tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-81569079895172044222024-03-14T01:05:24.681-07:00Mutope DugumaArchive of writings of Mutope Duguma, who is a member of the Pelican Bay Human Rights Movement First Amendment Campaign<br>
Mutope Duguma (s/n J. Crawford), D-05996, LAC B-5-C-141 - P.O. Box 4490 Lancaster, CA 93539-4490 <br>Mutopeduguma.orgAPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09038968777225549885noreply@blogger.comBlogger47125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8156907989517204422.post-13766447289810563992021-03-17T20:52:00.000-07:002021-03-17T20:52:59.129-07:00Pattern of Practice Edited: February 2021<p><span style="font-size: 12pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">1619 began the forced exportation of Afrikans to what is now called the United States. Between 1619 and 1776, this severe form of chattel slavery flourished within the thirteen British colonies: New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia. Simultaneously, declaring independence from its mother country on July 4, 1776, the newly formed United States government took over this stolen land, including perpetuating the vicious system of chattel slavery. These enduring atrocities continued from 1776 to 1865.</span></p><span id="docs-internal-guid-9429ae5b-7fff-4355-dffb-0a8d9fe201c0"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Abraham Lincoln signed the "so-called" Emancipation Proclamation, January 1, 1863, which ended chattel slavery as we knew it. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Black Codes law, instituted by the Confederate states, lasted for twelve years (and I'm not talking about "12 Years a Slave" movie). From 1865 to 1877, this newly created exclusion and exploitation system through segregation found the newly emancipated slaves continually denied fundamental human, civil, and political rights. New Afrikans were kept in slavery by denying them a Right to Life. This includes the Right to vote; Right to employment; Right to freely move about; Right to own Land: Right to Education; Right to decent housing; Right to adequate food and clothing; Right to a fair and just judicial system, and much more.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">After the U.S. government's Black Code laws, radical republican state governments replaced the laws with newly introduced measures systematically embraced by this nation; (enacted in the South from1877 through the 1950s), which legalized racial segregation via the Jim Crow laws for nearly 100 years.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">PATTERN of PRACTICE</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Our Afrikan ancestors, continually forced to make their way, were repeatedly denied any rights, frequently subjected to vicious racist attacks by local, state, and federal government officials. They were using vagrancy laws to criminalize New Afrikans, making unemployment a violation of state and federal law while allowing the same system to shut them out of the job market.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Once convicted under the vagrancy laws, they would be off to prison, where slavery is codified, under the Thirteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The government used its judicial proceedings to incarcerate thousands of New Afrikans under these vagrancy-and-Jim Crow Laws, ensuring that they were locked into legal free slave labor, the government's official objective.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">PATTERN of PRACTICE</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">As a domestic, colonized nation (DCN) within the United States' borders, the struggle for self-determination started for New Afrikans in this country in 1619. We have always resisted the brutal system of slavery and injustice forced on us by the local, state, and federal governments. New Afrikans rebelled through civil disobedience, violent revolts on slave plantations, and present-day uprisings in cities all over Amerika.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">PATTERN OF PRACTICE</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The struggle for Civil rights in this country can easily define the Pattern of Practice. President Andrew Johnson vetoed the Civil Rights Act of 1866, and Congress still passed. It was supposed to give New Afrikans citizenship and extensive civil rights for all persons born in the United States, except "Native Americans." The Civil Rights Act of 1870 was a law passed to re-enact the Civil Rights Act of 1866, which was considered questionable and constitutionally. The 1870 law was declared unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1883. Then the Civil Rights Act of 1875, a U.S. Law, was passed to outlaw discrimination in public places because of race or previous servitude. Then, again, the Act was declared unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court (1883 – 1885), which stated that the Fourteenth Amendment, the Constitutional basis of the Act, protected individual rights against infringement by the states, not by other individuals.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">PATTERN of PRACTICE</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Civil Rights Acts of 1957, 1960, 1964, 1968 were testaments to the consistency of a Resistance Struggle for Civil Rights in this country by New Afrikans and the countless others who joined in this Civil Human Rights Movement. Yet, the system would continue how the U.S. Government and judicial proceedings would interfere every step of obstructing the Human Civil Rights for New Afrikans for almost 103 years. And we are right back where we started, today, fighting for our human and civil rights.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">PATTERN of PRACTICE</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Here is where the real injustices occur, the Pattern of Practice's actual classist/racist application. As long as all government branches systemically deny the human and civil rights of New Afrikans, we will be fighting indefinitely. The government forces New Afrikans to address this issue every year.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">NOTE: I have always been of the mindset that we validate a system that does not believe in the human and civil rights that we as a domestic, colonized nation have always desired. It is not surprising that we are not receiving the fundamental human and civil rights we seek. After four (4) centuries of struggle, one would think it's clear that we will not be afforded these rights. Yet, we continue- generation after generation to appeal to our oppressors as if their heart has softened, while countless continue to suffer.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We hold power to human and civil rights, We the People, not the government.. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">BRIEF HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE:</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In our struggle for independence, it is essential to highlight Denmark Vessey (famous for leading the 1822 slave revolt), Martin Delany (one the first Black Nationalist and a physician), and Marcus Garvey of the United Negro Improvement Association (UNIA). The UNIA nationalized us as a People and was a catalyst for many Freedom Movements to come. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">These civil and human rights organizations were instrumental in laying the foundation for more progressive struggles to take center stage in our fight for liberation.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Nation of Islam (NOI). The Black Liberation Movement (BLM) gave life to the Black Panther Party (BPP), Republic of New Afrika (RNA), Black Liberation Army (BLA), and countless other revolutionary formations that became the face for Struggle for Black Liberation and Freedom In Amerika. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The New Afrikan Independence Movement (NAIM) was established. Our struggle continues for self-determination to govern ourselves as a New Afrikan independent nation within Amerika's borders. In contrast, New Afrikans would attempt to mobilize our People around socio-cultural, political, and economic principles that speak to our humanity as a People, bringing into focus an ideology that represents the core of our identity, lifestyle, and beliefs inclusive of all humanity.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Throughout our struggle, the Civil Rights Movement was and is of astronomical value to our Resistance Movement.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">These movements would progress to the mid-1970s (74 – 75, give and take). Simultaneously, the state and federal governments waged a concerted, vicious campaign to stamp out all New Afrikan movements, whether peaceful or radical. The local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies work in conjunction to murder and incarcerate any New Afrikans fighting for basic humanity, the Right to Self-determination. These repressive attacks by the government jeopardized the political and ideological development of our People. The brutal suppression programs waged against our People instilled fear and the Struggle for Freedom, and to some extent, the fight of the People took a back seat. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">PATTERN of PRACTICE – LOST COMMUNITIES</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The attacks imposed on our communities' included the opening of the flood gates to street vices. They introduced and unleashed on New Afrikan communities: extreme poverty, drugs, alcohol, police, guns, etc., all weapons of mass destruction. At the same time, New Afrikans would move toward assimilation into Amerikan society's fabric, especially the professional New Afrikans, who provide a service to exploit for Amerika's corporate interests--not the best interest of the People. Thus creating a situation where what little wealth and resources were within the communities was outsourced. The more economically deprived the New Afrikan community became, the more desperate it would become. It is here where all sense of society began to be lost, each individual trying to survive at the expense of everyone else, by any means necessary.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">From 1975 to the present generation have left New Afrikans to their own devices, causing them to be compromised by the vices just spoken.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">PATTERN of PRACTICE – WEAPONS of MASS DESTRUCTION</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, with government support, PCP, pills, and heroin were heavily pumped into our communities. The 1980s and 1990s saw PCP and crack cocaine devastate our neighborhoods. In the mid-1980s and 1990s, the government supported a high concentration of guns pumped into our communities. Within our New Afrikan communities, there are drive-through, fast-food restaurants causing mass obesity. Liquor stores saturate the neighborhood, enabling easy access to alcohol. Toxic chemical plants became common around us, causing all kinds of ailments. Next came the occupation by the state militarized police departments, where police have saturated the community, murdering our children and people with impunity.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">PATTERN of PRACTICE – DECLARATION OF WARS</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The government implemented its declaration of wars against the New Afrikan communities.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">War on the unemployed</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">: Countless so-called "newly freed" slaves were incarcerated to enslave them under the U.S. Constitution.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">War on crime:</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> This came in the 1970s -1980s; thousands of New Afrikans were criminalized under the war on crime. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">War on drugs</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">: In the 1980s and 1990s, a tool to imprison New Afrikans at alarming rates-50% of those incarcerated in the Prison Industrial Slave Complex (PISC) are New Afrikans.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">War on gangs:</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> In the mid-1980s, 1990s, and 2000s- the war on gangs terrorized New Afrikan communities. This war saw the intense use of batter-rams, SWAT teams, injunctions, police at schools, gentrification, illegal evictions, intense occupation – all carried out under the guise of a war on gangs.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">War on domestic and global terrorism:</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> In the mid-1990s, this war was declared and would be used to open up an aggressive form of fascism on the New Afrikan communities; placing our entire community under the fascist eye of 'big brother,' i.e., government, with tracking devices, cameras, all strategically placed in our communities. The forces of fascism (corporate Amerika/government) hinder economic and political development under the Anti-terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA). This subjected thousands of poor New Afrikans to civil death. Under this new draconian law, thousands of poor folks serving life sentences are told they have one year to file an appeal to the state court, on their post-conviction. We're talking about people who can barely read and write. That would mean they come into prison, learn law within a years' time, and litigate their conviction, within that year. If not, they will forfeit their appeal, sealing their fate in these prisons for the rest of their natural lives, where most will die. The so-called "first Black" President, Bill Clinton, signed this law, killing many New Afrikans and countless others by proxy. These declarations of war are all coded declarations toward declaring war on the New Afrikan People.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">PATTERN of PRACTICE – ECONOMIC DEPRIVATION</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The government and corporate Amerika have been active participants in ensuring that New Afrikans and their communities remain economically deprived by maintaining control of all the wealth inside these communities. They own 90% of the community's commercial and state properties that they allow to be unkempt; schools, businesses, buildings, lots, and empty fields. Those born and raised in these communities watch their property value drop due to the neighboring property's desolate conditions. They are not permitted to maintain or utilize the land for the community's interest. Only when an offer to purchase the desolate property is the true intentions of government and corporate actions exposed. Owners attempt to hide behind state or federal policies that prevent the property from being sold or given to the People to improve on. The excuse is that the property is in a low-end area, riddled with crime, or the corporate owners will attempt to place some huge, out-of-the-ordinary price on such desolate property. They have no use for it, other than using it as an instrument to devalue the already struggling, economically deprived communities. This scheme has been used for centuries to create poverty-stricken environments all over Amerika, especially in the New Afrikan communities.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">PATTERN of PRACTICE – POLITICAL PRISONERS</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The U.S. government sanctioned the many New Afrikan Political Prisoners held worldwide in solitary confinement units, tortured by state and federal government workers for their political beliefs. We're talking about the most educated of our People, kept in isolation for decades, with no end in sight for release from these state and federal prisons - torture chambers. Many have dedicated their lives to improving our living conditions and empowering the People so they can control the socio-cultural, political, and economic systems that ultimately dictate how their lives will be. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We must, as humans, reach back to these folks who have sacrificed so much. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">PATTERN of PRACTICE – MODERN-DAY SLAVE PLANTATIONS</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The government deliberately calculated building its PISC in strategic areas. They are providing a surplus of modern-day slaves – the new plantations system, to its many dilapidating, economically deprived white, rural communities creating jobs, at the expense of other impoverished human beings.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This has been a very creative way of laundering taxpayers' money back into white communities. We are talking of trillions over time.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">PATTERN of PRACTICE – MAIN CULPRITS</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Corporate Amerika works hand in hand with the United States government against the New Afrikan community. It is using its institutions to carry out race and class warfare. Mass media uses a psychological profile that glamorizes a subsidiary subculture. It is used to dehumanize, devalue, degrade and desensitize New Afrikans to the rest of the world and ourselves. This is an on-going marketing campaign toward our social, cultural, political, and economic genocide. There has always been an indictment against New Afrikans by the government implemented through policies and laws, tracked easily throughout our 400 years in this country.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Politicians who are the power brokers of this nation who use the Black establishment, the Latino establishment, Asian establishment, the Arab establishment and countless others who are willing participants in carrying out institutionalized racism and race and class warfare, inside policies, whether domestic or foreign, have been genocidal toward human beings.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-weight: 700; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">PATTERN of PRACTICE - CONCLUSION</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There seems to be one thing that the Democrats, Republicans, and Independent politicians can agree on unanimously: the declaration of wars while depriving humans of basic necessities, such as adequate educational institutions, adequate jobs, and proper housing, adequate food and sanitized water, etc.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">If we are truly about the social justice movement, the People must address corporate racism and institutionalized racism. It is the only way we can attempt to achieve something regarding ending the prevalent injustices that plague us as humans.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The term New Afrikan defines us as a People. We as descendants have evolved as a domestic-colonized nation inside Amerika. Negating the deliberate contradiction caused by our identity crisis, and the many classifications often given to us by others: n-word, Negro, Colored, Black, Afro-Amerikan, Afrikan Amerikan, and the many names we place on ourselves out of ignorance: mixed, multi-racial, colored, Creole, Dark Skin, Light Skin, Half Breed, etc., etc. We have to understand our historical contradiction because we evolved on slave plantations into a domestic, colonized nation. Our ancestors from many different countries all over the continent of Afrika were forced to coalesce. They didn't speak the same language or share the same socio-cultural, political, or ideological beliefs. Yet, they were all colonized under a system of oppression (slavery). It's here where we evolve into New Afrikans. No matter what our oppressors did to us, we would still be Afrikans. Everything we were and believed in was made anew, even our identity, to some degree. So it's part of our history that we identify with our Afrikan heritage and legacy, forever connecting us to the land and People to which we all descend. We are New Afrikans.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">One Love, One Struggle Mutope Duguma </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Revised February 2021 </span></p><div><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div></span>WomanWarriorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00064636570680429243noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8156907989517204422.post-20044213483360352762021-03-17T20:35:00.002-07:002021-03-17T20:35:54.619-07:00 How Much More Time: Revised March 2021<p><br /></p><span id="docs-internal-guid-2ed2292f-7fff-1bd2-33f2-e53d5e4adafd"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">by Mutope Duguma</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">September 2018</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Revised March 2021</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">How much more time must a person be imprisoned after being locked up for 10, 20, 30, 40, or even 50 years? 90% of prisoners come from lower class oppressed communities, exclusively people of color. The US is a Christian nation, where the core idea is “vengeance is mine”; this is used to justify the deliberate destruction of lives of those held in captivity, their family, and community. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Sanctioned under the 13th amendment of the US constitution is the justification of the mass incarceration and indefinite sentencing of many throughout this nation. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">All incarcerated individuals that are held, stem from the idea that each and every offense should suffer a consequence. Thinking about humans held indefinitely inside prisons should bring about raw emotions in anyone.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We must continue to shine a bright light on race and class contradictions. The rule of law comes from a prejudiced/ racist judicial system that subjectively applies and designs the lto imprison people. These laws were designed and applied with the intent to kill folks held for more than half-century in some cases. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Reflecting on these elders’ state of mind when they were youth and came to prison allows us to understand their reality at that time. In dealing with the many social ills, plagued by poverty, consider how the inadequate educational institutions failed these men and women, who were youth: teenagers and young adults, ranging from age 15 to 25.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Senate Bill 260/261, introduced by the Anti-Recidivism Coalition (ARC), was supposed to correct this grave injustice, but what we see with the Board of Parole Hearings, (BPH), is a blatant disregard for SB260/261.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Frivolous rule violation reports (RVR’s), confidential information, one’s political views, juvenile history, controlling offense, etc., are all used in these BPH Hearings. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You can meet with a psychiatrist for two (2) hours and subsequently receive a diagnosis of a pathological social disorder meaning “one has a problem with authority”. This is extreme--based solely on the dialogue of past events, meaning. So, to have a prisoner come before the BPH, who has been in prison for 10, 20, 30, 40, or even 50 years, and deny them for another 15,10, 7, 5, or 3 years, is cruel and unusual punishment. Many of these men and women are weak, fragile, and suffering from aging illnesses, yet, their minds are still healthy and strong.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">If the US government takes authority over another (although by force) one would think that government would be responsible to the other humans to be fair in all of its proceedings. Unfortunately, this is not the case because racism exists in all the institutions that govern them (PISC) prison industrial slave complex is still plagued by hatred and the exploitation of people based on their race and class status.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The system (PISC) is committing murder by proxy, by way of execution -all prisoners whose politics or lifestyle is contrary to mainstream society and the government. If any of these prisoners held for 10, 20, 30, 40, or 50 years who have educated themselves, were reviewed by an unbiased board they would be deemed suitable for parole; since paying their debt to society for crimes they were convicted of as children and youth. How can a system be considered humane when it has no mercy for fellow human beings?</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Many prisoners emasculate themselves to be paroled. I’ve heard some sad stories from men and women who deliberately went to their BPH and cried, lied, and subjected themselves to all kinds of humiliation, trying to get paroled. What is a prisoner to do, if he or she has been given a hate sentence, that will lead to their death in prison? We have innumerable evidence that racism exists inside the prison industrial slave complex. How are the people able to deal with the abuse of such a racist system? By waging a campaign that deals with the continued gross injustices of prisoners who have been in prison for over 10, 20, 30, 40, or 50 years. When we begin to look at these cases individually, we see something seriously wrong with this system. We can also look at the many elderly prisoners who are on their death beds, seriously ill, or who have passed on, to prove that the PISC is using this racist system to kill men and women unfavorable to them. This validates the need for the legislative body of California to mandate these men and women released. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">How much more time does a prisoner have to do, after 10, 20,30, 40, or 50 years, before he or she is released?</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Life is life, whether lost by first, second, or third-degree murder, manslaughter, vehicular manslaughter, etc. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">With Love and Respect, Mutope!!!</span></p><div><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div></span>WomanWarriorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00064636570680429243noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8156907989517204422.post-57475739888655046792020-12-12T03:57:00.000-08:002020-12-12T03:57:02.292-08:00Indefinite Sentencing is Cruel and Inhumane<p>On 12/7/2020, the Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón gave a public announcement In <a href="https://da.lacounty.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/SPECIAL-DIRECTIVE-20-14.pdf" target="_blank">Special Directive 20 - 14 [PDF downloads on click]</a>, which laid out a comprehensive directive or blueprint toward ending state-sanctioned execution in the form of indefinite sentencing, where, for decades, humans in the CDCr suffer permanent imprisonment.<br /><br />We, the people, support this comprehensive special directive 20 - 14, but believe it falls short as it is not yet reaching the prison population, who have been held indefinitely under cruel and unusual punishment. As a human being who has been subjected to 33 years of imprisonment held in an 8x10 cell for a conviction in the 1980s is cruel and unusual punishment. To keep any human in such a space for an indefinite period is torture. The building structure of such a horrible environment has the effect of being a human kennel. In reality, human beings are being held like dogs in a kennel inside of prisons.<br /><br />Prisons have long since been used to freeze time for many incarcerated people held indefinitely inside them. Yet, they slowly watch as their family, friends and associates sadly pass away over the years during this cruel incarceration, leaving many of us devastated and with serious regrets for what we have done as teenagers or young adults. <br /><br />The deprivations that the incarcerated suffer as a result of their conviction is enormous. Permanent disconnect from your family, friends and community. Children are raised without one or both of their parents, and have to try to find their way through a very complicated world. Where many of the lifers who have been held indefinitely could easily be of some benefit to their children, no matter how old the children, because the yearning for a child/adult never stops, when there exists a long absence.<br /><br />The work that lifers are doing upon release is remarkable and a great asset to their communities, to say the least. An end to indefinite sentencing would end suffering of human beings in and out of prison. Let’s join in a massive campaign to support District Attorney George Gascón in ending torturous treatment exclusively of the incarcerated.<br /><br />Mutope Duguma, Lancaster, CA</p>APhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09038968777225549885noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8156907989517204422.post-65784590212599478992019-12-01T02:19:00.000-08:002019-12-04T11:25:13.773-08:00Lost in time: Lift up our brother Sitawa and strike down indefinite incarceration<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<b><i>by Mutope Duguma</i></b>Published earlier on the <a href="https://sfbayview.com/2019/11/lost-in-time-lift-up-our-brother-sitawa-and-strike-down-indefinite-incarceration/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">SF Bayview</a> and on <a href="https://sitawanantambujamaa.wordpress.com/2019/12/01/lost-in-time-lift-up-our-brother-sitawa-and-strike-down-indefinite-incarceration/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Sitawa.org</a>.<br />
<b><i><a href="http://www.mutopeduguma.org/" rel="noopener" target="_blank"><br /></a></i></b>
It’s always hard to stomach news that is disheartening. To hear that a
brother and comrade has suffered a stroke after spending countless
years in solitary confinement, as well as being held on an indefinite
sentence for an alleged crime he did not commit, is even more
disheartening.<br />
I need not stress the sorrow that is felt amongst the whole prison<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://sitawanantambujamaa.files.wordpress.com/2019/11/sitawajan201820180207_17163596.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Sitawa Nantambu Jamaa in July of 2018" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-140" class="size-medium wp-image-140" data-attachment-id="140" data-comments-opened="0" data-image-description="" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="Sitawa-Nantambu-Jamaa-july-2018" data-large-file="https://sitawanantambujamaa.files.wordpress.com/2019/11/sitawajan201820180207_17163596.jpg?w=562" data-medium-file="https://sitawanantambujamaa.files.wordpress.com/2019/11/sitawajan201820180207_17163596.jpg?w=196" data-orig-file="https://sitawanantambujamaa.files.wordpress.com/2019/11/sitawajan201820180207_17163596.jpg" data-orig-size="1186,1815" data-permalink="https://sitawanantambujamaa.wordpress.com/2019/12/01/lost-in-time-lift-up-our-brother-sitawa-and-strike-down-indefinite-incarceration/sitawajan201820180207_17163596/#main" src="https://sitawanantambujamaa.files.wordpress.com/2019/11/sitawajan201820180207_17163596.jpg?w=196&h=300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sitawa Nantambu Jamaa in July of 2018</td></tr>
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population for our brother Sitawa Nantambu Jamaa, who, along with countless fearless prisoners, pioneered our <a href="https://prisonerhumanrightsmovement.wordpress.com/" rel="noopener nofollow" target="_blank">Prison Human Rights Movement (PHRM)</a>
to the world’s stage. We continue to see men and women incarcerated far
too long – beyond anyone’s imagination – and continue to be held
indefinitely.<br />
<br />
Our beloved brother Sitawa is amongst this class of men and women. The inhumane treatment of prisoners must end.<br />
<br />
Our brother Sitawa and many others have suffered enough and should
not continue to do so based on being given a life sentence that equals a
civil death. Prior to 1968, under original Penal Code Section 2600,
California prisoners suffered complete civil death, which means
prisoners were stripped of all civil rights.<br />
<br />
The prison system is actually covertly executing all of its lifers.
