CALL FOR IMMEDIATE ACTION!!!

BREAKING NEWS FROM THE FEDERAL PRISON IN POLLOCK, LA
FROM COMRADE KEITH "MALIK" WASHINGTON:

A couple of months ago, David Sumera (#37063-034), who is from Louisiana, but serving in the federal system, had a Gran Mal seizure which left him paralyzed from the waist down. He shouldn't even be here! They don't have the facilities in place nor the staff to offer him adequate medical care. Recently, staff have not been giving him the opportunity to shower and clean himself so he is left sitting and laying in his urine and excrement.

On July 4th, David requested to be placed in the shower. His cellmate, Jason Lee, who is also from Louisiana, helped him get in the shower. On or about 5 p.m., David had a seizure. During and after the seizure, numerous officers and prisoners were eye witnesses to a Lieutenant Rene (White, male) saying to David (and I quote): "I hope he fuckin' dies." And he kicked him in the ribs.

I will write a grievance tonight, but please -- as soon as possible -- organize a Phone Zap to call Warden Chris McConnell at 318-765-3119 demanding that David Sumera be moved immediately to an appropriate facility where he can and will be given the medical attention and on-going care he needs.

As we know, federal and state prison systems have suspended visiting "privileges" using the COVID-19 pandemic as the excuse. This makes it even more important for us to act quickly and powerfully to hold administrations and staff accountable for the safety and care of those in their custody. Please act now.

Kush-I: "Rastafari Prisoners Persecuted at Angola"

Comrade Malik (Keith Washington) and Kush-I (Robert T. Smith) at USP Pollock

NOTE: This article was originally published in the San Francisco Bay View and has been re-published here with permission of the publisher and the author.
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Rastafari Prisoners Persecuted at Angola

by Robert T. Smith (aka Kush-I) – San Francisco Bay View 7/5/20

In the Old Testament Scriptures, the God in the prophet Daniel’s vision had wooly hair: “And the hair of his head was like pure wool.” (Daniel 7:9) In the book of Revelation in the New Testament, the God in John’s vision also had wooly hair. “His head and hair were … like wool.” (Revelation 1:14)

The evil trick perpetrated and perpetuated by white supremacist forces historically has been to instill a feeling of inferiority in people of other races by denigrating their physical traits while exalting whiteness. This process and practice continue to permeate and corrupt the social systems of the United States and, in truth, the entire globe. 

The crusade to suppress Rastafari religious exercise stems from the fact that the root of this religion sprang from rich and potent Black soil that spiritually nurtures all nations. ONE LOVE.

Love the SF Bay View? Let 'em know before it's too late.

Okay, y'all. Listen up. A lot of people inside and outside the walls have been reading and respecting the San Francisco Bay View national Black newspaper for decades. Mary and Willie Ratcliff have been holdin' down the community for 44 years, providing a platform for news, political education, inspiration, and sharing information. Now Mary has cancer and Willie has health challenges, as well, and both of them are in their 80s. But they're not walking away.

Mary has been grooming Comrade Keith "Malik" Washington (who'll be leaving the federal system in September) to take her place. But if the SF Bay View is going to survive, it needs some cash. Many folks have little to no money these days, but some can afford to break off a lil sumpin'-sumpin' to keep this community institution afloat. If you're one of those folks or you know someone who is (no matter which side of the wall they're on), hit this fundraising site or contact Mary at editor@sfbayview.com to send them some help in a different way.

A Message of Solidarity

A couple of weeks ago, I was approached in the Main Prison visiting room at Angola by a Rastafarian brother. The Louisiana Network for Criminal Justice Transformation and the Rastafarian congregation at Angola have become allies in recent months, so he took that moment to meet me face-to-face. After fifteen or twenty minutes of conversation, the brother, who had sneaked into Building A because he heard I would be there, told me that the Rastafarians and the Islamic fellowship would be celebrating Black History Month together on February 23rd.

"If you write something to the group," he said, "I'll read it."

