capital murder. I was certified as an adult at 15 years of age and transferred to the adult court, went to trial and was found guilty and given an automatic life sentence 35 calendar years before being eligible to see parole.

I know my constitutional rights were violated as to ‘due process’ – the arresting officers never contacted my family, nor the Mexican Consulate to be present during questioning. I had/have dual citizenship and know I have rights. I know I wasn’t given a fair trial so I hired a legal team from Ohio, which is NLPA after 2 appeals being denied. Also I’m retaining an attorney which they recommended to represent me.

Texas has one of the worst judicial systems in the entire U.S.

I am not giving up on my freedom – even after 17 years of being incarcerated! I also feel national attention should be brought to the inhumane treatment of juveniles – especially when one as myself was wrongfully convicted!

Keep me in mind and in yall’s prayers. Have a good year!
Respectfully,
Manuel R. Romero, age 32.
1992-2009-?

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Dear 4Strugglemag,

I have spent 4 ½ years incarcerated, which has completely restructured the person that I am in a revolutionary way. I got your mag from my neighbor the other day and was impressed with its content; most of the articles felt like they had been pulled right from my head. I am a tutor/ teacher here and I use that opportunity to promote critical thinking and discussion of political topics, and I’ve lately been using your Issues 14 and 15 to aid in our discussions, particularly among the youth here (of which I was one until recently).

During my time incarcerated, some very intelligent gentlemen decided to invest their time in me and changed me from a complete religio-fascist that I was at one time into a stronger, much more intelligent self-described revolutionary. Prison, having a different effect than what the state would prefer, has educated me and shown me the real perspective of what our country is at and the people suffering and struggling under the dominant ruling class. My goal now is to do everything I can to tear down the ignorance and institutions of fear that I once was under but now see through.

Other than to praise your mag as one of the few avenues for prisoner freedom of speech, and to request a subscription myself, I am also sending an article I wrote called “Religio-Capitalism” which is based on my own experiences about the negative effects of how religion influences, and is intertwined with, capitalism, and why church and state aren’t really separate. Please consider it for inclusion in your next issue, it offers a perspective of someone who used to be on the other side. And please send me a copy of your next issue regardless.
My Salutations,

Chris Dankovich #595904
Thumb Correctional Facility
3225 John Conley Drive
Lapeer, MI 48446

Religio-Capitalism

BY CHRIS DANKOVICH

In every religion during creation the head deity gives his newly created man the Earth and tells him to do what he pleases with it. Man is given a woman and told to do what he pleases with her. In every society, in every state, the dominant class (and as evidenced above, gender) will use, or create, whatever ideology and morality it can to keep its dominance; in the process the dominant class will attempt to deify itself. This produces a sense of entitlement by the dominant class that is the basis of what capitalism is built on.

Inheritance is the main aspect of that entitlement (an essential worship of the fates) and demonstrates the racial divisions inherent in capitalism. Entitlement and therefore inequality between different individuals is explained simply by where and to whom you happen to be born. Kings inherit the “divine right” to rule, the upper classes inherit their position, based solely on genetic, and therefore racial, features. But as no human being has the ability to decide where or to whom they are born, this lack of choice violates the very nature of the most professed “moral” of capitalism: that everyone has an equal opportunity to be successful. Those African-Americans who suffered before, during, and still today after the civil rights movement can attest to this: equality cannot be maintained in a system where one group, united by any means but usually by relation or race, inherits its advantages. And capitalism by its very nature is the use of one’s own advantages, such as knowledge or means, to manipulate and take advantage of another human being’s disadvantages or ignorance for a profitable gain. The process of maintaining one’s advantages requires the prevention of others from acquiring those same advantages.

To maintain their advantages, the dominant class introduces a morality and a set of laws based upon that morality, designed to keep individuals submissive. Every society, every state, every religion has its own version of morality, in each created by, and created to benefit, that particular group’s dominant class. This morality creates fear through stigmatism and direct punishment for disobedience of the morality, and therefore its creators. As the creators and distributors of this morality, the morality once accepted acts to deify the dominant class, while at the same time making it immoral to challenge them or do anything which would help to bridge the gap and remove their sole ownership of whatever advantage makes them dominant The enforcement of morality is through fear, fear being the foundation upon which the state is built. Throughout most of human history, this fear has been produced through association with the supernatural.

Every king, ruler, and other members of the dominant classes through history until our modern industrial era have associated their rule with religion because of the raw power granted them by appearing as a representative of the deity on Earth. No longer was the dominant individual or class required to spend as much time instilling fear to enforce their morality on the population. The fear came instantly with religion.

Compare this with modern times, where church and state are seemingly separated in our industrial-capitalist nations. With the advent of industrialization, the separation of church and state in America and elsewhere became a way to modernize and consolidate the power of the dominant classes. The state was built with an aura of religion stacked with ceremony and unnecessary tradition, along with itself replacing the “God” figure through propaganda and programming of nationalistic views. The illusion of freedom is created to blind individuals from the fact that there is even a struggle and to justify the position of the dominant class without the need for a supernatural justification. Power remains in the hands of the dominant class and will always remain so as long as the advantages held by them, particularly knowledge in our current age, are prevented from falling into the hands of the lower classes, which have been made ignorant and without the ability to rise out of their position as a whole, as evident in the major cities of the world. Knowledge simply of the existence of a different possible way of life, of opportunity, for most is lost. The state, run by whatever class is in control, becomes the proverbial self-centered God telling man to never eat of the tree of knowledge, not out of concern for the man, but for the fear of man becoming God.
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Dear 4SM,

First of all, although this is just a letter of appreciation, any part of any communication(s) submitted on my behalf may be used by 4SM.

Secondly, I have heard so much about this publication, 4SM, that now I have received “Issue 14” and am pleased to discover that it is all I expected. The magazine was filled with relevant issues and was presented well. As you know, it is very important for one’s enduring repression to have an outlet. I found the articles to be very “polished” which speaks to the author’s development. I was familiar with most of the people mentioned in the publication. It was interesting to learn of the outcomes and updates of their situations through time and continued diligence.

Third, the piece on women prisoners was heartfelt. It was very sickening to see the abuses female prisoners are subjected to which are beyond what male prisoners face. I was enlightened to the plights of my female counterparts by an associate who established programs for female prisoners held in Danbury, Connecticut. Even so, I was still surprised and saddened by some of the facts in the article. The treatment of female prisoners by male staff reminded me of a piece I read titled “The Psychology of a Prison Guard.” It detailed the degeneration of the mental and emotional state of the “typical” guard. In particular, when a person is first hired to work in corrections they often see it as just a job. Over time that same person becomes dissatisfied and frustrated by the mundane routine and the emotional detachment one must muster in order to deal with human beings in an unnatural environment. As such, prisoners become the object of hatred, albeit subconsciously, because they begin to be viewed as the cause of all that is wrong with the guard’s daily “existence.” This is evidenced by statements such as “if it weren’t for you I wouldn’t be here!” Which in reality is true in the regard that if there were no prisoners and ultimately prisons, guards will be unemployed. I said that to say this: it is extremely sad to see people try things just because they think that they can get away with them. The entire concept of prison in Amerika needs to be revamped. It is archaic to say the least. Most people feel that prisoners should be punished and that it is their personal responsibility to do so. When this mentality is coupled with the reality that this colony come to be known as Amerika was founded on violence, exploitation and oppression, it becomes easier to see that many have been abused/hurt in some form or fashion. As a result, many of these people seek an outlet for their suppressed pain and insecurities while prisoners make an ideal target and outlet. When the Supreme Court ruled that prisons are not to be held accountable, for the most part, “to outside entities for the day to day operations of prisons,” it caused peer pressure to be the ruling factor of employee conduct. “Whistle blowers” are extremely rare. I strongly agree that there needs to be increased awareness and solidarity between male and female prisoners activist groups along with the prisoners themselves.