The United States is the only country in the whole world that
incarcerates people indefinitely – forcing them to spend the rest of
their lives in prison. Men and women have been incarcerated for 35 years
or more.<br />
<br />
Many of these people are lost in time. They came to prison as youth
in their teens and early 20s in the ‘60s, ‘70s and ‘80s. Yes, many of
them were immature, many had no real direction, but they all became
adults in the Amerikan prison system.<br />
<br />
At present these prisoners, Baby Boomers, most of whom have survived
decades of incarceration, are now between the ages of 60 and 80. Many of
these senior citizens are wheelchair-bound or use assistive devices
such as walking canes.<br />
<br />
Like most seniors, many are on special medications, require special
medical therapy for seniors, and suffer from aging illnesses of various
sorts. I hear some say that a few manage to get around good at 70 years
young.<br />
<br />
Many say, yes, they should be in prison, and that may be true in some
cases. Given the things they did in society, the way they carried
themselves in the youth of their lives was utterly wrong and
disrespectful, but that was decades ago when they were young! Decades!<br />
<br />
They are now older, mature, grown, senior adults, who have fulfilled
all requirements from various parole boards around the U.S. Multiple
prisoners have complied with all laws, rules and regulations of the
prison and carried themselves as role model human beings and in many
cases have done so for decades.<br />
<br />
Still, many of them are forced to remain in prison when the maximum
amount of time on their sentence has long since expired. This is
terrible and extremely cruel to force rehabilitated human beings to
remain in bondage and especially when statistics clearly show that 90
percent of them are not returning to prison once released.<br />
<br />
Sadly, 89 percent of prisoners across the US are Black and Mexican.
From 1619 through the 1800s, the chattel slavery plantation concept
lurks in the shadows like the Wizard of Oz.<br />
<br />
This “behind the scenes” type strategy involves money laundering
exclusively into white rural areas under the Prison Industrial Slave
Complex (PISC). (That’s where prisons were built during the height of
mass incarceration, in small rural communities that had lost their
economic base, where people were so desperate for jobs, they were
willing to work in a prison. These were white communities with deep
prejudice toward Blacks. – ed.)<br />
<br />
Many of us may very well die in these man-made tombs. It should be
stipulated that these deaths are in clear violation of the Eighth
Amendment of the US Constitution, which prohibits cruel and unusual
punishment.<br />
<br />
The suffering is indefinite where there exists no end to the
punishment. Many have died, and many will continue to die where there is
no remedy to resolve the cruel and unusual treatment of prisoners.<br />
We must resist to end this cruel and unusual treatment of human
beings and encourage our brother Sitawa, who is fighting for his life.
We will fight for his freedom and the freedom of the thousands of men
and women lost in time.<br />
<br />
One Love, One Struggle,<br />
<br />
<b>Mutope Duguma</b><br />
<br />
<i>Sitawa is recovering from a major stroke. Send him some love and light (Sitawa is currently housed near San Diego, mail will be forwarded):<br /></i><br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://sitawanantambujamaa.files.wordpress.com/2019/11/sitawa-nantambu-jamaa-aug201720181218-1.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Sitawa Nantambu Jamaa with arms crossed 2017" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-154" class="size-medium wp-image-154" data-attachment-id="154" data-comments-opened="0" data-image-description="" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="Sitawa-Nantambu-Jamaa-Aug201720181218" data-large-file="https://sitawanantambujamaa.files.wordpress.com/2019/11/sitawa-nantambu-jamaa-aug201720181218-1.jpg?w=562" data-medium-file="https://sitawanantambujamaa.files.wordpress.com/2019/11/sitawa-nantambu-jamaa-aug201720181218-1.jpg?w=206" data-orig-file="https://sitawanantambujamaa.files.wordpress.com/2019/11/sitawa-nantambu-jamaa-aug201720181218-1.jpg" data-orig-size="596,868" data-permalink="https://sitawanantambujamaa.wordpress.com/?attachment_id=154#main" height="300" src="https://sitawanantambujamaa.files.wordpress.com/2019/11/sitawa-nantambu-jamaa-aug201720181218-1.jpg?w=206&h=300" width="206" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sitawa Nantambu Jamaa with arms crossed, in 2017</td></tr>
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Freedom Outreach<br />Attn: Sitawa Nantambu Jamaa<br />Fruitvale Station<br />P.O. Box 7359<br />Oakland CA 94601</div>
APhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09038968777225549885noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8156907989517204422.post-49826398261422804872019-08-03T22:25:00.000-07:002019-08-15T10:44:14.973-07:00BLACK AUGUST 2019: Homelessness<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Is a
result of a failed government. The people of the United States have already
through countless protests, movements of all sorts, declared that housing is a
human right, and every human should be afforded housing.</span><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">How
is it in the 21st century ‘We The People’ see a homeless epidemic? Because of a
failed government: local, state, and federal.</span><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The
politicians have always had a disconnect from their constituents…No
politicians, regardless of the state, can justify or excuse the homelessness we
the people are witnessing here in Amerika today.</span><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">How
can you represent a district of people, as a city councilman or woman, mayor or
governor and allow the people to reach such deterioration in astronomical
numbers where the whole state begins to be affected by it?</span><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The federal government has a responsibility to the many states it collects taxes,
etc...from, to maintain the security of the country not just from the so-called
bad guys...where the federal/state government has clearly misappropriated
taxpayers funds by building what is known today as the MILITARY INDUSTRIAL
COMPLEX, PRISON INDUSTRIAL SLAVE COMPLEX, and MILITARIZED POLICE INDUSTRIAL
COMPLEX that is/has cost trillions of dollars for taxpayers annually.</span><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Each
of these industrial complexes has a common denominator, which is that they
target humans for extermination; all one has to do is study their reason for
existing. You may be wondering what this has to do with homelessness?
Well anytime you allocate funds heavily in one area opposed to balancing the
funds out to truly meet the needs of the people then there will be a neglect of
some kind, and what we see in the homeless crisis is deliberate neglect and a
result of a failed government.</span><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The
people have always been at the mercy of the government no matter how rich or
poor they are, which is why we the people have to have one voice when it comes
to human rights. If a government is allowed to supersede the people it governs,
then the people have failed themselves. Adequate housing, food, water, etc. etc
that sustains one's life is a human right!!!</span><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">It is
not negotiable under any circumstances if we are going to use the failure of a
person's social life as a justification for such homelessness ( i.e. addicts
drugs and alcohol usage, inadequate wages or unemployment, etc. etc.) it should
also be stipulated that the people have been bombarded with an influx of drugs
into their communities where they have basically succumbed to chemical warfare.
These chemical weapons have been allowed to enter our communities by the
tons!!! Yet, taxpayers are paying trillions of dollars for many agencies
annually:FBI, DEA, CIA, ATF, etc. etc.to protect them from that which is a
threat to them...domestic terrorism, FBI; drugs, DEA; International threat,
CIA; guns and alcohol ATF, each of these entities are failures. We have seen
countless mass shootings occur in this country, we have seen drugs decimate our
communities, and an influx of assault weapons into our neighborhoods at
alarming rates. These agencies are responsible for protecting the Amerikan
people from these threats that claim countless lives. Why is this
government continuing to fund such agencies when it is obvious they are
complete failures? So much money, energy and time wasted to these agencies when
it is obvious that they are failures. To massively incarcerate people for drug
use or possession of any sort is part of the problem that leads to
homelessness. We see that drug users only hurt themselves for the most part.
Housing is a human right that all humans should demand be given to everyone
under the sun.</span><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Love
and Respect,</span><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Mutope
Duguma </span><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">August
1, 2019</span><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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WomanWarriorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00064636570680429243noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8156907989517204422.post-38211917897534911102019-01-01T16:06:00.002-08:002019-01-01T16:06:43.872-08:00The Nigger in the ‘nigger’ Syndrome<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 14pt;">The Nigger in the ‘nigger’ Syndrome</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Mutope Duguma</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">October 2015 revised 01/01/2019</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> The ‘Nigger’ in the ‘nigger’ syndrome is a disease that has been cultivated in the psyche of New Afrikans (i.e; Blacks) who for years have been morally compromised to the point of demoralization where they/we lose just about every sense of our morality. I believe that the only way to morally destroy a people is to take away their sense of understanding, of what is right and wrong. This deprives them of moral conduct which leads to being principled, righteous men and women.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> The ‘Nigger in the nigger syndrome’ is about understanding that this word‘nigger’ has a serious reason for its usage. Which is to demean, devalue, degrade and dehumanize Afrikan/ New Afrikan People, no matter where they exist in the world. It is a weapon used to manifest behavior in these targeted human beings. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> We now see the ‘Nigger in the nigger syndrome’ being carried out as a lifestyle in all groups to some degree. Proving that these are not mere derogatory terms, but instead, are a malignant social and psychological orientation and indoctrination that conditions you inside the many subcultures, ghettos, barrios, trailer parks, and rural, impoverished communities, where people are subjugated, marginalized and exploited to be dysfunctional, mentally diseased, immoral.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> It’s important to reflect on how you, the individual use the term nigger or nigga, even if it’s briefly, in association with your actual behavior. The‘Nigger in the nigger syndrome,’ is conditioning tied to a malignant social disorder where those who use the word “nigger” do so openly with pride. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">We can go all the way back to the slave plantations where our ancestors were domestically colonized, and the word ‘nigger’ was used to dehumanize. Since that time, we have struggled with our identity as a people as we resisted numerous derogatory terms throughout our New Afrikan historical origins since 1619, where the following terms were used to identify us as a people: nigger, negro, colored, black, Afro-American and Afrikan Amerikan. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> We would have these terms linger throughout our struggles in the United States that would exacerbate our identity crisis as a people. Through our own social, political and ideological development we would identify ourselves based on our historical contradiction in racist Amerika. In 1968, the term New Afrikans was coined or formulated by political (nationalist) theoretician for the purpose of scientifically basing and defining </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">the actual national identity of our people, who comprise a subjugated nation (i.e., domestic colonized nation).</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">The term ‘nigger’ would be used in oppressed communities throughout Amerika, while at the same time, glamorized in the Blaxploitation movies, where most of the infamous celebrities would use this derogatory term, making it socially and culturally acceptable, by providing a functional application as to how a ‘nigger’ should act, think and look, which in my personal opinion was part of the conditioning of our people around a malignant social disorder, that led to the dysfunctional behavior and demoralization so prevalent among us today.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">When you see or hear people who suffer from the ‘Nigger in the nigger syndrome, they have no moral compass for the most part. Case and point: In a discussion with some Brothers who are possessed with the ‘Nigger in the nigger’ syndrome, I asked why we don’t look down on pimping when the pimp is the predator that preys on young teenage girls and women? Their responses demonstrated that they were very misogynistic toward women. To accept the Pimp Culture means that we do not value the women in our family and extended community. Any time we embrace something as a lifestyle, it becomes part of our culture, and if it’s malignant, then it becomes a detriment to us as a people. The ‘Nigger in the nigger’ syndrome accepts just about anything immoral, foul, disgusting because they have been demoralized.</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Therefore, the very word Nigger has manifested inside the user of the word Nigger that accepts a lifestyle that is immoral. Even in our contradictions as so called ‘gangstas’ we rejected the ‘pimp,’ because we knew, he or she was a predator on our women folks in particular. When did we start hating women? Is it that we have been dehumanized so badly that we cannot regain our humanity? The Nigger in the Nigger syndrome is a disease because it has demoralized many of us as a people and it has to be diagnosed in all of us who have been compromised by this disease. The first step to being diagnosed is to understand that your use of the word ‘nigger,’ casually, whether it’s an endearment from your perspective or not, represents everything we are not, as a people. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">Most of our oppressed people in and out of prisons have no consciousness of the dehumanizing aspect of the word Nigger because most are unfortunately unaware of the ‘Nigger in the nigger,’syndrome!!! Take or make a moral assessment of yourself and reclassify yourself as New Afrikans which will be a reflection of our new morality. </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 12pt;">One Love, One Struggle, Mutope Duguma</span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",serif; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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WomanWarriorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00064636570680429243noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8156907989517204422.post-84806920414737809792019-01-01T15:59:00.000-08:002019-01-01T16:01:11.676-08:00End Prison Draconian Policies<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">By Mutope Duguma</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt;"> It’s no secret that the government, whether local, state and federal have been complicit in the exploitation of prisoners, where the political, judicial and prison industrial slave complex have all signed up to exploit the poorest citizens of this nation. But, before I go into the essence of this story, let me speak to what motivated me to write it.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt;"> I was recently placed back in solitary confinement for mistaken identity, where I was placed in cell with a youngster name of Jamico Wright, who was sentenced to 13 years, for an alleged robbery. Normally youngsters like Brutha Wright would ask me to help them with their 602 appeal, on their solitary confinement placement. Yet, Brutha Wright was seriously agonizing over how the state is charging him $23,113.39 restitution in association with his alleged crime. I would learn that Brutha Wright, is like most youngsters who came out of humble beginnings (i.e., impoverished communities), single parent homes, foster care at a young age, then to the streets, where they are forced into a world of their making.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt;"> I wasn’t surprised in the least bit, of Brutha Wright’s story, because like most prisoners (men/women) held in prisons, they share similar stories. Brutha Wright came to prison at 19 years of age, on July 26, 2011, for his alleged offense, and, what’s different about Brutha Wright is that he gets it, and actually took steps to do something about it, where he became a certified plumber (May, 2014), earning himself a trade. More remarkable, he earned an AA Degree in Business Management, July 17, 2017, demonstrating that he has done just about everything consistent with rehabilitating himself. Sadly, Brutha Wright would learn that he will be unable to utilize his AA Degree while incarcerated. He was given 85% of that 13 year sentence, which is 11 years and 5 months. </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt;"> The new sentencing laws enacted in the 1980s and 1990s would make sure that young prisoners did 85% of their time, when the government conspired to massively incarcerate its poor citizens of this nation. Brutha Wright would still have six years to serve on his 13 years. He, like many of us held indefinitely in Amerikkka’s prisons will have to navigate through the inhumane conditions of prison life.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt;"> This story isn’t about time, but instead, it’s about how you have a young man like Brutha Wright, who has gotten an AA Degree in Business, and owes the state $23,113.39, of which he has paid $1,768.39; money he received from working class citizens, who are working minimum wage jobs; family members, friends, etc. The state charges him 55% of each dollar he receives, meaning, if he gets any money for commissary, for example, if his (poor) Mother sent him $25.00 for hygiene when he gets the money it will be reduced to $11.25. If he had a medical condition and sent in a CDCR-7362 medical form he would be charged a co-payment fee of $5.00 for every medical slip he submits – that would be immediately removed from his trust account statement, leaving him <u>with $6.25 of that $25.00.</u> If he had legal fees of any kind, they would be deducted from those fees, as well. If he submitted a dental form, he would be charged a $5.00 co-payment charge, leaving him with a $1.25, of that $25.00, which is why so many youngsters refuse their dental/mental care in prisons: because they choose hygiene and food over dental or medical care, when they actually have funds on their trust account!!! </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">We older prisoners didn’t get charged with astronomical debt. Our restitution was $100.00 to $200.00. The restitution that these youngsters are being asked to pay is ridiculous, and the 50% is supposed to be paid to all alleged victims, whereas, 89% of the cases never received one penny of the restitution fees collected. CDCr trust office adds 5% charging fees for removing the fund off your trust account. This adding if you file a civil complaint (i.e., lawsuit) about prison conditions, etc. You would pay a $450.00 filing fee. If you continue to the 9</span><sup><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 8.5pt;">th</span></sup><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt;"> Circuit Court of Appeal you will pay another filing fee of $505.00. They initially charge you 20% of each dollar you have in your account, so if you have $200.00 in your account. They’re taking 20% of that which is $40.00 and they will do this every month ‘til you have paid what you owe because incarcerating prisoners is big business, and the exploitation of California Tax Payers, where they pay $14 Billion dollars a year to maintain its 34 prisons. This is real money spent.</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt;"> I understand that we live in a capitalist country that exploits all forms of life from humans, to animals, etc., etc., for profit!!! But, what’s cruel in this form of exploitation in respects to prison, is that prisoners like Brutha Wright are restricted from creating businesses, or using their creative talent, whether it be their art work, rap songs, writings, movie scripts, etc., etc., from legally making a profit while they are incarcerated, per CCR Title 15. Yet, they have many taxes being imposed upon them. Prisoners should be encouraged to find creative ways to market their talents for a profit. Yet! they are charged for restitution and other fees, then told that you can’t involve yourself in any profit earning businesses. This is a perfect way to encourage hopelessness in men and women held in prisons… while you feed on them by exploiting them for the crumbs they receive. Brutha Wright and many more just like him, have to wait ‘til they parole before they can begin to pay on their monetary debt to society, that would for sure burden them in their attempt to be re-assimilated back into the so-called free world, where they for sure would be at a disadvantage simply because they are starting in debt, where their checks would be garnished for that 55% accordingly in keeping up with their restitution. </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt;"> We all know that prison working wages start at 3 cents to 15 cents an hour, which usually turns out to be $11. to $20. per month, and then 55 % of that is then taken for restitution. Slavery in the 21</span><sup><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 8.5pt;">st</span></sup><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt;"> century is real, and I personally feel that the cruelty in this exploitation is in the hopelessness it produces in each and every prisoner. This practice has to be abolished because it would further influence recidivism. With these debts prisoners have to be able to earn a decent wage while incarcerated, so they can begin to pay off their restitution, now, or end their restitution all together. These types of policies are counterproductive and only hurt the prisoners and their families. Can you imagine doing a decade or two with a $30,000 dollar debt to pay when you get out??? If this is not ‘cruel and unusual then what is!!!?</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">One Love, One Struggle,</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14pt;">Mutope</span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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WomanWarriorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00064636570680429243noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8156907989517204422.post-69436025430360666322018-07-05T09:36:00.000-07:002018-07-05T09:53:22.443-07:00Nothing New<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> By Mutope Duguma<br />
June 2018</span></span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">[received via email from <a href="https://freedomarchives.org/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Freedom Archives</a>, and reposted <a href="https://prisonerhumanrightsmovement.wordpress.com/2018/07/05/nothing-new/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">here</a>]<br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">“<a href="https://prisonerhumanrightsmovement.wordpress.com/blue-print/agreement-to-end-hostilities-issued-8122012/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">An End To Hostilities</a>” 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.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">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.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">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 is relatively easy to socially engineer prisoners under social tyranny by manipulating conflicts that lead to their destruction.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">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.</span></span></div>
