Sunday, January 29, 2012

From Bad to Worse: Transferred from Red Onion to Wallens Ridge State Prison

Wallens Ridge State Prison

This is the latest dispatch from Kevin "Rashid" Johnson, Minister of Defense of the New Afrikan Black Panther Party-Prison Chapter, and author of Defying the Tomb:

From Bad to Worse: Transferred from Red Onion to Wallens Ridge State Prison
By Kevin “Rashid” Johnson

On January 20, 2012, I was transferred from Red Onion to Wallens Ridge State Prison. This transfer came on the heels of a December 12, 2011, incident where a large portion of my hair was ripped out by a Red Onion guard, a staged investigation by a Virginia Dept. of Corrections Internal Affairs agent Johnny Acosta, and my having sent out an article and report on it all. Obviously, no coincidence.


From one set-up to another

On the morning of January 20, I was confronted at my cell by Red Onion’s C-Building Unit Manager, Michael Younce, and Lieutenant Delmer Tate, who both lied telling me that agent Johnny Acosta wanted to speak with me in the prison’s video-court area. I was, upon being handcuffed and leg shackled, “escorted” by them to the prison’s transport area and put into a cell, and told to strip down to be searched by security chief Kevin McCoy because I was “taking a trip.” Numerous guards entered the area including one Joseph Ely, a prior Red Onion guard who’d transferred to Wallens Ridge to be promoted to a Lieutenant. Ely was carrying transportation restraints and a 50,000 volt electric stun belt which prisoners are made to wear when taken on road trips. I instantly realized I was being transferred to Wallens Ridge.

I asked McCoy several times about my property. He assured it’d be right behind me. It wasn’t.  It was all left at Red Onion, where much of it will likely be destroyed, “lost” and taken.

McCoy attempted to provoke a situation by having me given a pair of pants to wear that were too small. I refused to wear them. After a standoff, I was given a pair in the correct size, restrained, belted and taken to a transport van. Inside the van, I was crushed and locked inside a tiny steel cage measuring about 5 feet high and 2 by 2 feet square, in which I could barely move. Once on the road, Ely asked if I knew where I was going. I answered “obviously to Wallens Ridge.” He then asked did I really not know I was being transferred? I told him no, that I was told I was going to see someone. He added, “You know why you’re going back, don’t you?” “Not really,” I answered. He then stated, “Well, you know a lot of people don’t like you. You probably won’t leave walking.” I was to receive numerous similar threats by guards that I was being sent to Wallens Ridge to be set up for violence.

Upon reaching Wallens Ridge, I was met by numerous guards, especially ranking guards, whom I’d known from my 2000-2003 confinement at Wallens Ridge. All displayed openly hostile attitudes. One of the guards, who was holding one of my arms and “escorting” me from the van to the intake area, Dixon, repeatedly dug his fingers into my right arm. I was also accompanied during this walk by two large dogs barking loudly and straining wildly against their leashes.

I went through the strip search and endured another standoff over too-small clothes, by Sergeant Cochrane and Lieutenant Swiney, both obviously trying to provoke a situation to “justify” using violence. So I relented and wore the clothes for the brief walk to the unit.

I was leg-shackled, cuffed from behind and “escorted” by a mob of guards to the D-3 housing unit. Every cell in the unit was empty. I was put into D-301, one of only two cells in the block with a steel box approximately 8" x 12" x 18" with a Plexiglas cover, welded to the outside of a cell door and around the opening in the door through which food and other items are passed and handcuffs applied and removed. I was made to kneel to have the leg shackles removed, and to put my hands outside the slot into the box where the handcuffs were removed. I then removed my hands from the box and a steel plate was slid in place across the door opening, closing off access to the box.

Cochrane and Swiney came to the door in turns, repeating the same threats Ely had made, adding that “this time there won’t be any witnesses,” indirectly referring to my placement in a completely empty unit. Major Combs then came to the cell asking if I’d changed, commenting that I’d gotten grey hair since last he’d seen me and was “getting old.” Every guard I’ve encountered from then to now has been invariably hostile, and verbally insulting. I’ve been called a “nigger” no less than 15 times and subjected to numerous homosexual taunts in efforts to provoke and enrage me, which I pay no mind to. One guard, R. Ricketts has gone out of his way to repeatedly verbally taunt and threaten me with abuses to come.

I’ve had my meals and beverages dropped into the visibly filthy box on the door which is never cleaned, indeed it can’t be where it contains rust, peeling paint, fermented food and beverages residue, and one must place dirty clothes, shoes, toilet cleaning items, etc. into the box to be searched by or exchanged with guards. Using the box for meal service is a per se health hazard. Not only is my food contaminated by being placed into direct contact with the box’s surfaces, but I’ve found paint particles, dirt, lint, etc. in my food and beverages from the box.

I was also brought clothes by Swiney that had been sprayed with mace or gas. I’ve been kept incommunicado – denied phone use, all property, and kept in a completely empty unit.

I’ve also received two trays with foods containing broken pieces of metal and rocks. Guards, including Cochrane, refuse to provide me with or to accept for filing forms needed to pursuer emergency and other grievances and complaints. I had to go through a Lieutenant Bergan to obtain complaint forms from Cochrane, who then gave me only two out of five requested by me.

As indicated in my last report/update, the December 12, 2011, assault where my hair was ripped out was preceded by threats by the assaulting guard, in that I’m now being faced with a consistent series of threats by a staff known to abuse and even kill prisoners – which I’ll elaborate on below – it is important that this situation be made known as broadly as possible. I believe outside exposure, support and pressure has kept many of the more serious violent official intentions at bay. These threats under the circumstances must be taken very seriously.


Wallens Ridge: A Nest of Vipers

Several of the threats here have been accompanied by guards making disparaging remarks about me being a “protester,” “Black Panther,” etc., often accompanied by racial slurs. It is well known that Black prisoners known to challenge or protest abuses or who are politically active are abuse targets at Wallens Ridge. John Gaskins, aka Mac, who was recently released from Wallens Ridge, has been both witness and victim. While at the prison, he witnessed prisoners inclined to protest being set up by guards, beaten and thrown into segregation. He was himself, for this reason, set up on a false infraction and thrown in segregation until he was released from Virginia’s prisons. He expected to be beaten by the guards himself at any time.

A----, aka Outlaw, the prisoner with whom I engaged in written political exchanges in my book, Defying the Tomb, was also brutally beaten and hospitalized at Wallens Ridge a couple years ago.

In my prior update/article, I discussed a 2001 beating by 3 ranking Wallens Ridge guards of a Black prisoner, last name Plummer, which resulted in the guards being prosecuted. The charges were circumvented by the entire prison’s staff coming together to stage a scene at the prison to sway the jury to acquit the guards, and the investigator – Johnny Acosta – who found the guards to have assaulted Plummer, was in turn sued by them. Many of the guards involved in that cover-up still work at Wallens Ridge, including Major Combs, Cochrane, Swiney, etc.

Prisoners have also been killed by Wallens Ridge officials or at their prompting.

Most recent was the controversial killing of Harvey Lee Watson by his cellmate Robert Gleason, who pled guilty to the killing and implicated Wallens Ridge staff as complicit and responsible. Several were fired after-the-fact, when autopsies found Watson had been dead for half a day when discovered by guards inside the cell. The guards had falsified records claiming they’d been making routine checks of the prisoners. However, those who caused his death were passed over. Gleason personally told me numerous times that he only realized after killing Watson that Wallens Ridge officials had used him, set him up to kill Watson to remove a thorn from their side. He vowed to plead guilty to the killing and to use the case to expose what they’d done. Which he did, to no avail.

In that case, they wanted to silence Watson, who kept protesting that officials had knowingly transported him from Sussex One State Prison in Waverly, Virginia to Wallens Ridge with a dead prisoner sitting with him in the van. Watson had also just set his cell on fire the night before being transferred and had recently set another prisoner on fire. He had outstanding punitive segregation sentences to serve and was not supposed to have been released to population. He also was supposed at all times to have been housed in cells alone, even in population, due to mental health status. However, ranking Wallens Ridge officials and the counsellor, wife of Lieutenant A. Gallihar, conspired to put Watson in Gleason’s cell in population. Gleason was known to have been convicted, suspected, and charged with numerous killings. Officials felt he was their man for the job.

In the cell, Gleason complained to staff counsellor Gallihar, ranking officials, the warden, even people on the outside that Watson was sick and needed to be moved out of his cell before he was forced into a drastic reaction. Watson would drink urine, masturbate in the open, talk loudly to himself all times of night, etc. Lieutenant Gallihar, his wife and others told Gleason, “You know how to deal with it,” refusing to move Watson. Gleason admittedly snapped and killed Watson. The scandal has been widely reported in the media and Gleason is open about what happened and why. The day after the killing, A. Gallihar, who wasn’t at the prison the day of the killing, fabricated an incident report as thought he was, on his wife’s behalf to cover for her.

During or about 2003, a white Connecticut prisoner was strangled to death by Wallens Ridge guards who claimed the death a suicide hanging. A similar attack was attempted against another white prisoner, Michael Austin, now confined at Red Onion, during or about 2010. The guards disliked Austin because he’d grown up around and embraced Black urban culture and clashed with the prison’s rural white guards who’d ridicule him and try to influence him with racist values. In his case, guards premeditatedly rushed into his cell, claiming falsely he was attempting to hang himself, put a thick string around his neck and began choking him. Their designs to strangle him to death were foiled only because the string broke.

During 2003, another Connecticut prisoner, a Black man named Lawrence Frazier, was electrocuted to death by numerous Wallens Ridge guards while he was restrained to a steel bed frame by his extremities. The death was dismissed as caused by insulin shock, however an examining doctor found the electrocutions contributed to, if not caused, his death.

