Working
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W
Working
ki to
t Extend
E t d Democracy
D
to
t All 
Volume
Volume
V
V l
1, N
1
Number
b 2
2

August
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A
A
August
t 2018
2018


THE NEW PRISON MOVEMENT
THE CONTINUING STRUGGLE TO ABOLISH SLAVERY IN AMERIKA (2018)
By Kevin “Rashid “ Johnson

The Rising Prison Movement

A

cross Amerika (home of the
world’s largest prison population)
growing numbers of the imprisoned are coming to realize that they are
victims of social injustice.
Foremost, as victims of an inherently
predatory and dysfunctional capitalistimperialist system, which targets the poor
and people of color for intensified policing, militaristic containment, and selective
criminal prosecutions. While denying them
access to the basic resources, employment
and institutional control needed for social
and economic security. Deprivations which
generate “crime”: economic crimes, crimes
of passion, and crimes of attempting to
cope (through drug use and addictions).
Secondly, once imprisoned they become
victims of inhumane abuses, warehousing,
and one of the most decadent and dehumanizing forms of social economic injustice: slavery.
This rising awareness among the impris-

CONTENTS
The New Prison Movement......1
Arousing Thought, Part 2 .........4
Carceral Ableism ......................7
Nothing New ............................8
Letters ......................................9
Editorial Comments..................9

oned has prompted increasing numbers of
prisoners to unite in resistance proclaiming
“no more!” And the momentum is building.
This “new” Prison Movement is seeing
growing waves of open resistance to slave
labor and conditions of abuse, which is
eroding the structures put in place beginning nearly 50 years ago to repress the Prison Movement of that era, such as solitary
confinement.

From Yesterday’s Suppressed
Prison Movement
During the earlier wave of the Prison
Movement (of the 1960s-70s), when the
courts barred their doors against prisoners’
lawsuits seeking redress against the inhumane conditions that pervade U.S. prisons,
the prisoners rose up in resistance.
In a dialectical relationship their movement both informed and was informed by
revolutionary ideas then prevalent in the
broader social movements of the time,
which exposed and challenged the capitalist system. At the forefront of that movement was the original Black Panther Party
and allied groups on the outside and Comrades like George Jackson who formed the
BPP’s first prison chapter on the inside.
To suppress that movement and stamp
out its revolutionary consciousness, the Establishment began constructing and operating solitary confinement prisons and units
(called Supermaxes and Control Units) at
an unprecedented level. Beginning with
the Marion Control Unit which opened
in 1972, after the assassination of George
Jackson by guards, and the peaceful 1971
uprising at Attica State Prison that officials
suppressed by murdering 29 prisoners and

10 civilians, then tortured hundreds more,
sparking international outrage and exposure of the inhumane conditions in U.S.
prisons.
In a rare admission of the actual political
purpose of subsequent high security units,
Ralph Arons, a former warden at Marion,
testified in federal court: “The purpose of
the Marion Control Unit is to control revolutionary attitudes in prison and society at
large.”[1]
Alongside this repression also came concessions to the Prison Movement, including prison officials granting prisoners more
privileges and the federal courts opening
their doors to prisoner litigations challenging their living conditions. But this did not
last.
As the U.S. prison system expanded
eight-fold and solitary confinement units
contained prisoner resistance the concessions were rolled back and the courts soon
made rulings like Turner v. Safley[2] and
laws like the Prison Litigation Reform
Act[3] were enacted, that in effect reinstated the courts’ old “hands off” doctrine
towards prisoner lawsuits.

Oppression Breeds Renewed
Resistance
With these reversals abuse conditions intensified especially with the vastly expanded use of solitary confinement, a condition
which the U.S. Supreme Court found to be
cruel and unusual and constituted torture
back in the late 1800s,[4] and the attendant
enlargement of prison labor pools to be exploited as free workers. Under these conditions of heightened abuse and exploitation
a new Prison Movement has emerged and

is only growing.
At each stage of this new movement record numbers of prisoners have joined and
forged unity across racial and tribal lines
that the system has traditionally been able
to keep prisoners divided and controlled
by. Even more monumental is unity in
these struggles has been achieved not just
within individual prisons, but across entire
prison systems and now across the country,
with public support spanning the country
and reaching international levels.
This has and can only inspire greater
levels of resistance and help us refine our
forms of resistance, and methods of organizing and communication.
To these ends I’d like to summarize the
major events in today’s growing waves of
prison resistance and call on readers to join
and support the struggles to come.

And Resist We Have!
When in 2008 a migrant Jesus Manuel
Galindo was left to die in a solitary confinement cell from untreated epilepsy, hundreds of detainees at Reeves County Detention Complex in Pesos, TX took over the
complex and put it to the torch. Over $2
million in damage was reported in an uprising that united detainees from Cuba, Nigeria, Venezuela, and Mexico.
During December 2010, prisoners in
six Georgia prisons went on a mass strike,
protesting unpaid slave labor; solitary confinement, and other oppressive conditions.
Latinos, Blacks, whites, prison tribes of all
orientations, Muslims, etc. united in this
protest. Following the week-long strike,
two years later at Jackson State Prison,
where many of the 2010 strike leaders were
transferred to, a 44 day hunger strike was
staged as guards violently retaliated.
In 2011 and 2013 three historical mass
hunger strikes were undertaken by California prisoners protesting indefinite solitary confinement and other abuses, where
6,000, 12,000, and 30,000 prisoners respectively participated. Prisoners in other
states also joined the strike – in Virginia,
Oregon, Washington state, etc. This strike
united and was led by Blacks, Latinos, and
whites, and all the major California prison
tribes. Which led to a call by the prisoners
to end all racial and group hostilities, and
which Cali prison officials have repeatedly
tried to sabotage. This strike and unprecedented unity alongside legal challenges by
some strike leaders and participants forced
the Cali prison system to reform its long
2