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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: <u>Higher Pay and Job Security</u>. Peaceful prisons go against CDCr agenda, and therefore, violence has to be its trademark.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">This explains why CDCr would want to disturb the current peace achieved by more experienced prisoners who have built solidarity around our “<a href="https://prisonerhumanrightsmovement.wordpress.com/blue-print/agreement-to-end-hostilities-issued-8122012/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Agreement to End All Hostilities</a>” (AEH). CDCr needs to ‘come clean’ and take responsibility for their role in fueling so much of the violence between prisoners. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The million-dollar question for all tax payers is: Why disturb such a Peace???</span></span></div>
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Case and Point:</span></span></div>
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1.) It was CDCr who <b><u>manipulated the racial violence</u></b> between prisoners by putting 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!!!</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">2.) It was CDCr who <b><u>created the debriefing program</u></b> 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.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">3.) It was CDCr who <b><u>created the indeterminate SHU program</u></b> 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.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">4.) It was CDCr who <b><u>created the Sensitive Needs Yards (SNY),</u></b> 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.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">5.) It was CDCr who <b><u>set up the Gladiator Fights</u></b> 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.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">6.) It was CDCr who did away with all the positive incentive programs that led to the hopelessness that we see throughout CDCr today.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">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.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">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.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">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.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">What is CDCr’s objective to off-set the many positive programs/policies that is affording prisoners the opportunity to go home? CDCr’s objective, as always, is that Peace goes against their bottom line: Profiting off Prisoners.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">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 <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.sacbee.com/news/local/crime/article211942034.html&source=gmail&ust=1530893707074000&usg=AFQjCNFQbu9bdOa-hVHOr85KTX46XrytFA" href="https://www.sacbee.com/news/local/crime/article211942034.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Nashelly Chavez, May 27, 2018, titled: California Prisons Phase out ‘Sensitive Needs Yards’ Critics See A Rough Transition</a>).</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">We are an expendable source, therefore, <b><u>our</u></b> lives have <b><u>no value</u></b> to our keepers. It is <b><u>us</u></b> who put value in <b><u>our</u></b> lives and this is where our power comes from, Reclaiming our Humanity. The violence is <b><u>Nothing New</u></b>.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">One Love - One Struggle</span></span> </div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Mutope Duguma</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">______________________________</span></span><wbr></wbr><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">_____</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Mutope Duguma: Mutope Duguma was incarcerated at Pelican Bay State Prison, in its notorious Security Housing Unit. He is now at CSP Calipatria. He is a member of the <a href="https://prisonerhumanrightsmovement.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">Human Rights Movement First Amendment Campaign</a> and PLEJ for Liberation and is a prolific author, with articles published in the SF Bay View and many other places, including his website, <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://www.mutopeduguma.org/&source=gmail&ust=1530893707074000&usg=AFQjCNGR_-_v7DF_RRporcGYJ3ZPQXVIiQ" href="http://www.mutopeduguma.org/" target="_blank">http://www.mutopeduguma.org</a>. <br />
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Write to Mutope at:<br />
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Mutope Duguma (s/n J. Crawford), D-05996, <br />
CSP Calipatria B-5 C-242, <br />
P.O. Box 5005, <br />
Calipatria, CA 92233-5005</span></span></div>
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APhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09038968777225549885noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8156907989517204422.post-1839044514081451122017-02-23T05:27:00.003-08:002017-02-23T05:30:20.847-08:00Infiltration Through DNA<div>
This analysis is based purely on the personal view and perspective of this writer. With that said, it is encouraged that all readers use critical thinking when analyzing these words and to also do your own research for any further facts where there lies any doubt or question. As the subject matter may seem insensitive to some it is therefore crucial to use your objective mind, especially since we live in a racially polarized country/world, where racism, race prejudices, racial discrimination, racial segregation, etc. are all the norm. </div>
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The author's intention is to help educate, as well as dispel the institutionalized racist propaganda and treatment of billions of human beings who have been marginalized in this country and world, where they suffer from an inferiority complex based on a systematic indoctrination of race inferiority, under colonialism. </div>
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Identifying racial hatred that is manufactured under the ideology and system(s) of white supremacy, white power and institutionalized racism. Whereas, all races are cultivated under this race-based hatred, which is responsible for the racial tension and oppression(s) throughout this country and world. </div>
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In the 'USA', institutionalized racism has been systematically practiced since the country's inception. This is done through many of its institutions such as: governments, military industrial complex, prison industrial complex, media, and educational, political, social, cultural, economic and religious institutions, as well as agriculture (food and medicine), horticulture (medicine), history (heritage and legacy), judicial system (justice department), science (knowledge-growth and development), etc. These institutions have discriminated against all non-white human beings, which culminated into the racial oppression we see today of people of color, that is inherently carried out by a system consciously and unconsciously, that subconsciously effects everyone in it. A system controlled by human beings who control the wealth of this nation and world.</div>
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The title “Infiltration through DNA” was chosen because of the historical dynamics and contradictions that surrounds the human race under colonialism throughout this nation and world, under the “one percenters” (1%), “nine percenters” (9%) and white power structure. Whereas, the coalescing of white countries around the world assembling their imperialist military powers under the belief in the concept of “might is right” affords them the right to conquer and pillage other people and their lands all over the world.</div>
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It is here where the system(s) of oppression(s) would be implemented, i.e. Capitalism, colonialism, neo-colonialism, slavery, feudalism, fascism, racism, classism, etc., all under the ideology of white supremacy. White supremacy establishes humans under two new concepts: 1. Superiority complex, and 2. Inferiority complex, both based on one's “race”. </div>
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Read the whole essay here: <a href="https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/705674" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Infiltration Through DNA</a></div>
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APhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09038968777225549885noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8156907989517204422.post-33144186689190163042016-05-29T04:16:00.000-07:002016-05-29T04:16:32.786-07:00There is Love in Peace!April 2016<br />
by Mutope Duguma<br />
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We must take full responsibility for the current discipline that is being held inside these prisons since the recent release of the so-called ‘worst of the worst’ prisoners out of solitary confinement.<br />
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It’s been an uphill battle, as many of us know, to uphold the discipline of the Agreement to End Hostilities, and there have been countless efforts made to maintain ‘peace’ on these prison yards amongst the races.<br />
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We cannot allow no one, other than prisoners, to stake a claim in such discipline that is so prevalent throughout the CDCr, that we are now seeing materialize amongst the races.<br />
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It’s been a beautiful ride thus far to see the social development occurring amongst races around the Agreement to End Hostilities. We, here at Calipatria state prison, have come to see the value in the Agreement of End Hostilities, where our Families, friends and associates are enjoying their incarcerated love ones!!! Proving there is Love in Peace!!!<br />
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We are seeing prisoners under new laws and policies that many prison activist organizations have vigorously campaigned to put on the books, by way of legislation to our so-called ‘policy makers’ that are literally giving prisoners the opportunity to go home.<br />
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We can only hope that our efforts will take on an effect that would lead to our communities, embracing this new found Peace.<br />
Whereas, each and every one of us who have been working very hard to establish prisoners under a new discipline should be proud of the fact that a lot of these young people will not ‘suffer’ the fate that many of us have suffered, due to the senseless racial violence that I/we believe was manipulated by our keepers, that led to many of us being murdered, maimed, and placed in solitary confinement units indefinitely.<br />
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We all should admire and respect the strength that’s being demonstrated throughout CDCr by human beings who are considered the so-called worst of the worst.<br />
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One Love<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>One Struggle<br />
<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>MutopeAPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09038968777225549885noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8156907989517204422.post-47038365942918077352015-12-28T03:56:00.000-08:002015-12-28T03:56:05.386-08:00Cultivate the seed to grow: Inside prison and out, we must nurture our youth<div style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-shadow: rgb(255, 255, 255) 1px 1px 1px;">
<a href="http://sfbayview.com/2015/12/cultivate-the-seed-to-grow-inside-prison-and-out-we-must-nurture-our-youth/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">From: SF BayView</a></div>
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December 25, 2015</div>
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<strong><em>by Mutope Duguma</em></strong></div>
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I greet you all with love and respect as usual, and it’s been awhile, but I recently made a transition from Pelican Bay State Prison Security Housing Unit solitary confinement units to General Population – GP – here at Calipatria State Prison. I won’t bore you with my usual long-winded rhetoric but instead speak to some of the key contradictions that I am seeing that we as New Afrikans face in and out of these stoops.</div>
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<a href="http://sfbayview.com/2015/12/cultivate-the-seed-to-grow-inside-prison-and-out-we-must-nurture-our-youth/mutope-duguma-090214-better-web/" rel="attachment wp-att-59939" style="color: #265372; text-decoration: none;"><img alt="Mutope Duguma in a photo taken Sept. 2, 2014" class="wp-image-59939" height="444" scale="1.5" src-orig="http://i2.wp.com/sfbayview.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Mutope-Duguma-090214-better-web.jpg?resize=300%2C444" src="http://i2.wp.com/sfbayview.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Mutope-Duguma-090214-better-web.jpg?zoom=1.5&resize=300%2C444" srcset="http://i2.wp.com/sfbayview.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Mutope-Duguma-090214-better-web.jpg?zoom=1.5&resize=300%2C444" style="border: none; height: auto; margin: 0px; max-width: 100%; padding: 0px;" width="300" /></a><div class="wp-caption-text" style="font-size: 11px; line-height: 17px; padding: 0px 4px 5px;">
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Our young people for the most part have been seriously compromised, and we can see this in their behavior. And we who understand how a people should be socially developed inside a society in ways that lead to one’s growth and development have to be very proactive about how we nurture our young people.</div>
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No one is receptive to the hard hand approaches, but instead time and energy have to be spent on educating these young New Afrikans who have no “sense of self.” Many have come out of communities that have been demoralized; therefore, they have no “moral compass” as to how they are to behave.</div>
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We can hold responsible the educational institutions and the deprivations that many of them have been subjected to throughout their lives, which can arise in direct relation to the poverty and economic deprivation that they – and all of us – have been compromised by.</div>
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We have to realize that when a people have been socially engineered or conditioned to be a certain way inside a “malignant sub-culture” that teaches them to devalue themselves in every aspect of their lives and to which they were colonized for centuries, we cannot expect to reverse this psychic trauma overnight. What we have to do is put examples in place of what New Afrikans look like in practice, as well as spend time with those who are receptive to education.</div>
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<span style="color: maroon;">Our young people for the most part have been seriously compromised, and we can see this in their behavior.</span></h3>
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It’s a lot of our young people who are very intelligent, but they don’t have the nerve or discipline to speak to their peers without being ridiculed or subjected to some form of “peer pressure” by those whose intellect has not yet been cultivated.</div>
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The young people who have developed intellect, nerve and discipline tend to have no tolerance for tackling such contradictions in their peers. Therefore, those who tend to be dysfunctional get to run around recklessly, which leads to most of the problems that many of the social groups fight over.</div>
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It is essential that those who hold themselves as “men of influence” educate these young people. To not do so speaks to what they actually mean to you.</div>
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I’ve also learned that if the men of influence are not themselves educated and disciplined, then they tend to be a part of the problem. We have a serious responsibility to these young people behind these prison walls and in society.</div>
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<span style="color: maroon;">It is essential that those who hold themselves as “men of influence” educate these young people. To not do so speaks to what they actually mean to you.</span></h3>
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<strong>Ending hostilities is truly our lifeline</strong></h3>
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I have been out of solitary confinement for 90 days now, and my overview of our situation is that the penal system has failed across this nation. It’s not just a California problem; it’s a national problem, where prisoners all over Amerikka are being socially compromised due to mass incarceration.</div>
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And it is an incarceration that places us inside of a man-made social experiment that cultivates each of us inside a manufactured reality that is not of our choice, but instead is the making of the puppet masters – the lawmakers – who use their political power to coalesce men and women inside their prisons, jails, camps and juvenile facilities.</div>
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We prisoners have to ask the question why are so many human beings, especially of color, being carted off to these penal institutions, where billions of dollars, if not trillions, have been spent to maintain such repressive environments that establish us under social tyranny that makes its way back to our communities.</div>
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<span style="color: maroon;">We have a serious responsibility to these young people behind these prison walls and in society.</span></h3>
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We have to see these penal institutions as vessels that socially engineer us into a pathological, violent behavior that is diametrically opposed to our human development. We can now concretely identify in California prisons the violent nature of prisoners being a direct result of the cause of violence in our many communities.</div>
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The prison system is manufacturing a violent prison mentality, which none of us can actually be held responsible for because our “keepers” – government and especially CDCr officials – have always had complete control over the social tyranny in prison. No prisoner can be blamed for being placed in such violent environments that their keepers have chosen for them to be housed in.</div>
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<span style="color: maroon;">We have to see these penal institutions as vessels that socially engineer us into a pathological, violent behavior that is diametrically opposed to our human development.</span></h3>
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The majority of us coming out of California’s solitary confinement units, such as the Pelican Bay SHU, were compromised years ago – neutralized by being removed from general population completely and targeted for extermination.</div>
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This was and is our reality, where we who survived to the extent that we did, had already started psychologically preparing ourselves to die in the wretched environment of solitary confinement. But we were able to change our reality to some extent with the Prisoner Human Rights Movement and our hunger strikes.</div>
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So where is our movement today? We are right where we started off in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, and each of us who know about these eras has to stay focused on what’s at stake. To not do so will set <strong><u>us</u></strong> right back into a pit of chaos, which can render each and every one of us vulnerable to our keepers once again.</div>
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The Agreement to End Hostilities is truly our life line. It has nothing to do with your courage or strength; it’s about changing a violent prison culture into a civilized environment that eventually entails – or demands – that each of us be released from these animal cages and be allowed back to our communities.</div>
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The Agreement to End Hostilities dictates:</div>
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<li style="padding: 5px 0px;">That we prisoners establish respectful communication lines between our four principal groups;</li>
<li style="padding: 5px 0px;">That we prisoners establish a principled standard where each prisoner holds his or her own individual discipline;</li>
<li style="padding: 5px 0px;">That we prisoners educate the younger prisoners as to why discipline in prison benefits us all;</li>
<li style="padding: 5px 0px;">That we prisoners recommend to CDCr, collectively, that which is needed in each prison to facilitate bringing the Agreement to End Hostilities to life, such as educational programs and privileges;</li>
<li style="padding: 5px 0px;">That we prisoners cannot expect the Agreement to End Hostilities to be successful without us seriously getting behind it.</li>
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<span style="color: maroon;">The Agreement to End Hostilities is truly our life line. It has nothing to do with your courage or strength; it’s about changing a violent prison culture into a civilized environment that eventually entails – or demands – that each of us be released from these animal cages and be allowed back to our communities.</span></h3>
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It’s a real struggle on these GPs (general population yards), one that I welcome wholeheartedly, because so much has changed in these GPs that it’s like they are all modified lock-up yards. I believe in time that we can change this by demonstrating how prisons are counter-productive to a free society.</div>
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One Love, One Struggle,</div>
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<em>Mutope</em></div>
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<em>Send our brother some love and light: Mutope Duguma (James Crawford), D-05996, CSP B5-C246, P.O. Box 5005, Calipatria CA 92233.</em></div>
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APhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09038968777225549885noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8156907989517204422.post-42016946429920859442015-11-13T15:14:00.001-08:002015-11-13T15:14:35.131-08:00Mutope Speaks<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-l9L3Bq-Jvyw/VkZt_GYwqUI/AAAAAAAADUw/0dqZM3OdLmU/s1600/Prison%2BRadio%2Bcutout.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="screenshot of Mutope Duguma's spoken words The Power of the People, on Prison Radio " border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-l9L3Bq-Jvyw/VkZt_GYwqUI/AAAAAAAADUw/0dqZM3OdLmU/s1600/Prison%2BRadio%2Bcutout.JPG" title="The Power of the People, by Mutope Duguma" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Mutope spoke on Prison Radio today about The Power of the People, and you can listen to his voice <a href="http://www.prisonradio.org/media/audio/mutope-duguma-csp-calipatria/power-people-208-mutope-duguma" target="_blank">here</a>.</span>APhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09038968777225549885noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8156907989517204422.post-69424110103630140922015-07-22T12:25:00.000-07:002015-07-22T12:25:35.088-07:00Head-up, Back-straight, Move Forward... Manifesto – for the People of Family Services - P.F.S.<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: 21.3333339691162px;">A Manifesto written by Mutope Duguma</span></div>