Lastly, I know all too well the ugly side of incarceration. Besides being held captive for a crime I did not commit, I recently endured blatant injustice and repression. To be clear, I was involved in an incident at U.S.P. Big Sandy on September 17, 2007. I was in B-4 housing unit when three inmates were told to get on the wall to be “pat-searched.” During said search, an officer Jude began attacking the inmate he was searching. He struck him in the back of the head and then placed the inmate in a headlock. Another inmate involved in the initial search attempted to stop the officer from assaulting the inmate. The last of the three inmates initially involved fled the scene. This is turn caused there to be two guards assaulting the inmate who attempted to assist the inmate who was struck in the back of the head. Please keep in mind that this took place on the first floor of the housing unit also known as the common area. That means that there were approximately 150 inmates witnessing this take place. This is the point where I became involved in the incident. I ran across the unit to stop the two guards from assaulting the inmate who attempted to halt the initial assault. I grabbed one of the guards and pulled him off of the inmate. The guard fell to the ground and as he was in the process of getting up he grabbed me and we began to grapple. After a short time, the staff from other parts of the prison came to “break up” the situation. The three of us were taken, in various states of dress, to the Lt.’s office. Long story short, we were taken from the institution the next morning by “emergency transfer” with U.S. Marshals holding guns on us while in a van to U.S.P. Lee in Virginia. A month later we were taken to District court in London, Kentucky. Nearly every legal procedure was violated. I prepared our defence, which was ultimately sabotaged by court appointed clowns (I meant to say counsel). I am a layman at law, but captured most of the errors on record to no avail. Our presiding judge, G. Van Tatenhove, stated several times that he intended to make “an example out of us.” Subsequently, we were denied calling favourable witnesses and proceeded to trial, during which the term nigger was used frequently and received unflinchingly by the all white jury. During pre-trial we were held at the Fayette County Detention Centre in a special “Inmate Behavioural Modification Unit.” We were subjected to sensory deprivation along with an array of physical and psychological abuses. I came to find out that the responsible administration at Fayette Co had strong ties to U.S.P. Big Sandy (S.I.A. Links) especially. The conclusion of trial was conviction. Upon my return to the prison system, my inmate file was severely altered in order to qualify me for the Special Management Program (S.M.U.) at Lewisburg. I search for anyone, especially counsel, who will not be intimidated by the government who may assist in righting this wrong.

Sincerely,
Oceanus Perry
Reg No. 65754-061
S.M.U. Lewisburg
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Political Hostages Inside Indiana’s Prisons

BY BRO. HAROLD BROWN

In February of 1993, public television journalist, Bill Moyers, wrote an article titled “ A Quirk In The Law.”

This particular quirk in the law created a small class of political hostages inside Indiana’s Prisons. Legislators created and enacted this bill/law in 1979-80, related to multiple life sentences not falling under the jurisdiction of the parole board, meaning that certain prisoners will remain in prison until they die.

I believe a few of these hostages have at least forty in. I personally have served thirty-four years myself. This law affected about forty-six of us initially. Here recently around ten or twelve have died of chronic medical problems!

In the year 1961, the Indiana Parole requirements afforded everybody a chance to appear before “The Parole Board for parole consideration,” except prisoners sentenced to death. Currently as it stands now we were denied the right/chance to even appear before the parole board all these years!

This law is clearly illegal. It’s also a human rights violation to target a particular group of individuals/ prisoners. These laws compromise and undermine the laws set forth by the Honorable State Of Indiana itself, due to the fact that prison is to be a form of rehabilitation.

As it stands currently, it’s merely designed to slowly mentally and physically torture these prisoners, who can only be described as political hostages, in line for the slaughter of death, which ever comes first. Historically, Indiana has trailed states on human rights. The question that should be addressed is whether anyone is above the Law. Currently speaking, the answer is ‘yes’ – The State Of Indiana is, because surely it’s not a convicted felon! It is my hope that this letter will shine some needed light on a rogue law in Indiana that has created “political hostages,” out of a particular group of prisoners.

We pray that some moral and just fraction of society will come to aid and assist us in anyway possible to ensure that real justice will somehow manifest in our case. Anyone, any organizations who are able and willing to help us, please contact me.

Political Hostage #3
Bro. Harold Brown, #10037-D-310
WVCF P.O. Box 1111
Carlisle, IN 47838

Anti-imperialist roots of IWD

One hundred years ago in 1908, in the midst of turbulent political and economic times prior to World War I, over 20,000 women garment workers staged a general strike for 13 cold, New York winter, weeks. Their call: better pay and working conditions. Inspired by these Italian and Jewish immigrant garment workers, socialist and feminist delegates to the 1910 International Conference of Socialist Women in Copenhagen called for an annual International Women’s Day.

For the next 40 years, International Women’s Day was a day of militant demands and actions.

In 1911, 148 garment workers, mostly immigrants from Italy and Eastern Europe, died in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire in New York City. The women had led a massive strike by garment workers and were struggling to form a union to change their disastrous working conditions. These demands were carried in early International Women’s Day marches.

On March 8, 1917, Russian women went on strike for “Peace, Bread and Land.” With two million Russian soldiers dead and dismal work and living conditions at home, Russian women kicked off a wave of food riots, political strikes and demonstrations that would end in the Russian Revolution.

During World War II, women took to the streets on March 8th to demonstrate against fascist forces which were on the rise throughout Europe.

But during the Cold War era, widespread IWD street demos came to an end in North America and Europe. By the late 1950s, IWD was celebrated among fewer women, often indoors in small meeting halls and homes.

Inspired by revolutionary struggle in the Third World, the anti-war movement, and organizing in North America against national oppression and systemic racism, the “second wave” women’s movement emerged in the 1960s. In places like Vietnam, the Philippines, South Africa, Algeria, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Iran, Nicaragua, and Northern Ireland, women were armed and fighting for their own liberation in the context of national liberation struggles. After 20 years of quiet, indoor commemorations, IWD was revived as a day of action, solidarity and resistance as imperialism ravaged the lives of women the world over.

Solidarity

Today, for working class women and children, the chaos and crisis caused by imperialism is a daily fact of life. At the same time, the organization and resistance of the people is growing—often with women in the lead as we stand up for ourselves and our sisters, our families and our communities.

Canada was founded as a colonialist white settler state, a subsidiary of the British Empire bent on capitalist expansion. Indigenous women and children have borne the brunt of this ongoing occupation, genocide and repression. Today we stand in solidarity with indigenous women here in the DTES and globally who continue to fight for their land and basic human rights for themselves, their children and their nations. We stand with indigenous women who say No Olympic Games on occupied land and No to full decriminalization of prostitution and legalized Olympic brothels that would only accelerate violence against the most marginalized women, especially indigenous women.
Today, Canada’s political and economic rulers participate in imperialist wars of aggression with Canada’s military budget now reaching $18 billion. Today we stand in solidarity with the women of Afghanistan, Iraq and Haiti who expose the lie that war and occupation will liberate them. We say there is no liberation for women under occupation. And we say our liberation back here is bound up with the liberation of women in Afghanistan, Iraq and Haiti. We know that instead of money going into healthcare, education, childcare, housing – billions are going into the construction of an American style military-industrial complex to make the world safe for Canadian corporations.

The Canadian government also actively supports the ongoing occupation and collective punishment of Palestine. Today we stand in solidarity with the women under siege in the Gaza strip who demand justice and freedom even as they are running out of water, food and electricity, can’t get their kids to the hospital, and face constant bombardment and attack by the Israeli military.

Today Canadian corporations, including many of those mining companies headquartered in downtown Vancouver, continue to plunder the land and resources of the Philippines. They continue to benefit there as well as here from imperialist globalization.

The Canadian government, through “development aid,” also supports the corrupt, militarist Arroyo government that is responsible for the extra-judicial killings of 887 civilians including many women and children since 2001. Meanwhile, decades of chaos caused by deregulation, liberalization, and privatization have forced many Filipinos to migrate. The Philippine government is only too happy to export its people, especially women commodified as supermaids, nannies, and prostitutes, and one corrupt neocolonial government after another pockets their hard-earned remittances. At the same time, the Canadian government is happy to exploit Filipinos, many of them women. They are allowed to enter the country, usually temporarily, through immigration programs designed to offer employers and wealthy families the opportunity to exploit women in low-paying service sector jobs and as live-in-caregivers. Today we stand in solidarity with women of the Philippines who resist this organized state violence as well as economic, political and social exploitation at home and abroad.