term solitary confinement policies and release some 2,000 prisoners to general population in 2015.
Inspired by the 2010 GA prison strike, in
2013, prisoner leaders of the Free Alabama
Movement (FAM) called for a strike in protest of Alabama’s “running a slave empire”
and “incarcerating people for free labor”.
In January 2014, prisoners at four Alabama
prisons took up the strike. As a result of
FAM’s organizing efforts and collaborating
with the Industrial Workers of the World
(IWW), a committee within the IWW was
formed called the Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee (IWOC), which now
has over 800 imprisoned members in 46
states. The IWOC has since played an important support role in subsequent strikes
and building public support. Shortly after
the IWOC’s founding, the IWOC and the
New Afrikan Black Panther Party-Prison
Chapter united as allies in this work, and I
as a co-founder of the NABPP and numerous other NABPP members joined IWOC.
[5]
In 2014, all 1200 detainees at the Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma, Washington, went on a 56 day hunger strike,
which spread to the Joe Corley Detention
Center in Conroe, Texas, all protesting
oppressive
condi-tions at the facilities.
Outside protesters or-ganized in support of
the strikers.

At each stage of this new
movement record numbers of prisoners have
joined and forged unity
across racial and tribal
lines....
In April 2016, prisoners in seven Texas
prisons went on a work strike at the call
of leading comrades of the NABPP’s TX
branch and IWOC. The month before a
spontaneous uprising took place in Alabama at Holman prison, where the new
warden, Carter Davenport, known for his
role in physical assaults on prisoners, ended up on the receiving end of violence.
These initiatives in early 2016 inspired a
call to prisoners across the U.S. to engage
in a county-wide strike beginning on September 9, 2016, a date chosen to commemorate the 1971 Attica uprising.
September 9th proved historical as over
30,000 prisoners in up to 46 facilities in
24 states took up various forms of protest
from refusing to work, to hunger strikes, to
prison takeovers, to disrupting operations.

Outside protests took place in various cities
across the U.S. in support of the prisoners.
In response to the rising voices of prisoners resisting slave labor and abusive
treatment, on August 19, 2017, a March
on Washington was undertaken in support
of prisoners and against the 13th Amendment which, enacted at the end of the Civil
War in 1865, legalized enslavement of the
criminally convicted, in violation of international law written and ratified by the U.S.
after World War 2, which forbids all forms
of slavery and involuntary servitude.[6]
Shaken by the protests of September
2016, in an unprecedented move states like
Florida locked down their entire prison system hoping to head off any possible uprisings attending the August 19, 2017, Washington March. Florida went even further to
serve its prisoners special gourmet meals
during the entire four day lockdown (from
August 18-21).
Despite this move Florida prisoners
made an end run around officials and still
undertook a strike codenamed Operation
PUSH, beginning February 12, 2018, on
Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday. PUSH
involved prisoners across the state refusing to turn out for work and boycotting the
prison commissary. They were protesting
unpaid slave labor, price-gouging in the
system’s commissary and packaging services, the gain-time scam that replaced parole, compounded by extreme overcrowding caused by extreme sentencing, causing
inhumane conditions.
As Florida prison officials scrambled
to replace men who refused to work with
more compliant ones and transferred and
carted off strike participants to solitary confinement, they falsely reported to the media that no strike and no retribution against
participants occurred. An outright lie.
As one of Operation PUSH’s main outside supporters informed me in a letter during latter January 2018:
“I am receiving mail daily from prisoners
all over FL who are either participating in
Push or being retaliated against for having
literature or correspondence with outside
organizations that support the strike, such
as IWOC and FTP. Some have been outright threatened with punishments if they
continue to talk to us … There was only 6
weeks of planning and it was covered by
50 news outlets including Newsweek, The
Nation, Teen Vogue! I think we’re off to a
good start and the DOC is lying that no one
is participating.”
Not only this but I can bear witness to
The Kite

Florida officials’ lying about there being no
strike nor reprisals, because I also participated.
On the eve of the strike the warden at
Florida State Prison (FSP) had me and
nearly a dozen others with whom I was
known to socialize split up, which we’d anticipated. This did nothing to prevent our
planned boycott of the commissary for several weeks. In fact it allowed us to spread
the word.
Then on January 10th the warden had me
charged with a disciplinary report for inciting FL prisoners to riot, in retaliation for
me writing an article explaining the strikes
purpose and the prisoners’ need of public
support that was published online.[7] After
a prompt kangaroo hearing and conviction
of the infraction I was put in an unheated
cell with a broken window as outside temperatures dipped into the 20s, and guards
kept exhaust fans on 24/7 sucking the
freezing air into the cell.[8]
Yet another call went out, initiated by
any NABPP’s Comrade Malik for a renewed round of strikes across the U.S. to
begin on Juneteenth (June 19, 2018). As
I and several dozen prisoners at Florida’s
Santa Rosa prison where I was then confined prepared a commissary boycott for
this strike, and undertook to build unity
among the prisoners there in solitary (to
counter the culture of guard-manipulated
violence between them), I was abruptly interstate transferred back to my home state
of Virginia and promptly assigned to a permanent solitary confinement status called
Intensive Management.

The Struggle Continues
But the struggle doesn’t end there. A
broad call has gone out for a sustained
prison strike from August 21-September
9, 2018, for prisoners across the US. Participants are called on to participate in any,
several, or all of the following manners:
1. Work strikes: prisoners will not report to
assigned jobs. Each place of detention
will determine how long its strike will
last. Some of these strikes may translate
into a local list of demands designed to
improve conditions and reduce harm
within the prison.
2. Sit-ins: In certain prisons, people will
engage in peaceful sit-in protests.
3. Boycotts: All spending should be halted.
Those outside the walls are asked to not
make financial judgments for those on
the inside. People on the inside will inVolume 1, Number 2