I had a lot on my plate right then. Responsibilities at the university were demanding my attention and I was about to leave to spend five days in Oakland, California, for a prison abolition national conference. But I couldn't turn down such a golden opportunity to be introduced by this man to yet another segment of the population at Angola in such a lovely way.

With no other "free time" for the purpose, when I got on the plane to go to Oakland, I pulled out a pad and pen and wrote the following. The word is, they liked it. So as February comes to a close, I'll share it with you.

South Carolina Prisoners, Stay Strong! We Got Your Back!

The United Nations recognizes as torture all solitary confinement for more than 15 days. Lockdowns, amounting to solitary confinement and therefore torture, are group punishment, undeserved and infuriating. Add to that steel plates covering cell windows. The denial of a view of outdoors and of all natural light is described as torture by prisoners in windowless supermax prisons like the dreaded Pelican Bay SHU in California. Here, prisoners’ families, worried that the oppression may become intolerable, protest outside Perry Correctional Institution in Pelzer, S.C. – Photo: FitsNews

by Keith "Malik" Washington, Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee*

Revolutionary greetings, Comrades and all fellow workers throughout the world!

It seems like only yesterday when we all heard about the bloody riot that occurred at Lee County Correctional Facility in South Carolina. Too many of our incarcerated comrades died.

I remember the call that was made for a National Prison Work Stoppage in 2018. I didn’t hesitate to answer the call. Our comrades at the Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee did not hesitate to answer the call or lend their support. Amani Sawari and her comrades from Jailhouse Lawyers Speak were on the front lines of the struggle for human rights.

I knew the real reason for the work stoppage.

I knew about the inhumane prison conditions in South Carolina. I knew that the state prison officials were attempting to control the narrative that was fed to the public at large. They claimed that the violence at Lee County was all about drugs, cellphones and turf wars.

The warriors and freedom fighters at the Free South Carolina Movement reminded all of us what the oppressors were attempting to suppress. The oppressors forgot to mention the lack of rehabilitative programming in South Carolina prisons.

They forgot to say anything about the squalid living conditions and the deadly extreme heat which is killing prisoners right now. They forgot to talk about the antiquated and bigoted criminal justice system which continues to manifest and perpetuate a program of modern day slavery. The spirit of Denmark Vesey lives! George Jackson lives!

Today, the oppression has, if anything, intensified. Many prisons are still on and off of lockdown TWO YEARS after the riot at Lee that touched off the 2018 prison strike. Friends and family of loved ones in South Carolina are organizing – the current demand is for removal of the steel plates installed over all the cell windows in some institutions, denying all natural light for the duration of the lockdowns – but change is slow and folks lose hope. 

The oppressors who operate these slave kamps in South Carolina need to know that the struggle for freedom, justice and equality for all is alive.

We demand dignity, respect, and humane treatment for our comrades in South Carolina now! Locking human beings in cages for months at a time is not rehabilitation – it is torture!

Congressman James Clyburn must be encouraged strongly to get involved here. We don’t need any Jeffin House Negroes or Step-N-fetchits! We need servants of the people!

Presidential candidates Bernie Sanders, Corey Booker and Elizabeth Warren as well as Kamala Harris had some strong words in regard to criminal justice reform at the most recent presidential debate that was held in Houston, Texas. Well, now they all have an opportunity to put some “muscle with they hustle” and show us what they talkin’ about.

Speak out right now about what is happening to the incarcerated human beings trapped in these slave kamps in South Carolina! Or were they just rappin’?

Comrades, the struggle for human rights and prison abolition is a protracted struggle. There will be ups and downs. Make this message go viral, y’all! Let’s see what these politicians are really about.

Dare to struggle! Dare to win! All Power to the People!

*Keith “Malik” Washington is co-founder and chief spokesperson for the End Prison Slavery in Texas Movement, a proud member of the Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee and an activist in the Fight Toxic Prisons campaign. Read Malik’s work at ComradeMalik.com. Send our brother some love and light: Keith “Malik” Washington, 34481-037, FCC Complex USP, P.O. Box 26030, Beaumont TX 77720.