Today, the Canadian government eagerly promotes and participates in international, regional and bi-lateral free trade agreements. As people organize against the resulting dispossession and environmental destruction, the Canadian government continues to support the repression and criminalization of people’s movements struggling for land, justice and freedom.

Today we stand in solidarity with women unjustly criminalized for their resistance and women political prisoners who continue to resist from their jail cells.

Today the Canadian government continues to exclude and exploit those who have been displaced from their families and countries by imperialist globalization.

Today we stand in solidarity with immigrants, migrants and refugees who survive in the face of Fortress North America and its detention and deportation machinery. We stand in solidarity with these women and their children who demand the right to live and work here as equals – not third class non-citizens subject to the worst forms of racist and sexist abuse and exploitation. We demand an end to oppressive policies of Citizenship and Immigration Canada whose agents last month raided a women’s shelter in Toronto and arrested a non-status woman and her Canadian born child. We say women in Canada are not liberated when non-status women and their children have to live like hunted animals in this country.

Today the Canadian government continues to attack the rights of working class and marginalized women and children through the trademark tools of imperialist globalization. And daily more and more of us struggle to access food, housing, healthcare, childcare, education and public transit. The BC government in the last few years has cut social spending to welfare, social housing, legal aid and childcare. They refuse to raise the minimum wage, meanwhile the prices of basic commodities and public transit continue to rise. As more women are connecting their experiences, the need to name and resist imperialism grows.

Today on March 8th we take to the streets in solidarity with women worldwide who continue to organize, educate and mobilize for genuine liberation.

Long Live International Women’s Day! Oppose state policies of displacement, deportation, violence and exclusion! Canada out of Afghanistan and Haiti! No Olympics on Stolen Land! No Olympic Brothels! End the Seige of the Gaza Strip! · Child care, healthcare, housing and public transit for all!

The War Before: The True Life Story of Becoming a Black Panther, Keeping the Faith in Prison, & Fighting for Those Left Behind. By Safiya Bukhari. Edited by Laura Whitehorn. Preface by Wonda Jones. Foreword by Angela Y. Davis. Afterword by Mumia Abu-Jamal.

In 1968, Safiya Bukhari witnessed an NYPD officer harassing a Black Panther for selling the organization’s newspaper on a Harlem street corner. The young pre-med student felt compelled to intervene in defense of the Panther’s First Amendment right; she ended up handcuffed and thrown into the back of a police car.

The War Before traces Bukhari’s lifelong commitment as an advocate for the rights of the oppressed. Following her journey from middle-class student to Black Panther to political prisoner, these writings provide an intimate view of a woman wrestling with the issues of her time—the troubled legacy of the Panthers, misogyny in the movement, her decision to convert to Islam, the incarceration of out spoken radicals, and the families left behind. Her account unfolds with immediacy and passion, showing how the struggles of social justice movements have paved the way for the progress of today.

Q: Why was it important for you to tell Safiya’s story now?

A: Safiya’s story has been and will remain important for anyone who wants to understand the history of this country over the past 75 years. The history of the Black liberation struggle defines American history in every period, but from the Second World War to now, following the trajectory of that struggle is crucial. At the moment, as people in the U.S. try to figure out what happened to their hopes for Obama and a Democratic Party-led government, going back to reflect on why Black people have yet to receive justice or equality may be just the education the country needs. Her writings remind us of why the struggle for justice is a struggle against capitalism and imperialism.

Q: Safiya writes about her experience of sexism in the Black Panther Party, and how Panther women adopted some successful strategies to empower themselves. How do you see those power dynamics playing out in current movements today?

A: Like the non-progress on fundamental issues of justice for the Black community as a whole, the status and real situation of women has barely budged forward. In both areas, there are more people in the middle echelons now—academics, professionals and the like. But the basic issues of racism, white and male supremacy and sexism remain as deeply entrenched as ever in the economic, political and social structures of our society. While the Left has incorporated more women and people of oppressed nationalities in its ranks, the concepts of leadership that elevated white men to those positions in the mid-20th century have not fully been analyzed and altered. Safiya’s writings offer a profound position on the power women offer in radical movements: Not just the people who do the work, but the people who provide lucid thinking, courage and heart. I don’t think it’s an accident that so many of the people we see actively engaged in trying to win release of political prisoners, and making sure they are not forgotten, are women.

Q:As a woman political prisoner, what particular challenges did you face and how did you overcome them?

A: The biggest challenge was to keep my heart from irrevocably breaking. Every day, in every jail or prison I was in, I witnessed the destruction of families and communities caused by the incarceration of so many Black and Latina women. Another challenge was the sexual assault prisons force on us—daily pat searches by male guards, an utter lack of privacy or ability to protect our bodies from those men. It exerts a corrosive effect on a woman’s sense of herself.

The way these challenges and others (such as the dehumanizing effect of powerlessness) are overcome every day in women’s prisons is by the collective power of a community of women. The love and support women prisoners offer one another provides the basis for every level of resistance, from individual refusal to succumb, to more collective efforts to win better conditions. Often, those group efforts arise from a combined leadership of some of the least privileged women along with the most politicized. When those acts of resistance took place they were essentially revolutionary.

Another challenge was that the prison system and government deny the existence of political prisoners. To call people who have resisted and tried to create systemic change in this society criminals or terrorists is not only a way to mask their existence, but also a way to assert that U.S. society is just fine, really democratic and free. Political prisoners resist being criminalized by doing political organizing inside, studying and reading, and staying as connected as possible with political movements on the outside. That is why organizing among leftist groups for support for political prisoners is so important.

Q: Both you and Safiya organized for social justice not just before and after, but while you were in prison – what advice would you give to prisoners who want to be effective activists?
A: The first thing I had to do when I was arrested—suddenly thrown into a horrid situation and facing many years behind bars—was to review all my beliefs and actions, to know that whatever I faced, it was worth it. (Safiya writes of this process in her book.) Once I did that (it’s partly a process of getting over the shock of being arrested and imprisoned), I kept seeking a connection to other activists. I did my first year or so in Baltimore City Jail. I got my hands on a telephone book and found addresses for every progressive organization I could think of. I wrote to them, and a few sent people in to visit me. That was key: Knowing that there were people on the street who were aware that I was there.

On the inside, I had to relearn much of my organizing knowledge, taking my lead from the other women (some of whom had been in jail many times before; most of whom understood power relations intimately—a viewpoint of the powerless, the disenfranchised) about how to organize for our demands. One particular example: The food in Baltimore City Jail was beyond horrible. We knew the Christmas dinner was going to be particularly bad. I urged that we throw our trays on the floor, creating a rebellion. The other women won me over to a different plan: We organized every friendly staff person, everyone’s families, the medical staff, etc. to help us hold our own holiday party. We told them why we needed to do it: that we were family, and a horrendous Christmas dinner would hurt us. The result was that we had a kind of independent, lovely party—we even managed to get some folks to smuggle a bit of real booze in (as opposed to the rot-gut hooch we were able to cook up). The prison administration was frightened, because we were refusing to allow them to make us upset and powerless. I learned from that – instead of ending up beaten up, in the hole, and with possible extra charges, we were happy and felt extraordinarily strong. And we did it as a group.

For Safiya, what was key (she writes about this in The War Before) was that she did not share the fear the other women had when it came to exercising basic rights. She had the benefit of a political awareness and education. By citing Constitutional rights, she was able to help people get legal materials. And as a revolutionary, she understood this to be her work—and fulfilling. She also understood the need for repairing family rifts, and she helped to found a group called MILK—Mothers Inside Loving Kids. She saw this as part of the struggle against genocide, because destroying the Black family is one aspect of genocide.

Safiya also teaches us something truly central to organizing anywhere: She loved the fight for justice. If that is your motivation, then you find ways to fight wherever you are. Safiya did that, always.

Q: How can people on the outside support that work without taking power away from the prisoners who are working on those projects?