A documentary “Up the Ridge” was filmed by a local radio group exposing the racism and abuses surrounding the prison and reporting on Frazier’s killing.

During 2001, I was myself the victim of a brutal assault by a mob of Wallens Ridge guards, including two who beat Plummer just months later. In my case, I was drawn out of my segregation cell while fully unrestrained by a guard G. Sexton, inviting me to an off-the-record one-on-one fight (what we call “a fair one” in prison). His intentions, however, weren’t to fight but to set me up for a mob attack. Sexton never once put up a fight, but was knocked down almost immediately and began screaming for back-up. I was subdued without resisting and upon being handcuffed and shackled was repeatedly kicked in the face and head, electrocuted with multiple 50,000 volt stun weapons, had all but 3 of my then almost 2-foot-long dreadlocks systematically ripped out, and was left with multiple facial lacerations that had to be stitched closed, burns across my upper body and arms, and blood red and purple contusions covering the entire whites of my eyes across their front halves. The attack was covered up by Wallens Ridge officials at all levels and Internal Affairs agents who destroyed pod surveillance camera footage of the attack, moved all vocal prisoner witnesses to other units, and colluded reports claiming all my injuries were inflicted by Sexton defending himself against an unanticipated attack by me when the cell “accidentally” opened. At first they’d claimed I opened it, whereas Sexton himself told guards in the control booth to open it.

What’s more, Wallens Ridge’s present warden, Gregory Halloway, has subjected me to extensive past torture while a unit manager at Greensville Correctional Center, during 1998. At that time he kept me on an illegal status called “white cell status,” when I was left for 8 months, even during winter, with nothing inside the cell, but one pair of boxer shorts. No property was permitted. I could not even brush my teeth and ended up having to have several filled for cavities as a result. I was only allowed a mattress and bedding from 10 pm through 6 am. I contracted the flu, sinus infections and colds. Throughout the white cell confinement, my cell window to the outside was broken, letting in freezing and cold outside temperatures.

While on white cell status, Holloway accused me of knocking him unconscious in the medical department while my blood pressure taken with my hands cuffed, supposedly in response to his torturing me. I remained on white cell status until I was transferred to Red Onion in 1998 from Greensville.

Therefore not only is Holloway an official who’s known to illegally torture and abuse—and will admit having me on that illegal status—but one who has cause for vengeance against me. It is highly unlikely I can expect to receive any semblance of just treatment under him, nor that he would act to prevent threatened abuses. Indeed it is probable that he is privy to such abuses. Furthermore, Holloway is but a token Black figurehead, recently appointed to Wallens Ridge to counter a widespread image and reputation for racism like at Red Onion. Similarly, at Red Onion, a token Black warden was appointed in the early 2000s, under whose supervision racism and abuse escalated. Indeed, he went out of his way to avoid making waves with the local entrenched white supremacist status quo that de facto ran Red Onion, as it does Wallens Ridge.

Dark faces in high places is today’s chief tactic for masking institutionalized racism.


Conclusion

If officials did not send me to Wallens Ridge with deviant designs, then this admits I qualify to be housed at any other VDOC prison of the same level 5 security classification, such as Sussex One or Two State Prisons, where a more racially diverse and tolerant staff exists. At Wallens Ridge and Red Onion, I and other politically active prisoners and those who challenge abuses have been targeted in a clear pattern with official violence and abuse.

It’s my request to supporters and readers to raise as much protest and awareness about this situation as possible and press for my reassignment to a less volatile and more racially diverse and tolerant environment, such as the Sussex prisons. And to also be aware of the foul conditions that we live under on these razor wire plantations. For me, it just went from bad to worse.

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


Kevin “Rashid” Johnson is a long-time revolutionary prison organizer, accomplished artist, Marxist theoretician, and the Minister of Defense of the New Afrikan Black Panther Party-Prison Chapter (NABPP-PC). He has been held in segregation for the past 19 years, since 1993. Some of his writings have been published in the book Defying the Tomb (Kersplebedeb, 2010), available from AK Press and leftwingbooks.net. Other of his writings and artwork are featured on his website rashidmod.com. In 2011, from Virginia, Rashid added his voice to those of thousands supporting the demands of California prisoners hunger-striking against isolation torture; his writings have been banned in many California prisons.

To read Rashid's account of deteriorating conditions at Red Onion State Prison, and the assault by guards on December, 12, 2011, can all be found on rashidmod.com. Rashid can be contacted at:

Kevin Johnson #1007485
Wallens Ridge State Prison
P.O. Box 759
Big Stone Gap, VA
24219

Supporting Prisoners and Acting for Radical Change (SPARC) is a non-sectarian revolutionary mass organization based in Virginia and Washington DC, focused on building effective opposition to the prison-industrial complex. SPARC is demanding that the staff of Red Onion and Virginia Department of Corrections (VDOC) cease their consistent campaign of targeted physical violence, harassment, and administrative repression against the cadre of the NABP-PC, which is clearly being carried out with the intention of suppressing the basic human and democratic rights of prisoners in VDOC facilities. Furthermore, SPARC supports Rashid's request to be transferred to a less hostile environment, for instance one of the Sussex prisons.

A petition to support these an end to political repression against the NABPP can be downloaded from http://www.kersplebedeb.com/vdoc_petition.pdf. People are also encouraged to contact Director of VDOC, Harold Clarke in support of these demands:

Harold W. Clarke, Director
Department of Corrections
P. O. Box 26963
Richmond, VA 23261-6963
Phone: (804) 674-3119
Fax: (804) 674-3509
Email: harold.clarke@vadoc.virginia.gov

Please send copies of all correspondence to SPARC, PO Box 345, Floyd VA, 24091

SPARC can also reached by email at sparcdc@hush.com or sparc@signalfire.org or search “Supporting Prisoners and Acting for Radical Change” on Facebook for regular updates and news.

Those of the in the New York City area, who wish to learn more about Rashid and conditions in Virginia's prisons, are encouraged to attend the book event "Defying the Tomb - Struggle, Education, Survival and Liberation in Lock-Down" to be held at Bluestockings Bookstore (172 Allen Street, New York, NY 10002) on Saturday, February 11, at 7pm. The featured speaker is Rashid's comrade, John "Mac" Gaskins who was in a neighboring cell with Rashid while at Red Onion and was recently released from the tombs of Wallens Ridge. It promises to be an evening where words will not be minced!



Defying the Tomb: Struggle, Education, Survival and Liberation in Lock-Down



WHERE: Bluestockings Bookstore, 172 Allen Street, New York
WHEN: Saturday, February 11, 2012 @ 7pm

Soledad Brother-esque, this book is a collection of letters between Johnson and a fellow prisoner, Outlaw. It also includes some essays written by Rashid discussing a variety of political issues. Acclaimed by several political prisoners and movement veterans, it is a must read. 

The book also includes Rashid's art produced within the confines of a solitary confinement cell at Red Onion State Prison in southwest Virginia where he has been held 23 hours a day for years. It reflects inspiration by many leading revolutionaries and thinkers, such as George Jackson and Che Guevara. 

The featured speaker is Rashid's comrade, John "Mac" Gaskins who was in a neighboring cell with Rashid while at Red Onion maximum security prison and was recently released from the tombs of Wallins Ridge State Prison in southwest Virginia. Join us for an evening where words will not be minced. Peace!

The above from the Facebook event page for this event - please note that Rashid has been subjected to escalating abuse, which culminated in an assault on December 12, 2011, and a transfer to Wallens Ridge State Prison on January 20, 2012, where he has received death threats from guards, has had his food tampered with, and has been given clothing sprayed with an irritant.

If you're in New York City, please attend this event to learn more about Rashid's situation, and what you can do to help.

Rashid can be contacted at:

Kevin Johnson #1007485
Wallens Ridge State Prison
P.O. Box 759
Big Stone Gap, VA
24219

Supporting Prisoners and Acting for Radical Change (SPARC) is a non-sectarian revolutionary mass organization based in Virginia and Washington DC, focused on building effective opposition to the prison-industrial complex. SPARC is demanding that the staff of Red Onion and Virginia Department of Corrections (VDOC) cease their consistent campaign of targeted physical violence, harassment, and administrative repression against the cadre of the NABP-PC, which is clearly being carried out with the intention of suppressing the basic human and democratic rights of prisoners in VDOC facilities. Furthermore, SPARC supports Rashid's request to be transferred to a less hostile environment, for instance one of the Sussex prisons.

A petition to support these an end to political repression against the NABPP can be downloaded from http://www.kersplebedeb.com/vdoc_petition.pdf. People are also encouraged to contact Director of VDOC, Harold Clarke in support of these demands:

Harold W. Clarke, Director
Department of Corrections
P. O. Box 26963
Richmond, VA 23261-6963
Phone: (804) 674-3119
Fax: (804) 674-3509
Email: harold.clarke@vadoc.virginia.gov

Please send copies of all correspondence to SPARC, PO Box 345, Floyd VA, 24091

SPARC can also reached by email at sparcdc@hush.com or sparc@signalfire.org or search “Supporting Prisoners and Acting for Radical Change” on Facebook for regular updates and news.



Friday, January 27, 2012

Abuse Reports Culminate In Hair-Raising Assault By Red Onion State Prison Guards


In the following report, Rashid details a vicious racist attack on his person by guards at Red Onion State Prison, which occurred on December 12, 2011. Since this report was written, Rashid's situation has gotten even worse, as earlier this week he was transferred to Wallens Ridge State Prison (Virginia's other supermax), where he was confined between 2000 and 2003, a period when he was repeatedly singled out for abuse by guards (many of whom are still working there). Already, he has been subjected to death threats from guards, has had his food tampered with (i.e. has found metal in it), been given clothes that were sprayed with an irritant, etc.