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<i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 14.0pt;"> If we are to survive in the 21<sup>st</sup> century, we got to get back to who and what we were, not what each of us is destined to be individually. Because in the 21<sup>st</sup> century, people are moving their people forward collectively throughout the world. It is the only way we are going to resolve the many problems that plague us as a people.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">I introduce this Manifesto to all New Afrikans (i.e. Blacks) and any human beings who are 'SERIOUS' about changing the inhumane living conditions that we see the people being subjected to in oppressed, impoverished communities throughout Amerika. It is crucial that we assess our conditions based on what is in our power to do, opposed to what someone can do for us. We are not beggars, nor are we a weak people. We are simply a people under attack and our contradiction is, how we respond to these attacks. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">For far too long, we have allowed our lives to be in the hands of others: intellectuals, politicians, pastors, celebrities, and professional, well-to-do New Afrikans, when it's obvious that they have failed us tremendously, especially NAACP, Urban League, Rainbow Coalition, National Action Network and countless other New Afrikan organizations who allowed for the local, state and federal governments and corporations to economically deprive our communities and incarcerate our children/adults by the millions as they try to survive under inhumane living conditions in these Amerikan shanty towns and ghettos, in extreme poverty. And, many of these New Afrikan organizations use the New Afrikan peoples' contradiction(s) to advance themselves, whereas, they won't invest one penny of their money into the New Afrikan communities. All they provide is lip-service. Here is a clear example of the greed and selfishness of wealthy New Afrikan people:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">In 1980, Robert (Bob) Johnson started Black Entertainment Television – BET – and ran it from 1980-2006. The New Afrikan people supported his business idea, turning it into a billion dollar business that he started with $15,000. The New Afrikan people made it what it was, although it was a lot of good/bad depictions, portrayals, stereotypical images and characteristics and exploitation of the New Afrikan people. The good, early on promoted loving, enlightened music on social issues, in the hood challenging the power that be, and honoring our people for their accomplishments and talents and service to their communities. All in all, it was for better or worst. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Bob Johnson didn’t solicit the New African community business people that he was in debt to, understandably, because he knew that the greedy capitalist oppressors had set their sights on taking over B.E.T. by monopolizing the channel’s power in order to keep Bob Johnson in debt, by not allowing him to receive meaningful advertising which is what paid for the programming.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">This is why we were watching advertising that was sexually explicit – promoting sexual enhancement pills or lubricants for men and women. The real money of advertising shut Bob out, which prevented quality programming. So Bob wasn't able to expand, being in debt all the time, which is why he couldn't pull in more suitable investors, especially with the New Afrikan church on his back so he therefore went further into debt. See, our oppressors don't want us to have anything that they don’t have control over. B.E.T. afforded New Afrikans a voice no matter how small, where young people got to express themselves and show their creativity and talents. Because Bob allowed them to drop off their product, etc., and he would showcase their work on B.E.T.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Mr. Johnson sold-out without a fight for the people, which could have been a very good learning experience for New Afrikans in this country, as for how the one percenters (1%) economically bully the little guy toward maintaining control over everything. It's safe to say that Mr. Johnson would have lost but to fight back against bullies sometimes is better than giving in! After the gaining control of B.E.T., the new ownership reinvented just about everything that Bob wanted to do for B.E.T. It's important to know that the capitalists pooled their monies to purchase B.E.T., MTV, VH1 and immediately did away with all hip hop videos and the culture of hip hop in the state controlled media from a New Afrikan perspective. They also purchased Telemundo, Telefutura and Univision, taking control of the Spanish programming as well. Mr. Johnson sold out for three billion dollars and was able to pay off his creditors. He and his ex-wife would walk off with one billion dollars as reported! I often wonder what happened to all those music videos that were contributed to BET for 20 plus years.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">But, based on how loyal the New Afrikan people and their communities were to Bob Johnson and his ex-wife, one would have thought that they would have at least invested something in the oppressed New Afrikan community, creating jobs for those who helped them turn $15,000 into 3 billion dollars. This is what I mean by how many use the New Afrikan people to advance themselves at the peoples' expense. Therefore, we “Poor Oppressed People” will control our own fate from now on.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span lang="EN-US">Note</span></i><span lang="EN-US">: We don't hold any ill feelings against our people for what they did or didn’t do, because we too were trapped in a vicious cycle of violence based on our ignorance, doing everything contrary to our community development. We will be pressing forward from here on, holding everyone accountable for their lack of dedication and commitment to our struggle, especially the pastors, politicians, celebrities, intellectuals, and all New Afrikan organizations claiming to work for our interests.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<li class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Our first action: will be to identify all New Afrikan politicians in our communities, who are supposed to be working for our interests. We hold them responsible for why our tax dollars are not being directly put back into our communities and what actions are they taking to ensure that these monies are making their way back to our communities.<o:p></o:p></span></li>
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<li class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Our second action: will be to identify all the non-profit New Afrikan, civil/human rights organizations who claim to work for us locally and nationally. We hold them responsible for why they are not filing civil law suits against local, state, and federal government officials and corporations for racially discriminating against New Afrikan communities and for joining in an economic conspiracy to deprive us of a right to life, re-routing funds away from New Afrikan communities.<o:p></o:p></span></li>
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<li class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Our third action: will be to identify pastors and their congregations, etc. to assess the means (i.e., money) which are being produced in these New Afrikan churches, especially these mega churches, in or around our communities. We want to see what percentages are being invested into our communities, locally, in respects to businesses, schools, and financial support for families. <o:p></o:p></span></li>
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<li class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Our fourth action: will be to call out New Afrikans who are living way beyond their means, who can easily invest in our people/communities. We want nothing for free from anyone, but we want the right to know who cares and who doesn't care about our people suffering in these sub-standard living conditions. This way each would be afforded the opportunity to contribute. Because it makes no sense for over one trillion dollars to supposedly go through our hands annually and we can't find a way to take care of our people.<o:p></o:p></span></li>
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<li class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Our fifth action: will be to assess every public school in our local area and if our children are not receiving an adequate education or if the school environment is so deplorable, then we will remove all of our children out of these schools and demand that the schools be closed immediately. How can we expect our children to do better when we send them to run-down, unsafe, and inadequate educational institutions? And we don't return our children to these schools until the problem(a) are fixed. We can educate our own children.<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Our sixth action: will be to assess the mental and physical health of each and every individual in our local area, by literally assigning an individual to each block to evaluate and educate our people about psychic trauma, while identifying those who are suffering in our communities. We know that where there are humans, there are care takers. Plus we have seen enough of our people suffering to know if they need help or not. And, those that do, we intend to help them.<o:p></o:p></span></li>
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<li class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Our seventh action: will be to bring all the strong, able minds and bodies together, in our communities, to take up responsible roles in helping to rebuild our communities. Each strong individual will be assigned to groups, in order to bring them around to what we are doing to build our communities back up. Our goal is to have everyone mentally, physically and spiritually sound.<o:p></o:p></span></li>
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<li class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Our eighth action: will be to establish collective exercise every day at certain times chosen by our community leaders. We will all do the same exact exercise. The objective is to bring about collective cohesiveness – harmony – amongst our people. If your work schedule is not in line with our daily exercise then you can join the after-work exercise, which will be at night. Amerika has worked a mojo on us, because our people are suffering from obesity, but we can fix this and heal 85% of our people from this disease. The exercise will be easy enough that anyone in their sixties can do it. Physical health is crucial for sustaining us as a people.<o:p></o:p></span></li>
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<li class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Our ninth action: will be to empower every mother and father in the community, especially the ones who have an alcohol or drug problem, by holding them accountable to their sobriety, in order for us to help them be responsible to their children and to themselves. But our motto will be that we are all mothers, fathers, and role models to our children.<o:p></o:p></span></li>
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<li class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Our tenth action: will be to build a propaganda machine through social media where our young, savvy, politically-inclined New Afrikan brothers and sisters can protect our people from malicious, racist attacks and the 'boot lickers' who tend to criticize and manipulate words in order to serve the capitalist exploiters' interest against the peoples' interest. We also propagate against any New Afrikans who promote anti-New Afrikan sentiments in the media, i.e. TV, that fuels Black-on-Black hatred, especially individuals who are doing it to sell a reality show, etc. where they consciously go at each other to be accepted by their white slave masters for a small fee and 15 minutes of fame at the peoples' expense. <o:p></o:p></span></li>
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<li class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Our eleventh action: will be to establish safety and security throughout our community, where there will be individuals responsible for protecting the people and property of the oppressed. Too often we take for granted that there are predators about, preying on our people internally and externally. We want to make sure that our people are safe and secure 24/7.<o:p></o:p></span></li>
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<li class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Our twelfth action: will be to buy up as much property in our community as possible, because we want to own every apartment complex/house in our community. Therefore, if our people fall on hard times they don't have to worry about losing their home or apartment. By having control of the property in our community, we secure a roof over our head. We do this by pooling our resources.<o:p></o:p></span></li>
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<li class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Our thirteenth action: will be to rebuild the New Afrikan family, by taking in suitable New Afrikan men and women or whoever your love interest is, children to elders. We want the community to be populated with productive members of society. We also know that we have an unfortunate situation, due to our disproportionate gap between men and women in our community. Therefore, a lot of these relationships will have to be based on the woman's needs being met in every way, because we have to be realistic about our reality. But, what we don't want is betrayal occurring, which breeds dis-unity. It's all about us reclaiming who we are as a people. We will always be inclusive of all human beings but we have to build the type of communities we want for our people.<o:p></o:p></span></li>
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<li class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Our fourteenth action: will be to protect our interest; we are too talented a people to be living in such poverty. We protect our talent by making sure that our young people are being nurtured as they develop their talents. The reason a lot don't come back to the community that they were raised in is because of the state of our community. Hell, the violence alone will be enough to keep someone who is filthy rich away. Our communities have to be safe havens for our talented people because too often we see our brothers and sisters compromised by the vulture(s) whose whole objective is to make money off of our people. This is stealing money out of the community. Imagine if all of the money made over the years from sports, baseball, basketball, football, track and field, gymnastics, gospel, R & B, jazz; poetry, hip hop, graffiti, rap, emceeing, break dancing, etc. would have been invested into our communities? Imagine!! Then there's the exceptional minds we have in our communities. We have to realize that the people are the value. Therefore, we have to protect our people whether they're talented or not. When our people leave our community to pursue their career, we want them to be dying to get back to their communities. Everyone has used our young people to build their economic power, while leaving them destitute. Look at the music that originated with us – some of our own people can't even sing their own songs they wrote because they don't own them. Unfortunately the music industry, as ruthless as it is, has been able to shut them out, while cultivating other talents that were copies of them but that look nothing like them. We are still a talented people, therefore we can always produce the talent but we have to learn from the Billie Holidays, Muddy Waters, and James Browns, (the list is long). This time we keep total control of our work. We sellout for no amount of money that takes away our right to express ourselves how we choose to. We want 100% ownership of our work – we pay you, not you us!<o:p></o:p></span></li>
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<li class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Our fifteenth action: will be to establish a “Decolonization Program” throughout our communities, to re-educate our people to who they truly are, by educating them to their historical contradictions that are the true cause of their reality today. As descendants of slaves, who grew up on slave plantations, as a domestic colonized nation (DCN), none of our people will be truly free mentally until they have gone through a decolonization program, which will give them their true history as to who they are and where they come from. The decolonization program will also give them a socio-cultural, political and economic understanding as to how we New Afrikans see ourselves evolving in the world based on our ideology, not some flawed belief that derived out of a malignant subculture. Free your mind!<o:p></o:p></span></li>
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<li class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Our sixteenth action: will be to carry out each action with love and respect for our people who suffered enough, therefore under no circumstances do we disrespect or use any form of violence against any of our people who refuse to cooperate with our initiatives. If they're not with it, we use their family and friends to bring them around, especially their parents, grandparents, uncles and aunts. It is our sole responsibility to bring as many of our people to the table as possible, in order to fight for our right to exist and self-determination. Our people suffer daily and our objective is to help them, not to hurt them.<o:p></o:p></span></li>
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<li class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Our seventeenth action: will be to reconnect women and men with suitable partners from the inside with the outside. We want every man and woman incarcerated to have a partner to come home to and we will establish a program that will strengthen relationships of sound commitments between the two of them. Here we will work towards bringing our people home to be productive members within our communities with their chosen partner. Rebuilding the family unit is crucial for community development. We cannot afford to get caught up in the incarcerated stigma game where we allow our people to be demonized simply for being incarcerated. Our situation demands that we claim all of our people, leaving no one behind. The local, state and federal governments have over-prosecuted our people throughout Amerika in racist judicial institutions. We build to end our peoples' suffering.<o:p></o:p></span></li>
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<li class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Our eighteenth action: will be to hold anyone coming to prison for crimes and abuse against the oppressed people accountable once they enter the prison system. We will do this by implementing our non-violent approaches such as ostracizing them from our New Afrikan prison collective and having them pay for any damages caused by their actions, if repairable, going through an aggressive decolonization program, apologizing for any actions of transgression(s), But for acts of murder against the oppressed poor people of our community, we establish in each community: if any son or daughter commit a murder against the people, they will lose all family support on the outside and are ostracized once they enter the inside or they will have to dedicate the rest of their lives to the peoples' struggle, in order to get back in favor with the people. <o:p></o:p></span></li>
</ol>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; mso-hyphenate: none; mso-pagination: none;">
<u><span lang="EN-US">Each prison class will be responsible for establishing such a principle standing inside of each of their respected communities/prisons.</span></u><span lang="EN-US"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; mso-hyphenate: none; mso-pagination: none;">
<span lang="EN-US">Now, we understand that our communities are plagued with violence but 95% of this violence is senseless killings of our people. We aim to end this violence against our people. We want it to be widely known that to transgress or to exploit violence against the oppressed comes with grave consequences. This is why the community has to stay tied to the inside, so that they can expose those who violated the people in the community. Although the consequences are grave, none are violent – we have no violent form of punishment, because all it does is add to the cycle of violence.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<ol start="19" style="margin-top: 0cm;" type="1">
<li class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Our nineteenth action: will be to build and manufacture our own that is within our power to do so. We will seek out/call on New Afrikans and others who have the professional skills to teach us how to rebuild and manufacture on our own. Those who are friends and supporters of the New Afrikan people will always be treated with the utmost respect and love. We don't care what color they are or where they come from, whatever they can teach us/assist us with we will accept graciously and we will pay them for their services afforded to us. Our objective is to get to a place where we can rebuild our families and communities toward becoming independent. <o:p></o:p></span></li>
</ol>
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<br /></div>
<ol start="20" style="margin-top: 0cm;" type="1">
<li class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Our twentieth action: will be to develop a think tank to critically analyze and assess our internal/external contradictions in and out of prisons, this way we are always assessing our situations and developing ways on how to solve our problems before they materialize. Each and every individual in the think tank has to have strong ties to the community. It can't be an external think tank but a grassroots one, for and by the people.<o:p></o:p></span></li>
</ol>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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<ol start="21" style="margin-top: 0cm;" type="1">
<li class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Our twenty-first action: will be for every poor New Afrikan family in Amerika to adopt one poor family on the continent of Afrika or in the Afrikan diaspora who are descendants of Afrikan slaves, living in subhuman conditions, because some of us here in Amerika at times negate that our struggle is both national and international. We also happen to be disconnected, which is understandable based on our struggles here in Amerika but we have to get back to doing what is meaningful and beneficial to our people. We spend money unwisely, money that can literally help our people out of very horrible living conditions. For example: when we purchase something such as a pack of cigarettes, jewelry, excessive shoes and clothes, etc. which we tend to do socially on a regular basis, we have to realize that these monies can make a difference of life and death for our Afrikan brothers and sisters in many places throughout the world. In undeveloped countries, our people are living on fifty cents to one dollar a day, so money becomes very valuable to someone living in more dire conditions. Now this doesn't mean that we are well off, because we are far from it. Our poverty is just as real as theirs overseas but we are dealing with a different level of poverty. Theirs happens to be an extreme case of poverty, where they are deprived of water, food and housing, etc. This is why you have just about every oppressed group living in Amerika sending back money to their mother-country of all races. This will allow us to rebuild new bonds with our people, suffering all over the world, while helping them out at the same time. Unfortunately for us, our situation is a bit different due to our historical contradiction, i.e. slavery, where we were cut off from our ancestors and our mother country. Therefore, we will establish a direct line of communication with our adopted families, this way we will avoid the scams and cons out there lurking about. <o:p></o:p></span></li>