A: I think those of us on the outside have to recognize three key needs: communication, honesty and respect. The main way I experienced the problem of “taking power away” while I was inside was when people would forget that I didn’t know what they were planning, or what had been done—and when people would tell me that something had been wildly successful, when really it had not. It is tempting to tell prisoners that the work is going better than it may be; that is dangerous, because while we’re inside, we don’t have another reliable source. What I mean by respect is this: On the outside, you don’t necessarily have a good sense of the limitations and dangers prisoners face. The most well intended comment or letter could end up causing someone to be thrown in the hole. I think it is crucial always to find out from a prisoner what his or her actual situation is before planning any work. But I also think it’s important to say frankly what you think should and can be done, and to state any disagreements you have with a prisoner’s view. When I was in prison I was no smarter than I had been on the street. I did know my conditions better than comrades on the outside, but I was not, by dint of being a political prisoner, more to be revered than they. Trying to maintain equality—I guess that would be what I would urge.

I also think it’s worthwhile to try to help people inside get all the resources and information possible. In New York, we try to make sure all the NY state political prisoners have a sub to the NY Times, along with any Left journals and newspapers they want. Books through bars and other groups are important for getting prisoners other kinds of educational materials and info.

Safiya’s legacy is apparent in Jericho and the many political prisoner support groups around the world. Yet, as you point out, despite a widespread fascination with the rebellion of the 60s, there has been relatively little interest in the plight of the revolutionaries from that era and beyond who are still imprisoned.

Q: What can the book teach us about taking that work to the next level in building a mass movement to free political prisoners?

A: The book may surprise people. Safiya’s thoughts on how to build support for political prisoners evolved over the years, and her original conception of Jericho was a bit different from what Jericho became. The War Before, by putting together many of Safiya’s positions and ideas on political prisoners, provides a great starting point for us to evaluate and improve our work. Mostly, I think the book’s message points to an important way to approach the issue. Safiya’s sense of revolution was not something that happened in one period, then disappeared in the next. She traces, in the pages of the book, the gestation of the issue of political prisoners from the days of the BPP to the day she died in 2003. She saw possibilities of how to build support for—and how to fight for release of—political prisoners that have yet to be enacted. Over and over, in various ways, she shows us how the fight to free political prisoners is essential to the fight for justice. Her writings strip away much of the verbiage and illusion surrounding both struggles. She also wrestles with some of the obstacles to this work, suggesting ways to overcome them. The War Before also shows the enormous capacity of Safiya’s heart and spirit—the solidarity basic to fighting for any sort of social justice and freedom.

Order The War Before for just $9.57:
www.feministpress.org/books/safiya-bukhari/war

Or write to:

The Feminist Press at CUNY
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New York, NY 10016

Also: check out this interview with Laura Whitehorn:

Reprinted from Basics News: basicsnews.ca

Toronto – War and occupation. The right to status. Systemic repression. Exploitation. Imperialism. What do these words mean to you? To us, of the Migrant Women’s Coordinating Body, it has been important to educate one another about these issues, and many others, and how they affect migrant women, in particular, and working class women, generally.

For three years, the Migrant Women’s Coordinating Body has been organizing together as a group of organizations and individuals to march on International Women’s Day as a contingent to highlight that the root of women’s exploitation and oppression lies in capitalist imperialism. IWD is celebrated by women around the world on March 8, but the main rally in Toronto this year will be held on Saturday, March 6.

This year we are marching under the theme “Working-class women unite against imperialism.” As a lead-up to this year’s IWD rally and march on March 6, we have held a series of educationals to highlight the effects of imperialism on women both here in Canada and abroad.  Even beyond IWD, we will continue to hold educationals to learn about women’s struggles throughout history and their contemporary struggles as well. Community mobilization and education is a priority for us as a means to greater unity. Our first educational in the series, “Migrant Women’s Struggles: Here and Abroad,” highlighted international and national liberation struggles of different communities and the role of women in these struggles. We also learned about the impact of imperialism on women throughout the world and its link to the situation for many migrant women that are employed in Canada and other imperialist countries.

The second part of our education series highlighted women’s struggles in Toronto and Canada. Speakers spoke about their experiences of organizing women in Toronto and how imperialism and war have shaped their work. The two forums brought many people together in the commitment to march under the banner of ‘working-class women unite against imperialism on International Women’s Day!’ Leading up to the IWD rally and march here in Toronto, our organization will be holding a cultural celebration on the evening of Friday, March 5, 2010 at the Steelworkers’ Hall, where we will celebrate women’s struggles and successes in the face of imperialism by showcasing the many talents of our communities. And on March 6 we will mobilize the anti-imperialist contingent at 12:30pm in front of the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education as we march together in solidarity with one another. Join us on March 6 in uniting against imperialism as the working women of the world!

We, as women, are persecuted in many respects. Since the time of Colonial America and before, we have been killed for being suspected of “witchcraft,” imprisoned for speaking out against the government, and not allowed to vote, own property, or have a say in whether or not we kept our earnings. It has only changed in the last 60-80 years that we have been given rights similar to those of men. I say similar, because we have never and probably will never be considered as an equal in certain fields. Obviously we are thought of as experts in birthing, cleaning, and cooking – a.k.a. the stigma surrounding women from a man’s viewpoint. However, when sharing in other job niches with men, we have still come up at a “less than” on a pay scale – by 1994, women were still only earning 71.4% of what men did, although they participated in the same amount of events and did the same amount of work.

Women are also at a large disadvantage while learning. We, as females, are more than 2/3 of the billion people that are illiterate, and 2/3 of the hundred million children that have dropped out of school are girls. (Schultheiss, Katrin, Ph.D, Dept. of Women’s Studies, U of Illinois at Chicago, Microsoft Encarta) We also have far more poverty-stricken women in the world, being that more than 70% of the world’s poor are female. Gender inequities continue in the collegiate division as well, where women are actually provided less scholarships, less in the budgets for the athletic departments, and fewer women receive doctoral degrees than men, which results in less faculty appointments at colleges.

There are rapidly growing numbers of women jailed in the correctional business these days. We have had many women being charged with identity thefts, because they are stealing money, credit cards, and IDs, either to provide for their family, or to support their ever-growing drug habits. This is pointedly ignored by the government, who has decreased spending on drug treatment programs many times in the last ten years, all under the excuse of a recession or insufficient funding from the federal and state level. . However, what they don’t take into account is that 2/3 of the crimes committed by women are drug crimes and non-violent offenses. Some of the problems here that could be solved, but simply are ignored by the correctional business, are the fact that 60% of women who are locked up do not have a high-school education, and more than 50% are unemployed at their time of arrest. Does this not speak of the government’s lack of foresight in putting more money and effort towards higher education and drug treatment?

In the only women’s prison in Oregon, where I am currently incarcerated, Coffee Creek “Correctional” Facility, we have huge disparities in the federal and state budgets doled out to the men and women. We are told that many of the privileges that the men receive are because there is an established trust fund set up for the men’s prisons that provides college-level courses at a very low cost that help the men complete their bachelor’s degrees or associate’s degrees in prison. Apparently the women don’t have the anonymous donors to give us money, because we have no higher education programs available except at a very high cost that not everyone who wants to take courses is able to afford.

We also are not, according to our safety and security manager, Captain Teal, able to participate in the same activities that the men’s institutions are given, because of the fact that our “correctional facility” tag dictates that we are not given the same privileges. This, to me, sounds like a violation of our civil rights. We do not stand up for ourselves because about 80% of the women who come to this prison have been physically, mentally, or sexually abused-and we have never been able to stand up because of our fear of the repercussions.

Coffee Creek Correctional Facility has been open for a little over six years now, and the women that made the move from OWCC were promised by the administrators that their privileges would remain the same as they did when they were in the old prison; i.e. having a recreation room, ice machines, an outdoor area where people could hang out without fear of getting fleas, etc. OWCC was the last prison women were housed before it was condemned $ t down, and then reopened as a men’s minimum facility. Unfortunately, CCCF was built as a transitional intake center for the men to come from county and get processed. Even some of the officers agree that this was never intended for long-term stays and that they should never have put the women here. This place has no room for all the women that they anticipated, and they are constantly “restructuring” so that they have room for all the incoming women. There has been two units added since CCCF opened, and one that is in the process of being opened. Even the segregation had to be expanded with both segregated units having double bunks except for the camera cells where they put the women on suicide watch.