form you if they are participating in this
boycott.
4. Hunger strikes: People shall refuse to
eat.
The strike will raise the following 10
general demands:
• 1. Immediate improvements to the conditions of prisons and prison policies
that recognize the humanity of imprisoned people.
• 2. An immediate end to prison slavery.
All persons imprisoned in any place of
detention under United States jurisdiction must be paid the prevailing wage in
their state or territory for their labor.
• 3. The Prison Litigation Reform Act
must be rescinded, allowing imprisoned
humans a proper channel to address
grievances and violations of their rights.
• 4. The Truth in Sentencing Act and Sentencing Reform Act must be rescinded
so that imprisoned humans have a possibility of rehabilitation and parole. No
humans shall be sentenced to Death
by Incarceration or serve any sentence
without the possibility of parole.
• 5. An immediate end to the racist overcharging, over-sentencing, and parole
denials of Black and Brown people.
Black people shall no longer be denied
parole because the victim of the crime
was white, which is a particular problem
in southern states.
• 6. An immediate end to racist gang enhancement laws targeting Black and
Brown people.
• 7. No imprisoned person shall be denied
access to rehabilitative programs at their
place of detention because of their label
as a violent offender.
• 8. State prisons must be funded specifically to offer more rehabilitative services.
• 9. Pell grants must be reinstated in all
U.S. states and territories.
• 10 The voting rights of all confined
citizens serving prison sentences, pretrial detainees, and so-called “ex-felons”
must be counted. Representation is demanded. All voices count!

Conclusion
Slavery and oppressive “containment” of
the marginalized and poor never ended in
Amerika. The 13th Amendment was passed
as a compromise to previous slave owners
whereby they could continue to exploit the
labor of disempowered people, but now
free of the burden of paying for their up-

keep. This was done at taxpayers’ expense.
This oppressive dynamic must continue to be resisted as must the inhumane
and dehumanizing conditions that attend
imprisonment in Amerika. It was only by
resistance that the slaves of the old antebellum slave system effectively countered
the lies and logic of the ruling powers of
that system erected by them to justify their
institutions of slavery; it was only by unifying in that resistance and sabotage and
ultimately fighting for their freedom, with
the support of outside allies and comrades,
that the slaves of the old South destroyed
the system as it was.
But it was only reformed into the system of penal slavery that it is now. So we
still have much work to do until slavery in
Amerika is abolished once and for all. ●
Dare to Struggle, Dare to Win!
All Power to the People!

NOTES
[1] Quoted in Stephen Whitman,
“The Marion Penitentiary – It Should be
Opened-Up Not Locked Down,” Southern
Illinoisan, August 7, 1988, p. 25.
[2] Turner v Safley, 482 U.S. 78 (1987),
basically established that if prisoner officials can invent a rational sounding justification for violating a prisoner’s established
constitutional rights the courts will allow
them to act illegally.
[3] The “PCRA” is a federal law passed
by Congress that makes it difficult for prisoners to sue in federal courts and get meaningful relief when they do. Many states
have adopted similar laws.
[4] See, In re Medley, 134 U.S. 160
(1890).
[5] Kevin “Rashid” Johnson, “Black
Cats Bond: The Industrial Workers of the
World and the New Afrikan Black Panther
Party-Prison Chapter.” http://rashidmod.
com/?p=1251
[6] See, Article 4 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states: “No
one shall be held in slavery or servitude;
slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms.”
[7] Kevin “Rashid” Johnson, “Florida Prisoners Are Laying it Down.”
(2018) http://rashidmod.com/?p=2498
[8] “How to Organize A Prison Strike,”
Pacific Standard (May 7, 2018) https://psmag.com/social-justice/how-to-organizea-prison-strike.

3

AROUSING THOUGHT WHILE BUILDING PUBLIC OPINION
Part 2
[This is the second part of a two part article. It was too long for all of it to fit into
our first issue of The Kite.]
By Jose H. Villareal
People’s Literature
n any social Movement throughout
history the momentum, at some point
when facing an oppressor, there will be
a need for the people’s side to be told. This
will mean that a people’s literature will be
needed and a cadre of writers will need to
be unleashed. This works to educate the
people who may be bystanders to the particular struggles while bringing more to
understand that we stand on the side of justice. Our version of history will require our
own writers.
In WHAT IS TO BE DONE Lenin describes the use of literature as a form of
war. He described this method of struggling via the pen as “exposure literature”
where in Russia in his day this literature
sought to expose working conditions of the
Proletariat and these writings were most
effective. The Russian proletariat were the
most revolutionary at the time in Russia. In
the same vein our people’s literature needs
to highlight the contradiction between prisoners and the state, shine a light on the
various forms of oppression that we face in
U.S. prisons.
Just as the state has propaganda, the
people need our propaganda arm as well.
This is possible via publishing no matter
what kind of concentration kamp we may
find ourselves in. Our writing should be
harvested from the people from the people
in the method of “from the masses, to the
masses”. Mao explains this process as follows”
“In all the practical work of our Party, all correct leadership is necessarily
“from the masses, to the masses”. This
means: take the ideas of the masses
(scattered and unsystematic ideas) and
concentrate them (through study turn
them into concentrated and systematic ideas), then go to the masses and
propagate and explain these ideas until
the masses embrace them as their own,
hold fast to them and translate them
into action, and test the correctness of
these ideas in such action. Then once
again concentrate ideas from the masses and once again go to the masses

I

4

so that the ideas are preserved in and
carried through. And so on, over and
over again in an endless spiral, with
the ideas becoming more correct, more
vital and richer each time. Such is the
Marxist theory of knowledge.”
From the masses to the masses is the process as Mao explained of taking the ideas
of the people and synthesize them in their
most advanced form and take them back
to the people. This method is repeated and
built on so that our ideas become more
advanced and closer to truth. Because our
social reality, along with all phenomenon
is constantly changing this process never
ends. We constantly need to assess and reassess the people’s thoughts and politicize
the most advanced theory.
It’s important that we arouse the Lumpen
to wield the power of the pen. Lit is a part
of culture and culture is an ideological
weapon, one we need to use in the class
struggle of the imprisoned Lumpen and
the state. Our target audience first and
foremost is prisoners. It is essential for the
prison mass to understand it is oppressed
and then to realize its power.
Political literature has a real role in the
building of true political power. An organ
in any mass movement is its scaffolding
which ensures a strong theoretical training
and guidance. This is important because in
any struggle, at some point it needs a definite political character. The prison struggle
for human rights is no different. If this is an
embryonic class struggle that we are facing
in prison than we cannot fall back on primitive modes of struggle, we need to ensure
we meet 21st century needs, this would include a strong propaganda arm.
Social media, the creation of pamphlets,
the production of solid articles and literature which deliver powerful portrayals of
prison oppression and our struggles to obtain justice should be pursued with as much
vigor as we can espouse.
A people’s literature should expose the
fallacy of the state while promoting independence of the oppressed internal nations
within the U.S. as well as the imprisoned
Lumpen. Such examples transform a people and ideologically unhitch the people
from the oppressor. As Lenin said it:
“From the moment all members of
society or even only the overwhelming
majority, have learned to administer
the state themselves have taken this