NOTE: This communique was first published in the San Francisco Bay View.

Dear Warden Stewart

[In solidarity with Robert Earl Council AKA Kinetik Justice, the Free Alabama Movement, F.A.M. Queen Team, Unheard Voices OTCJ, T.O.P.S., and Fight Toxic Prisons, I answered the Call for Action by issuing this email to the warden at Holman "Correctional" Facility this afternoon. If I have not heard from Warden Cynthia Stewart by noon Monday, I will re-send the email every day until Kinetik Justice is released from solitary confinement. Needless to say, I signed the actual email with my real name.]


Dear Warden Stewart:

It is my understanding that Robert Earl Council #181418 was brought to your institution on February 28th and was subsequently placed in solitary confinement without cause, apparently in retaliation for his role in leading a peaceful work strike in 2014. As a result of this indefensible action on your part, I have now understood that Mr. Council has been forced to initiate an official hunger strike (refusing all food and liquids) in protest, and will remain on such until justice is met and he is placed back in a population where he can participate in all programs afforded to his peers and others of his class.  

From what I can gather, every day that goes by seems to prove that what Alabama needs is not more, bigger, and more expensive prisons, but rather administrators who are professionally capable of meeting the constitutionally-mandated and regulated responsibilities of their positions while preparing incarcerated citizens for their eventual release. Overcrowding, grossly inadequate staffing, and the overuse of random and brutal force against prisoners appear to run rampant in the Alabama DOC. Worse, any attempts to draw attention to such routine and unconstitutional practices result in the kind of retaliatory action such as you have now taken against Mr. Council since his arrival in your custody.

In any case, last week’s publicly reported descent of 300 “officers” on St Clair Correctional Facility (at what I can only imagine to be an incredible level of expenditure to the taxpayers of Alabama), followed so closely by your placing Mr. Council in solitary confinement without cause concerns me for his physical and emotional well-being. I am expecting you to release him into the general population immediately. I will continue to check on Mr. Council until this action is taken.

I feel it only fair to inform you that my blog on race relations and the criminal justice system has had more than 1,067,000 hits in nearly 200 countries. And I fully intend to publish a full accounting of this matter before nightfall.

Sincerely,

Changeseeker

CALL FOR ACTION!

The following Press Release has been issued by the Free Alabama Movement, F.A.M. Queen Team, Unheard Voices OTCJ, and T.O.P.S.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 7th, 2019

Robert Earl Council, AIS # 181418, is once again being held in solitary confinement at Holman Correctional Facility after the major Shakedown at St Clair correctional facility on February 28th 2019.

Council was inside his population cell at St. Clair Correctional Facility around 2 a.m. Thursday morning, when a platoon of ADOC CERT team members, and local law enforcement SWAT team members, entered his cell placing him in zip tie handcuffs and immediately escorted him to an waiting bus to be transported back to Holman Correctional Center.

Later that day Council arrived at Holman Correctional Facility and all too familiar scenery. Council was placed in Holman Correctional Facility solitary housing unit (SHU) once again, after spending 54 months in solitary for leading a peaceful work strike at Holman Correctional Facility in the summer of 2014.

He was finally released from solitary in late 2018 at Donaldson Correctional Facility after Attorney at Law David Gespass filed a Habeas Corpus on the behalf of council in the courts, challenging ADOC’s unconstitutional practice of holding of him in solitary confinement for 54 months without just cause. ADOC released Council right before a set court hearing on the Habeas Corpus in August last year, making the case moot. (See Robert E Council vs. Warden Bolling Cv. – 2017-101 filed in the Bessemer division of Jefferson County state of Alabama.)

These are strictly retaliatory actions in anticipation of a state-wide protest to stop the construction of new prisons over education and rehabilitation.

In response to being housed for no reason in solitary confinement, Robert Earl Council notified Warden Cynthia Stewart, at 3 a.m. on March 7th 2019 that he is now on an official hunger strike (refusing all food and liquids) in protest of the retaliatory actions taken against him, and will remain on such until justice is met and he is placed back in a population where he can participate in all programs afforded to his peers and others of his class.