One positive thing about Oregon is that it is mandatory for anyone under the age of 24 to have a GED or diploma when they come into their facilities. Everyone is tested when they come in the prison and if they score low enough on the basic adult learning scale, they are required to take classes and be tutored in whatever subject they have to learn more about (math or reading are the basic tests). Our GED class is brought to us by teachers from Portland Community College, who teach two classes each day for two hours a day, Monday through Thursday. Obviously some of us believe that it isn’t enough, since we came in with our diplomas or degrees and would like to do something with our time other than get in trouble or simply work, which we are also required to do by law (Measure 17 was the culprit for that, requiring everyone who was medically eligible, even pregnant women and 80-year-olds who had already retired, to work).

Most of you have probably never even heard of Measure 11. It is a bill that was passed in 1994 that gave every violent offender a day-for-day sentence, and completely voided every judge’s ability to take into consideration special circumstances for those of us who are first time offenders, or even those of us who simply have witnessed a crime being committed. Take me, for example. I was sentenced to a Measure 11 murder charge, which gave me a day-for day sentence of 25 years before I am eligible to go in front of the parole board. I have never even been arrested before-I was a college student three months before I came to jail and then prison. I had just moved to Oregon two years before, to complete high school with my cousins (having the typical teenage problems with my mother being over-protective and wanting to have more freedom) and graduating from the local high school with a 3.8 GPA. My crime, and obviously the sentences imposed by Measure 11, ruined my life. It is now to the point where I could viably sit here for the rest of my middle years and emerge institutionalized and unable to cope or deal with being free.

Much of the media sensationalism that has happened during Measure 11’s enactment was most likely what changed voters’ opinions about crime. A study done by the Center for Media and Public Affairs found that television coverage of crime more than doubled from 1992 to 1993, while murder coverage tripled during the period, despite the fact that crime rates were essentially unchanged.” [Crime down, media coverage up,” Overcrowded times (April 1994), p.7. (Marc Mauer, Race to Incarcerate, The New Press, p.72)] People were scared that crime would increase and so they panicked and voted for bills that called for retribution instead of rehabilitation. Obviously, had the bills been read over first, things would have been written differently and we wouldn’t have the rate of incarceration in Oregon that we do now.

Note that during the time that this sensationalism and-dare I say scare tactics?-took place, our Measure 11 law that was written by Kevin Mannix was passed. Measure 11 is a piece of literature that spurred voters to put criminals behind bars and promised to keep crime rates down, and it also put first time offenders behind bars for an unthinkable number of years, with no incentive to keep them-or set them in the first place-on the road to recovery. Another piece that snuck in on the end of the Measure 11 vote was Measure 10, which made it so when the bill came up for revote with the citizens, it would take 2/3 of the majority to overturn or even re-write Measure 11. This made it next to impossible to change the statistics that were being created through the over-sentencing of all felons in Oregon.

An 82-year-old man named Loren Parks was the main fundraiser behind Measures 10 and 11, back in 1994. Mr. Parks has given $12 million dollars to initiative campaigns over the last 15 years (that’s $800,000 a year since 1992, people!). He has also given more than $4 million to Kevin Mannix alone for his measures and his running for office (attorney general, governor and Congress, all rejected by our “savvy” voters). He also put $900,000 into a tax-free account for Bill Sizemore, who admitted to two teacher’s union attorneys that he used the money for a car for his wife, part of a time share in Mexico, and other undisclosed spending, according to the Oregonian. He is now under investigation for not reporting taxes for the last three years. On top of all this, he is still planning on running for governor. This has gotten a lot of attention in the local news, which could go either way for him in the elections, depending on how it’s spun. Mr. Parks has reportedly gone to China, according to Kevin Mannix and the Oregonian. The reporter questioned whether Mr. Parks is attempting to avoid the people who are contacting him and wanting interviews regarding Bill Sizemore’s trial and charges and whether or not the allegations are true.

One odd thing that pointedly stood out in the article about Mr. Parks was the fact that he moved to Nevada and has lived there since 2002. It’s a mystery why he continues to donate money to Kevin Mannix and Bill Sizemore’s campaigns and special interests., as he doesn’t live here in Oregon any more. I will continue to update you on the situations written about here, as some friends and I are looking further into the matter. The only conclusion that we can reach about all the money that he has donated is that he owns a medical equipment company here in Oregon and that he simply wants to support the continual cycle of “catch and release” for Oregon’s felons.

The cycle could be changed, however, by things as simple as using money spent on certain measures and bills to gain support and public attention for rehabilitation instead of long prison terms. This would then focus the state’s attention on drug and alcohol treatment for people who are doing long sentences-since those people need it just as much, if not more than people with short-term sentences-and programs that help long-term prisoners become re-integrated with their communities before they are released.

Any classes that could be added would be welcomed and used to the fullest of their extent by most of the long-term prisoners here. However, the state cites “lack of funding” to us, but of course, they have millions of dollars to build more prisons. Unfortunately, they have no justification for that and no real reason that they have kept imprisoning people who should simply be put into in-patient treatment facilities that would do a world more good than being jailed or imprisoned.

Obviously I am frustrated by the state’s lack of attention to its future inhabitants. If anyone out there has any kind of information that they feel might help me in my fight to bring justice to mandatory minimum sentences, or any kind words they want to share with me about what positive things that are happening in their states, please feel free to share them with me. I want to change this state to get real help for incarcerated peoples, be it men or women. It is senseless and imprudent for someone to sit behind bars with a sentence such as mine and to do or say nothing to speak out against it. I hope that all of you are inspired by my words and that you will fight the good fight to bring justice and freedom for everyone, including the political prisoners that are being held without cause. There are inequities in every state that I have seen so far-the crack laws of California, life without parole for the 77 juveniles in Florida, and the 2,300 other young people that are being held for life without parole in other states around the U.S.. A note to them: do not give up hope! There will come a day that you will see free land once again. My hope is that Mr. Obama will be the one to do that for you all. I will continue to send my prayers to you in hopes that you will soon be free.

Thanks to everyone for listening!
Danielle Cox
#15138586
24499 SW Grahams Ferry Rd.
Wilsonville, OR 97070

Reprinted from Basics News: basicsnews.ca

February 22 – A nine-year-old Tamil girl was hospitalized after being gang raped by three Sri Lankan Army (SLA) soldiers. A man who protested against the rape was later found dead in a nearby lake and soldiers went door-to-door threatening villagers who started to protest against the atrocities. Reports indicate that the mother filed a complaint. However, given systemic impunity and the disgraceful record of prosecutions of Tamil women’s sexual offenders, chances are this 5th grade student will never receive justice…

February 20 – 49 Tamil women detained in the concentration camps were arrested by the Terrorism Investigation Department and taken to Boosa prison – a notorious detention center for torture, rape, murder and disappearances. Similarly another 54 Tamil women in the camps were arrested on February 24 and sent to Boosa prison. Nothing is known of their whereabouts since they are not allowed to contact their family members…

An 8-months pregnant woman, Manju, who is 1 of 254 Tamil Asylum seekers stranded on a boat in Indonesia since October 2009, has no guarantee from the Indonesian government that she will safely deliver her child and have access to medical care. Their boat was Australia-bound and was intercepted by the Indonesian navy upon Australia’s request, and now no country is willing to provide asylum. This has left the 254 Tamils stranded in a country that is not a signatory of the conventions on refugee rights and is denying them access to basic human necessities. To make matters worse, the Indonesian government has close ties with the Sri Lankan government and the former are willing to deport them back to Sri Lanka where they are sure to face further human rights abuses. What will become of this woman and her soon-to-be born child?