business into their own hands, have
“set up” control over the insignificant
minority of capitalists, over the gentry,
who wish to preserve their capitalist
habits, and over the workers who have
been completely demoralized by capitalism – from this moment the need for
government begins to disappear.”
A true people’s lit exposes the states errors at every turn. It also shows the people
ways in which to rely on our own efforts
and kicks state parameters and influence
to the curb. This is when as Lenin says the
need for the state becomes unnecessary in
the minds of the people.
There are dual struggles in constant battle within the people. These manifest in silence and speaking out. Through passivity
and activity and resistance and surrender.
These struggles will ultimately determine
the fate of our oppression. Paulo Freire
described ones perception as an “intervention” in an oppressive reality. One that is
not in the oppressor’s interest. The state
would rather prisoners not read of struggles
or revolutionary theory, of national liberation, nor of socialism because it weakens
its hold on our oppression. So, in this sense
it is a struggle in the realm of ideas.
Writing allows us to venture outside our
oppression and not only visualize a world
where our land is not is not occupied by the
oppressor nation, but identify steps which
overturn our oppression. The use of language is a rich medium full of a trove of
expression and lessons. The use of figurative language for example, is understood
in ways other than its literal meaning. Just
like the word Aztlan when used today in
discussing the Chican@ national territory,
we do not mean its HISTORICAL definition of the origin of the Mexica, rather of
what it implies to the Chicano@ nation
TODAY and is LAND.
The writer should understand words,
their power and the contradictions. Paulo
Freire defines the contradictions in words
as “reflection and action” where they are
fused together in a unity of opposites.
Words are at once reflective and active in
the consciousness of the reader, thus they
become transformative. It is then no surprise when we read history and how books
were targeted in oppressive societies, or
how the CDCR states that “gang leaders”
are held in the S.H.U’s. It is then no surprise why the state would want to prevent
The Kite

leaders of the oppressed from advancing
their knowledge and keeping revolutionary
theory away from its S.H.U’s. Amplified
analysis of these concentration kamps are
needed more today. We know this because
the state is attempting to smother this analysis so it is a signal to unleash it as never
before.
Prison theoreticians can’t theorize without the prison masses. Lumpen theory
without the Lumpen ain’t shit. Lumpen
theory should be one with, and provide a
clear translation of the challenges within
prisons and define ways to combat the oppressive constructs. This should be written from the oppressed perspective. This
is the only way to locate a real remedy to
our situation. Theory is important and its
core theorizing is teaching and teaching
is liberating. The essential act then of the
theoretician is to help the people to liberate themselves, not in the physical sense
at this stage, but through their ideas. Their
thought should advance, grow and expand
in ways that benefit the oppressed and distinguish the oppressor.
The oppressor nation understands the
danger of a thinking Lumpen. This is because it will ultimately be the Lumpen and
Third World people who finally put this
baby to sleep. So prisoners have a major
role in the future of this society, being of
the Lumpen class, prisoners when politically conscious are amongst the state’s biggest threats. Organized Lumpen are the
states enemy. The state fully grasps this, its
why so many are tortured in isolation concentration kamps. The prison writer when
striking up theory, is almost like a translator who delivers these truths to these control units and beyond.
Oppressors Literature
As we begin to delve deeper into what
a people’s literature is, this analysis would
not be complete without studying its opposite which is the oppressor’s literature and
propaganda. One cannot fully understand
any phenomenon without also studying its
opposite because one cannot know what
propels the other to struggle.
First, it’s important to understand that as
prisoners our oppressor (the state) controls
the media as far as main stream news outlets etc. The bourgeois press is the states
mouthpiece so they support the states view
on its war on the poor. The poor are often
labeled as “criminals” and worse by the
press. Because of the oppressors grip on
power it has not just controlled the overVolume 1, Number 2

all culture within U.S borders for hundreds
of years, but we were all mostly born and
raised with the oppressor’s view of history, of world events, of what is right and
wrong. The oppressor has framed what is
morally right for us and our ancestors. We
have all attended the oppressors “schools”
(brainwash kamps) and have learned to act
in self-destructing ways.
The oppressor has been so crafty that
many Third World peoples have been brainwashed into believing they are a part of the
oppressor nation, even when they stand on
land stolen from their people by this same
oppressor. It’s incredible. At some point in
the process of consciousness the oppressed
will be faced with some critical junctures
in the path forward. Freire describes these
predicaments of the oppressed as:
“Their ideal is to be men, but for
them, to be men is to be oppressors.
This is their model of humanity, this
phenomenon derives from the fact that
the oppressed at a certain moment of
their existential experience adopt an
attitude of “adhesion” to the oppressor. Under these circumstances they
cannot “consider” him sufficiently
clearly to objectivize him to discover
him “outside” themselves”…..and
Freire here even goes so far as saying
“the one pole aspires not to liberation,
but to identification with its opposite
pole.”
So, Freire reveals that the reality of oppression can end up blurring the lines of
oppressed vs oppressor to the point where
some model the oppressor and seek out
those same trinkets that lure the individualist out into the abyss. Rather than wanting to get free, the oppressed can end up
wanting to be oppressors. This is the real
danger that is at hand for any people who
suffer oppression. This process is nothing
new, it is no big shocker and is not being
discovered in this writing because we can
look back to history and see it re-appear
over and over, it should then not surprise
us if it arises in U.S. prisons.
When we are dealing with the oppressor’s literature or press we have an uphill
battle for sure. Writers are fighting a war
of words, with the people’s writers on one
side and our oppressor’s writers on the
other side. So we should understand that
one of their main weapons in these battles
is to label us as “criminals.” For most out
in society the term “criminal” frightens
them. Some prisoners may even become
demoralized by this term, but we should