A subsequent report on this transfer will be posted here shortly.



In the meantime, here is Rashid's January 10 article, detailing the December 12 assault:


Abuse Reports Culminate In Hair-Raising Assault By Red Onion State Prison Guards

Background to the Attack

    On December 12, 2011, a Red Onion State Prison guard, sergeant Tony R. Adams, ripped a large mass of hair from my head, much of it from the roots. At the time I was handcuffed behind my back, leg shackled and held pinned against a locked door by several other guards. The torn out hair covered an area of about 3 inches by 7 inches across the front and side of my head. (See Exhibit A). Prior to the attack I had a headful of dreadlocks approximately a foot and a half long.
    The attack follows a long history of reports I’ve sent out naming Adams as a major source of abuse and cover-ups at the prison. Previously employed in the prison’s dog kennel, Adams was appointed as investigator – from early 2005 through October 2011 – by Tracy Ray, who was Red Onion’s chief warden from October 2004 through October 2011.
    Up through Ray’s appointment as warden, Red Onion maintained national notoriety for extreme brutality, racism and abuse against its predominantly Black prisoner population, by it’s almost exclusively white rural staff. Resulting in several critical reports by human rights organizations, a lot of bad media, U.S. Justice Department probes, and outside protests. As reported in a prior article, Ray came onboard to clean up Red Onion’s image, an agenda shared by Adams, who as investigator was directly responsible for investigating abuse complaints. Adams distinguished himself as a vengeful cover-up artist, who’d retaliate against prisoners who complained of abuses and especially those who challenged and complained against him. In addition to frequently destroying and obstructing our mail, his direct abuses included placing false gang profiles on prisoners including against me, inciting and facilitating violence between prisoners, destroying our property, etc. He quickly became and remained one of the most disliked of all Red Onion guards.
    Subsequently an outside family and I co-founded an advocacy group called SPARC, to help organize exposure and challenge of abuses at Red Onion. Adams took immediate personal interest and counteraction.
    When A----, a SPARC member. contacted the prison’s mailroom clerk in response to a complaint of missing mail from a prisoner D----, Adams personally called her back. He tried various angles to discourage her involvement with SPARC and supporting prisoners. When his efforts failed he then threatened to tell Carter that A---- had lied to him about contacting the prison about his mail issue, so to undermine her and SPARC’s credibility with prisoners. He also threatened to ban SPARC’s correspondences with prisoners by falsely accusing her of passing messages between gang members. He then had much of SPARC’s mail disappeared and blocked from delivery to prisoners, and confronted me with routine threats and harassments.
    He took very personal my persistence in exposing abuses at the prison, involving outside people in doing so, and in effect counteracting his entire agenda of trying to protect the prison’s image. He also took personal offense to my winning support amongst whites and having white visitors whom he disparaged as “nigger lovers”. One frequent visitor and friend he had banned from visiting at Red Onion and another prison close by – Wallens Ridge – under false claims that she was trying to coordinate a prisoner uprising at various prisons. While she was able to have visitation privileges restored at Wallens Ridge, Adams succeeded in permanently banning her from visiting me at Red Onion.
    It was only after several prisoners violently died at the prison under their watch, that Ray and Adams were removed during October 2011 as warden and investigator, respectively. Ray was reassigned to another prison and Adams was restored to his prior rank as a petty sergeant.
    Ray was replaced by Randy Mathena as warden. Mathena was Red Onion’s assistant warden when the prison first opened in 1998 and during the early years when it won nationwide notoriety as one of the country’s most racist and abusive prisons. Mathena’s return has seen a resurgence of open abuse and assaults by guards.

The Attack
    On October 27, 2011, Adams confronted me with threats that he was going to shut me up, that he had a better opportunity to do this now since he was “no longer the investigator”, and Mathena was warden. I made record of his threats by filing two emergency grievances, log numbers 030238 and 030239.
    Subsequently, on December 12, 2011, he accompanied several other guards in confronting me on a segregation exercise yard while I was locked inside an exercise cage, claiming falsely that I’d refused to come off the yard when I had not. He immediately began threatening that he was going to “get” me, wanted “a piece of” me, was going to “fuck [me] up”, etc., obviously attempting to provoke me into actually refusing to allow myself to be handcuffed and leg shackled to come off the yard, so removal by force could be “justified”.
    A portable audio video camera was brought out to film what followed, which made apparent they were expecting an altercation.
    Ignoring the threats and provocation attempts, I allowed the guards to apply the handcuffs behind my back and shackles, and was then escorted from the exercise yard cage by two guards, holding both my arms and with palms against my shoulder blades. (See Exhibit B. This method of “escorting” segregation prisoners is used ostensibly so guards can maintain complete control while remaining behind the prisoner so he cannot butt, spit or otherwise assault them and can be easily maneuvered to place and pin against a wall. During such escorts guards are to remain behind and to the side of the prisoner.)
I was “escorted” in this manner from the cage to a doorway leading into the unit. The door was closed and locked. I was walked up to the door at which time the guard operating the audio video camera took the camera off of me. Adams then quickly stepped directly in front of me and in a low voice threatened to “fuck [me] up”. At that point he, claiming I attempted to head butt him, grabbed and proceeded to forcefully rip out handsful of my hair from the front and left side of my head. I never did, indeed I could not, resist, as the other guards shoved me face-first into and held me pinned against the locked door.
    As Adams ripped out my hair I repeatedly stated so the camera could record it that he was ripping out my hair for no reason which he continued to do.
    After he completely ripped out an area of hair about 3" x 7", they then threw me sideways to the ground and piled on top of me. I was at all times handcuffed behind my back and shackled at the ankles.
    After several moments I was physically lifted from the ground, and observed a large mass of my ripped out hair lying on the ground where I’d been previously standing. I repeatedly asked that it be filmed showing how much hair was torn out and dropped right where I’d stood previously pinned securely against the door, before some four guards, including Adams threw me to the ground unresisting. They refused to film it.
    I was then taken into the unit’s hallway, made to kneel, then stripped completely naked in direct presence of a female nurse, which I protested as an illegal and unwarranted cross-gender strip search. I was then, because verbally protesting the assault and cross-gender strip search, chained up in handcuffs and shackles inside a cell ‘til the next day. Guards claimed my protests were perceived as “threats”.

Staged Investigation
    On December 15, 2011, I was taken to the prison’s video-court area to meet with Johnny Acosta, an investigator from the Virginia Department of Correction’s Inspector General’s office, a.k.a. Internal Affairs Unit. The very same office with whom Adams had worked for years covering up abuses at the prison.
    Acosta stated he was there to investigate the December 12th incident. I recognized his appearance to be a swift official move at damage control, to extract a statement from me that might be used later against me, and to formally rationalize the assault to counter or answer any outside protests likely to follow. According to sources, news of the attack was already circulating on the outside.
    In addition to the fact that Acosta is a VDOC employee himself and his office routinely worked with Adams on “investigations” at Red Onion that always absolve abusive guards of wrongdoing, Acosta himself has a bit of baggage that further renders an “objective” investigation by him dubious at best, which I’ll detail below under a separate heading.
    Prior to “interviewing” me, Acosta showed me a box containing what he conceded to be “a lot of hair”. It looked to be all of my ripped out hair. He had a guard take still photographs and videotape of my head and scalp where the hair was torn out, noting numerous bald patches across the area – a lot of my hair had broken off near the scalp, other of it was pulled out from the roots.
    Acosta animatedly showed me a pair of leg shackles which he said the guards claimed were the ones I was wearing during the assault. He promptly demonstrated several times that the shackles had a faulty locking mechanism, by locking them then yanking them back open. He repeated over and over that the guards claimed I’d “gotten out of the shackles” apparently as their justification for throwing me to the ground after I was securely pinned against the door.
    I told him I believed the guards were lying since I didn’t recall the shackles coming off during the attack. I pointed out that the shackles had a prison identification number on them, and suggested that he check the equipment logs from the control booth in the unit where the attack occurred, to see whether the number on the shackles actually matched ones kept in that control booth. This because a daily record is kept for all equipment kept and checked in and out of each building’s control booth. If the malfunctioning shackles he had were actually ones I’d worn on December 12th, the unit logs would show their being assigned by number to that booth and when and if they were checked out that day, and by whom. He reacted very defensively to my suggestion as though it were an absurd proposal. He stated emphatically that he’d made no such inspection, commented that I was “very observant” for having taken notice of the identification number on the shackles, then quickly changed the subject. This suggested he knew the faulty shackles may in fact not have been the ones I’d worn on December 12th. I then told him I’d submit to a polygraph test on the incident and the fact that the shackles hadn’t come off. I asked him to ask each guard would they do the same and document their reply. He said he would. I don’t believe him.
    He then gave several scenarios to “explain” how my hair had possibly “fallen” out, several of them patently ignorant, racist stereotypes, often heard to disparage Black/ New Afrikan culture. First he suggested I may have pulled the hair out myself and had it “sitting” atop my head before the incident occurred. He abandoned that line when I pointed out he had extensive video footage of me leading up to the attack which showed my hair firmly attached to my head at close range. Then he suggested that dreadlocks are dryrotted hair that easily falls out. I explained and demonstrated to him how absurd this was and racist in its implications. He also claimed he’d heard dreadlocks are bound together by dirt and filth and are worn by people who don’t wash their hair. He ended in admitting neither account could be true since he’d filmed, photographed and examined my scalp and hair and found them “very clean” and “healthy”, showing no evidence of dirt nor even dandruff, nor was there any foul odor to my hair and scalp. I pointed out that dreadlocks are actually strong like rope consisting of not only hair still attached at the root but also the shedded hair that most people comb or brush out. So they are thicker and more dense than even plaits. He acted not to comprehend how they form. I explained very simply that Black people’s hair is of a thick tough texture that naturally forms into small tight curls. If left alone it will entangle into thick tight masses, which separate into cords called dreadlocks. That nothing has to be done to make it do this, although some people use cosmetic methods (which I don’t) to make dreadlocks form quicker than the many months it takes them to begin to form naturally, or to make them all in a uniform small size. My dreadlocks were/are naturally formed and range in thickness, some several inches thick. I added that I wash my hair at least bi-weekly and take care to keep lint and other foreign matter out of it. Acosta, a white male, wasn’t secretive about his personal dislike of dreadlocks, expressing that because I wear them “it’s obvious you don’t care how your hair looks”.
    He conceded a great deal of force was needed to rip out as much of my hair as was in the box. And it was difficult to imagine that level of force being justified under the circumstances of December 12th, even if I did attempt to butt Adams as they’d alleged. He avoided explaining why Adams would step so closely and directly in front of me, given the security requirements governing remaining behind prisoners being escorted, specifically to avoid any such potential danger. Acosta admitted despite what they claimed I did, the force used could still only be such as was needed to control the situation and no more. That if I were pinned to the door, the hair pulling and multiple guards throwing me to the ground were grossly excessive. He also admitted that as I’d observed just before Adams attacked me, the guard operating the camera took it off me so it didn’t film when Adams stepped in front of me and ripped out my hair.
    Acosta didn’t film nor have a nurse check my shoulder and collarbone which I informed him had been dislocated when I was thrown to the ground and piled upon, nor other reported injuries.
    The interview statement he prepared seemed focused on constructing the incident in a way that could be used to corroborate the guards’ false version of events, and to leave leeway for further “adjustments” in their story. But Acosta did admit knowing Adams personally disliked me, which he countered by expressing several times how he “couldn’t help” commenting that I come across as an extremely likeable and intelligent person. Also that he saw me as someone willing to put his own safety in jeopardy to try to help and expose others being abused. He didn’t record any of this however. I declined to sign the statement and again requested a polygraph test.

