This essay from Malik was written at the end of March 2026 while in custody at Eastern Oregon Correctional, shortly before they were transferred to South Carolina.
There’s a pattern here: for the last 3 years Ramadan, I’m targeted. I’m snatched from mainline and taken to the hole under “Investigation”. I’m hit with some bogus “Unauthorized Organization” and I’m locked away in the hole for the rest of the year. It’s often that those targeted in prison, those considered activists or revolutionaries are sent to the hole, not for something they’ve done, but for what the administration thinks we MIGHT do. For them, it’s better to be preemptive. Not unlike the U.S. and Israel’s “preemptive” strikes on Iran. It’s just a cover for doing what they want anyways.
For 3 years, I’ve been dealing with this, now I’m here again, spend my Ramadan in the hole again due to nothing more than white fragility. The white male ego. Hurt at the notion that not only do I not like or respect the fascist state, but there’s a whole wide network of folks who also hold hatred for the state and do no think what they do is a “public good”, but rather, a genocide. Slavery by another name.
So I sit in the hole for “Disrespect” in talking to my partner on the phone about my frustrations with C.O.’s [ed.: Correctional Officers]. I was given 14 days – that ended on March 16. They refuse to return me, instead placing me on “STM hold” indefinitely [ed.: Security Threat Management]. No cause. But then, the state doesn’t need a reason to repress us – they need reasons NOT to.
The real reason for all this? Enlightening people, giving people knowledge. I was buying books for people, studying books like “Blood In My Eye”, Settlers, “Open Veins Of Latin America”, studying black anarchist thought from Lucy Parsons to William C. Anderson, Martin Sostre to Lorenzo Irvin and more. That was my true crime. With the book ban nationwide, there’s a clampdown on literature. Oregon just relies heavily on division, racism, politics and drugs to keep people inundated. So when they see a multiracial group of guys studying together, discussing global politics, the intersectionality of oppression, deconstructing they systems that work to create our material conditions, studying the history of movements and people in resistance and defiance together – that disturbed them. Give oppressed people the books with which to liberate themselves – EDUCATION – they lose their fucking minds. The truth of the matter is: you cannot have a mind that knows itself. In order to break free, one must be acutely aware of being a slave.
So the true reason I sit in segregation again is the same as always – fear. Fear of blacks, fear of potential unknowns, those they cannot control. They ask that I be “friendly” and talk with staff, they ask me to apologize for my conversation and not “see staff as enemies”. I will not. I will not censor myself. I will not capitulate. I’ll leave prison saying “Fuck 12” as I did coming in. Pigs are swine, not friends. ACAB includes CO’s too. No matter the hole you put me in, I will not break my principles. You cannot suppress the people forever. That spark of knowledge will grow and spread, with me in the hole or not.
Love, Rage & Solidarity,
~ Malik