If the demand to return Robert Earl Council back to population is not met by the Alabama Department of Corrections Commissioner Jeffery Dunn by March 15, 2019 a protest will convene at Holman Correctional Facility on March 26,2019.

Contact information for interviews on the above press release is as follows:

Unheardvoices78@gmail.com

David Gespass, Attorney-at-Law:  205-323-5966

Pastor Kenneth Sharpton Glasgow:  334-791-2433,  kennethglasgow@gmail.com

Aretha Franklin: "I Say a Little Prayer for You"

I was in my mid-20s when I had my first conversation with a man who had just gotten out of prison (San Quentin) about the inside organizing incarcerated people were trying to do. It was 1970. I was in San Francisco. The BPP was visible. And I was about the work of finding my place in it all. Within six months, I had joined a prison abolition collective and within a year, I had dedicated my life to that cause.

I met the fathers of both of my children (the one who was murdered while he was the shotcaller for a gang in Ft. Lauderdale and the one who is the Vice President of Engineering for a multi-national media company) while they were incarcerated. And my last "relationship" was with a man who had just come out after doing 28 years flat. But my commitment to the incarcerated men, women, and children of this country is not rooted in a personal "relationship." It is rooted in a lifetime commitment to the principle that NO human being deserves or is best served by incarceration in prisons such as exist in their current form.

The commitment I made in 1971 when I stared into the night sky and invited the Universe to use me to serve the incarcerated of this world has burned in me ever since. In nearly five decades, it has never gone away. And no matter where I was geographically, what job I was performing, or what was going on in any other area of my life, the work to be of service to the incarcerated and their families has always been present. It sometimes compromised the "professional" reputation I built. It sometimes got in the way of my being a "good mother." And it sometimes put me in incredibly dramatic situations. But it never went away.

I'm not a "Christian." And I don't assume the presence of a "God" per se. But I believe in an energy that we can tap into (whether we mean to or not). I believe that energy can drive us to be bigger than we are and accomplish more than one person can accomplish. I believe hope is prayer. And I believe that working for the greater good can produce powerful results. So even though I don't get on my knees or beg some ole White guy in the clouds to bring down the walls, I know in my soul that walls do come down.

So today, in honor of Aretha Franklin, who passed to the other side this week, I offer this video of her performing, "I Say a Little Prayer for You" dedicated to all those who are incarcerated. You are not forgotten. And I am not the only one out here who cares.

Waging Revolution One Act At A Time

Yesterday morning, after yoga class, I broke down in tears over breakfast because the world is so full of suffering and I can't fix it. There are no magic answers. I've been telling my students for years I got no pixie dust. I know it's not a sprint; it's a marathon. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But the world's so full of suffering and there seems to be so little I can do.

It's not that I've never done my part. In fact, I've always been altruistic. At six, I won a dollar in an art contest (at a time when you could buy a camera for a dollar) and I took my whole family out for ice cream. My father was stunned.

At eleven, I stomped out of Sunday School after telling off the girls in my class -- in front of our teacher -- for talking mean about a little girl because she was poor. At thirteen, I opted out of joining the church (a very radical stance in my world) about the same time I started dancing with Black guys at school (because the White guys didn't know how and I loved to dance). At sixteen, I did an all-interview term paper on racial discrimination in the city where I lived -- garnering me the class's "National Association for the Advancement of Cows and Pigs Award" at the end of the semester.

By the time I was in my late 20's, I had dropped out, blazed my way through San Francisco, and joined the National Prison Center in Iowa City, Iowa (the collective putting out the Prisoners Digest International and the headquarters of the Church of the New Song, a religion that formed in the federal joint in Atlanta and won all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court). Needless to say, this connection offered me many opportunities to put myself out there on front street. Such as the time I got Chief of Classification and Parole Witkowski at Leavenworth so worked up, he had a goon squad carry me to the edge of the concrete steps out front and threaten to throw me down them while he was screaming.