Tamil women are the most oppressed among the oppressed in Sri Lankan society. They are raped, tortured, sexually abused, abducted, forced into abortions and sterilizations, and murdered. Their perpetrators are hardly ever prosecuted. Their victimization and extinction is reflected in the fact that in comparison to the growth of the Sinhala population, the Tamil population in Sri Lanka has decreased by about 30% since 1948. Their voices have been silenced under the guns and subjugation of the Sri Lankan government, their stories buried with their mass graves dug by the SLA in attempts to hide their lust for violence and blood – forgotten forever. The imbedded culture of impunity has ranked Sri Lanka as the 3rd worst violator of Women’s Rights according to the South Asian Human Rights Index 2008. Even when Tamil women have resorted to armed resistance, their dead bodies end up being denigrated and stripped naked by the Army while captured on cameras/videos for entertainment. Dignity and respect is denied to these sisters, even in death. The struggles of Tamil women are suppressed or ignored in the big media outlets around the world and so there is a desperate need for regular people to advocate on their behalf. Tamil sisters will be mobilizing for IWD here in Toronto with the Migrant Women’s Coordinating Body – watch out for our banners! Join us in our struggles and stand in solidarity with women’s struggles globally.

February 1996
Published in Syracuse Peace Letters, March 1997
For Lori Berenson, Internationalist Political Prisoner

Dear Lori,
I saw your photo in the newspaper
You, posed
between sinister sun-glassed security agents,
two women in double breasted suits
bodies rigid
cruelty pressed upon their lips.
You were labeled the terrorist.

I’ve seen many photos like that
shot from below
looking up the nose
nostrils flared
snapped when the lower jaw is dropped
and the teeth are bared.
Even Miss America
would look fiendish
shot from below.

Photos may be contrivances
one one-hundred-and-twenty-fifth second
of the subject’s existence
Reality framed
to depict reality.

Yes, photography is an art
an inception and or deception.
Truth and solidarity
can not be captured
by a single click of the shutter.

Marilyn Buck
#00482-285
Unit A
5701 8th St. Camp Parks
Dublin CA
94568 USA

Since my article “Free the Wimyn!” generated some dialogue, I would like to further the discussion of this extremely important subject.

I think that the struggle for the freedom of wimyn suffers from two primary maladies. On the one hand, there are those who conceive that wimyn’s liberation can be divorced from the overall struggle to end the age of exploitation and oppression of humynity in general, that true freedom for wimyn can take place in a vacuum, apart from other struggles. Among these are usually the bourgeois feminists, who do not care about the liberation of humynity from all forms of oppression, but instead are fighting for so-called ‘equal’ rights with men – equal, that is, with respect to having the equal opportunity that men have to engage in the mainstream practice of exploiting other humyns for the sake of personal gain. Also among these are the reactionary feminists who, in the same spirit as reactionary nationalists, preach a form of gender supremacy as their primary tool in combating patriarchy and other expressions of male dominance, and who usually have the same fundamental goals as bourgeois feminists, although they may label themselves ‘radical’ or similar titles for various brands of dissenters.

On the other hand, are those who insist that the wimyn’s liberation movement must be subordinated to the proletarian struggle (i.e. the struggle for workers’ rights and ultimately socialism), as if wimyn will miraculously be liberated as soon as the means of production are collectively owned. These usually dogmatic-minded people forget that, while it certainly perpetuates and reinforces them, capitalism did not create patriarchy, male domination, and the oppression and exploitation of wimyn. These things existed thousands of years prior to even the first pre-capitalist stages of (European) social devleopment, and they have more than enough potential to exist in a socialist or other non-capitalist society. This does not mean that the oppression of wimyn is not related to the relations of production, since we know that patriarchy has its roots in the time when males started to become more involved in dominant social practices, such as hunting, warfare and religious administration. It simply means that we have to understand where the roots of wimyn’s oppression lie, how it has developed throughout various ages and in various geographical locations, and what forms it currently takes. Relatively, capitalism is a baby in the historical timeline, while patriarchy and its many children are all well advanced in age.

These two maladies are not the only obstacles that stand in the way of freedom for the wimyn of the world. ‘Outside’ of the movement, the problems take many forms, from the fact that it is expedient for the capitalist-imperialist system to impose on half the world’s population a unique form of oppression, to the many religious doctrines that preach male supremacy over the ‘weaker vessel,’ to the absurd reality that it is now fashionable, it is now a ‘hip’ and trendy thing, to hate, abuse, exploit and oppress wimyn.

Let’s look at this latter problem: that wimyn’s oppression has evolved past being just a social practice directly rooted in a corresponding productive relation to being a cultural trend thought worthy of embodiment in artistic expression. Consider the fact that, at least among my peers, ‘bitch’ or ‘ho’ has become synonymous with ‘womyn.’ The word ‘bitch’ has transcended its former position of being simply a derogatory title to being completely interchangeable with the word ‘womyn.’ This is reflective of a culture that prides itself in degrading wimyn in much the same way that it prides itself in how much it has advanced a particular sport or a certain kind of music.

In a land where wimyn can vote and hold some of the highest offices in government and business, the colorful forms of violence, hatred and oppression toward wimyn are becoming more and more outrageous. We hear this in the music, in which whole songs are anthems to the degradation of wimyn and praises to the god of misogyny. We also see this in movies and television shows, where rape (and, now, even child molestation) are favorite forms of entertainment, even though it usually has nothing to do with the plot. Its no surprise that, of the many different Law and Order shows, SVU (Special Victims Unit) is the favorite, where countless forms of sexual violation comprise the essence of the series and the legal drama is of secondary priority. They know what the people like and want, and thus it seems to me that men, at least here in Amerikkka (I’m sure elsewhere, too) have come to the point where they are perversely pleasured and entertained by tunes of disrespect toward wimyn and by scenes of rape and other forms of violence toward wimyn. If men are now turned on by images of wimyn being raped, I have to ask why? I will let the nature side of men off the hook and venture to say it must be the nurture side. It must be a learned (read: brainwashed) behavior. Which leads me to another question: what kind of society teaches (read: brainwashes) its men to take pleasure in watching wimyn being raped, not to mention taking part in the act itself?

Of course, misogyny is only one end of the spectrum of the crushing oppression womyn are forced to endure. The other extreme takes such forms as bullshit sentimental chivalry where men feel as though they must protect, shelter and save wimyn as if they were invalids (instead of empowering or helping to empower them in a patriarchal world), or the sociopathic attachment that men (and many wimyn, who have been influenced by the form taken by mainstream heterosexual relationships) have for wimyn, usually cloaked in the title of ‘love’ or the superlative ‘true love.’ This latter extreme, which is probably not discussed or focused on so much in revolutionary circles as overt hatred and violence toward wimyn, is a pervasive and unhealthy trend in mainstream relationships among men and wimyn. In typical Western fashion, it is perpetuated and reinforced by the media, in the forms of movies, novels, music and television shows. Psychotic and suicide- or homicide-prone infatuation and attachment wreaks nervous and stressful havoc on the psyches of both men and wimyn in the name of so-called love, mostly because these men and wimyn have been socialized to think that this is the way things are supposed to be.

How have these kinds of attitudes towards relationships come about, and why are they so deeply entrenched in our minds? We are socialized toward this kind of psychopathic attachment, but I think the essence of this mentality lies in two fundamental factors: the fact that wimyn are seen as just so much property in our society, and the fact that our society breeds a mass of self-alienated people who endlessly search for objects that will make them feel ‘whole.’ Put these two factors together and you have a person who, because he or she cannot ‘find’ him or herself, seeks to find that self in objectified property, which, due to natural emotional and sexual attraction that already exists, tends to by found in one’s partner or lover. The natural proclivities toward one another that are genetically encoded in us for the purpose of propagating our species are, in our society, warped and perverted by our characteristic self-alienated and incessant search to find ourselves in objectified possessions. The result is an unhealthy attachment to each other; and, while it certainly affects both men and wimyn, I believe that, in a patriarchal society, the consequences are much more severe for wimyn. Furthermore, throw in a person who happens to be emotionally or mentally unstable, for whatever reason, and you have the ingredients for suicide, homicide, or both.