</ol>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">The People of Family Services – PFS – will be responsible for laying out the functional application(s) for each of these 21 initiatives in this manifesto – PFS. Who are the People of Family Services? They are incarcerated New Afrikan prisoners who are politically conscious, jailhouse lawyers, political prisoners, prison activists, etc. Men and women who are committed and dedicated to the rebuilding of the New Afrikan people, communities, and families, as well as other oppressed human beings on the planet. They are held in modern day slave plantations, the prisons, all over Amerika. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Note: It should be clear that we the poor, who suffer day in and out, each and every day of our lives, the mothers and the fathers whose sons and daughters are being gunned down in the many streets throughout Amerika, the young innocent brothers and sisters out on the streets of Amerika struggling in these impoverished conditions in hoods called the ghetto, or the grandmother who’s taking care of her grandbabies on pennies, or the drug user, alcoholic or dope pusher, pimp, gangsters, hustlers, welfare recipients, homeless, prostitutes, strippers and the incarcerated, we call on you to be the leaders of your own liberation. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">We know that no one in a suit and tie is trying to get their knees dirty nor are they in these streets willing to address the on-going poverty and despair that we face daily in our lives. Therefore we got to do this ourselves, we pull up all the energy that has allowed us to survive thus far in these streets and prisons. As I previously said, many generations have been lost and the same song keeps playing over and over. It's time for some new grimy tunes that the people can feel, one that sets the mood for real change for the people who are directly affected by the state sponsored oppression of our people. This is a poor peoples' movement. The Happy N_____s living in their mansions, driving their Benz, have no concern with the peoples' suffering and this is something we have to realize by all means. We don't hate them for it, we just remember who they are and those that step up to assist our struggle we love and respect them for coming to their peoples' aid.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">All power to the oppressed people of the world... <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Mutope Duguma<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11567149038098652272noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8156907989517204422.post-17280124410934324902015-07-03T03:37:00.001-07:002015-07-22T12:52:32.833-07:00Four years since our hunger strikes began, none of our core demands have yet been met: Our protracted struggle must continuePublished in: <a href="http://sfbayview.com/2015/06/four-years-since-our-hunger-strikes-began-none-of-our-core-demands-have-yet-been-met-our-protracted-struggle-must-continue/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">SF Bay View</a>, June 21st 2015<br />
<br />
by Mutope Duguma, Pelican Bay short corridor<br />
<br />
<i>Let’s not forget that CDCr can lock you up for being an alleged leader, as an influential individual – on just this alone.</i><br />
<br />
2015 marks four years since we collectively got together and launched our peaceful protests to end long term solitary confinement. We have not been able to get any policy, outside of STG (Security Threat Group) 1 and 2 and SDP (Step Down Program), which we have to keep in mind is again CDCr continuing to violate our civil and human rights by holding men and women in these solitary confinement torture chambers – SCTC – indefinitely.<br />
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Prisoners been held for over four decades for no other reason than a prison label called prison gang validation, based on confidential information provided to prison officials by snitches, rats, informers, turncoats etc. And in looking into a lot of these cases, we would learn that it was the prison officials who manufactured this information in order to subject prisoners to a life of hell.<br />
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We have been able to examine, evaluate and investigate the STG and SDP policies and we unanimously reject them, because, simply put, they are more of the same. They empower the previous policies that we were initially peacefully protesting.<br />
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We all will continue to be vulnerable to the validation policies, even though they are for non-behavior issues, and this means confidential information will continue to place us in these SCTC and hold you here. It doesn’t matter how good or bad you are; these policies take the good with the bad.<br />
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<b>Individual accountability</b><br />
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The individual accountability Core Demand No. 1 (End group punishment and administrative abuse) was crucial for establishing a fair and just policy. CDCr’s power stems from the threats that they place over prisoners by labeling us with groups and holding us responsible for the actions of that group.<br />
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<h3 style="text-align: center;">
<b>Core Demand No. 1 (End group punishment and administrative abuse)</b></h3>
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That practice is flawed; other than a gang title by which the group or individuals are labeled as members or associates, simply based on the group’s alleged gang title, nothing else allows for CDCr to blatantly target racial groups and individuals. Prison officials want these targeted individuals off of General Population in order to subject them to SCTC. But individual accountability, satisfying Core Demand No. 1, would have put an end to this policy, where predominantly white prison gang officials target mostly New Afrikans and Mexicans – racism.<br />
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These validations are a matter of life and death, because to subject and isolate prisoners for indefinite periods of time in SCTC takes a serious toll on our health and mental stability, regardless if we appear to be a reflection of strength. We see how young human beings can naturally develop into strong men and women under natural circumstances. We also see how, if able to grow older, they develop eventually into fragile individuals, so as you age, it’s a matter of life and death.<br />
<br />
Even if you’re being provided the proper nutrition and socialization – we know this is not the case for prisoners, especially those of us held in SCTC, where the isolation deprives us of natural sunlight etc. – SCTC has an adverse effect on one’s life and it is these grounds that should end SCTC use. The CDCr has the responsibility to protect each and every prisoner, regardless how the authorities may feel about us.<br />
<br />
CDCr officials have allowed the six-year review procedures to stand, despite STG 1 and 2 and the SDP policy, so far, for two years and counting. We remain on a dual policy. When your six-year active/inactive review date comes, you will go before an IGI (Institutional Gang Investigator) and OCS (Office of Correctional Safety), who will determine if you are active or inactive. If you are active, you are to be retained in SCTC pending your case-by-case review with DRB (Departmental Review Board). If you are inactive, then you are referred to DRB and seen relatively quickly.<br />
<br />
Now the process is that IGI collects the alleged information and prepares it for the OCS, and the OCS determines if this information is sufficient for an active or inactive re-validation. Then the DRB, which makes the final decision, decides if you will be detained or not, regardless of what OCS recommends.<br />
<br />
<b>Active or inactive</b><br />
<br />
After six years of waiting to go before the DRB, a prisoner should be referred and seen, regardless if it’s an active or inactive recommendation or if it’s a validation as active, and should see the DRB immediately. To tell someone who has been deemed active that he or she has to wait for their DRB case-by-case review, which the same CDCr official refers you to, is a grave injustice.<br />
<br />
I believe it’s a 14th Amendment violation under the equal protection clause, because prisoners being reviewed for active/inactive re-validation should also be seen by OCS and then the DRB, which makes the final decision based on the OCS recommendation. This would not allow CDCr gang officials to discriminate against prisoners they want to retain in SCTC, because under the new policy, whether you like it or not, as soon as you are in a SDP Step 1-4, you are on a three-year course toward getting the hell out of the SCTC.<br />
<br />
Whether you are released or not is irrelevant, but you cannot even begin to challenge the new contradictions (problems) with the system if you are not afforded the right to be processed into the new Step Down Program policy. Plus, we cannot deny that these steps do afford prisoners privileges: most importantly a phone call with family. Many of us have not talked to a family member in over 10 years, which is especially painful when family members – or the prisoner – are very ill.<br />
<br />
My six-year active/inactive review was on Dec. 10, 2014. This is my second one. If I am to be deemed active, I don’t get referred to the DRB, but instead would be held on that active recommendation, or re-validation, pending case-by-case review by the DRB, which can take months or even years. But regardless of the position the DRB takes, when IGI reviews you, you still will be placed in a step.<br />
<br />
We, in our Core Demand No. 2, demanded in part, an end to the active/inactive review, because it retains prisoners indefinitely in SCTC without any real due process or procedural due process. The debriefing policy is still in effect and its sole purpose is to have prisoners snitch on one another for a release from the SCTC that they are held on indefinitely. We understood that the State power can create situations for or in our lives that render us vulnerable to the authority/ power that they have been entrusted with by the People, and, it is the abuse of this power/ authority that has allowed CDCr to structure up a system of torture for thousands of Human Beings held in these SCTC, unjustly.<br />
<br />
We, in part of our Core Demand No. 2 (Abolish the debriefing policy and modify active/inactive gang status criteria), have demanded an end to this debriefing policy that tortures men and women for information on other men and women by using state sanctioned powers to carry out their attacks.<br />
<br />
<h3>
<b>Core Demand No. 2 (Abolish the debriefing policy and modify active/inactive gang status criteria)</b></h3>
<div>
<div>
We continue to be held indefinitely in long term solitary confinement. The new policies do not negate this fact. Humans who have been in solitary confinement for 20 or 30 years are now being placed in Step 1 under the new STG and Steps 1 and 2 under SDP (the steps furthest away from relative freedom in General Population).</div>
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<div>
This speaks to the inhumanity of the CDCr officials who are heartless to the fact that these prisoners have endured enough suffering. The placing of anyone into Step 1 on the basis of frivolous confidential information is unjust and cruel and unusual. So, if you been in SCTC for 30 years and you are placed in Step 1, that’s three more years added to that 30 years, an extension of long term SCTC.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I personally have witnessed individuals who we all know will easily transition into General Population, but they are placed in Steps 1 through 4 due to political material which is protected by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which the CDCr supersedes, and confidential information. The SDP is another scheme to hold countless individuals in long term SCTC.</div>
</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<div>
<b>Long term solitary confinement</b></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
We, in our Core Demand No. 3, demanded an end to long term solitary confinement. We see that CDCr has basically just condemned us to three more years in SCTC, which amounts to torture and long term solitary confinement.</div>
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<br /></div>
<h3>
Core Demand No. 3 (End long term solitary confinement)</h3>
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<br /></div>
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National and international opinion clearly deems long term solitary confinement torture, but these laws are not respected by CDCr, which reduces these laws to opinions. We continue to see prisoners die due to medical neglect and inadequate medical treatment.</div>
</div>
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<b>Health care and food</b></div>
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We all hear the horror stories – and have our own that have routinely been allowed to occur – where countless men and women have died in agonizing pain due to not being diagnosed or not treated for medical conditions that eventually manifest into deadly diseases that the prisoners suffer the rest of their stay in SCTC. In part, we have demanded in our Core Demand No. 4 that inadequate medical treatment cease.</div>
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<br /></div>
<h3>
Core Demand No. 4 (Cease inadequate medical treatment)</h3>
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<br /></div>
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We continue to be fed non-nutritional foods and issued regularly disproportionate servings, so that prisoners held in long term solitary confinement go hungry and become unhealthy, since it is a concrete fact that nutritional foods maintain one’s good health. CDCr continues to defy this documented fact under the “Dietary Guidelines for Americans, 2010,” from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.</div>
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<div>
The case can be made that the food being fed to prisoners routinely is not only non-nutritional but unhealthy for consumption, especially pancakes and waffles with sugar-free syrup and peanut butter with sugar-free jelly. Turkey, beef and chicken is all by-product meats, meaning there is a small percentage of the original meat present.</div>
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So we are eating mostly soy and pink slime, which is why you don’t get meat texture, but instead a flimsy piece of meat. It is questionable whether the soy is safe, let alone healthy for consumption. And let’s keep in mind this is the worst form of processed meat you can eat.</div>
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The milk is 60 percent water; it truly has no nutritional value. The two ridiculously small servings of vegetables we get a day is insufficient to maintain our health.</div>
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And those on Halal diet here at Pelican Bay State Prison are deprived of much of their food simply because they have opted to be on a diet that’s consistent with their religion or principles with respect to how their meat is prepared. They are retaliated against and denied side dishes with these meals frequently; their dinners can be under 400 calories.</div>
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I can go on and on about the inadequate food prisoners are forced to eat – or starve; much of it provides no nutritional benefits. In part, our Core Demand No. 4 demanded an adequate, balanced, nutritional diet be provided and an end to the small servings.</div>
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<br /></div>
<h3>
Core Demand No. 4 (Provide an adequate, balanced, nutritional diet and end the small servings)</h3>
</div>
<b>Education vs. warehousing</b><br />
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We are still held inside these solitary confinement torture chambers (SCTC), where no meaningful educational programs and privileges have been implemented that could encourage our mental stability and physical development. When we talk about educational programs, we are talking about CDCr changing their routine practice of just warehousing prisoners in these SCTC, but instead giving them access to modern world technologies that can be provided at a prisoner’s expense or state expense.<br />
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We definitely need to bring in limited computers that can provide national and international geographies and cultures we can study. The outdated educational programs that CDCr provides at PBSP serve no educational purpose whatsoever.<br />
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The world is getting smaller and smaller and prisoners are like dinosaurs in our thinking, especially those of us who have been in 25 years or longer – and it’s worse for those of us held in these SCTC. We need to be exposed to the many new social and cultural developments that have occurred over those years.<br />
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A lot of us, out of being uniformed, have no clue as to how far the world has advanced, and continued isolation is a tragedy – and this refers to all prisoners in respect to outdated educational programs that provide us no education – especially when CDCr tells the public it is “rehabilitating prisoners.”<br />
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True rehabilitation would mean transforming all prisons into colleges and universities. Tapping into the thousands of mentalities behind these prison walls may discover prisoners, who, once given the opportunity, can become the world’s best scientists, doctors, lawyers, philosophers, judges, cooks, teachers, computer geeks, biologists, dentists, architects and artists.<br />
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<h3 style="text-align: center;">
True rehabilitation would mean transforming all prisons into colleges and universities.</h3>
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We need real courage and a commitment to real education for prisoners. Allowing our mental energy to die or waste away in these man-made tombs does nothing for anyone. I’d prefer to be studying for a doctorate than to be just sitting here wasting away like this. And once we earn our degrees, we should be afforded the opportunity to serve humanity nationally and internationally.<br />
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But, if CDCr only intends to warehouse prisoners until we are dead, then we prisoners have to demand an end to the senseless killing of prisoners by proxy. Humans are a resource, and the state can invest in them positively or negatively. The current investment in prisoners is negative, relegating the human being to nothing.<br />
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<b>Visiting</b><br />
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Privilege is simply allowing prisoners access to activities that enrich our lives. This can only be a benefit to everyone. Family visits and contact visits are privileges, even an hour visit out of 24 hours a day on two days, Saturday and Sunday, and in some prisons, just one day for an hour.<br />
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PBSP afforded an hour and a half and, after our peaceful protests, now three hours. But traveling to PBSP is like going to another state, so even three hours is insufficient considering the distance. We should be allowed five or six hours.<br />
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Privileges should always contribute to one’s social development. The more exposed we are to positive programs, the more we apply what we have learned in practice. That’s the natural process for us and all humanity.<br />
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We have, for the last 50 years in California, been conditioned around violence, and violence has been a regular practice throughout our stay. Thanks to our Agreement to End Hostilities, a lot of this violence has been deterred to some extent.<br />
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But what will keep this violence at bay? Because it definitely won’t sustain itself if prisoners’ energy is not being challenged in the educational programs and privileges that would hold their attention and produce the development that will enrich their lives.<br />
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Our Core Demand No. 5 (Expand and provide constructive programming and privileges for indefinite SHU status inmates) demanded that in order to deal with the idle time and the physical and mental development and social development of each and every prisoner, there must be real rehabilitation.<br />
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<h3>
Core Demand No. 5 (Expand and provide constructive programming and privileges for indefinite SHU status inmates)</h3>
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None of our core demands have been met! We are at a stage in our protracted struggle where we have to ask ourselves a tough question: Where do we go from here?<br />
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<h3 style="text-align: center;">
None of our core demands have been met!</h3>
CDCr has afforded some of us access to the General Population who should have never been held in these SCTC in the first place and have been held for far too many years. Our class action lawsuit was filed to end indefinite, longterm solitary confinement for all of us.<br />
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However, CDCr can render our class action lawsuit moot by placing everyone in the SDP, especially those of us who’ve been here in PBSP SHU 10 years or more, which is the only requirement of the lawsuit. (CDCr’s effort to defeat the suit by placing plaintiffs in the Step Down Program and moving them to other SHUs has been derailed by the court since this was written. – ed.)<br />
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So, considering the slow pace of progress in the Legislature and the possibility the lawsuit may not succeed, the responsibility to make change will come back to us prisoners. So we have to start strategizing around what we have to do in respect to our peaceful protests in order to end the continued abuse of authority.<br />
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CDCr has turned up its attacks, making it worse for each and every prisoner and his or her family. New regulations on personal property and on “obscenity” – actually censorship, a direct attack on free speech – have been implemented, and the proposed regulations to use canine searches of visitors – a direct attack on our families – are not yet approved but are in effect “on a temporary basis.”<br />
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These new regulations are about nothing other than prison officials abusing their position of power in order to retaliate against all of us who participated in the three hunger strikes and against all prisoners, activists and our families who supported us. The fact that CDCr can use the power that has been entrusted to them by the people to attack the people for their peaceful protests speaks volumes to how CDCr officials have no respect for the offices they hold.<br />
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We prisoners need to prepare for a massive peaceful protest and work stoppage if prison officials don’t change<br />
1) The culture to which prisoners and their families are subjected: so much mental and physical torment;<br />
2) End long term solitary confinement, as they promised; and<br />
3) Implement our five core demands. If not, we have to think about our immediate future and long term future behind these walls.<br />
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Too many humans are suffering who don’t need to be suffering.<br />