Acosta, Himself A Broken Victim of The System He Serves
    Acosta told me he was selected to conduct the investigation because his superiors felt he was the only agent I’d talk to. This because a decade ago an investigation by him led to three ranking guards who’d beaten a prisoner at Wallens Ridge being prosecuted. But the system turned on him, and the 3 guards were all acquitted in a scheme that saw the whole staff body at Wallens Ridge come together to exonerate the 3, and made Acosta the target of a subsequent lawsuit by the guards. I was confined at Wallens Ridge during that time and followed the entire drama. An experience it’s highly likely he’d be unwilling to repeat. Halfway through the interview I reminded him of his experience. He was visibly pained by the memory.
    Here’s what occurred:
    During 2001 a Black prisoner, last name Plummer, was brutally beaten by several guards at Wallens Ridge. Wallens Ridge is located a few miles up the road from Red Onion and employs guards drawn from the same rural communities as Red Onion. Both prisons have shared notoriety for racism and abuse. Indeed, a documentary film called “Up The Ridge” was made about the abuses at Wallens Ridge.
    Acosta was called in to investigate the attack. His investigation concluded that three ranking guards had beaten Plummer. They being Captain Isaac Hockett, Lieutenant Jeffrey Compton and Sergeant Matthew Hamilton. They were criminally indicted and put on trial. Regularly appearing on the local news these three guards were featured tearfully professing their innocence, while the prisoners were collectively demeaned. This to win local sympathy for the guards and provoke animosity towards the prisoners.
    Then came the real scheme.
    The guards’ attorneys had the judge order that the jury be allowed to tour the prison under criminal procedure that entitles the trier to view the crime scene. Wallens Ridge’s entire staff body closed ranks to give the jury an experience they’d not soon forget, to demonize the prisoners as beasts who posed mortal danger to the guards, thus justifying the violence used by the three ‘well-intentioned local good ol’ boys on Plummer. The plan quite literally was to terrorize the jury.
    Almost an entire housing unit was emptied out of prisoners a few days before the scheduled jury tour. Wallens Ridge officials hand-picked a group of flunky inmates to move into the unit, whom they’d bribed to act out in front of the jury. Some were “paid” with extra meal trays, one was given a job cleaning showers, others were given extra telephone calls for the month, etc. in exchange for agreeing to create a disturbance for a group that they were told was a “scared straight” tour. They were told to do everything in their means to “scare” the group. All were assured they’d receive no disciplinary charges for misbehavior and should use their imaginations in devising ways to scare them.
    Guards announced to everyone at the appointed time when the group was about to come in and to start acting out, which they all did on cue. The shocked judge and jury got a taste of pure pandemonium, with the prisoners doing everything from screaming vulgarities and threats of violence and rape at them, to deafeningly kicking and banging on their doors, to exposing themselves naked and smearing body waste in and on their cells door windows etc.
    Staff of all ranks, including the warden Stan Young, went around the prison for weeks recounting and laughing about the scene and the jury’s utter shock, to anyone who’d hear. And they really laughed at how the jury returned to court to quickly acquit all three guards. Many of the guards, nurses and counselors, took great pleasure in mocking how easily they’d manipulated a few toady inmates to help exonerate guards caught red handed for abuse. The day after the jury tour all the prisoners who’d been moved around to stage the disturbance for the jury were placed back in their old cells.
    The acquitted guards returned to Wallens Ridge radiating arrogance, and sued Acosta for his “false” investigative findings and causing their “wrongful” prosecution.
    As I recounted these events to Acosta he remarked, admitting in a disconsolated tone several times, “I know what they did”, “I know what happened”. He remarked too, “You have a good memory”. I pointed out that all of what they’d done to create the scene to terrorize the jury is in prison records. That their moving numerous prisoners around just before and after the jury tour, and bringing the jury into the very unit where all these conspicuous moves had been made, all to influence the jury was blatant contempt, obstruction of justice, etc. And it involved the entire staff’s participating or knowing about it. One could easily also consult court records to identify and interview the jurors about the experience. He didn’t seem interested to expose or challenge it. The experience obviously took the fight out of him. He looked beaten, often spaced out and glassy-eyed as I described the incident.
    So I asked him, how he expected me to have any confidence in his or any other official investigation or anything tangible coming out of it. “Look how an entire prison staff came together to cover up an assault, discredit your findings, protect their corrupt peers, then counterattack you, and it’s obviously affected you deeply”. I pointed out to him. He had no response. “Does it strike you as ironic”, I asked him, “that you’re expecting me to trust your role and intentions when the very guard who assaulted me was himself an investigator just like you?”
    Knowing these things, only a fool would put confidence in such a system.
        I rest my case.
        All power to the people!








Kevin “Rashid” Johnson is a long-time revolutionary prison organizer, accomplished artist, Marxist theoretician, and the Minister of Defense of the New Afrikan Black Panther Party-Prison Chapter (NABPP-PC). Some of his writings have been published in the book Defying the Tomb (Kersplebedeb, 2010), available from AK Press and leftwingbooks.net. Other of his writings and artwork are featured on his website rashidmod.com.

Rashid has been held in segregation for the past 19 years, since 1993. Six weeks after the above-detailed assault, Rashid was suddenly transferred to Wallens Ridge State Prison, Red Onion's "twin" supermax, and the site of numerous human rights violations, as detailed in the Appalshop documentary, Up the Ridge. This transfer is doubtless a result of Rashid's exposure of conditions at Red Onion; what the Virginia Department of Corrections (VDOC) plans to do next remains anyone's guess. For the time being, Rashid can be contacted at:

Kevin Johnson #1007485
Wallens Ridge State Prison
P.O. Box 759
Big Stone Gap, VA
24219

Supporting Prisoners and Acting for Radical Change (SPARC) is a non-sectarian revolutionary mass organization based in Virginia and Washington DC, focused on building effective opposition to the prison-industrial complex. SPARC is demanding that the staff of Red Onion and VDOC cease their consistent campaign of targeted physical violence, harassment, and administrative repression against the cadre of the NABP-PC, which is clearly being carried out with the intention of suppressing the basic human and democratic rights of prisoners in VDOC facilities. Indeed, the assault on Rashid detailed in this article comes just months after a September 3 incident where NABPP-PC cadre Kelvin “Khaysi” Canada was beaten by four officers while he was similarly fully restrained; Khaysi sustained a gouged left eye, dislocated right shoulder, and a fractured rib. As has been the case with Rashid, the medical attention he received was cursory and ineffective.

In a subsequent message, Rashid states: "It's by request to supporters and readers to raise as much protest and awareness about this situation as possible and press for my reassignment to a less volatile and more racially diverse and tolerant environment such as the Sussex prisons."

A petition to support these an end to political repression against the NABPP can be downloaded from http://www.kersplebedeb.com/vdoc_petition.pdf. People are also encouraged to contact Director of VA DOC, Harold Clarke in support of these demands:

Harold W. Clarke, Director
Department of Corrections
P. O. Box 26963
Richmond, VA 23261-6963
Phone: (804) 674-3119
Fax: (804) 674-3509
Email: harold.clarke@vadoc.virginia.gov

Please send copies of all correspondence to SPARC, PO Box 345, Floyd VA, 24091

SPARC can also reached by email at sparcdc@hush.com or sparc@signalfire.org or search “Supporting Prisoners and Acting for Radical Change” on Facebook for regular updates and news.