understand this term since it is used against
us so much.
“Crime” in the U.S. is debatable, because what is considered a crime in this
society may not be a crime if this were
another society. Crimes in the U.S. are political because we live in a political society. Because we live under an occupation,
where the laws are the laws of the oppressor nation, the colonizers rules, it means
its laws are questionable to say the least.
When we liberate our land and rid it of the
oppressor we can install people’s courts to
determine what crime will be. Occupying
another people’s land will surely be seen
as a crime.
One author described crime as follows:
“There can be no universal theory
for “crime”, because it is defined by
the shifting boundaries of the law and
law enforcement, and the objectives of
a given ruling class.”
Here the author reveals how laws in any
given society are created by those in power. In the U.S. the ruling class has created
laws which in most cases reinforces the
oppressive nature of our reality. The poor
are criminalized in ways which secure the
states grip on power. The term “criminal”
is more if their propaganda which is used
to divide the people and ensure that those
on the bottom of the heap receive no support from anyone outside their class. So
that even within one’s particular nationality they are separated from the rest of their
respective nation and looked down upon as
a “criminal”.
Because the oppressor controls the press
and official documents as well as the laws
they can write falsehood and not only will
much of the public believe it but many prisoners may as well. Recently CDCR passed
out a new “Notice of Change to Regulations” dated 6-9-15 which states in part:
“There is no ‘solitary confinement’
in California prisons and the SHU is
not ‘solitary confinement’. Many SHU
inmates in fact have cellmates. The
conditions of confinement in CDCR
facilities, including the SHU have
been reviewed and monitored by external agencies, including the office of
the Inspector General.”
I read this notice, which is becoming
the rules to the prisons in Califas, and as
I sat in solitary confinement I read about
how the state is saying there is no solitary
confinement. It made me think what our
situation would be like if no prison writers
existed and the only thing that people out
5

in society learned about prisons was from
the oppressor. It would be a sad situation.
The oppressor’s press will continue to
write, as CDCR Director Beard did in his
op ed for the L.A. Times during our hunger
strike. By prisoners not engaging in creating literature which promotes our struggles
it will not make the oppressor stop its literary offensive, it will only give up this
battlefield to the oppressor.
Conclusion:
Education is something that the state attempts to keep out of our reach if it in our
true interests. Their attempts to ban publications and writings from prisoners in
recent times reflects this. This is because
revolutionary education leads to CONSCIOUSNESS. Consciousness is the key
to one’s deliverance from oppression of
all types. Prison writers are the visionaries which take the prison experience and
translate it to others in prison and outside
of these concentration kamps. The prison
theoretician see’s those path’s which are
not yet cut and inject theory into our world
so that others can build on these thoughts.
One of our strength’s even as prisoners
is in our writing. This is one way that we
express what cannot be expressed in any
other way because of our location.
The prison writer captures history
and enshrines it in annals of the people’s
thought. Imprisoned writers should propagate Lumpen thought and keep it moving
toward complete liberation of the people.
There are many ways in which an oppressed people can struggle. Revolutionaries in Turkey for example had their armed
underground wing “Kurdistan Workers
Party” (PKK), which has an urban semiunderground wing called “Union of Communities in Kurdistan” (KCK) and an
above ground liberal wing called “Peace
Democracy Party” (BDP) which has seats
in the Turkish Parliament. They correctly
understand that there is a need for the oppressed to struggle on different levels. This
is because there are different spheres to the
oppressor.
Prison writers need to be unleashed and
work toward combatting the state propaganda. We need our own press and our own
cadre of powerful writers. ●
Mother Jones said: "I have never had
a vote, and I have raised hell all over
this country. You don't need a vote to
raise hell! You need convictions and a
voice!."
6

CARCERAL ABLEISM AND DISABILITY
JUSTICE
The following is adapted from the Rustbelt Abolition Radio episode “Carceral
Ablism and Disability Justice’, featuring an interview with Liat-Ben Moshe,
co-editor of ‘Disability Incarcerated: Imprisonment and Disability in the United
States and Canada’. To read or listen to the
full interview, visit https://rustbeltradio.
org/2018/01/10/ep13
Edited by Emily Sarah Gendler Zisette

L

iat Ben-Moshe: What I think is
really important is that when we
think about abolition as only tearing down, what it leads us to is what James
Kilgore calls carceral humanism. And what
I would call carceral ableism, really. It’s
this idea that we can make a more humane
carceral state. […] We can do things that
alleviate the suffering of people right now,
in terms of the current prison conditions.
And one of the things that’s problematic
with that approach alone is exactly this difference, between tearing down and building anew.
So rehabilitation is also imbued in these
kinds of carceral logics. Because we know
from people who […] psychiatric survivors, people who identify as mad, crazy,
consumers, ex-patients, anti-psychiatry,
these are all different definitions that people
might umbrella under. They tell us that for
a lot of them, forced medication for example, hospitalization, these are also imbued
within the same kind of carceral logics that
try to rehabilitate the productive citizen.
Which is of course based on white, settler,
male, able bodied, straight, all these kind
of norm inducing ideas of what productive
means. And so to create this kind of model
citizens through rehabilitation, and this is
something that we also know from scholars who have done work on the connection
between prison and settler colonialism especially in the US, is that the work of rehabilitation is the work of the settler state.
The point is to rehabilitate the savage, to
create this modern, educated citizen which
is never the indigenous. Never the person
of color, never the disabled person, and so
on. And of course, not the intersections of
all these.
And so, if we understand rehabilitation
as that, it’s a form of violence. And so this
is not an alternative to incarceration, this
is a form of a carceral logic. And if we
connect that to DuBois, again we should

