I just had a long conversation about how to we can make prisons suck less, cuz California has phones in their cells, they have free or 4¢/min phone calls, tablets, conjugal visits. This prison in CA had outside food every week, BBQs on the yard, ice cream, long yard times, Xboxes, new movies as fast as they could come out, cologne, restrooms when you wanted, pick your own cells, food vouchers, etc. you get the idea. Lots of incentives.
Now on the one hand, it don’t matter how pretty you make your oppressive conditions, it’s still state repression and oppression. No matter how you dress it, it’s unacceptable and has no place in our society. That being said, the goal for abolition should not change to achieve incentives, no matter how great or nice they are – the goal is abolition now! Not reform. But with that also being said, I can’t shake the desire, the need to raise the inmate population’s state of being. I have a set date, I’ll never get out earlier than June 15, 2031, unless our president and governor both pardon me, which is entirely not likely. They’d more likely pardon my state case in order to get me sent to the feds to repress me more if I keep agitating. Of course, that wouldn’t change my goals, just the venue, and caliber of individual.
My date won’t change, but some guys don’t have dates, some will die here with hopes and dreams (that is, unless they can stay around long enough to be liberated when we empty these cages, because believe me, that day will come), so if they’re gonna be confined to this repression till death, then why not give them some hospice care? Make it more comfortable, make it more viable for them to make it to liberation?
Now, I know this advocates the idea of “improving” prison conditions, which as an abolitionist I stand against, due to the fact that while it benefits “them”, it also gives credence and justification to the existence of prisons as a whole. As we seek to “humanize’ prisons, in the same breath we co-sign for their existence. That being said, what I’m wanting in raising the conditions of prisoners here in the state and elsewhere isn’t relegated to improving conditions for the sake of giving people a comfortable place to die, but rather, through the process of improvement, ignite a spark, a light to show everyone the power of unity. The power we have, the same as in the real world.
See, prison is a microcosm of society. On the streets we have state sympathizers, i.e. “bootlickers”, they have rats and people who are “content” and refuse to fight for change, or even acknowledge the need for change. There’s people who are against their own best interest or that of their class and fellow oppressed people. And of course, there will be those who will benefit for what we struggle for, though a lot of people will work up to their potential and their own devices as the struggle goes on. I’m of the thought process that ACTION should proceed the plan.
The main excuse for people not acting is due to “too many rats” or “people are too complicit”, etc. whatever. If I believed that, I wouldn’t rightly want to live, because that would mean it’s not possible in the real world, plus that would mean our brother Jackson (rest in power) wasn’t on to anything, that would mean all our fellow warriors died in vain. Fuck that! Right now, this population (like the real world) is so beat down and passive and downtrodden, bogged down with the bleak state of reality in here that they don’t just fear fighting for change, they also fear what that will look like. They’ve accepted their masters’ crumbs from the table and don’t want to “mess up , a good thing”, like the modern day “house nigger”. I don’t use that term lightly, and I use it with contempt, because for me, nothing matters more than “the people”, and I mean all the oppressed people of the world, and that would hold even if OSP has it “good”.
What about prisoners at Snake River? What about us at EO [Eastern Oregon]? Or our brothers at Two Rivers? Or our comrades at OSCI? How are they faring? How is our complacency indirectly affecting them? I can think of one way: the more we accept here, the more they send away any who make waves, so as to not have so many real guerrillas in one spot, because there’s strength in numbers.
For example, if there were 100 niggas like me, ready for war, we decide “fuck it, I’m not paying $2.70 per phone call, I want phones in our cells, and I want my own tablet, I want our feeds back and BBQ’s, etc.” whatever, right – if we came to that conclusion, 100 headstrong niggas not afraid more time or shit, but some of us here for life!? Fuck no – we could make the decision to send a rep to the admin with demands stating that every day we don’t get what we want, we not leaving the yard and we firing on pigs once a day and we fuck em up – boom! We occupy the yard, place 50 of us at every exit and entrance to the yard so any dissenters will think twice before trying to leave, and the pigs see us ready to fight anyone they send. The remaining 50 stay on line and beat up a pig once a day, bad, till our demands are met. That type of shit, you know?
Now, with the current complacency, ANYONE who even looks like they will make waves is carted to the hole under investigation for “unauthorized organization” etc. then split up and sent to other facilities where the culture is more passive too because everyone has felt the impact of trying to resist. Or you’re just out of place so bad, like at Snake River where every guard is racist and they like fighting and treating you like shit and taking you to the hole, etc. Similar to the complacency here in the U.S., reverberating through the world is exploitation and oppression. Whatever affects the one directly, indirectly affects the rest. We could look at OSP as the U.S., to bring the other countries (facilities) to heel, we need to take on OSP (U.S.). A tall order? Perhaps, but nothing worth doing came without risk, insurmountable odds, and when you think about it, sometimes the only thing it takes to ensure the suffering and exploitation and oppression of millions is to die of natural causes, i.e. complacency.
All of this is to say, I still have a strengthened resolve, cuz I have a challenge! If I can help show these people our power when we come together, that’d be the dream, if in the process we gain incentive for those who will have to endure after I’ve gone, well then awesome! If we can make them accustomed to coming together for what they want and fighting to keep what they have, that’d make me happy, because one day they will be liberated, I just don’t want them to fear taking their freedom, like those John Brown freed. This push to improve conditions does not legitimize the state’s “authority” to lock humans in cages – no, it legitimizes our potential power. It aids us to dream that we can attain things together, it may even dare someone or “someones” to take their freedom!
But I digress, lol, I’m only one man who knows if I could do anything, but freedom is a constant struggle, and those of us who want it cannot rest till it comes. So I’ll struggle and fight even if I’m alone fighting for people who don’t even see the problem but will benefit in the end, that’s ok. Cuz look, no matter how “good” we got it, if some suffer, I fight on. Call it a “crusade” or whatever, I don’t care, it’s me, I got a fight to fight. As Jackson said, “If my enemies, your enemies, prove stronger, at least I want them to know they made one righteous African man extremely angry”.
Love, rage & solidarity ~ Malik