Those of the in the New York City area, who wish to learn more about Rashid and conditions in Virginia's prisons, are encouraged to attend the book event "Defying the Tomb - Struggle, Education, Survival and Liberation in Lock-Down" to be held at Bluestockings Bookstore (172 Allen Street, New York, NY 10002) on Saturday, February 11, at 7pm. The featured speaker is Rashid's comrade, John "Mac" Gaskins who was in a neighboring cell with Rashid while at Red Onion and was recently released from the tombs of Wallens Ridge. It promises to be an evening where words will not be minced! 



Tuesday, January 24, 2012

North American Events for David Gilbert's Love and Struggle



From coast to coast, in canada and the united states, here is a list of event around the recent release of political prisoner David Gilbert's book Love and Struggle: My Life in SDS, the Weather Underground, and Beyond - please get in touch to organize an event in your area - or if you're already organizing a launch which you don't see listed here, email: FODGWest@gmail.com or info@kersplebedeb.com. This list will be maintained and updated on the Kersplebedeb website at http://www.kersplebedeb.com/davidgilbert/ls_events.html



Wednesday, January 25
Montreal
Where: La Belle Époque, 1984 rue Wellington (metro Charlevoix)
When: 7pm
What: Film screening, readings, and discussion
Event page (facebook)

Thursday, January 26
Sacramento
Where: Sol Collective, 2574 21st Street (1 block south of Broadway)
When: 6pm
What: Panel with Donna Willmott, Ramsey Kanaan and Terry Bisson, discussing David's life and book
Event page


Sunday, January 29
Toronto ABC letter night - Love and Struggle 
Toronto
Where: Beit Zatoun, 612 Markham St.
When: 6pm
What: Toronto Anarchist Black Cross hosts a night of inspirational discussion and letter-writing to David; a delicious vegan dinner, courtesy of Food Not Bombs.
Event page (facebook)


Sunday, January 29
San Francisco
Where: Eric Quezada Center for Culture and Politics,
518 Valencia St
When: 4pm
What: book launch with readers/panelists: Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, Terry Bisson, Molly McClure, Sanyika Bryant, and Causa Justa::Just Cause; moderated by Claude Marks.
Event page


Tuesday, January 31
Crisis, Control, and Resistance Social Struggles Against Prisons, Surveillance & Repression from G20 in Toronto to Greece, Egypt & Beyond
Surrey (Coast Salish Territory)
Where: Conference Room A [G1205A Fir Bldg], Kwantlen Polytechnic University
When: 5:30pm (followed by music at the Grassroots Cafe at 7pm)
What: Joint launch with Jeff Shantz's WHOSE STREETS? The Toronto G20 and the Challenges of Summit Protest, and panel discussion and music by Toronto-based rapper TESTAMENT of Test Their Logik.
Event page (facebook)


Thursday, February 2
Montreal
Where: Bar Populaire, 6584 St Laurent
(metro Beaubien ou de Castelnau)
When: 7pm
What: Readings followed by DJ set by bratface
Event page (facebook)


Friday, February 3
Montreal
Where: Maison Norman Bethune, 1918 Frontenac
(metro Frontenac)
When: 7pm
What: What: Film screening, readings, and discussion
Event page (facebook)


Thursday, February 9
Ottawa
Where: SAW Gallery, 67 Nicholas
When: 7pm
What: Party and book launch; this event is a fund raiser for Books 2 Prisoners and Red Aide/Secours Rouge $7/$20 with a copy of the book/Pay what you can (No one turned away)
Event page (facebook)


Thursday, February 9
San Francisco
Where: Modern Times, 2919 24th Street
When: 7pm
What:  Readings and discussion with Diana Block and Terry Bisson.
Event page


Thursday, February 16
Living the Limit: Criminalization, Incarceration and the Law
Toronto
Where: Sandford Fleming Building, Room 1101 10 King's College Circle, University of Toronto
When: 7pm
What: Joint launch with Dean Spade' Normal Life, and panel discussion
Event page


Saturday, March 17
New York City
Where: Bluestockings, 172 Allen Street
When: 7pm
What: Readings by Dan Beger and Terry Bisson
Event page



Thursday, January 12, 2012

Class Antagonisms Inside the Fundamental Contradiction of National Oppression, by Sanyika Shakur







Class Antagonisms inside the Fundamental Contradiction of National Oppression
7–4–47 ADM (11)

Having just passed the 19th, and quickly approaching the 20th, anniversary of the L.A. Rebellion [1], We should be reminded here of what Rodney King whimpered as he stood in front of a bank of microphones surrounded by class enemies and neo-colonial politicians.

We should remember how he’d been dressed in that non-threatening cardigan sweater, white shirt, and black tie. How his hair had been tortured into submission by a jheri curl. We should reflect, as well, upon how timid and spooked he looked and on how concerned and stern those who flanked him were as well. That was a Kodak moment. It was staged to foster an image of contrition and resignation. Submission. A victim.

Rodney King had been led to believe, thru a bourgeois sense of reasoning, that the Rebellion was really about him. That the reason New-Afrikans and Mexicanos took to the streets of South Central was the result of his filmed beating.

That, of course, is typical of mechanical, bourgeois thinking. What it’s not typical of however, is someone from the ‘hood.[2] And this cuts both ways. No one in the ‘hoods and barrios, ever thought it was about Rodney King. We’d all seen the film, over and over like everyone else. But that was par for the course. We’d always seen that - long before anyone had caught it on tape.

Actually, We’d experienced much more than that. Why, it’s safe to say, that hoods have gone to War with each other, in vicious waves of internal (intra-class) combat, for much less than that. Tho’, because of a general colonial mentality, which prevents the challenging of (from bottom up) oppression, the same “hood” forces will not, in any systematic way, wage war on the pigs! Or for Freedom, Land and Socialism.[3]

Rodney King, alone and of his own accord would not have thought to hold a press conference to ask the asinine question (in the form of a whimpered request), “Can’t We all just get along?” The fact of the matter was We were getting along. New Afrikans and Mexicanos were getting along just fine. What we couldn’t overstand was why he was admonishing Us for getting at the exploiters of our communities? The impression he gave, with his handlers’ hands up his back, like a ventriloquist doll, was that a “Race Riot” [4] was going on. As if we had begun to kill each other, or burn and rob each other’s homes. His handlers compelled him to send up a false flag - a diversion. But, you see, this was the very thing that exposed the class interests and reactionary politics of the Uncle Toms that had been designated to handle him and by extension Us! [5]

Let’s go back for a minute, let’s talk social development (“history”). There exists a fundamental contradiction in Our lives that, like an elephant in the room, no one wants to acknowledge. Here’s the thing, as a consequence of the war waged upon various Afrikan Nations by European powers, those of Us captured and kidnapped where taken out of Our own self-determining social developments and violently forced into Euro-amerikan his-tory. This is not simply a clever play on words. This is a reality. We lost the ability to control Our own destiny.[6] Read that again.

From that time until now, the fundamental (basic) contradiction between the U.S. oppressor Nation and Our own oppressed, and colonized Nation, has been the governing imperialist relationship. Which is to say, Us not being in control of the qualitative factors [7] that determine Our lives as a people. A Nation!

Our tradition of struggle against this fundamental contradiction has taken on many faces - some hidden or obscured, and some open and hostile. But all of these have been to resolve the fundamental contradiction and to regain Our independence.[8] While there have been bona fide struggles to resolve the contradiction, there, too, have been reactionary, neo-colonial struggles, waged by internal enemies loyal to the oppressor Nation and culture, that have tried time and time again to subvert and control Our destiny for the benefit of the capitalists.[9]

They’ve come among Us, always imposed from above, stirring up emotions and giving lip service to “progress”, “equality”, “justice” and “prosperity”. These always within the colonial confines of the oppressors’ arrangements.[10] And none, collectively, ever materialize, because without a resolution of the fundamental contradiction - that is, the freeing of Our productive forces from U.S. imperialism and the governing of Our own affairs, We’ll remain a “minority” within the Amerikan system (as opposed to a majority in Our own) and subjected to the established bourgeois social contract, i.e. colonialism. Neo and Post.[11]

We can parade all thru the empire with “black” congressman, “black” mayors, “black” governors, “black” police chiefs, “black” supreme kourt justices - hell, even a “black” president - and absolutely nothing will alter the genocidal relationship that governs Our national oppression here because the “blacks” are a part of the colonial apparatus. They have made a strategic alliance with the capitalist-imperialists to act as go-betweens in Our oppression and exploitation.[12]

This is a conscious class stand. The “black” petty- bourgeoisie is not innocently confused, like say Mrs. Johnson across the street is about our national oppression. About the existence and subjugation of New Afrika. They are well read, have travelled and are experienced - they have just chosen sides against Us and in favor of Our historical enemies! And, the sooner We recognize and internalize this, the better off We’ll be.[13]


Black ain’t nothing but a color. As a designation of Our national Identity it has played out. It is a superficial overstanding at best and a foolish and dangerous analysis at worst.[14]

We have no collective control over the qualitative factors which determine our lives. We do not, in other words, control Our destiny. Not as a people (Nation) or a state (government). We are not a free, self-determining people. We were, before contact, kidnapping and national oppression - but not now. And until this fundamental contradiction is resolved, until New Afrika is independent of U.S. imperialism and neo-colonial domination, We will remain at the continual mercy of Our historical enemies and their warped worldview. A worldview that breeds, promotes, encourages and finances predation and exploitation!

Which brings Us back to Rodney King and “Can’t We All Just Get Along”. The question that begs an answer is: Who is this “We” he spoke of? The rebellion was against what was generally perceived as the system and particularly against exploiters who parasitically attached themselves to Our oppression, chose to bleed our communities of the little finances we were able to have. The masses, in their choice of targets, were only re-appropriating the wealth they’d invested in these stores and businesses that were then taking that wealth out of the ‘hoods and barrios and giving it to the enemies of Us all. So “We”, the poor and exploited, were already “getting along” with each other. Who We didn’t get along with were those who’d exploited Us. Who’d bled our areas dry of finances while flooding our areas with a bunch of crap and b.s.