Call For Action by IDOC Watch

IDOC Watch has issued a call for action on behalf of co-founder and Chairman of the New Afrikan Liberation Collective Kwame Shakur (Michael Joyner), presently incarcerated at Pendleton (Indiana) Correctional Facility. IDOC Watch has received word that Chairman Shakur has been attacked by Pendleton staff for the second time recently. It is thought that he may have sustained serious injury to the head.

IDOC Watch writes:

The assault comes shortly after Shakur was dismissed from a medical examination after insisting he be treated for an auto-immune condition caused by a TB outbreak in Pendleton. It also follows the most recent assault on him during a punitive shake down in retaliation for his political activity. 

Pendleton has made Kwame Shakur a primary target in their suppression of inmate struggle and if they are not stopped, the violence against Shakur will only escalate. Pendleton was most recently in the news for the arrest of three corrections officers caught on tape severely beating an unarmed inmate. Warden Dushan Zatecky assured the public that their arrest was proof of Pendleton's commitment to inmate safety. Yet assaults on inmates, of which Kwame Shakur is just the most recent is a constant occurrence at Pendleton. 

PLEASE CALL: 
Indiana Department of Corrections Commissioner Robert E. Carter at 317-232-5711. Press 0 for operator and ask for the Commissioner; then leave a message if no one answers. Ask for the commissioner, but if you are routed to a secretary, leave a message.

SCRIPT:
"I am calling because I am concerned about the safety of Michael Joyner #149677 of Pendleton Correctional Facility. Yesterday, he was assaulted by staff and likely has a severe injury to the head. I would like to know his whereabouts and request an investigation into the incident."

You do not have to say more than that and you do not have to give any information about yourself. Expect lies and dodges. The point is to make them aware that they are being watched and that Chairman Shakur has supporters on the outside.

Interestingly enough, the town of Pendleton has a long history of White Supremacist violence. According to Wikipedia, in 1824, three White men massacred a group of Seneca and Miami Natives. And in 1843, Frederick Douglass and two other men were brutally attacked by what Douglass called "mobocrats" when they visited Pendleton in response to an invitation to speak to the townspeople. Douglass was knocked unconscious, beaten while he was on the ground, and suffered a broken right hand that never properly healed. Realistically though, I guess any town that has less than 5000 residents -- 97% of which have been socialized to believe they're "White" and probably most of whom work at one of the three (count 'em, three) prisons -- may not have come too far.

Let Me Make One Thing Perfectly Clear

When I first dropped out in 1970, hit San Francisco for a hot minute, and then proceeded on to join a collective in Iowa City, Iowa, committed to the prison abolition movement, I could not possibly have imagined that 45 years later, I would want to re-publish something I wrote in 1972. Yet here I am, more than a little disappointed that the call for unity, solidarity, and action I issued in the Prisoners' Digest International four and a half decades ago would still be pertinent -- and even sorely needed.

This is why I am still doing what I am doing, teaching what I am teaching, and writing what I am writing. Still trying to make our situation perfectly clear.

The Death of Innocence

We are standing on a precipice, contemplating our mortality, foot raised to take the next step and hoping it will not come down on a land mine placed there by our own previous hesitation. I walk into classrooms where the students sit in anticipation, dark pools for eyes, red rimmed from crying, or steely-eyed, defensively imagining that I am going to shame them for their choice.

I surprise them both by not talking about the election, but rather talking about the Power Elite, the history of our nation, the ideologies of White Supremacy and patriarchy and capitalism that have always guided both. I tell them this was inevitable and therefore predictable. ("You plant beans, you get beans. No matter what you thought you were planting, we know we planted beans because that's the crop we got.") Nobody did this to us. And we will all suffer.