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We also have to begin to educate prisoners on how to file writs and civil complaints in the state and federal courts in the interests of prisoners, ending the routine abuses that have been systemic throughout the state. The work stoppage, if necessary, should last anywhere from a month to years.<br />
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Our support committees need to release a report on the health consequences that many prisoners suffered during our last hunger strike, such as when we were temporarily taken to New Folsom. Many prisoners suffered immeasurable consequences in the name of our peaceful hunger strikes – the most recent having lasted from July 8, 2013, to Sept. 5, 2013 – that I personally recorded. We lost six lives, and we continue to lose lives.<br />
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One Love, One Struggle!<br />
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<i>Send our brother some love and light: Mutope Duguma, s/n James Crawford, D-05996, D2-107, P.O. Box 7500, Crescent City CA 95532.</i><br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8156907989517204422.post-24955641137768142952015-02-04T12:59:00.003-08:002015-07-22T12:26:44.898-07:00Pattern of Practice: Centuries of racist oppression culminating in mass incarcerationJanuary 26, 2015<br />
by Mutope Duguma<br />
Published in: <a href="http://sfbayview.com/2015/01/pattern-of-practice-centuries-of-racist-oppression-culminating-in-mass-incarceration/" target="_blank">SF Bay View</a><br />
<br />
In 1619, the first Africans were brought to North America by force to be slaves. From 1619 to 1776, this brutal chattel slave system was able to flourish in the 13 British colonies. From 1776, the United States government would take over the reins of this land, including its brutal slave system. From 1776 to 1865, while declaring its independence from its mother country, Great Britain, on July 4, 1776, the U.S. nevertheless held onto all of its evil practices.<br />
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The so-called Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 would end slavery as we know it. At the end of the Civil War in 1865, these so-called freed slaves would be subjugated by a new system of exclusion and exploitation under the Black Codes. Instituted by the slave states as slave codes, the Black Codes effectively re-enslaved Black people identified as vagrants, replacing their freedom with forced labor.<br />
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After the brief period of Black involvement in government known as Reconstruction, from 1865 to 1877, Black freedom was also denied for almost 100 more years by legalized racial segregation under the Jim Crow laws. After winning their freedom in the bloodiest conflict in U.S. history, Blacks were in many cases and places denied basic human, civil and political rights: the right to vote, the right to employment, the right to freely move about, the right to own land, the right to education, the right to decent housing, the right to adequate food and clothing, the right to a fair and just judicial system and much more, literally forcing New Afrikans back into slavery by denying them a right to life. Jim Crow segregation in one form or another was practiced nationwide.<br />
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<b>Pattern of practice</b><br />
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Our Afrikan ancestors were forced to make their own way, while being denied everything and subjected to vicious racist attacks by local, state and federal government officials. The state would use vagrancy laws in order to criminalize New Afrikans because they did not have a job. Unemployment was considered a violation of state law, although the same system shut them out of the job market.<br />
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Once they were convicted under the vagrancy laws, they would be off to the penitentiary, where they would be forced back into slavery, legally, under the 13th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. So the government was able to use its judicial proceedings in order to incarcerate thousands of New Afrikans under these vagrancy and Jim Crow laws in order to force them back into free slave labor, which was the government’s objective.<br />
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<b>Pattern of practice</b><br />
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The struggle for civil rights in this country can easily define what I mean by pattern of practice. The Civil Rights Act of 1866 was vetoed by President Andrew Johnson, but the law still passed. It was supposed to give New Afrikans citizenship and extensive civil rights for all men born in the United States, except “Native Indians.” The Enforcement Act of 1870 was passed to re-enact the Civil Rights Act of 1866 once the 14th Amendment made its enforcement unquestionably constitutional.<br />
<br />
Much of the Civil Rights Act of 1871 was codified into federal law as Section 1983, but its influence waned as Reconstruction ended. Then the Civil Rights Act of 1875 was passed to outlaw discrimination in public places because of race or previous servitude. But in 1883, the act was declared unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court, which stated that the 14th Amendment, the constitutional basis of the act, protected individual rights against infringement by the states, not by other individuals.<br />
<br />
<b>Pattern of practice</b><br />
<br />
The Civil Rights Acts of 1957, 1960, 1964 and 1968 were basically testaments to the consistency of a resistance struggle for civil rights in this country by New Afrikans and the countless human beings who would join in this Civil and Human Rights Movement, yet the system would continue to interfere with and obstruct the human and civil rights of New Afrikans every step of the way for over 100 years. And today we are right back where we started, fighting for our human and civil rights.<br />
<br />
<b>Pattern of practice</b><br />
<br />
We very well could be fighting for our human and civil rights in this country as long as the Congress – the Senate and the House of Representatives – the legislative branch of the United States government, continues to deny New Afrikans our human and civil rights indefinitely. Government intransigence forces New Afrikans to address this issue every 20 years or so. This is where the real injustices occur, speaking to the real racist application of such pattern of practice. Throughout our struggle, the Civil Rights Movement was and is of astronomical value in our Resistance Movement.<br />
<br />
<b>Brief historical perspective</b><br />
<br />
It would be counterproductive not to mention Denmark Vesey, Martin Delaney and especially Marcus Garvey and the contributions he and the United Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) made toward our struggle for independence, which nationalized us as a people, because that organization would be the catalyst for many freedom movements to come.<br />
<br />
The civil and human rights organizations were all instrumental in laying a foundation for more progressive struggles that would take center stage in our struggle to be liberated, starting with the Nation of Islam (NOI), the Black Liberation Movement (BLM), which would give life to the Black Panther Party (BPP), Republic of New Afrika (RNA), Black Liberation Army (BLA) and countless other revolutionary formations that would become the face of the struggle for Black liberation, i.e., freedom in Amerika.<br />
<br />
We must begin to see these Sistas and Bruthas as our honorable men and women who have made sacrifices and continue to stand in struggle, while always remembering those who made the ultimate sacrifice.<br />
<br />
The New Afrikan Independence Movement (NAIM) would be established and our struggle continue for self-determination, enabling us to govern ourselves as a New Afrikan independent nation within the borders of Amerika. New Afrikans would attempt to mobilize our people around socio-cultural, political and economic principles that speak to our humanity as a people, bringing into focus an ideology that represents the core of our identity, life style and beliefs that’s inclusive of all humanity.<br />
<br />
These movements would progress until the mid-1970s , when state and federal governments made a concerted effort to stamp out all New Afrikan movements. Whether they were peaceful or radical, the government would conduct a vicious campaign, where the local, state and federal law enforcement agencies would work in conjunction to murder and incarcerate any New Afrikans who dared to fight for their basic humanity and right to self-determination.<br />
<br />
These repressive attacks by the government jeopardized our political and ideological development as a people. The brutal suppression programs waged against our people put fear in many, and the struggle for freedom had to take a back seat. To some extent, fear took the fight out of the people.<br />
<br />
<b>Pattern of practice: Lost communities</b><br />
<br />
This would open up the floodgates to the many street vices that would be introduced and unleashed on the New Afrikan communities: extreme poverty, drugs, alcohol, police, guns, etc., etc. – all weapons of mass destruction.<br />
<br />
At the same time, New Afrikans would move toward re-assimilation into the fabric of Amerikan society, especially the professional New Afrikans, who could provide a service that could be exploited for the interests of corporate Amerika, not the people, and many abandoned their old neighborhoods. The more economically deprived the New Afrikan community was, the more desperate it became, and it is here where all sense of community would begin to be lost – where each individual would be trying to survive at the expense of everyone else, by any means necessary.<br />
<br />
The generations to come, from 1975 to the present, would be left to their own devices, causing many to be compromised by the very vices just spoken to.<br />
<br />
<b>Pattern of practice: Weapons of mass destruction</b><br />
<br />
In the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, PCP pills and heroin were heavily pumped into our communities; in the 1980s and 1990s, it was PCP and crack cocaine; in the mid-1980s and 1990s, guns saturated our communities – every inner city ghetto and all the other residential areas largely populated by New Afrikans. Drive-by fast-food joints saturated the community, causing mass obesity; liquor stores saturated the community, causing addiction to a legal substance; toxic chemical plants saturated the community, causing all kinds of ailments. Militarized police departments saturated – and occupied – the community, murdering our children and people with impunity.<br />
<br />
Over the years, the government declared and waged war on the New Afrikan communities: In the 1800s, it was a war on unemployed “vagrants,” where countless so-called newly freed slaves were incarcerated in order to re-enslave them under the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution; in the 1970s and 1980s, it was a war on crime, and thousands of New Afrikans would be criminalized; in the 1980s and 1990s the war on drugs would be used to imprison New Afrikans at alarming rates, until 40-50 percent of the population of the prison industrial slave complex (PISC) would be New Afrikans; in the mid-1980s, 1990s and 2000s the war on gangs would be used to terrorize the New Afrikan communities, with battering rams, SWAT teams, gang injunctions, gentrification, illegal evictions and mass incarceration.<br />
<br />
In the mid-1990s, the war on domestic terrorism would seal the fate of thousands of prisoners serving life sentences, when the then so-called first Black president, Bill Clinton, signed off on the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA) that would subject thousands of poor New Afrikans to civil death.<br />
<br />
These are all coded declarations of war on the New Afrikan people.<br />
<br />
<b>Pattern of practice: Economic deprivation</b><br />
<br />
Government and corporate Amerika have been active participants in making sure that New Afrikans and their communities are economically deprived by refusing to keep up the property they own and control. The people who were born and raised in these communities have to watch their property values drop while they are not allowed to maintain or utilize those facilities for the interests of the community.<br />
<br />
And when the people offer to purchase such desolate property, then the true intentions of the government and corporate owners are exposed. They attempt to hide behind some state or federal policy to explain why the property cannot be sold or given to the people to improve, or the corporate owners will attempt to place some huge, out-of-the-ordinary price on such desolate property that they have no use for, other than as an instrument to devalue the already struggling, economically deprived communities.<br />
<br />
This is nothing but a scheme that’s been used for over a century to create poverty-stricken environments all over Amerika, especially in the New Afrikan communities.<br />
<br />
<b>Pattern of practice: Political prisoners</b><br />
<br />
State and federal prisons hold the many New Afrikan political prisoners all over this country in solitary confinement units, where they are tortured by state and federal government workers for their political beliefs. We’re talking about the most educated of our people, kept in isolation for decades, with no end in sight for release from these state and federal torture chambers.<br />
<br />
Many have dedicated their lives to helping improve our living conditions and empowering the people to control the socio-cultural, political and economic systems that ultimately dictate their lives. We must, as fellow humans, reach back to these men and women who have sacrificed so much.<br />
<br />
<b>Pattern of practice: Modern day slavery</b><br />
<br />
The government deliberately calculated that building its prison industrial slave complex (PISC), which is humongous, throughout the United States in strategic areas would not only provide a surplus of modern day slaves. The new system of plantations would be welcomed into many dilapidated, economically deprived white, rural communities with its promise to create jobs – at the expense of other impoverished human beings – which has been a very clever way of laundering taxpayers’ money back into white communities. We’re talking about billions of dollars, if not trillions, over a period of time.<br />
<br />
<b>Pattern of practice: Main culprits</b><br />
<br />
Corporate Amerika works hand in hand with the United States government against the New Afrikan community by using its institutions to carry out race and class warfare, by glamorizing on the television and in movies a malignant sub-culture that was to dehumanize, devalue, degrade and desensitize New Afrikans to the rest of the world, as well as ourselves – a marketing campaign toward our genocide. There has always been an indictment against New Afrikans in the U.S. by local, state and federal goverments that is implemented through policies and laws that can be tracked easily from 1619 to today.<br />
<br />
The politicians who are the power brokers of this nation use the Black establishment, the Asian establishment, the Latino establishment etc. as willing participants in carrying out institutionalized racist policies that have been genocidal toward humanity.<br />
<br />
<b>Pattern of practice: Conclusion</b><br />
<br />
There seems to be one thing that the Democrats, Republicans and Independent politicians can agree on unanimously, and that is the declaration of war against New Afrikan and other oppressed people, while depriving those humans of basic necessities, such as adequate educational institutions, adequate jobs, adequate housing, adequate food and clean water etc.<br />
<br />
We, the people, have to address corporate and institutionalized racism if we are truly about social justice. It is the only way we can attempt to achieve something in respect to ending the prevalent injustices that plague us as humans.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ncr3InVH1hA/VNKKy7lVxWI/AAAAAAAAAC8/VUfg5zspGeM/s1600/Mutope%2BDuguma%2BSept%2B2014%2B001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ncr3InVH1hA/VNKKy7lVxWI/AAAAAAAAAC8/VUfg5zspGeM/s1600/Mutope%2BDuguma%2BSept%2B2014%2B001.jpg" width="209" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mutope Duguma, Sept. 2014</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
One love, one struggle!<br />
<br />
Mutope Duguma<br />
<br />
<i>Send our brother some love and light: Mutope Duguma, s/n James Crawford, D-05996, PBSP SHU D2-107, P.O. Box 7500, Crescent City CA 95532.</i>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11567149038098652272noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8156907989517204422.post-77815265973598751972014-09-30T12:48:00.000-07:002014-09-30T12:48:16.597-07:00I'm Just AskingHow can we the People of this nation/world end the suffering of countless men and women held inside; man-made, 'manufactured' torture chambers called: solitary confinement?<br /><br />Can we call on the humanity of this nation/world to lend their voice, their time. Their strength and heart, their money toward ending torture in Amerika?<br />Is it reasonable to ask why so many human beings have been allowed to suffer for so long, such a cruel and brutal fate, simply because they're considered the outcast of a society?<br /><br />Do the state and federal government have a responsibility to its citizens, or does it have the right to subject its poorest incarcerated citizens to an ongoing physical and psychological torment with no end in sight?<br /><br />I'm just asking.<br /><br />Mutope Duguma<br />s/n James Crawford<br />D-05996, D2-107L<br />Pelican Bay State Prison – SHU<br />P.O. Box 7500<br />Crescent City, CA 95532<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11567149038098652272noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8156907989517204422.post-4652485006443992642014-06-13T11:20:00.000-07:002014-07-01T11:22:50.935-07:00CDCr counterpunch: New rules designed to silence prison protest<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="http://sfbayview.com/2014/cdcr-counterpunch-new-rules-designed-to-silence-prison-protest/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">SF BayView</a>, June 13, 2014</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">by Mutope
Duguma<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">To all
officers and personnel within the CDCr* who have not fully grasped the state of
our affairs as it relates to the events of the last three years, in particular
“those damn hunger strikes,” if I could read your mind, this is what I think
I’d hear you say: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span lang="EN-US"><i>We will not tolerate “our”
prisoners getting out of line, no matter how bad we treat them, because we are
the authority here, and this each and every one of you will come to know in
time. We will pass policies that will restrict any prisoners from speaking out
to the public. </i>[Editor’s note: Under </span><a href="http://sfbayview.com/2014/fight-new-prison-censorship-rules-proposed-by-cdcr/"><span lang="EN-US">CDCr’s proposed new censorship
regulations</span></a><span lang="EN-US">,
publications like the Bay View that publish prisoners’ articles for the public
to read could be permanently banned from all California prisons.]<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span>
<span lang="EN-US"><i>We will consider any
rhetoric that protests our torture of prisoners to be a threat to the safety
and security of the CDCr, and that language will be banned from our
institutions. So, any publications that reference such rhetoric will be
rejected by our mail handlers.</i><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span>
<span lang="EN-US"><i>We do not care about the
First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, because our authority is to protect
the public by all means. And we cannot do this with a lot of red tape, nor can
we do this without torturing prisoners by holding them indefinitely in solitary
confinement. Therefore, solitary confinement is very necessary.</i><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span>
<span lang="EN-US"><i>We further note that we may
now be allowing prisoners to have electric typewriters, combo televisions,
radios, excess canteen etc., but if they get two serious CDCr 115s (Rules
Violation Reports) within a six month period, we will assert our authority
under the new proposed regulation titled “program failure” and strip them to
their bare necessities, meaning all of their appliances (radios, TVs and the
like) and excess property will be sent home.</i><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span>
<span lang="EN-US"><i>That means we didn’t really
give them anything, because we can manufacture these serious 115s, citing
confidential information by way of our many informants, 1030 disclosure forms,
debriefings, staff information, talking on the yard or in the building, and
take it all away. These are some of the many ways in which we can strip them of
their property, based on these proposed new regulations.</i><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span>
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-style: italic;">So if we get this passed as
policy </span><span lang="EN-US">[</span><a href="http://prisonerhungerstrikesolidarity.wordpress.com/"><span lang="EN-US">the comment period for the new
regulations is open until Tuesday, June 17 at 5 p.m.</span></a><span lang="EN-US">]<i>, then it’s open season on these
guys for real. We can trash their cells during searches and if they respond
negatively, then write them up a serious CDCr 115 Rules Violation Report, an
RVR. We can feed them slop however we see fit, and if they say something
negative in response, write them up a serious RVR. </i></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US"><i><br /></i></span>
<span lang="EN-US"><i>We can write them up in the
law library for many violations, play with their canteen and packages, yard;
you name it, we can do it now, under these new proposed regulations.<o:p></o:p></i></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US"><i><br /></i></span>
<span lang="EN-US"><i>We literally can hammer
these guys now. We have put ourselves in a better position to screw these guys
and many will not even see it coming. We do it all under the authority of CDCr
policy.<o:p></o:p></i></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US"><i><br /></i></span>
<span lang="EN-US"><i>Hell, we should be very
excited about the position we are in, because we got the STG (Security Threat
Group, the new term for “gang”) I and II and the SDP (Step-Down Program) on the
books as policy and we didn’t even have it challenged. Now they are eating out
of our hands to get to the DRB (Departmental Review Board, which is
interviewing prisoners in solitary confinement to see whether they belong
there). We basically just widened our field of play.<o:p></o:p></i></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US"><i><br /></i></span>
<span lang="EN-US"><i>We can lock up anyone we
desire to under the STG I and II and the SDP. Hell, this is 10 times better
than indeterminate SHU, under prison gang validations. We get the whole
enchilada now! And we got four years to hold each and every one of them.<o:p></o:p></i></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US"><i><br /></i></span>
<span lang="EN-US"><i>We have a pool of 130,000
prisoners to choose from, and guess what? We can bring them back to solitary
confinement any time we want to. We got nothing to worry about, because, hell,
we locked some of these guys up for 30 to 40 years straight on BS and didn’t
pay any of them one cent, nor were any of our officers prosecuted, and we know
that a lot of these validations were in clear violation of the law, an
injustice where we subjected these guys to all kinds of physical and
psychological torture and got clean away with it. And we have a more elaborate
system to continue business as usual.<o:p></o:p></i></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US"><i><br /></i></span>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: NL;"><i>We got each and every one of
them right where we want them. When looking at them today, what has changed?