The capitalist market continues to reinforce the ‘softness’ of wimyn and the ‘hardness’ of men, the weakness of wimyn and the strength of men, the servility of wimyn and the dominance of men. An example is the toys that are bought for children, toys that serve to brainwash children into unquestionably accepting the socio-gender roles that are forced upon them. Little girls are bought play stoves, dolls and play kitchen sets, serving to perpetuate in the young and plastic minds of individual children and in the collective mind of society the assumption that the womyn’s place is in the kitchen cooking food or washing dishes, somewhere cleaning up some man’s mess, or taking care of children. Conversely, little boys are bought trucks, toy soldiers and other action figures, and play tool sets, things which play the same essential role as the girls’ toys in solidifying at a young age social roles based on gender.

Something, I believe, that actually hampers the wimyn’s liberation movement from the ‘inside’ is the tendency to compare struggles for the purpose of emphasizing the importance or indispensability of one over the other. Is the gender struggle more important than the racial struggle? Is the worker struggle more important than the gender struggle? More often than not, the motivations behind such questions are the selfishness and self-seeking mentality that characterize our society, by which we seek to put our personal interests above collective interests. It is my opinion that every struggle to end exploitation and oppression is important: immensely important. Every struggle must serve itself and other struggles to be successful. When it fails to serve its own struggle in light of other struggles, and vice versa, it overemphasizes its own struggle at the cost of other struggles, and thus at the cost of its own interest. This is the law of interdependency with which true solidarity is infused. The logical end of self-seeking comparison of one struggle with the other is the over-emphasis of one’s own struggle and the under-emphasis of other struggles. Those who are caught up in this vicious cycle end up seeing only their own struggle and blinding themselves to other struggles, thereby cutting themselves off from collective effort and solidarity. The result is a form of lifestyle politics, struggle as a form of identity (again, in a society where we are always looking for identity in objects), where struggle is an end in itself, where one struggles for the sake of struggle and not for the sake of winning and ridding the world of oppression.

This, however, does not imply that the wimyn’s liberation movement must subordinate itself to other ‘more important’ struggles. Having been conditioned by a socioeconomic system that enshrines competition as the principle of surviveal instead of collective effort and mutual aid, we can easily fall into competing for the primacy of one struggle over the other. Wimyn do not have to wait for men, whether they call themselves communists, socialists, anarchists, radicals, or whatever, to tell them when and how they should struggle and organize, or when they should expect liberation, no more than New Afrikans need a bunch of white people telling them when and how they should be liberated. A hallmark in truly revolutionary struggles for the liberation of various groups of oppressed peoples is the right to self-determination. Wimyn do not need men to determine their destiny for them. They do not have to be guided by male dominated ideologies or organizational forms to effect their liberation, no more than Blacks should be expected to submit to Eurocentric conceptions to bring about their freedom. Every oppressed group has a revolutionary right and duty to determine their destiny.

Of course, this does not mean that wimyn’s liberation can become a reality if wimyn seek to determine a destiny apart from the other half of the world. The humyn species would not last long without the mutual cooperation of both men and wimyn. This is why I emphasize the need for every struggle for the freedom of an oppressed group to organize, theorize and fight in the light of and in cooperation with other oppressed groups, realizing that we are fighting to end the age of exploitation and oppression everywhere, that we as the masses are the makers of history and we all have a common enemy that is overwhelmingly the primary actor in the perpetuation of our individual forms of bondage. I think that most of us agree that this enemy is capitalist – imperialism, the political, economic, and social system of the current ruling class.

Which is why I also emphasize the need for every true revolutionary to be a proletarian revolutionary, without necessarily subordinating other struggles in the name of proletarian revolution, workers’ rights and socialism. After all, the vast majority of the world’s population are workers, tools in the capitalist-imperialist drive for the accumulation of wealth in the form of profit, and it is the reinforcement and perpetuation of our individual forms of oppression – gender, racial, poverty, prisoner, etc. – that better equip us to be their tools. And so it is time for these tools to cry out for justice.

And when I say that wimyn should not have to subordinate their struggle in the name of the proletarian struggle, I mean that wimyn should not be told that they must put their struggle on hold for the benefit of the “greater struggle.” Whenever a specific struggle is put on hold, ostensibly for the greater good of the general struggle, then the general struggle becomes lop-sided or one-sided. Therefore all specific struggles must comprise the general struggle, without emphasizing one over the other, but instead emphasizing the unity of all oppressed groups and peoples in a united front against the enemy that oppresses us all. Since wimyn make up roughly half the world population, then they also make up one of the single largest oppressed groups, and therefore, by virtue of sheer numbers and intensity of generations of exploitation and oppression, they are potentially one of the most revolutionary social forces on the face of the planet. This is why I say that the revolution needs wimyn as much as wimyn need revolution.

In fact, I really have no faith in the ability of a male-dominated party or organization, at least in our contemporary situation, to make a beneficial revolution. Any aspiring revolutionary organization that does not eradicate, or at least implement measures for the eradication of, male dominance at the organization’s inception does not really have a serious shot at being an instrument of revolutionary change, just as I do not feel that any would-be revolutionary group in this country that neglects or underemphasizes revolutionary nationalism can be truly revolutionary. This is one of the most important things that revolutionary groups must keep in mind. If we are going to be instruments for the elevation of the consciousness of the masses, and thus revolutionary change, then we cannot afford to wait until the expropriators are expropriated to begin to purge ourselves, individually and collectively, of bourgeois, capitalist, patriarchal or oppressive values. We must begin to do this now. One of the things that will make the transition from an exploitative class-based society into a socialistic, classless society smoother is purging ourselves of the old, oppressive social relations now. If we are to be instruments of future change for the better, then we need to embody those future values today. Otherwise we will only be perpetuators of the oppressive values, albeit with revolutionary labels and masks.

Without getting into competitive comparisons of different struggles, I do, however, contend that the wimyn’s liberation struggle is one of the most important and decisive struggles facing the world today, the success of which will be directly proportional to the success of the overall struggle to end all forms (not just capitalist) oppression, and vice versa. The reason for this is that revolution, i.e the struggle to rid the world of oppression and exploitation, is fundamentally a fight to rectify, create, and consciously facilitate the evolution of social relations in ways that are more beneficial to humynity.

And what social relation is more fundamental – in the long run, at least – than the procreative relation between men and wimyn? This relation is fundamental in life processes, as is creating the means of living through various forms of labor, and therefore many different social relations hinge on how this essential relation is played out. I’m not just talking about sex, although that is something that should never be underemphasized. I’m speaking generally of the totality of social relations that spring up from the interaction between opposite genders, and how these social relations interact with and affect the rest of society as a whole. I would even go so far, in stressing the essential nature of this social relation, that it serves as its own separate (yet, of course, not completely separate) base, a reproductive base, and gives rise to its own cultural, social, and political superstructure that interacts with the superstructure rooted in the economic base.

Can the revolution and revolutionary groups afford to neglect, even in the slightest degree, this very important struggle? I didn’t think so. A revolutionary movement will not get very far by putting wimyn and their struggle on the back-burner, by refusing to give wimyn full play in determining their own destiny and working out their own liberation through means of which they approve. Just as whites must let New Afrikans be their own liberators and support their struggles to determine their own destiny, so must men allow wimyn to organize around issues related to their liberation and fully support the absolute freedom of wimyn from the millennia-old tyranny of male domination.

Not that wimyn’s liberation and Black liberation are the same in form and thus require the same organizational forms and methods. Wimyn do not constitute a separate nation, as New Afrikans in this country do. But the essence is the same: a group of humyns who have been oppressed, exploited and brutalized by another group of humyns for personal gain. And wimyn are still the slaves and domestic servants of men in this world, in spite of the many political, legal and economic concessions that have been made on behalf of wimyn. This is because, just like capitalism, the current relations between men and wimyn cannot be reformed: they must be revolutionized. Wimyn are still in bondage because the social relations between men and wimyn are still essentially the same as they have been. The base has not been changed. Of course, we cannot change some things, like the fact that wimyn must bear children. But the basic forms of how men and wimyn relate to one another – whether sexually, emotionally, economically, familially, contractually – can and should be changed, revolutionized, for the better.