The steely-eyed lose some of their belligerence and look more doubtful. It is a likelihood they hadn't considered. "Black people, Latinos, Native Americans, immigrants, Muslims, women, LGBTQ people, and poor people -- young and old -- are going to suffer even worse than ever," I say, "But they've suffered before. They know how to do it. They know how to survive physically, psychologically, and emotionally. They are prepared -- well and bitterly prepared -- to face and live through this. But unless you are part of the Power Elite, unless you were born into millions, millions, even if you don't belong to one of those groups, you are going to suffer, too. And you don't expect that. You aren't prepared to understand, accept, or survive it. And how you will respond to your own pain, we cannot know."

"I suspect that those who will suffer most are those like me who are White and professional and have of late been able to pay our bills. We have had the luxury of believing that we are untouchable and we are careening into a time when we will be forced to know in terrifying ways that we are not and never were.

"We are not the first people to face this in history. Read Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States 1492-Present. Or Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent by Eduardo Galeano. Or The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William Shirer. By the time you finish one of them, let alone all three, you will have long since quit reeling or celebrating and gotten a better perspective on where we are.

"Not only are we not the first people to deal with this situation, but we're not by a long shot alone. People all over the world -- and most particularly in Europe -- are suffering already under the boot of fascism. So this is not really a national dilemma. It is a global one. When there are 85 billionaires who own the same amount of wealth as three billion humans on the planet (the poorest half of the entire human race), would you really expect those 85 billionaires to care what happens to the rest of us? Eighty-five people would fit in this classroom with seats left over. How did they get that rich? What kind of system would allow 85 people to become that rich while the bulk of the human race starves?

"I long to protect you all -- even the ones who don't like me, who don't think I know what I'm talking about, who evaluate me as 'retarted' and 'a traitor to my race,' who say I hate White people, that I hate men, that I make them feel 'uncomfortable' or 'bad about themselves,' that I wish all my students were Black. I long to protect you all from what is coming, but I can't. We are in this now together. We will be tried by fire and when this chapter ends, we will none of us be who we were. Whatever shred of innocence we each once had, whatever cloak of denial we have clung to, whatever desperate hope we counted on to allow us to feel special, will have disappeared forever and we will simply be the latest in a saga of lives unfolding.

"We will play our parts in history and pass on into oblivion with those who've gone before. We have rushed to embrace a time of horror and now we will learn what the cost of our arrogance is. May we meet our collective future open to learning -- finally -- that we stand together, honoring each other's humanity as full citizens or we will none of us be citizens at all."

So What Are We To Do?

I'm launching my book on race Saturday. The press release appeared in the daily newspaper last Sunday and the flyer is making the rounds. I put up a Facebook event page for it. Then, when I found out about Alton Sterling this morning, I fired off a letter to the editor. Sterling was killed 45 miles from the little town where I live, so I decided to make Saturday's launch an opportunity to invite White townspeople who want to become part of the solution to show up. I don't know if the editor will print it. It might be seen as somewhat confrontational (a-hem!), which was not my intention. I just thought maybe a few folks might be ready to answer a call to action. Though I have no control over who all might show up...

Regardless, I'm not posting about Alton Sterling's murder because the news is unfolding every two minutes and there are many ways to get it faster. Besides, I'm pissed and depressed and feeling helpless and hopeless. And everybody's being whipped to a lather already on social media anyway, but I do need to write something about what we can do to stop this.

Conway & Lutalo on Violence and Counter-Violence

Focusing on how White Supremacy as a system uses "law enforcement" to brutalize -- or even kill -- those who resist its power can leave us shaking in our boots. Yet there has always been resistance by Africans, other colonized People of Color, and those who fight for justice alongside the members of those groups. Here Chris Hedges gives us an opportunity to learn from Eddie Conway, former member of the Black Panther Party in Baltimore, and Ojore Lutalo, member of the Black Liberation Army, both of whom have now been released after spending long stints in prison because of their commitment to the people's struggle. They have earned our undivided attention. And we need to know what they have to tell us. Listen up.