really be cautious about the difference between creating the new or reproducing the
old. The point is not to assimilate people
into the society as it is now, the point is to
completely change what we have now, including abolishing systems like racism and
capitalism. Which is something that rights
movements not necessarily are prepared to
do, especially with capitalism and settler
colonialism, maybe racism too.
And so if a rights movement is more
about fighting for the rights to employment
for people with disabilities, I would say
disability justice would be more concerned
about people’s value, regardless of whether
or not they’re employed. So this idea of
going beyond the productive citizen, that’s
more out of the purview of the disability
rights movement. […] But what disability
studies, I think, does really, really well is to
talk about how disability is constructed by
the social. And the social could also be economical, the social could also be geographical, the social could also be environmental
– and all of those connections – but it’s to
convey that disability is not in people. It’s
not in people, it’s not in minds, it’s not in
bodies. It’s in the interface of those things
with environments, and societies, and cultures, and histories. The idea that disability
is not inferior, so difference by itself does
not need to be in a hierarchy. So if we just
had disability by itself, in which people are
just different, I don’t think we would be
having this kind of conversation even. The
fact is that disability is in a hierarchy, by
which able-bodiedness or able-mindness,
is definitely superior to disability. And that
is the problem, and that is the problem that
we seek to abolish.
So what disability studies does really
well, is to connect movements who see disability as a form of identity and pride. Take
pride in their identity, and it doesn’t mean
that they everyday wake up and say, “Oh,
I’m disabled and beautiful, and proud! And
everything is sunny and roses, and I get all
the services I need, and I live a happy life!”.
No. But it’s really I think radical, to think
about disability as beautiful, and to think
about disability as part of biodiversity. And
to think about disability as something that
we can be proud of, even if we are not always are. Just like we’re not always proud
of being queer, we’re not always proud of
being women, and sometimes it’s shitty.
[Interviewer] a Maria: What are a
The Kite

couple of examples of the intersections between race and disability, as well as imprisonment?
Liat Ben-Moshe: Absolutely, that’s a
great question. We’re close to Flint, as
just one example of what’s going on right
now. In terms of population of people of
color, poor people, that are going to have
very high rates of disability unfortunately.
Because of lead based poisoning. This is
just one example of so, so many that are
connecting the intersection of race and disability. And there’s a lot of historical connections of that kind. In an article that I did
with Jean Stewart, we talk a lot about that
intersection, especially in regards to environmental induced disabilities in prisons.
So we talk about a few examples of particular prisons that were built on sites that
were known to be environmentally toxic,
and a kind of production of disability that
happens because of the legacy of the toxicity of those sites. And this is going to affect
people’s lives for a very long time, sometimes even generationally.
a Maria: How does the devaluation of
disabled people because of their supposedly “non-productive” embodiment connect to racial capitalism’s rendering of
particular populations as “surplus,” or “redundant” from the vantage point of capital?
Liat Ben-Moshe: The reason why I
think it’s really important to understand
it from those angles is because, as a disabilities studies scholar and as an activist,
I think we understand disability a little bit
differently maybe than the way a lot of
people understand disability. I think the
way a lot of people understand disability, is that impairment, as something that
makes you not being able to do something.
And the way that we understand disability
within disability justice, disability studies,
is that disability is really the interaction
between people and their environment. So
for a lot of us, we wouldn’t be disabled if
it weren’t for environmental barriers that
are put in place. And these barriers could
be capitalism, but it could also be people’s
attitudes, and it could also be not having
ramps or having interpreters, or not having
everybody speak sign language, or communicating only orally. Or all these kind of
things that we decided as a society, that we
are going to do. So this is not something
in people’s bodies, but it’s the connection
between people’s bodies and the societies
in which they live, and the environments in
which we live.
So for example, people talk to themVolume 1, Number 2

selves. In certain cultures, this is considered a sign of being closer to some kind of
deity or god. Not to romanticize any of this,
but of course somebody would do that in
this society, we incarcerate them. So our response is to do the exact same behavior that
people have, are very different culturally,
and are also very different across time and
geographical areas and so on. And so, if we
understand both race and disability in this
kind of way as really socially constructed,
I think it’s really important to talk about
that intersection as well. So I’m really interested in talking about the intersection
of impairment and race, but also the intersection of disability and race, as a cultural
marker. And in both of those ways, they’re
both devalued.
This really leads us to think about the
surplus populations that you mentioned.
So if we take that to understand disability
and race as being socially constructed, well
often within capitalist societies, which of
course is what we live in. And not just capitalism, but racial capitalism, and settler racial capitalism in the US case, then we can
think about how do we reproduce disability
and race. Especially their intersection, as
a kind of burden on society. And when we
think about who are the burdens on society,
the “disposable” bodies, and I’m saying
burden of course with quotations. I don’t
really mean that, but I mean from the point
of view of settler, racial capitalism.
Well, these are the unproductive that we
talked about earlier, the need of the state to
make people productive. So the unproductive would be people of color, particularly
men of particular age, and we know that
they are worth much more to the gross domestic product when they are in prison. Occupying prison beds, and it doesn’t matter
if the prison is for profit or not. The same
logic happens in both, so it’s not just about
private prisons. But they’re worth more
to the gross domestic product if they’re in
prison, than they are when they’re not. And
the same is true for people with disabilities, and of course people who are disabled
of color, are worth more in nursing homes,
and in institutions, and in prisons, than they
are in their own beds.
This is what Martha Russell called
“handicapitalism”, it’s a “great” alchemy
that capitalism does where it makes the
unproductive into super productive. And
we created this whole industry of both the
prison industrial complex, but also the institutional industrial complex, and also the
health industry. What are social workers,