And I say to all my officers, not a damn thing changed! We good, so continue to
get your overtime and make your money and remember that working in solitary
confinement pays extras. We good!<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: NL;"><i>Oh, and support the
legislators for a job well done in writing SB 892.</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: NL;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 13.5pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: NL;">Retaliation
by policy<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: NL;">Though we [Mutope is now
speaking in his own voice] are in the 21st century, the CDCr is using its
authority and power to retaliate against prisoners in order to break our will
and spirit. Although the method has changed, the results remain the same.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: NL;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: NL;">The method can be openly
brutal, as we see in the Southern states, where our New Afrikan brothers and
sisters are beat down and murdered, while being treated like 1700s or 1800s
slaves, working in chain gangs, while prison guards ride horses with shotguns,
looking like something straight out of the movies.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: NL;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: NL;">But when you start analyzing
exactly what’s going on inside California prisons, you will begin to see that
we too are being beat down and murdered, as if we too were in the 1700s and
1800s. Actually, it’s been equally as devastating for us as it is for our
brothers and sisters in the Southern states.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: NL;"><br /></span></div>
<span lang="EN-US">Prison policies have been
constructed so that each and every prisoner has been subjected to pain and
punishment over the past 25 years. The CDCr policy makers have used CCR
(California Code of Regulations) Title 15 to attack prisoners in every aspect
of our lives – medical, food, property, politics, privileges, custody,
education, law library, yard, sanitation etc.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span>
<span lang="EN-US">No matter the level of
attacks, it’s always been done to establish and constantly remind us that we
prisoners are under oppressive prison conditions. The policy changes are not
something the CDCr even tries to hide. It seems as if their sole purpose for
introducing policies is to subject the prisoners to inhumane treatment.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span>
<span lang="EN-US">We have seen, since our
first and second hunger strikes, that the policy governing hunger strikes (CDCr
Chapter 22 and 23 and Operational Procedures (OP) 228), under the warden’s
authority, was changed, simply because they could not subject prisoners to
“physical harm.” So, after we came off our first hunger strike, the CDCr turned
around and changed the hunger strike policy, the OP, to allow them to subject
prisoners to some kind of pain and punishment, although they had arbitrarily
carried out attacks against us even when the initial hunger strike policies
were in effect.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span>
<span lang="EN-US">The CDCr uses these prison
policies in order to subject prisoners to physical and psychological harm. The
reason CDCr went back and changed their proposed policies was so that they
could retaliate against prisoners for their peaceful protests. Although they laid
claim to false security threats to the institutions, they never proved
anything. So, why would it be a threat to the safety and security of the
institution now?<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span>
<span lang="EN-US">When prisoners write to
publications in order to tell our stories to the outside world, why would that
be a threat now to the penological interests of the CDCr when it never has been
for over 40 years? Is it a threat when prisoners write on our philosophical
views, our political and ideological beliefs, and sign off with our names? Why
would prisoners telling the public about the torture we’ve been subjected to at
the hands of the CDCr be a threat to the penological interests of the prison?
In two words, “It’s not.”<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span>
<span lang="EN-US">The policy [</span><a href="http://prisonerhungerstrikesolidarity.wordpress.com/"><span lang="EN-US">new proposed censorship rules, officially
called “Obscene Material” regulations</span></a><span lang="EN-US">] is in retaliation for prisoners telling our
personal horror stories, while carrying out hunger strikes in protest of such
cruel and unusual punishment inside solitary confinement.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span>
<span lang="EN-US">The CDCr is neither ashamed
nor remorseful for the pain and suffering they inflict on so many human beings.
Instead, they are constantly trying to find ways to silence prisoners and
further subject us to more pain and suffering. These retaliatory policies are
designed to do just that. We have to challenge the CDCr’s blatant retaliation
on prisoners.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span>
<span lang="EN-US">One love, one struggle,<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span>
<em><span lang="EN-US">Mutope Duguma</span></em><span lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<em><span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></em>
<em><span lang="EN-US">Send our brother some
love and light: Mutope Duguma, s/n James Crawford, D-05996, D2-107, P.O. Box
7500, Crescent City CA 95532.</span></em><span lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<em><span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></em>
<span lang="EN-US">*CDCr is the acronym for
the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation; prisoners often
write the last letter in lower case because rehabilitation is nearly
nonexistent in California prisons.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11567149038098652272noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8156907989517204422.post-26713546377893729162014-05-04T03:11:00.000-07:002014-05-04T03:14:44.863-07:00Pelican Bay update: What change?<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 17.6pt; margin-bottom: 12.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt; line-height: 17.6pt;">By Mutope Duguma</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 17.6pt; margin-bottom: 12.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 9pt;">Published on: <a href="http://sfbayview.com/2014/pelican-bay-update-what-change/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">SF Bay View</a>, <o:p></o:p></span><span style="font-size: 12px;">May 1, 2014</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 17.6pt; margin-bottom: 12.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;">Our Five Core Demands of the hunger strikes have not been met. And we see
that reform always equals revisionism, which means it’s no change.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 17.6pt; margin-bottom: 12.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;">Reform is a word that provides one, or a people, temporary fixes. It does
not change their circumstances, but instead gives an impression that they have
achieved change. Reformism is an age old practice that has been used on
oppressed people throughout the world for centuries. As our oppressor, CDCr is
employing the very same tactics now because they have not been able to bring
about the change they have promised.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 17.6pt; margin-bottom: 12.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt; line-height: 17.6pt;">The food has literally gotten worse, although for a month they attempted to
adequately feed us. The medical care continues to be inadequate. The
educational programs and privileges are not afforded, and prisoners are still
made to suffer in these inhumane conditions, now familiar to us for years on
end. The Departmental Review Board (DRB) under no circumstances can meet the
demands to remove all those prisoners who they illegally placed in solitary
within a respectable amount of time.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 17.6pt; margin-bottom: 12.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;">Neither the CDCr secretary nor the undersecretary can credit themselves
with making changes, just because one man who was held in solitary for 40-plus
years was recently released from the Pelican Bay State Prison Security Housing
Unit (PBSP SHU). They are trying to act as if they are moving in the right
direction, while there are countless others suffering in the same reality,
solitary confinement.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 17.6pt; margin-bottom: 12.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;">This in itself is an insidious and malicious criminal act, which each and
every prison official who had a hand in this or allowed these crimes against
humanity to occur for so long, should be held accountable for to the highest
degree of the law.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 17.6pt; margin-bottom: 12.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;">It is disheartening to hear or read politicians reference that prisoners be
subjected to three years in solitary for a mere validation alone, criminalizing
a status based on gang title. It is this tolerance that sanctions CDCr’s
torture and inhumane treatment of prisoners and condones solitary confinement
in all its capacity. Would you want to be placed in solitary based on a gang
validation, which you have no control over, even though you deny the gang
accusations?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 17.6pt; margin-bottom: 12.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;">The lawmakers have to be brave and set the tone for how the law is to be
interpreted and applied by all means. Paraphrasing what Undersecretary Hoshino
said: The regulatory process is subordinate to the legislative process.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 17.6pt; margin-bottom: 12.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;">So, if Sen. Loni Hancock is serious and committed to changing the inhumane
treatment and deliberate torture that subjects record numbers of prisoners to
solitary confinement indefinitely, then she has to reject the STG (Security
Threat Group) I and II, along with the Pilot SDP, step down program, because it
further sanctions each and every prisoner being held in solitary to more and
more years in isolation.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 17.6pt; margin-bottom: 12.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;">When she introduced her bill to the Senate, termed “Major Reform of
Solitary Confinement in California Prisons,” she said the legislation is
designed to achieve four goals:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 17.6pt; margin-bottom: 12.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;">No. 1. Increase insight and accountability: Reading this, we feel that we
have done a very poor job of educating her and the legislative body as to our
pain and suffering, because under no circumstances can the Office of the
Inspector General (OIG) or the Office of Internal Affairs (OIA) be established
as the independent oversight entity because that has been their job since their
inception, and they have failed to adequately provide proper oversight. The
result has been prisoners being subjected to cruel and unusual punishment for
well over 40 years.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 17.6pt; margin-bottom: 12.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;">To regard the OIG and the OIA as being in a position to do an objective and
sufficient job in overseeing the CDCr, is like having the lion watch over the
lamb! We need real change when it comes to an independent oversight that has no
ties to CDCr.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 17.6pt; margin-bottom: 12.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;">No. 2. Integrity and fair treatment in detention decisions: We see this as
something that will always be subjective, because we see individuals go before
the Departmental Review Board with the exact same infractions and time spent in
solitary confinement, yet one gets put up for Step 1 and the other gets put up
at Step 5. This is a subjective judgment because both had political literature;
both had 30-plus years in solitary, no disciplinary problems and definitely no
gang activity. Yet the DRB assessed both men differently in their case by case
review. Why?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 17.6pt; margin-bottom: 12.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;">The fact that the DRB feels they corrected an unjust, inhumane act in which
a man suffered immeasurably for 43 years is unacceptable. The only just action
is to release this man back to his community.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 17.6pt; margin-bottom: 12.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;">No. 3. Humane conditions in the SHU (Security Housing Units or solitary
confinement): I cannot see how the legislators can make solitary confinement
humane! It is an impossible task and apparently Loni Hancock did not get what
the families were saying, because if she rightfully heard the public, the
families’ cries and prisoners horror stories, in her sense of humanity and
empathizing with family members, under no circumstances would she be talking
about making this inhumane environment more humane. It’s ludicrous and
impossible.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 17.6pt; margin-bottom: 12.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;">No. 4. Positive incentives for inmates to change their lives: What about
the countless positive prisoners, like myself, whose life was changed way
before we were placed in solitary confinement? I am all for change, but yard is
required by law; phone calls, visits and photographs should never be classified
as “privileges” because these are all family oriented activities.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 17.6pt; margin-bottom: 12.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;">I see positive incentives for prisoners by way of adequate educational
programs that allow prisoners to be reconnected to 21st century Amerika,
college degrees, trades and vocational skills etc., where we learn a
profession, making sure each prisoner can efficiently read and write and
understand the political and economic landscape of this country. Programming
prisoners should live in healthy social conditions that are beneficial to them,
instead of conditions that foster the socially dysfunctional behavior
cultivated through social engineering toward our demise.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 17.6pt; margin-bottom: 12.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;">The Five Core Demands will allow these incentives to be met. I would add
that I commend Loni Hancock for being brave enough to openly say what we have
been suffering for all these years by being subjected to inhumane conditions.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 17.6pt; margin-bottom: 12.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;">Our Five Core Demands of the hunger strikes have not been met. And we see
that reform always equals revisionism, which means it’s no change.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 17.6pt; margin-bottom: 12.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;">But we see no change, and I realize that this bill was only submitted in
mid-March and has a long way to go, through a long, drawn out process, while
prisoners continue to suffer now. There isn’t the sense of urgency that was
present at the Feb. 11, 2014, Public Safety Committee hearing. CDCr
Undersecretary Hoshino reiterated several times in his testimony that they
“need time.” This means that they have no intention of changing these
conditions for the long haul.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 17.6pt; margin-bottom: 12.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;">The state of California, the governor and legislators need to find another
economic incentive for CDCr and the CCPOA prison guards union, because this is
where the problem lies. Under no circumstances can they end these solitary
confinement torture chambers as long as CDCr and the CCPOA are able to make
millions of dollars off of placing prisoners into solitary confinement.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 17.6pt; margin-bottom: 12.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;">Undersecretary Hoshino refers to 97 percent of the prisoners who have gone
before the DRB being released or on their way to being released – and that’s
out of 700 people reviewed thus far. But what he failed to mention is that for
every prisoner released, two more are put in their place, thus creating a
revolving door simply on the basis of a gang validation, NOT on BEHAVIOR.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 17.6pt; margin-bottom: 12.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;">Again, 80 percent of the prison population are validated as gang members or
associates, whether they are or not. This is a fact. The real problem is that
the state has found a way of giving millions of taxpayer dollars to CDCr
officials without requiring bad behavior by us prisoners as a pretext to do it,
yet we are made to suffer under torturous conditions.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 17.6pt; margin-bottom: 12.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;">The state of California, the governor and legislators need to find another
economic incentive for CDCr and the CCPOA prison guards union, because this is
where the problem lies. Under no circumstances can they end these solitary
confinement torture chambers as long as CDCr and the CCPOA are able to make
millions of dollars off of placing prisoners into solitary confinement.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 17.6pt; margin-bottom: 12.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;">The only way to end long term solitary confinement is to stop paying for
it. This dirty little secret is far too lucrative for CDCr and the CCPOA to let
go of it. My value back here in the Pelican Bay Short Corridor, as an
individual, is $70,000 annually. Multiply that by 14,000 California prisoners
in solitary, including Ad Seg; the total is nearly $1 billion! For profit we
suffer! End long term solitary NOW!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 17.6pt; margin-bottom: 12.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;">One love, one struggle!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 17.6pt; margin-bottom: 12.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;">Mutope Duguma<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 17.6pt; margin-bottom: 12.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 9pt;"><i><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Send our brother some love and light: Mutope Duguma (James Crawford),
D-05996, PBSP SHU D2-107, P.O. Box 7500, Crescent City CA 95532. This letter
was written in April 2014.</span></i><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8156907989517204422.post-2605557168579360872014-05-04T03:06:00.000-07:002014-05-04T03:06:16.407-07:00We are the world<div class="MsoNormal">
March 29,
2014</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">by Mutope
Duguma<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Published at <a href="http://sfbayview.com/2014/we-are-the-world/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">SF Bay View</a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">We human
beings are a political, social, cultural and economic force trapped within the
colonial powers of our oppressors’ system, in and out of prison. Our struggle
is for absolute self-determination and liberation on a national and
international level, by way of changing from scientific capitalism into a
scientific socialist system, which is crucial for changing and ending human
suffering.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It’s human
beings who are the practitioners of progressive theories, which we utilize as a
guide for action in our progressive struggle, from the founding of our humanist
ideology. We have always presented ourselves as educators committed to the
liberation of all oppressed people of the world.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">We realize
that our oppressors, the exploiters of the people of the world, will never end
their aggression and exploitation where there exists no progressive society to
challenge such aggression.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Even behind
the walls of the prison industrial slave complex, PISC, a system of human
degradation will continue to exist, wherever there exist no progressives. We
hold the responsibility to fight against the capitalist exploiters of the
world. We welcome the ability to serve the interests of humanity.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">We are
comprised of seasoned educators who are committed to the growth and development
of education of all human beings and are rooted in the truths that afford all
human beings to exercise the fullness of their potential, bringing into existence
a society that represents a true civilization under justice, freedom and
equality for all.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">This
civilization will allow most, if not all, to be educated. This civilization
will allow most, if not all, to be educated around politics and economics with the
intent to serve the interests of all humanity instead of the small few, as we
see today.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">We realize
none of this can be achieved without the coalescing of the people’s power – a
power that has to be precise and decisive in how it goes about bringing into
existence the political and economic system of scientific socialist principles.