It wasn’t the Crips, Bloods or Surenos [15] who’d pulled Rodney King out of his car and beat the hell out of him. Nor was it the Black Liberation Army or the Brown Berets. So, why was his press conference directed at Us in the ‘hoods

and barrios? This also alerted Us to whom had arranged this press conference. The next question in line with his request is: What exactly did he mean by “Get along?“ As in, “Can We All Get Along?”

Didn’t Our “Getting Along” with national oppression lead Us to this point? Didn’t We “just get along” after they kidnapped Us, colonized Us, hung Us, neo-colonized Us, imprisoned Us, ghetto-ized Us, miseducated Us, un-employed Us, assassinated Our leaders, drugged Us, infected Us [16] and sent our youth to fight other oppressed peoples for them? Didn’t We get along during all that? Getting “along” with U.S. imperialism and our own genocide, has gotten Us into this sordid ass state.

“Getting Along” allowed the pigs to feel comfortable with pulling Rodney King out of his car and beating the hell out of him. The pigs didn’t fear reprisal from the Black Liberation Army for harming one of Our nationals because when they imprisoned Our combatants We “just got along” with that. Re-read that.[17]

But you see, here’s the thing - that was not Rodney King’s words, nor his thoughts. Probably not even his will. No, those who were pulling his vocal cords were those who had a vested interest, a stake, in the system - as it was before the Rebellion. Those who had made a political and economic (class) alliance - with the imperialists! His now famous quote was actually a message from our class enemies by way of someone who they thought we could identify with. But, of course, his (their) words fell upon deaf ears because those who’d been treated just as bad (and some even worst) were out in the streets looking for a better day.

All the things people labored so hard to manufacture, at minimum wage jobs, but could not afford to buy, they got for FREE. People were getting food, clothing, diapers, shoes and whatever else they could never afford, but always needed. And this in an Empire who’s wealth began upon their conquests and continues upon their exploitation today. Let Us not forget that the U.S., as an Empire, has never supported itself - EVER! It was born a parasite and grew to prominence - as a parasite. It is today a parasite. But in the wealthiest Empire on the planet, in the history of the world, people are starving, homeless and generally without.

The repression required to keep Us “just getting along” is a massive effort undertaken by every branch of the oppressor government: Executive, Legislative and Judiciary. In fact, laws are enacted to maintain bourgeois hegemony over both internal and external colonies. Both Federal (National) and State (Regional) laws function to keep the oppressed tethered to the floor of the Empire.[18] There is a general and a permanent state of war that governs all relations between oppressor and oppressed. Sometimes it’s hidden and tactically called something else - usually something with a benign name that sounds well-meaning. You know like “War on Poverty”, or “War on Drugs” - “War on Gangs”. They militarize everything having to do with relations between oppressed and oppressor Nations. It’s all part and parcel of the general and permanent state of war between Us and them! And just because We ain’t ready, organized and responding to it don’t mean it’s not a war. The ‘hoods, barrios and reservations are virtual prisons. The schools are half-way houses and the prison industrial complex is doing big business. It’s a war alright. Ready or not.[19]

A permanent state of war must exist in order to maintain fear in and control over the internal colonies. This permanent state of war is called colonialism. When they allow someone who looks like you to govern you, for them - this is called Neo (New) Colonialism. And, when they let a “black” run the business, as in Rock Bottom being president of the U.S. - this is called post-neo-colonialism. But colonialism all the same. The system is capable of morphing at moment’s notice in order to survive and continue to oppress. As Butch Lee pointed out, “it can even appear as its opposite in order to evade destruction.” The slogan popularized by the old Black Liberation Movement, “By Any Means Necessary”, actually embodies what the U.S. system of capitalism is really about. In practice. Always.[20]

They will select a “black” sock puppet to be the president to demonstrate to their investors that they are color blind - turn right around and imprison 800,000 New Afrikans.[21] Then, the sock puppet president, turns around and appoints various women to his team to show the people it is not patriarchal - but the same system is waging an authoritarian war on women and children. Tho especially women and children of color - those from the internal colonies (New Afrika, Puerto Rico, Aztlan and Indigenous Nations).[22]

And, of course, We have to contend with the loyal-enemies of the Empire. These are the ones who go hooping and hollering about “racism” and “discrimination” - boo-hooing about how exclusionary the system is - and yet they really only want in. They want “equality” - to be equal with the very ones they claim are “racists”. They use terms like “OUR government”, or “OUR troops in Afghanistan” - “OUR police Force”. They are clamoring against “discrimination” because they feel they, too, should be allowed to prey on people. They want to be “equal” in the system of capitalism. They don’t want to stop the problem - they want to be a part of it. Why else would they ask for “equality” without calling into question the entire grotesque apparatus? [23]

This is what makes the petty bourgeois class of “blacks” so dangerous. They have the resources, approval and backing of the imperialists to carry on their campaigns of accepted forms of protests, even when it appears to question the bourgeois laws of the enemy. For instance: they’ll support both a new trial and the release of Mumia Abu Jamal, only because we can prove that he was wrongly convicted as a part of a frame-up . And while We go on to link this frame-up with a total array of colonial maneuvers carried out to keep New Afrika oppressed and exploited, they’ll pull back at “racism” and ignore Our need for self-determination. This, because their class interests reach an ending at calling into question the fundamental contradiction.[24] We can demonstrate this by the fact that there is no support for Sundiata Acoli, Jalil Muntaqim, Sekou Odinga or any other New Afrikan prisoners of war. Anything that points to the challenging of the fundamental contradiction - that calls into question the actual National Oppression of New Afrika - the petty bourgeoisie will ignore, reject or outright deny support for. This would not be in accord with their class interests as parasites upon Our misery, their collaboration with our oppressors. So, within the framework of their accepted forms of protests, as loyal enemies (as oppo-sames), they can call Mumia’s capture, incarceration and conviction “racist”, “discriminatory” and “questionable”. But that’s where it will end. That’s the parameters. That’s the function of this class. To appear as staunch defenders of “black”, or “Afrikan American”, rights, progress and equality only within the boundaries of established imperial rule. Which is to say only as “citizens” of the oppressor Nation - as “minorities” needing special handling. Victims.

And here we are back at Rodney King. Once the spontaneous L.A. Rebellion had run its course, brought under control only secondarily by the National Guard - it’s primary weakness, of course, was its spontaneity [25] - the U.S. government enacted a counterinsurgency policy called Weed and Seed. This directive was issued straight from the White House, from then president George H.W. Bush. And, let Us not forget, that this same pig had, from February 1976, to November of that same year, been Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. So he was no stranger to counterinsurgency programs.[26]

Weed and Seed was a counterinsurgency program much like the Phoenix Program run previously on the Vietnamese people to, it explicitly said, “neutralize the Viet Cong by assassinating its cadres, destroying its bases among its people and strategically winning over the Vietnamese population”. That is exactly what Weed and Seed was about as well. In the ‘hoods and barrios of South Central.[27]

Once you see New Afrikans as an internal, colonized Nation and not simply as a “black minority of discriminated against U.S. citizens”, you’ll begin to overstand the interchangeability of military tactics used against other colonies around the world. Not only did Weed and Seed implement a weeding out of “troublemakers”, i.e. combatants, leaders and political adversaries, but it seeded points of contention and distrust amongst the various participants in the Rebellion and Resistance that grew eventually into what’s happening now between almost every ‘hood and barrio. These conflicts did not fall from the sky. Their origins are on Earth, issuing from designs that serve someone’s needs. The idea is to follow the conflicts to the point of interest. Which is to say, who is benefiting from the conflicts? Keep the term Weed and Seed in mind as We go forward here.

Nationals of two oppressed and colonized Nations (Aztlan and New Afrika) are involved in shooting wars. Yes, these conflicts largely involve lumpen (criminal) elements. Those involved in street org activity. The lumpen element to a degree played some significant roles in the Revolution of the 60’s and early 70’s. Especially those who were able to transform their criminal mentalities into conscious Revolutionary mentalities. Even tho’ it’s largely lumpen elements in contention in the ‘hoods/barrios, regular, working-class people, students and children, are also being affected by these clashes. But the thing is, the combatants are nationals of oppressed Nations - those the U.S. government has already deemed “social dynamite” [28] and have slated for liquidation thru one of its various methods of collective death and destruction. So, once the enemy culture saw the mass unity during the Rebellion, measures thru Weed and Seed, were undertaken to divide, so as to be in a better position to CONQUER, these elements who obviously had no qualms about rebelling against oppression.

Here’s one of the tactics they used: On Florence and Normandie Avenues, the acknowledged point of origin of the Rebellion, New Afrikans were shown on film pulling a Mexicano priest from his car, yanking his pants down, while he has on the ground, and spray painting his private parts black. This was not what it actually was reported to be. While this priest was, in fact, Mexicano, he’d been pointed out by a Mexicano as a child molester and was thus disciplined by the first group that got to him. But because those who got him were New Afrikan and he was obviously a Mexicano and no sound was attached to the video, the media was allowed to mis-interpret the scene as they wished.

And this is what they did. So, there was Reginald Denny layed out after being pulled from his truck - after he’d yelled “get your black asses out of the street” to the Rebels - and then beaten. And across the street was the Mexicano priest, pants pulled down, private parts painted black - and the Rebels were seemingly targeting anyone who wasn’t New Afrikan as they passed. This is what it looked like from the helicopter and after the news people interpreted it as such. But that wasn’t true.