for example? Case managers, occupational
therapists, all these professions, they’re
built on the backs of people with disabilities. A lot of whom are of course, people of
color. And I’m not saying these are not professions to be had, I’m not saying people
don’t deserve if they need to, to go to an occupational therapist or something like that.
But what I’m saying is, that it’s really interesting that those are the people we see as
burdens. And yet they bring so much profit
into the economy at large, and if they didn’t
exist, we didn’t have all these other professions. So that’s a really interesting dynamic
that we often don’t talk about.
EPILOGUE
Andres: The foundational imbrications
of ableism and the carceral state are evident
not only in the marked overrepresentation
of disabled people within formal sites of
incarceration, and among the survivors of
police violence, but moreover in the forms
of surveillance, discipline, and confinement
that structure a host of institutions typically
understood as outside the purview of the
carceral state, such as: nursing homes, psychiatric institutions, and rehabilitation centers, among them. Moore turns our attention to the generative relationship between
disability justice and abolition. If abolition
means creating a world in which, as Ruth
Wilson Gilmore puts it, “there is no boundary or border [used to] keep somebody in
or keep somebody out[,]” then abolition
must be the practice of dismantling the violent walls erected by ableism and imagining a world in which a great diversity of
bodyminds can flourish. ●

Editorial Comments
If you are planning to participate in
the natiuonal work strike, the editors of
this newsletter urge that it be orderly and
peacefully carried out. We don't have to tell
you how the public will react to violence
and property destruction. This is what your
captors want. Don't oblige them.
The root of the failure of self-givernment
at Walla Walla during the early 1970s was
the unwillingness of that government to enforce discipline within the population.
Were I on the inside right now, I would
be ensuring that hot-heads witrhin the popuilation were under firm control. Any society must have rules and, at this point in
human history, that includes the means to
enforce those rules.
Until next month, good luck.
7

NOTHING NEW
By Mutope Duguma
An End To Hostilities” is an agreement/document that was brought forth
to build Peace amongst the Prison
Class, which means that strong communication between the groups will to be used
to end any problems that may surface within prisons.
We prisoners had to come to terms with
the realization that our inactions have allowed prison officials to suppress us under
their Social Tyranny, where we have been
held hostage in what we call ‘protracted
violence.’ From 1979 to 2009, prison violence would devastate prisoners throughout
CDCr, and sadly would do the same to our
communities, where we would also be conditioned to this violence inside of California prisons. Based on gathered intelligence,
there has never been an impartial nor thorough investigation into how prison officials
allowed such violence to occur as well as
spread into our communities.
Prisons, no matter what their classification levels, I, II, III or IV, are very dangerous environments. They house mostly
young people; those who suffer from drugs
and alcoholism. Least we cannot forget
those undeveloped minds, which have yet
to become rational thinking men and women. Therefore, it’s relatively easy to socially engineer prisoners under social tyranny
by manipulating conflicts that lead to their
destruction.
Prison officials have total control over
all prisoners held in CDCr and this affords
them the power to impose their will upon
prisoners as they try to see fit.
So, prisons and citizens of this country
should not be surprised to see that CDCr is
managing prisoners with violence in order
to secure their best interest: Higher Pay and
Job Security. Peaceful prisons go against
CDCr agenda, and therefore, violence has
to be its trademark.
This explains why CDCr would want to
disturb the current peace achieved by more
experienced prisoners who have built solidarity around our “Agreement to End All
Hostilities” (AEH). CDCr needs to ‘come
clean’ and take responsibility for their role
in fueling so much of the violence between
prisoners.
The million-dollar question for all tax
payers is: Why disturb such a Peace???
Case and Point:
1. It was CDCr who manipulated the racial
violence between prisoners by putting

“

8

them against one another, favoring one
group over the other, in respects to Jobs,
etc. I been in Calipatria three (3) years,
and there have been countless incidents
where staff attempted to instigate or agitate violence amongst prisoners, but due
to our AEH we have been able to counter these attacks through Sound Communication, rooted in respect for what
is right!!!
2. It was CDCr who created the debriefing
program that put prisoners against prisoners that led to thousands of prisoners
becoming informants (i.e., snitches) and
this was done by torturing each of these
prisoners held in solitary confinement
units, that forced many of them into being informants.
3. It was CDCr who created the indeterminate SHU program that held men
and women indefinitely inside of solitary confinement units, through a gang
validation process that allowed them to
remove all the “unfavorable” prisoners
off general population, where prisoners
where held for decades; the longest up
to 44 years.
4. It was CDCr who created the Sensitive
Needs Yards (SNY), which is one third
(1/3) of the prison population today…
SNY prisoners who are, or were, “keep
aways” from general population prisoners for various reasons such as: informants, child molesters, rapists, Elderly,
etc., all of whom requested to be placed
in protected custody.
5. It was CDCr who set up the Gladiator
Fights inside Corcoran State Prison Security Housing Unit – CSP-SHU in the
1980s, that led to seven (7) prisoners
being murdered in cold blood and thousands of prisoners being wounded and
beat on in these conflicts instigated and
agitated by CDCr officials.
6. It was CDCr who did away with all the
positive incentive programs that led to
the hopelessness that we see throughout
cdcr today.
7. It was CDCr who did away with nutritious foods and went to non-nutritious
foods, starting in 1997, that is today having an adverse effect on prisoners health
and behavior.
These failures on CDCr’s, part led to
deadly consequences for prisoners. The
senseless violence we experienced in the
past is now being introduced again by
CDCr, who continue to find ways to socially engineer prisoners under Social Tyranny… The claim that they (CDCr) will