Why Am I Not Surprised? 2.0

Yesterday, I wrote on Facebook about what it feels like to be me when I'm isolated. Which is a lot. Being a White person who thinks like me and talks about it the way I do puts me consistently on the outside all the time. This is what I wrote:

"After 45 years of fighting White Supremacy in every way I can imagine, I am getting more discouraged by the day over where we are in this country (and the world). I know that a few White people are not enough. I rant though my courses. I can hardly face my blog on race because I want to scream at the top of my lungs. People think I'm a nut case because I never let up for a minute. But what good does it do? I get some love, but most folks think I'm crazy or too over the top or pushing too hard or trying to be something I'm not or a "traitor to my race" or...other things too wrong-headed to print. I don't know what to do and I see what the White power structure is doing and it's a SYSTEM not a bunch of individuals, so it's like trying to collect smoke in a sack. 

"I've been depressed ever since Ferguson because I see that those with the power to define in this country have created a situation where Black people have to risk and lay down their lives for what already belongs to them and I am so angry, so hurt, and so helpless in the face of it all that I'm borderline suicidal off and on, but I can't quit because I'm needed. 

My only son was murdered two weeks before his 23rd birthday so I know what it is to lose a child, but every time a Black child is killed or incarcerated or beaten up or disrespected, everything Africans have suffered since the first slave ship left port for the Western Hemisphere rolls over me like an ocean wave of grief. All I know to do is to work, to fight, to stand, to write, to speak truth, and not stop -- till I die."

But this morning, I want to clarify something. This struggle is not about being a conscious White person who feels alone. It's about what the White Supremacist system does to People of Color in the world and most particularly for us, here in the U.S.

Party for Socialism and Liberation: "Baltimore's Rebellion: What Happens to a Dream Deferred"

Statement from the Party for Socialism and Liberation:

If the young people of Ferguson had not rebelled, Mike Brown’s name would have been forgotten. The town would still have the same mayor and police chief. The cops would still be fining and arresting Black people for every conceivable thing, including “Manner of Walking in Roadway,” “High Grass and Weeds,” and even bleeding on police uniforms during a beat-down. There would have been no Justice Department investigations or presidential commissions. If the young people of Ferguson had not rebelled, the city would be, for most of the country, just another dot on the map; just another forgotten impoverished Black community.

Now the whole world knows Ferguson. The people who rose up declare their hometown with pride. And now the whole world knows Baltimore and they will remember Freddie Gray’s name.

Lenore J. Daniels: To Fellow Travelers Who Have Considered Suicide When Resistance Is Enough

As circumstances personal and political, on my job and in the world arena increasingly unfold in ways that threaten the stability of my own and others' lives, I go from hoping for the best to arming myself for whatever comes next. I am not alone. As a regular reader of The Black Commentator, I have come to greatly appreciate the perspective of Dr. Lenore Jean Daniels, who's on the Editorial Board there. Here is her essay for this week. I couldn't agree with it more.


...[T]hey certainly want that freedom which they thought was mine -- that frightening limousine, for example, or the power to give away a suit or my increasingly terrifying trans-Atlantic journeys. How can one say that freedom is taken, not given, and that no one is free until all are free? And that the price is high. -- James Baldwin, "Take Me to the Water"

 The conceited villager believes the entire world to be his village. Provided that he can be mayor or humiliate the rival who stole his sweetheart or add to the savings in his strongbox, he considers the universal order good, unaware of those giants with seven-league boots who can crush him underfoot or of the strife in the heavens between comets that go through the air asleep, gulping down worlds. What remains the village in America must rouse itself. These are not times for sleeping in a nightcap, but with weapons for a pillow, like the warriors of Juan de Castellanos: weapons of the mind, which conquer all others. Barricades of ideas are worth more than barricades of stones. -- Jose Marti, Our America

At some point, you have to say "Enough is enough. You will not bury me in it so that I become a zombie among the walking dead."

Your spirit of resistance is in danger! Hollowness becomes fashionable. The dead seek to infect or drain you of that spirit.

Misery loves company.

But it is futile to seek freedom in battle with the dead. Strategies to gain freedom must have as a central goal the removal of human-made systems of oppression -- no matter how many corpses surrounding you say otherwise in an attempt to distract you.