The Rebels, the lumpen, had just had a very physical brawl with a few dozen L.A.P.D. pigs over their manhandling of a fellow by the name of Marc.[29] During the Rebels’ battle to free Marc from the pigs clutches, a radio call came out which instructed the pigs to retreat - to leave the area. They got into their cars and left. Then the Rebels walked up to Florence Avenue and were attempting to secure the intersection from all vehicle traffic - that is: all vehicle traffic. Any motorists that attempted to pass had their vehicles bombarded with stones, sticks and bottles. The tactic was to secure the intersection against the eventual return of the L.A.P.D. Which, is must be added, has its 77th Division (a notoriously aggressive and hostile station) right down the avenue of Florence at Broadway. So, the idea, on a purely spur of the moment level, was to secure the main intersection from any and all flowing traffic. What is interesting to note is that the young Rebels and lumpen weren’t trying to “start” the L.A. Rebellion. And it certainly wasn’t about the Rodney King beating or verdict. Tho We’d all seen that too. Where earlier in that fateful day the four L.A.P.D. pigs were acquitted after a trial for the taped beating.[30] While it most definitely wasn’t the central factor, it was however one more nail in the coffin of belief in the system. This, if only for a few days, while Rebels re-appropriated various goods and demolished certain structures they knew were used to exploit and extract wealth out of the area. Local, mom and pop shops, were not destroyed or looted.

However, by showing over and over the corner of Florence and Normandie, Reginald Denny’s stoning, the priest’s painting and the chaotic attempts by the Rebels and lumpens to secure the corner, the impression of “Madness” and “Racism” was projected out into the city, region, state and the Empire. And, of course, like most things involving a challenge to capital, exploitation and private property, the states’ propaganda machine put its own spin on these events. With a few agents on the ground, in key places, doing whisper campaigns, it wasn’t too hard to convince right-wing street (and prison) organizations that it was the “Racist blacks attacking Mexicans”. Thus began the acrimonious flow of orders to “get even” that issued from the tombs of the SHU units. Check the stats - after the ‘92 Rebellion, the hoods and barrios across L.A., Watts, Compton and Lynwood erupted in lethal clashes that have culminated in the hostile stand off that exists today. In the midst of the Rebellion nevertheless, there came a ceasefire order observed by some of the most dangerous and combative street orgs within the New Afrikan communities. Eighty percent of the sets complied with the cease fire. Bitter enemies blended across color lines in South Central, Watts and Compton. This was in the historic spirit of the 1965 Watts Rebellion [31] that saw a ceasefire and blending of the older New Afrikan street orgs in favor of United Action Against the L.A.P.D. and National Guard. Weed and Seed was to prevent this from happening again.

Once the streets orgs agreed upon a ceasefire in 1965, they, unlike the Crips and Bloods of 1992, had a social movement to join as an alternative.[32] A social movement that was increasingly becoming an armed revolution. Malcolm had been murdered earlier that year, in February. The Revolutionary Action Movement (RAM) was active, and nightly on the bourgeois news, images of civil rights protests were being shown. There existed a more obvious exposure of the fundamental contradiction. New Afrika was being rapidly de-colonized. The system of capitalism was morphing again, looking, searching, for new ways to maintain its control over the internal colonies, while simultaneously struggling to get new colonies in Vietnam, South Amerika and Afrika. The following year, in October, the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense would start. And, too, would the United Slave Organization. Most of the street org combatants who’d come together in a cease fire during the 1965 Watts Rebellion, would go on to join either the Panther Party or the United Slaves. A move that wasn’t lost on the FBI who, thru its Counterintelligence Program (Cointelpro) worked tirelessly to exacerbate pre-existing conflicts between individual combatants that inevitably spilled over into gunfights and murders.[33]

The same tactics were used against the Crips and Bloods under Weed and Seed, after the 1992 Rebellion. Same war, different names of the maneuvers, same objective. What should come across as evident to Us as We reflect on the various tactics used against Us over the centuries is that the enemy has more faith in Our ability to get free than we do. Put another way, the enemy has had to implement so many ploys, to hold, control, exploit and now to eliminate Us that for Us to sit and point these things out make even the most astute observer appear as a wing-nut conspiracy theorist. Tho of course, it’s no theory when its actually happening, as Butch Lee and J. Sakai point out in Rethinking New Orleans,[34] it ain’t a conspiracy when it’s done out right and in the open - it’s a strategy. Why else would the imperialists have to implement plan after plan - sometimes elaborate and varied - to contain New Afrika (or any other colony) if for (1) it wasn’t capable of breaking Free, (2) it wasn’t an asset and (3) it wasn’t able to turn it’s oppression into the actual defeat of the empire itself? [35]

Oftentimes the reaction to an issue can be a lesson unto itself. In this instance the enemy’s reaction to Our very existence is quite enough for those with eyes and ears, to recognize the vast potential in our collective ability to break de chains. Of course, the fact remains that the chains which bind - that at this stage are psychological - are so thoroughly in place that the masses have to be convinced that they are oppressed.[36] Consciousness will not fall from the sky. Nor will people be moved to action by mere thoughts, or ideas in anyone’s head. On both accounts material, earthbound, tangibles - food, clothing, shelter, Land, and control of destiny (Socialism) will motivate the masses. People are moved by interests.

So, in closing, it never was about Rodney King, the verdict, or any singular thing at all. These, however were accelerants, or sparks, at any given time, but the basic most fundamental thing that causes Us to struggle, to resist, is that We are not collectively free to determine Our own destiny. That we are under the thumb of U.S. imperialism. And this imperialism is administered thru colonialism - colonial violence (violence both armed and unarmed). Violence does damage (physically or mentally) - in the streets or in the schools. Thru police shootings or cultural hegemony. The colonialism is in place to exploit

Us through capitalism. Let’s be clear on this. Because whether the people are conscious of this or not, it is the reality We are in. And it follows that it will be Our recognition, challenge to and resolution of this fundamental contradiction that will end Our National oppression. Without overstanding this, We’ll continue to be played on Amerika’s Ferris Wheel of “citizenry” - dazed and confused. Being led by the “black” bourgeoisie to meekly just “get along” with Our oppression. Hau!

Rebuild!

Sanyika Shakur



[1] L.A. Rebellion, 4-29, 5-1– This is the “official” timeline. However, it took the security forces (police - above and undercover– CHP, sheriffs and national guard) at least seven days to regain full control of rebel areas.

[2] Suffice it to say that those of us in the hoods and barrios have always had a running battle with the L.A.P.D. and L.A. Sheriff’s Department. We’ve never found it expedient to hold press conferences to highlight either Our beatings nor our attacks on them. We took our lumps, just as We gave them theirs.

[3] What prevents hood forces from systematic, i.e. organized and sustained combat, is the colonial mentality. This mentality sees the state and its operators as legitimate and reflects upon itself as not. Thus ultimately the lumpen submits to the “legitimate authority” and allows the state to carry out its function – which is to dominate, oppress and exploit. For further reading on the criminal/colonial mentality see: Notes From A New Afrikan P.O.W, Journal, Book One (Spear and Shield Publications) and “Mediations On Frantz Fanon’s Wretched of the Earth”, Yaki Yakubu (Kersplebedeb, 2010).

[4] i put both race and riot in quotations because, of course, both are misnomers – false flags designed to not just mis-inform, but to distort the reality. There are no “races”. There’s but the human race. Again, see “Meditations….” (Yaki). Nor was the Rebellion a “riot”. That term was deliberately used to de-legitimize, to belittle and confuse. And of course no reports of private homes or national clashes were reported–or seen.

[5] For a critical breakdown and overstanding of the black petty-bourgeoisie, see: “Settlers: Mythology of the White Proletariat” by J. Sakai.

[6] A people’s sovereignty is measured by its ability to control, chart and determine its own destiny. That is, who it trades with, who it is, who it gets along with and who it doesn’t. For example, the Provisional Government of the Republic of New Afrika is not at war with Afghanistan – but, the u.s. has so blurred the reality of Our national

reality, that not only do Afghani people believe that all the people in the political borders of amerika are at war with them, the actual colonial subjects of captive nations believe it as well. Thus, even though the PG–RNA is not at war with the Afghanis, it has literally no control over its nationals to prevent them from going to war on behalf of the u.s. oppressor nation. It does not have the power to control Our national destiny.

[7] Of course the qualitative factors are education, health care, employment, judiciary and housing. All these are administered at a hefty and often mind-warping and spirit-breaking price by the colonialists!

[8] As revolutionary nationalists We reject the notion and line that says our freedom is to be found, or “won” by integrating into and becoming “equal” with the very system responsible for our oppression and the people who administer that domination. Therefore we look to the lines of struggle which have sought to regain independence from - out and away of - the colonialists, e.g. the Garvey Movement, Henry Highland Garnet, Pap Singleton, the BLM and NAIM. And similar national liberation struggles here and abroad - all anti-imperialist struggles.

[9] See: Settlers: Mythology of the White Proletariat, J. Sakai, Chapter 4: Neo-colonialism and Leadership.

[10] Here you have to visualize Al Sharpton, Rev. Jesse Jackson, MLK Jr. etc. These are Our “leaders” not because We have chosen them – or because they speak our aspirations to power, but because Our enemies have chosen them to mis-interpret Our aspirations to fit into the colonial scheme of national oppression. Hence at every outbreak of struggle, whether it’s the L.A. Rebellion or the Jena 6 issue, Mumia’s case or the Occupy the Hood struggle in Oakland - here come the neo-colonialists not to help us, but to do reconnaissance for the enemy. To find out what’s going on and then to report it, get instructions on how to twist it, then jump opportunistically out in front to mis-lead it right back into the clutches of the colonial parameters. That’s the function of this class. See “Settlers....”