be able to determine if prisoners want to
go home or not is total BS, by integrating
SNYs and GP prisoners who should’ve
never been separated in the first place.
Those of us who were manipulated into
this violence have first-hand experience on
how it works, and we are doing what we
can to educate those prisoners who don’t
see the un-seen hand of CDCr. Because,
unlike our past, we are today very mature
thinking men and women who have taken
responsibility for our roles inside the manmade madness, by coming together and
establishing An End To All Hostilities,
whereas the Four (4) Principle Groups
agreed on their word alone to end this prison violence amongst the races, which has
saved countless lives thus far today.
What is CDCr’s objective to off-set the
many positive programs/ policies that s
affording prisoners the opportunity to go
home? CDCr’s objective, as always, is that
Peace goes against their bottom line: Profiting off Prisoners.
So, as long as CDCr officials want to use
violence in order to secure their income,
there will be violence in prisons. (See recent article by Nashelly Chavez, May
27, 2018, titled: California Prisons Phase
out ‘Sensitive Needs Yards’ Critics See A
Rough Transition.)
We are an expendable source, therefore,
our lives have no value to our keepers. It
is us who put value in our lives and this
is where our power comes from, Reclaiming our Humanity. The violence is Nothing
New. ●
One Love - One Struggle’
Mutope Duguma
Mutope Dugumais at CSP Calipatria. He
is a member of the Human Rights Movement First Amendment Campaign and
PLEJ for Liberation and is a prolific author, with articles published in the SF Bay
View and many other places, including his
website, http://www.mutopeduguma.org.
Write to Mutope at Mutope Duguma (s/n
J. Crawford), D-05996, CSP Calipatria
B-5, C-242, P.O. Box 5005, Calipatria, CA
92233-5005.

See, They Are Employable
BOISE, Idaho (AP) — Idaho prison officials say 364 inmates hacked the JPay
tablets they use for email, music and games
and collectively transferred nearly a quarter
million dollars into their own accounts.
The Kite

Hi Kite!
Just heard about your newsletter from the
folks at Causerie. Please place me on your
mailing list.
There is an exciting amount of collective
action going on in my neck of the woods
here at Monroe Correctional ComplexWashington State Reformatory (MCCWSR). Here we have the Black Prisoners Caucus (BPC) and Concerned Lifers
Organization (CLO). Both these groups
are led by currently incarcerated people &
work from prison abolitionist & consensus
frameworks. The ‘UniversityBeyondBars.
org’ (UBB) is an AA degree program which
was originally a BPC project & now is it’s
own separate organization. Healing Education and Accountability for Liberation
(HEAL) grew out of a collaboration between the CLO & BPC to bring the InsightPrisonProject.org (IPP) in California up to
Washington State.
[HEAL] gives us incarcerated folks an
opportunity to participate in restorative
justice healing circles. ‘Unloop.org’ is another education program, this one focused
on computer programming. It brings Web
developer programs into the prison & helps
graduates from the program upon release
get internships & the basic gear they will
need to be a programmer.
While it sounds super exciting that all
this wonderful work is happening at MCCWSR, let us contrast with Washington State
Penitentiary West Complex (WSP-WC)
where I did eight years closed custody
time. There is no group there which runs
on consensus or is so much as informed
by prison abolition. They have programs
there like thinking about your thinking &
anger management & control training. For
a short time there was a Toastmasters Club,
however, administration shut it down by
revoking the sponsor badges of the wonderful people who came into the prison &
allowed us to have a club. The administration used similar tactics to halt religious &
other programs from existing. No WICCA
circle, no Jewish services, rarely Muslim
services, even AA (alcoholics anonymous)
was shut down through this tactic for five
of the eight years I was there. The reason
this tactic works is because according to
DOC policy incarcerated people cannot
meet without someone from outside the
prison coming in to sponsor the group.
Volume 1, Number 2

Thus, if administration wants to discriminate against pagans, Jews, Muslims or
other groups, by policy they can by simply
pulling or not issuing sponsor badges to the
people that want to volunteer their time in
the prison. Even groups that already have
sponsors live in constant fear of this. The
Jewish community here at WSR has had a
thriving program for many years that was
nearly destroyed by the Chaplin here by
simply taking away the volunteers’ sponsor
badges.
So here’s your mission, should you
choose to accept it. Fill out the paperwork
on the DOC web-site to be a sponsor at
your local prison. There are about a dozen
scattered across the state. Even if you can
only commit to showing up once a month,
add three other people to that & suddenly
there’s a weekly program. Or maybe you
join an already existing program. It takes
over a dozen volunteers to make the UBB
work any given week & who knows, maybe you will be the last sponsor standing that
keeps a program alive when the next time
the DOC tries to arbitrarily shut down a
program.
However that plays out, there are thousands of men, women & children being
warehoused in Washington State’s part of
the PIC. We need you.
In solidarity, Amber Kim,

Abolish ICE
Solidarity with those detained (children,
women, and men) by immigration and Cus-

LETTERS

LETTERS

toms Enforcement and the families you are forcibly kept from.
You are held in those for profit
gulags, whose aims are to maintain a rotten nationalist- racistcapitalistic social order. The August 21st National Prison Strike
called for strikes and boycotts
in and against those so called
immigration detentions for a reason, to acknowledge for the world that our struggles
are not separate.
The Prison Industrial Slave Complex is a
massive dehumanization business. With the
ongoing rages against the detentions, we
now feel justified in our call for National
Strikes and outside protests against these
places (immigration, federal, state, and
jails) that for the most part are warehouses
of human bodies.
Those occupying the so called immigration detentions must not allow a small
concession by a policy change make you
go away. You hold the keys to change. A
full demand to abolish Immigration and
Customs Enforcement should be the only
resolution on the table. Otherwise the same
problems will persist. Strike now, and strike
hard while the momentum is going. August
21, thousands of prisoners in other places
of detention will be joining at all costs.
We will keep the beam on so called immigration. No let up.
Educate, organize, mobilize! Resist!
Abolish ICE!
Emily Sarah Gendler Zisette

9

Solid Black Fist
A new Seattle-based newsletter
for prisoners. A Solid Black Fist
can be reached at the following
address. This is a great newsletter--a hudred percent behind the
struggle for justice. Write for a
sample copy:
Solid Black Fist
14419 Greenwood Ave. N. Suite
A #132

Seattle, WA 98133
I am no longer accepting
the things I cannot change,

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Shout Out Box
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Heights for subscribing to The
Kite newsletter, and then going on to buy four more subscriptions for other prisoners
of our choice.

I am changing the things I
cannot accept.

Rock On!

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