Wimyn must ask themselves what kind of world they want. Do they think that men have done a pretty good job with the world, and therefore want to mimic them in how they relate to their fellow humyns? This is what bourgeois feminists want. I say that wimyn should scrap the whole patriarchal conception of reality and decide what kind of world they would like to live in. I believe we men would benefit greatly from their decision.

I feel that the issue of wimyn’s liberation does not get enough focus among revolutionary circles, and therefore many groups still tend to be male dominated and chauvinistic. However, if we consider ourselves to be the wave of the future, then we must begin to take that consideration seriously, for there is a good chance that how we relate to one another now will set the mold for tomorrow. If we are still operating in a patriarchal and male-dominated framework, if we in our personal lives as men are still relating to wimyn in much the same way that the rest of society does, then this is the pattern we will set for the future. Just as many whites, even among the left, secretly enjoy white privilege and really do not want to see that privilege abolished, even while they spout revolutionary rhetoric, so do many of us men among the left enjoy male privilege and domination.

Moreover, we must continually launch rectification campaigns against ourselves, through a process of criticism and self-criticism, and purge ourselves from any conscious or unconscious oppressive and exploitative values and relations. We need to protest the many abuses perpetrated against wimyn by our society, whether cultural, physical, social, legal, economic, or sexual, just as much as we protest police brutality, imperialist wars of aggression, and racism. Silence on any of these issues, or mere lip service without any action or change on our part, betrays our deep-rooted acceptance of the way things are.

More and more dialogue, theory, and action need to flourish on the issue of wimyn’s liberation. Men must provide, as much as possible, a space for wimyn’s voices to be heard, and they should not resist when wimyn create their own spaces. Revolutionary organizations that are still male dominated, whether numerically, in leadership, or otherwise, must begin at once to rectify this blatant neglect to practice truly revolutionary socialistic values in their ranks. Failure to do so will put each of these groups in danger of being just another reactionary group not really committed to fundamental social change, but instead committed only to serving its own identity as a group. To revolutionize society we must first revolutionize ourselves, individually and collectively. We do this by consciously changing the way we relate to one another. And until we have revolutionized ourselves in every possible or conceivable way, then we cannot claim the status of revolutionary organization, no matter how correct our ‘line,’ and therefore we cannot claim to be serious about revolution itself.

All power to all the people!!
To the trash bin of history with patriarchal relations!!

For info concerning the New Afrikan Black Panther Party (NABPP), the white Panther Organization (WPO), the New Afrikan Service Organization (NASO), the Red Heart Warrior Society (RHWS), or the Appalachian People’s Service Organization (APSO), write P.O. Box 4362, Allentown, PA 18105

Billy Johnson #322385
P.O. Box 679
Whiteville TN 38075

I can receive mail from other inmates. If you are an inmate, let me know if you can receive mail from other inmates or not. If you cannot write directly to another inmate, write the party address above.

The Assassination of Fred Hampton: How the FBI and Chicago Police Murdered a Black Panther, by Jeffrey Haas. Copyright 2010. Published by Lawrence Hill Books, Imprint of Chicago Review Press, Inc., 814 N. Franklin St., Chicago IL 60610. 376 pgs.,  $26.95

This book is about the murder of a messiah: Fred Hampton, Chairman of the Chicago Black Panther Party (BPP). Not only could he electrify the Black [Liberation] Movement and unify them, he brought other nationalities into union with this Black Movement and created a revolutionary Rainbow Coalition. He had done this at the local level, Chicago, and was about to go national when cut down by the FBI at age 21.

The book is COINTELPRO – the FBI’s COunter INTELligence PROgram to prevent the rise of a Black Messiah – made plain. It lays bare how Chicago’s police murder of Chairman Fred was planned and initiated by FBI Headquarters in Washington, D.C. It also exposes COINTELPRO’s hidden hand behind much of the mayhem in the Black community with a ‘69 COINTELPRO report stating that “Shootings, beatings and a high degree of unrest continues to prevail in the ghetto area of southeast San Diego…it is felt that a substantial amount of the unrest is directly attributable to this [COINTELPRO] program.”

The story is told by Jeffrey Haas, a founding member of the People’s Law Office (PLO) which preferred to represent Movement people, the poor and oppressed rather than make lots of money. Their main clients at the time were Black Panthers, Young Lords (Puerto Ricans,) and Young Patriots (Southern White youths in Chicago) who together formed the original Rainbow Coalition, the precursor to Jesse Jackson’s. Other clients were the predominantly White Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and Weather Underground Organization (WUO), Mexicans, and Political Prisoners and Prisoners of War (PP/POWs) of all nationalities.

Haas’ story is a Panther story set in 1969 Chicago: the era of Rolling Stones’ “Street Fighting Man.” Its plot centers around the Dec. 4th raid that murdered Fred Hampton and the Panther’s reaction to that death. (Full disclosure: i know Jeffrey Haas personally and over a decade after Fred’s assassination i and other PP/POWs were expertly represented by PLO attorneys Michael Deutsch, Jan Susler and Dennis Cunningham, in a class action suit against prison officials at United States Penitentiary, Marion IL.)

The early morn raid on Fred’s apartment also left Mark Clark dead, several other Panthers wounded and his fiancee Deborah Johnson, now Akua Njeri, who was 8 months pregnant with Fred Jr., miraculously unscathed though she had shielded Fred’s body with hers as bullets shook the mattress they lay on. The surviving Panthers were arrested, the dead were removed and the police abandoned the crime scene so rapidly they left the front door open; they also left word that [Bobby] “Rush is next.”

Fred’s funeral further personified the type of unity he engendered in the Movement. His Honor Guard was David Barksdale of the Black Disciples, Jeff Fort of the Black P. Stone Nation, Cha-Cha Jimenez of the Young Lords, Obed Lopez of the Latin American Defense Organization (LADO), and a representative of the Latin Kings. Jesse Jackson gave the main eulogy and united with Panther Bobby Rush, the NAACP, Afro-American Patrolmen League, Lawyers Committe for Civil Rights, legendary singer Chaka Khan, Oscar Brown Jr., and Dick Gregory to provide solid long term support to those seeking justice for Fred Hampton and the other victims of the raid.

The bereft parents of Fred and Mark, and the surviving Panthers asked The PLO for help and – despite their paucity of money and experience, plus the prospect of facing the combined might of the federal government’s FBI, State Attorney’s Hanrahan’s office and the City of Chicago’s Police Department – they voted to take the case…and the battle was joined!

Haas’ story is also a lawyer’s story (and partly a love story) as he makes the courtroom come alive with his blow by blow account of the arduous political trial he and Flint Taylor waged to trace Fred’s murder back to the highest levels of the Justice Department, and its attempt to cover its trail. He also makes the ‘60s come alive as he interweaves Hampton’s case with his own coming of age and the political events occurring at the time in the streets, in the halls of power and on the Viet Nam battlefield.

Haas is exceptionally good at breaking down complex legal issues and civil court procedures so they’re easily followed by the reader and as a result his book is a gold mine of info for aspiring lawyers, jailhouse lawyers and anyone who likes courtroom drama with a running explanation of the forces at play and inside glimpses at the inner workings of all sides involved. But over time the combined weight of a biased judge, lying gay-bashing state attorneys, racist killer cops and the deep pockets of the government ground down Haas and Taylor to the point where they found themselves submitting 100-page handwritten sleep-deprived motions fueled only by coffee, cigarettes and outrage! And in the end, the Plaintiffs: the bereaved parents, surviving Panthers and PLO lawyers reverberated between losing everything and winning everything. Guided by Janis Joplin’s song “Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose” the result was among the most startling civil rights decisions ever rendered.

In short, “The Assassination of Fred Hampton” is a phenomenal book, an intriguing page turner that has the suspense of Whodunit wrapped in the political passions of the ‘60s. It’s a brutally honest book that shows the good, the bad and even the embarrassing of all sides, its author included.

One comes away from this book much wiser about Fred Hampton, his death, COINTELPRO, the Panthers, their supporters and the Just-us system – and with a much clearer understanding of that much maligned yet mysteriously missing era is u.s. history, the late ‘60s going forward.

Sundiata Acoli (C. SQUIRE)
#39794-066
P.O. Box 1000
Otisville, NY 10963
USP Otisville