[11] We should clarify this term “post-colonialism”. Ward Churchill pretty much summed this up in “On the Justice of Roosting Chickens” (AK Press, 2003) when he said: “...how about we actually complete the process of global decolonization before we announce our entry into “the postcolonial era”? Truly, how can we be in a post (after) colonial era when colonialism still exists??

[12] In our struggle - inside the colonial reality of New Afrika and its struggle to identify itself in the sea of imperialist distortion and neo-colonial ignoration - which, as Ward Churchill points out in “On the Justice of Roosting Chickens (AK Press, 2003), is deeper than mere ignorance. Ignoration is: “...instead to be informed and then to ignore the information”. So, to be ignorant is not to know, but ignoration is to know, but to ignore. Churchill says: “there is a vast difference between not knowing and not caring....” (pg.7.) So, here We are trying to show that within the New Afrikan Nation there is a class struggle between those who identify themselves as “Black” or “African American” and New Afrikans. And further, that those petty-bourgeois forces are actually conscious of themselves as go-betweens in order to steer the masses wrong (rightward) and serve their class interests and that they deftly employ ignoration. So, when We use “Black” here it is to direct attention to this class. As collaborators. Like the Negroes Malcolm pointed out when bringing “Black” into existence.

[13] Ignoration.

[14] To label oneself “Black” or others “White”, “Brown” or “Red” is to fall into the ideological trap of racism. It is to believe and propagate the false social construct that humans are broken down into different “races” which are classified outwardly by the complexion of ones skin, or the texture of one’s hair. Though, of course, it’s deeper than this since it also promulgates ones superiority and inferiority according to those who designed it. What it essentially does is bury the reality of class and politics - the real social determinants of humans. Humans are all one race. No matter if you subscribe to racism or not, if you’re using terms like Black, White or Brown to determine yourself or others you are pushing a racist line. See: “Meditations on Frantz Fanon’s Wretched of the Earth” by Owusu Yaki Yakubu (Kersplebedeb, 2010). We’ll use these terms in quotations to point to their un-reality. Or in distinguishing New Afrikan revolutionary nationalists from petty-bourgeois collaborators.

[15] Here We use the three dominant street orgs in L.A. - Crips, Bloods and Surenos (Southsiders) - to point up the reality that those on the front lines, in the initial stages of the Rebellion were, in fact, street org combatants who’d felt a sense of pride and control over their areas. Of course, the grassroots - the students, working class and the elderly eventually came out en masse and kept it going. And, here, the Surenos (Southsiders) are the conglomerate “Latino” street orgs that function under the 13 (or Trece) numerology.

[16] “Infected Us” points to the various government tactics of smallpox (Trail of Tears), syphilis (Tuskeegee study -1932 to1972), HIV, hypertension, etc, etc. Hepititis, as well. See “Doctors of Death” by Dr. Alan Cantwell.

[17] To recognize Political Prisoners of War is to recognize the reality of the nation. We feel that because there is a low national consciousness level - so few are aware that they are colonial subjects of captive nations that this directly correlates with the low levels of recognition and support for Our captured combatants. Some of the longest held Prisoners of War, hail from internal colonies here (New Afrika, Puerto Rico, Aztlan and the Indigenous Nations), inside the u.s. of a.

[18] See: The New Jim Crow, by Michelle Alexander.

[19] See: Rethinking New Orleans, by Butch Lee and J. Sakai (Kersplebedeb) and The FBI War On Tupac Shakur and Black Leaders, by John Potash (Progressive Left Press, 2007).

[20] See Perversions of Justice: Indigenous Peoples and Anglo-American Law, by Ward Churchill (City Lights, 2003).

[21] See: The New Jim Crow, Michelle Alexander.

[22] See: Night-Vision: Illuminating War and Class on the Neo-Colonial Terrain, by Butch Lee and Red Rover (Vagabond Press, 1993).

[23] There’s another term We could use here to describe this class - or rather what this class suffers from: cognitive dissonance. This, on top of their ignoration. And cognitive dissonance is: even when confronted with overwhelming evidence that what one perceives is wrong, one still, without fail, believes to the contrary. It was coined by Dr. Leon Festinger, of the University of Chicago, in the 1950’s. The petty-bourgeoisie in order to sustain itself as a class of mis-leaders has to submit to a collective sense of cognitive dissonance and ignoration.

[24] Even in giving lip service support to Mumia within the parameters of the bourgeois order, they did so only after the massive effort of the people grew too big to ignore. They safely laid in the cut, and tailed safely behind.

[25] We have to acknowledge what Comrade George Jackson coined “The Riot Stage” of social development, and of consciousness. This stage is characterized by spontaneity and shortsightedness. Usually led by petty- bourgeois sentiment and emotions. This, of course, is a weakness that is exploited by the enemy. They’d easily prefer a quick, spontaneous flare-up - a “riot” - to an entrenched, protracted people’s war waged by the internal colonies. So, in portraying the Rebellion, even by calling it a “riot”, they’ll promote it as if it really was a great threat to the establishment. And as revolutionaries We have to point out that yes, We are glad to see that the masses have not been so lulled to sleep by the illusions of bourgeois democracy that they wouldn’t resist at all. We simultaneously must stress that rebellions are not revolutions. That rebellions are, by and large, reformist. Since one can rebel against something without necessarily being for its opposite. Usually if it’s spontaneous, this is the case. So while the L.A. Rebellion was against exploitation, pig repression and a general sense of oppression, it wasn’t actually for Land, Independence and Socialism. Nor was it actually defined as anti-capitalist. But for Us cadres it was a sign of collective life and a will to resist. Good soil to plant new seeds.

[26] For a very good breakdown on counterinsurgency, check out: “Our Enemies in Blue: Police and Power in America” by Kristian Williams (South End Press, 2007).

[27] To show the audacity of the colonialists, since 1992, they have an actual program called the Weed and Seed Program which is at: 1133 Rhea Street, Long Beach, CA 90806. Website www.longbeach.gov/health/FSS/ws.asp. Here are the “services” it offers: “Clothing, mental health, counseling, social service information, low cost housing, drug and alcohol treatment, WIC, child care and schools. Also provides: education, career preparation, social and economic/life skills activities, job readiness skills, drug and gang prevention and education program and promotes educational programs to ex-offenders to assure work skills for employment”. This is from its website. This is counterinsurgency disguised as a “helpful program”.

[28] See “Lockdown America: Police and Prisons in the Age of Crisis” by Christian Parenti (Verso, 1999).

[29] Marc Williams is the older brother of Damian “Football” Williams, charged in the L.A. 4 case that came out of the beating of Reginald Denny and the securing of the corner of Florence and Normandie. Damian was captured personally in a media staged moment by chief of police Daryl Gates.

[30] This after they won a change of venue from the city of Los Angeles to Simi Valley where the population is not only amerikan and conservative, but largely inhabited by L.A.P.D. members and their families.

[31] Watts Rebellion began on August 11th and lasted until August 14th. Brought under control by the State National Guard.

[32] This is an important point because from 1965 to at least September 1971, when the Crips began, street org activity was replaced by struggle for liberation within the framework of the Black Liberation Movement. And We need only to give a cursory glance at who all were street org combatants to point up the power of the BLM then: Alprentice “Bunchy” Carter, Sekou Odinga, Zayd Malik Shakur, Afeni Shakur, Nuh Washington, etc. - all were bangers before joining the Revolution. Some in L.A. Some in New York or others parts of the Empire. The movement attracted them, though, and cadres transformed them. But after the movement was disrupted by the counterrevolutionary thrust of the state - which was, in part possible by the movement’s own internal weaknesses. Street orgs than again, began to proliferate. So, when in ’92, the Crips and Bloods agreed on a cease fire, they had no movement, no cadres to transform them. In swooped Weed and Seed and the Crips, Bloods and Surenos were easy pickings. It wasn’t long before chaos was back as the norm. Only this time as a shooting war between nationals of oppressed nations. A tactic of counterinsurgency is: Problem - Reaction - Solution.

[33] See: The FBI War on Tupac Shakur and Black Leaders, John Potash (Progressive Left Press, 2007).

[34] Rethinking New Orleans, Butch Lee and J. Sakai (Kersplebedeb Publishing).

[35] To “Capitalism as We know it to be, in present and past form. Which is to say that, no matter the internal struggles in Europe, among Europeans, between those who ruled and those who were ruled, between serfs and lords, etc. - no matter these influences - what cemented and gave assurance to the development of what We know as capitalism, imperialism, was the enslavement and transport of Afrikan people, from the Afrikan to other continents. Was the circumstances which led to the birth of New Afrika. The movement of Afrikan people from independence - to independence, is what will end the life of the Empire. No matter how hard it may be for some folks to accept right now”. Bakari Shanna, Notes From A New Afrikan P.O.W. journal, Book Two (Spear and Shield Publications, 1978).

[36] It used to be that “Raising consciousness” to particular levels was enough to show the masses that no real self-determination existed and that bourgeois democracy was a sham. Now, however, with the initiative firmly in the clutches of the state, globalists and their propagandists, and cadre, We have to literally convince the masses that all this is smoke and mirrors. It’s a daunting task, actually. Especially in the post-9/11 age of “everyone who is anti-state is a terrorist”. Still, however, it is what is to be done.
***********************************

Sanyika Shakur in a New Afrikan Communist currently held in Pelican Bay's Security Housing Unit; you can write to him at:

Kody Scott  D#07829
PBSP-SHU / C-7-112
PO Box 7500
Crescent City, CA
95532