Our responsibilities are totally to the oppressed people of the world, and it
will be incumbent upon us to give the oppressed masses moral and physical
support, express genuine love toward the people and learn all we can from them
so that initiatives in our struggle can be carried out, to resist our
oppressors.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">We realize
that our oppressors, the exploiters of the people of the world, will never end
their aggression and exploitation where there exists no progressive society to
challenge such aggression.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">It is here
that we as a lower class people will begin to formulate more ideas around our
protracted struggle. The oppressed masses are truly linked to struggle and will
have a significant role as we liberate ourselves from our oppressor’s grip in
all sectors of society.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">If we are
to be true servants of the people, we have to be rooted in the practice of
selflessness. This is the only way we can begin to champion the people’s causes
progressively. All activities we participate in as progressives concerning
growth and development should be of benefit to the people. We always have to be
mindful in the quest for the people’s liberation that our struggle includes
resisting selfishness and materialistic values that encourage the “me” society.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">The growth
and development of the people is our task in our struggle to be free, but in
order to achieve such a task, we have to be equipped with the knowhow to bring
about political and ideological development through our progressive organizing
around our scientific socialist principles toward meeting the peoples’ needs.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">We can very
well achieve this task through our philosophy of “each one teach one.” This
responsibility can only be efficiently embraced by our masses by bringing about
a new breed of human being: women, men and children who adhere to the concepts
of love and respect for all progressives and fellow human beings.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">The women,
men and children who embark on this progressive journey by challenging the
inhumanity, injustices and rampant poverty that have subjugated the oppressed
to a state of constant conflict and oppression in which millions are dying
daily and living half butchered lives – they will be the leaders of the 21st
century.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">We can very
well achieve this task through our philosophy of “each one teach one.” This
responsibility can only be efficiently embraced by our masses by bringing about
a new breed of human being: women, men and children who adhere to the concepts
of love and respect for all progressives and fellow human beings.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">We can
seriously study and see where the errors of our ways have set us on a course
that has stagnated our growth and development by not understanding the true
methods to employ so as to achieve our objectives as an oppressed lower class
of people.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
We see
people struggling in all areas of oppressed societies, no matter where we are
in the world, as Alina of France, Annabelle of The Netherlands and Penny Love
of San Francisco can testify so eloquently. They all clearly understand how the
oppressed people of the world continue to be exploited by the very small group
of rich human beings.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">As long as
we can agree on how to achieve our objectives for the greater good of all human
beings, then we should never fall out with each other just because we believe
in different methods, strategies and tactics to reach a common objective. It is
essential that we all keep foremost in our minds at all times that the
objectives take precedent over the individuals. And that the struggle is about
bringing principles into practice for the greater good of humanity.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">In
solidarity always, one love, one struggle,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US">Mutope<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span lang="EN-US">Send our brother some love and light: Mutope
Duguma, s/n James Crawford, D-05996, PBSP SHU D2-107U, P.O. Box 7500, Crescent
City CA 95532.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8156907989517204422.post-58643071471824238402014-02-26T02:55:00.000-08:002014-02-26T02:55:10.262-08:00How torture is inflicted on prisoners in solitary confinement<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
February 24, 2014<br />
Published in: <a href="http://sfbayview.com/2014/how-torture-is-inflicted-on-prisoners-in-solitary-confinement/" target="_blank">SF Bay View</a><br />
<br />
by Mutope Duguma and Sitawa Nantambu Jamaa<br />
<br />
This is a glimpse into torture by prison staff, using any means available, of which solitary confinement at Pelican Bay State Prison in California is only a reflection of the inhumane treatment and clear U.S. constitutional violations of our First, Fifth, Eighth and 14th Amendment rights that prisoners in solitary everywhere are subjected to.<br />
<br />
<b>Torture by deprivation</b><br />
<br />
The objective of the deprivation method is not complicated. It is to attack the sensory organs and perception with methods to impair them. The weapon of deprivation cannot be effective without having in place a conditioning process to produce degeneration over a long period of time. The psychological, social and cultural trauma is observable in such a sterile and punitive environment.<br />
<br />
Deprivation is cannibalistic for the spirit that is willing to stay the course. The flesh becomes weakened as men feed on themselves and others, eating away at human excellence. The feasting of deprivation will become more than flesh, blood or nature can endure. Indeterminate SHU confinement has left individuals with having to choose between discontinuity and becoming inflicted with a cannibalistic nature.<br />
<br />
There are two aspects of deprivation, the psychological and the physical, where the mind acts upon the body. This two-edged torture can be effective either way. But in order for deprivation to eat away at the targeted prisoner’s consciousness, a conversion reaction must occur that breaks down the psychological defense mechanism.<br />
<br />
<b>Declaration on Protection from Torture</b><br />
<br />
The <a href="http://www.un-documents.net/dpptcidt.htm" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">“Declaration on the Protection of All Persons from Being Subjected to Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment”</a> was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly as Resolution 3452 (XXX) on Dec. 9, 1975. The declaration contains 12 articles, the first of which defines the term “torture” as<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted by or at the instigation of a public official on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or confession, punishing him for an act he has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating him or other persons.”</blockquote>
<br />
<b>Types of torture</b><br />
<br />
<b>Medical</b>: Honorable Judge Thelton Henderson ordered a receivership to oversee CDCr’s PBSP SHU due to intentional medical neglect which led to prisoners dying, as frequently as one a week, in the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation system. Many of these deaths were, and continue to be, in solitary confinement. <b>This is torture.</b><br />
<br />
<b>Solitary confinement:</b> Prisoners are held in isolation for 10 to 40 years despite having only non-disciplinary infractions during that time.<b> This is torture.</b><br />
<br />
<b>Mail:</b> Prisoner mail is being used to create physical and psychological torment. Mail can be arbitrarily withheld for weeks on a regular basis, and has been known to be withheld for years, even when there are court orders to release the mail to a prisoner being unjustly deprived. <b>This is torture.</b><br />
<br />
<b>Food:</b> Food is intentionally prepared poorly, contaminated and disproportionate. Nutritional food is deliberately denied. <b>This is torture.</b><br />
<br />
<b>No human contact:</b> Prisoners have no real, meaningful social interaction with other human beings, especially family and close friends. Our five senses – touch, sight, smell, hearing and taste – become dulled from deprivation. <b>This is torture.</b><br />
<br />
<b>Visiting:</b> Constantly, under the CDCr gestapo style agency of correctional safety, the Investigative Service Unit (ISU) and Institutional Gang Investigators (IGI) and other such units deliberately intimidate visitors and prisoners. <b>This is torture.</b><br />
<br />
<b>Cell searches:</b> These are used to intimidate, harass and trash prisoners’ cells, leaving them in disarray while taking political writings, pictures, manuscripts, books, pamphlets, magazines etc., causing psychological torment. <b>This is torture.</b><br />
<br />
<b>No sanitation:</b> Prisoners are deliberately kept in unsanitary units. For example, showers are allowed four times a week, but the showers are cleaned only twice a week. There is an abundance of mold, mice, bugs, gnats, fungus etc. <b>This is torture.</b><br />
<br />
<b>Climate:</b> Prisoners are kept in freezing cold or burning hot cells, depending on the time of year, a complaint that has been made for over 21 years. <b>This is torture.</b><br />
<br />
<b>Contraband watch, or potty watch:</b> It is humiliating, dehumanizing and outright cruel and unusual punishment when prisoners are held in shackles and placed in the middle of a hall while being placed on a portable “potty,” while cops (female too) and prisoners with escorts are walking by. There are reports of prisoners being placed in cages, without a toilet or running water. Men are placed in a diaper with a prison jumpsuit over it, while the victim’s hands are bound into a fist-wrap. PVC pipe forced onto arms and black boxes over the hands have also been used. The prisoner is required to defecate three separate times during a three-day period. The torment and suffering are truly visible on the prisoner’s face. This is done to cause severe humiliation, along with mental, physical and psychological torment. <b>This is torture.</b><br />
<br />
<b>Family:</b> Each validated prisoner’s family is deliberately harassed, intimidated and intentionally hoaxed into false prosecution for a thoughtless crime by gestapo-type units (OCS, ISU, SSU and IGI) with the intent of discouraging any support or communication with the prisoner. <b>This is torture.</b><br />
<br />
<b>Grievances:</b> The 602 appeal process, at each of its three levels is deliberately set up to not afford a prisoner relief, regardless of whether prison officials are dead wrong in their accusations. This clearly establishes that there is no accountability for what officials do to prisoners. <b>This is torture.</b><br />
<br />
In addition, the structural features of the various solitary confinement units throughout the U.S. prison industrial complex (PIC) make it possible to target specific prisoners by utilizing sensory deprivation to undermine the social, cultural and ethical values that the targeted prisoners hold. Prisoners are rare who can escape the ravages of the torture that results from long term isolation and the negative assaults by guards in any of California’s supermax control units and similar units all over the U.S.<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>This is torture</b>.</div>
<br />
The science behind the use of deprivations has been perfected by the handlers to operate with devastating force. We know there is no separation between physical torture and mental torture. Torture is a double-edged sword that can slice effectively either way to exact punishment or revenge. It has the purpose of taking away a targeted prisoner’s human dimension and essence.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>This is torture.</b></div>
<br /></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8156907989517204422.post-71292168831417382782013-12-01T04:57:00.000-08:002013-12-02T04:59:24.678-08:00CDCr calls hunger strike supplemental demands reasonable, then reneges; prisoners respond<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: inherit;">December
1, 2013<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">In:
<a href="http://sfbayview.com/2013/cdcr-calls-hunger-strike-supplemental-demands-reasonable-then-reneges-prisoners-respond/" target="_blank">SF Bay View</a> </span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: inherit;">by
Mutope Duguma<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: inherit;">In all
policies, the truth is in the details of their implementation. On the surface,
a policy can appear reasonable, but once you get into the actual working out of
the details, you can see that it’s not what it seems like. For example, the war
on crime, the war on gangs, the war on drugs and the California three strikes
law are policies which we have come to learn in practice were nothing but
phrases – and very costly phrases. </span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-US"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">The cost of those policies must be measured in
the billions, because the actual carrying out of these policies ends up
indicting and outright assaulting the poorest communities in Amerika, the same
communities that populate the prison industrial slave complex today. So in
responding to the <a href="http://cdcrtoday.blogspot.com/2013/08/cdcrs-responses-to-hunger-strikers.html" target="_blank">California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitaion’sresponse</a> </span></span><span style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">to <a href="http://sfbayview.com/2013/prisoners-peaceful-protest-to-resume-july-8-if-demands-are-not-met/" target="_blank">our 40 supplemental demands</a> </span>, I
would like to get into the actual details of what the CDCr is and is not saying
in response to prisoners.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: inherit;">There
have not been any policy changes by CDCr or by Pelican Bay State Prison that
verify the statement in the third introductory paragraph: “Despite policy
changes that had already addressed the concerns raised during the two previous
hunger strikes, gang leaders initiated a third strike and made 40 additional
demands.” The term “gang leader” is offensive and baseless. It also has nothing
to do with anything but character assassination to criminalize, devalue,
degrade and dehumanize all prisoners who are demanding to be treated humanely.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: inherit;">No
policy was addressed before the July 1, 2011, hunger strike. The program
changes thus far have been based on operational procedural (OP) changes, which
any warden can take or give anytime they desire to. The 40 supplemental demands
are crucial for anyone who has to spend one day in these modern day torture
chambers, where we exist in physical and psychological bondage.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Solitary
confinement units are graveyards. You’re buried alive in a tombstone, confined
to your own personal cube. Each cell is a concrete slab box to which you are
restricted for the rest of your life. Then you’re tormented by your keepers to
see how much you can take before you break. This is the format for all solitary
confinement units throughout the United States, and almost 80 percent of the
people who enter these tombstones are broken.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: inherit;">A friend
of mine, Vikki Law of <i>Truthout</i>, once
asked me, “Mutope, what about those who say, why would you want to make
solitary confinement comfortable?” I told her it’s humanly impossible to make
solitary confinement comfortable. What you attempt to do is keep people
connected to their humanity; that’s it. Mere placement in solitary confinement
is torture; looking in or out, it’s torture.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<b><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Supplemental
demands 1-40<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">The
Pelican Bay Human Rights Movement wrote <a href="http://sfbayview.com/2013/prisoners-peaceful-protest-to-resume-july-8-if-demands-are-not-met/" target="_blank">40 supplemental demands</a> </span>to
detail what prisoners are entitled to and need to have re-instated.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><span lang="EN-US">Supplemental Demand No. 1</span></b><span lang="EN-US"> calls on CDCr to rescind all Form
115 RVRs (Rules Violation Reports) issued to hunger strikers during the
peaceful protest. The CDCr has refused so far. Following is the prisoner
representatives’ response:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: inherit;">CDCr’s
own policy says that we have a right to go on a hunger strike without suffering
any reprisal from the state. What CDCr officials in Sacramento did was
retaliatory because they didn’t like the fact that there were a mass of
prisoners on hunger strike protesting the inhumane conditions of solitary
confinement, so they penalized all hunger strikers by saying it was a mass
disturbance and that hunger strikers were manipulating the words from the CCR
Title 15 to justify it.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The four
representatives and I had read everything to make sure anything we did wasn’t
against state rules or policies, and going on a hunger strike was not. So when
we went on the July 1, 2011, hunger strike, the undersecretary of the CDC at
the time, Scott Kernan, had the PBSP warden give us all CDC 128B chronos
[informative documentation placed in a prisoner’s file] saying if we were to do
the hunger strike again, we would face serious disciplinary action. This threat
was arbitrary and an abuse of his administrative authority.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: inherit;">So when
the second hunger strike came, Scott Kernan had Lt. Barneburg of IGI
(Institutional Gang Investigations) at the time give each and every one of us a
CDC Rule Violation Report (RVR) 115 for inciting a riot or mass disturbance. We
couldn’t believe it, but it was true. They had misused the specific act in
order to embellish an RVR from nothing to a real serious RVR offense.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Lt.
Barneburg is now a captain of ISU (Investigations Services Unit). I can only
suspect his promotion was for the many evil deeds he has carried out against
prisoners throughout his stay as a so-called gang officer, where they
manipulate confidential information, along with documenting words, all toward
persecuting prisoners. This is why the CDCr RVR 115s should be dismissed,
because they were illegal.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The RVRs
we received for this July 8, 2013, hunger strike caused us a loss of credit for
time served of 90 days for participating in the hunger strike. This time they
left out “inciting a riot.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><span lang="EN-US">Supplemental Demand No. 2</span></b><span lang="EN-US"> asks that no RVR be issued during
July 8, 2013, hunger strike. CDCr refused to observe this request. The
regulations do not apply here in relation to the hunger strike because refusing
to eat does not equate to a disturbance and anything can be considered a
disruption of orderly operations in the institution. But a hunger strike is
definitely not an interruption. CDCr’s arbitrarily issuing RVR 115s was
illegal, an outright abuse of their authority.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><span lang="EN-US">Supplemental Demand No. 3</span></b><span lang="EN-US"> asks that no retaliation happen
when the July 8, 2013, hunger strike occurs. CDCr ignored this request. Notice
that CDCr said policies and operational procedures are again a process in which
the warden institutes the OP (operating procedure) concerning the safety and
security of the institution. This OP does not supercede CDCr’s standing
policies, state penal codes, or constitutional law.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: inherit;">These,
again, are arbitrary attacks on all hunger strike participants by the warden at
PBSP. Although the hunger strike OP 228 stipulates that all men who are
identified as hunger strike representatives will be removed from the rest of
the hunger strikers and placed in Ad Seg, CDCr and PBSP deviated from this
practice and placed every last one of us on hunger strike in Ad Seg.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: inherit;">We found
out that this OP was revised by gang officers at PBSP to retaliate against all
hunger strikers in September 2012. It’s a clear case of abuse of authority by prison
officials who use their power to punish prisoners.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: inherit;">There
was never any policy before the July 1, 2011, hunger strike that punished
prisoners for going on a hunger strike. Undersecretary Kernan arbitrarily
drafted up a memorandum to this effect and the PBSP warden inserted that
memorandum into the OP with the gang officers’ twist to punish prisoners.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><span lang="EN-US">Supplemental Demand No. 4</span></b><span lang="EN-US"> concerns the re-opening of a
visiting room in Facility D, which PBSP is slowly working on. They have
reopened Facility D, which should have never been closed in the first place,
but the mismanagement of the prisoners’ program and the deliberate attack on
solitary confinement prisoners and our families were part of that suppression
of all relationships with our families. This was done by way of arbitrary order
from the warden at PBSP. No policy or OP, just outright wickedness.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><span lang="EN-US">Supplemental Demand No. 5</span></b><span lang="EN-US"> calls for weekly phone calls to
families and friends for all prisoners in SHU. CDCr is actually drilling holes
in concrete walls for wires now. What about prisoners who will be literally
waiting months, if not years, to get into a step?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: inherit;">This is
where people in the public and prisoners have to be very cautious and conscious
of the continual games by CDCr, because there are prisoners who have not talked
to a family member in countless years. It’s been so long for some, it’ll be
like calling strangers.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Again,
it’s a policy and actual procedure that has been extremely wicked in its
application and suppression of family and prisoner relationships. Phone calls
should be instituted instantly, because families, friends and prisoners have
already suffered enough.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><span lang="EN-US">Supplemental Demand No. 6</span></b><span lang="EN-US"> concerns access to hobby and art
supplies and one photo per year, no matter what the prisoner’s record is. Well,
there is a problem with putting photos down as a privilege, because photos are
connected to the rehabilitation of the prisoners, like phone calls, visits
etc., which build on family ties and friendship ties. People become
re-humanized by being able to communicate who and what they are to the outside
world through photos. To allow arbitrary, overzealous, racist, prejudiced and
biased prison officials use an RVR 115 to deprive a prisoner of such important
social, cultural and family-oriented treasures like photographs is in itself
cruel.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><span lang="EN-US">Supplemental Demand No. 7</span></b><span lang="EN-US"> calls for prisoners to be allowed
to sell or give away art work, no matter what their record is. Now here’s where
safety and security are an excuse used to suppress people’s natural talents and
creativity. The very system that claims to be about “free enterprise” is now
using fascist-like suppression tactics to deny prisoners the human right to
express themselves based on their God given talents.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: inherit;">This is
criminal. There is no security concern here. This is where “group punishment”
is applied, a policy where every prisoner is punished based on the act of one
individual. We all are made to suffer for an individual’s action.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Every
man and woman should be paid for his and her labor. Here there should be no
exception. Any violation of a program should be punished to the fullest extent
of the restrictions assigned to that violation, but to arbitrarily take away
that program from everyone is exactly why our Core Demand No. 1 is so
important. Nothing is non-negotiable where it suppresses the talent of a
prisoner’s creativity. This goes to the heart of their rehabilitation.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><span lang="EN-US">Supplemental Demand No. 8</span></b><span lang="EN-US"> is to allow the Inmate Welfare Fund
to be used to re-stock books for prisoners in the prison library. CDCr gave an
excuse for not doing it. If this is true, why haven’t we seen one “new” book
issued to prisoners? Yet, when we order a book from the library, it’s missing
pages and is old. The CDCr’s state prison budget covers these expenses with
taxpayer money. CDCr has to be honest about their responses. We have been held
in these solitary confinement units, and we know the real truths. Independent
investigation would prove these monies are being re-routed elsewhere.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><span lang="EN-US">Supplemental Demand No. 9</span></b><span lang="EN-US"> regards CDCr allowing funds for
education programming. Compliance is yet to be seen. Plus, I would like to add
that we are living in the 21st century and prisoners’ educations are like
relics when it comes to the education of the average Amerikan. We are so far
behind that we will know nothing when we parole.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The
prisons have to move toward technological education systems. This is real
rehabilitation for prisoners. For society to not move prisoners in this
direction, to keep up with overall society, is a disservice to them and the
communities they are returning to. I can only hope that CDCr is sincere about
the educational programs, because if you truly want to civilize prisoners, then
education is the key. And no prisoner should wait to be educated by CDCr,
especially since they have a track record of over 40 years of not educating
their prison population.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><span lang="EN-US">Supplemental Demand No. 10</span></b><span lang="EN-US"> concerns legal books not being
counted in the 10 book allowance for each prisoner; inmate-owned legal
materials need to be in separate category. The June 5, 2013, memorandum does
not go far enough, and clarity is crucial in respect to how staff are directed
to deal with legal mail when they have possession of the prisoner’s mail.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><span lang="EN-US">Supplemental Demand No. 11</span></b><span lang="EN-US"> is about allowing prisoners to
donate old appliances to other prisoners. Again, here’s where safety and
security is again abused by the CDCr. The real reason CDCr has applied their
safety and security concerns to this supplement demand is because it is an
underground profit incentive for CDCr. Where is the safety and security
concern? The process is real simple. Make sure the TV is functional – no parts
missing etc. Then sign it over to the next prisoner who is without an appliance
or one who needs one due to their TV going out. When prisoners have to “donate”
their TVs to staff, it becomes a lucrative business for the prison staffers.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><span lang="EN-US">Supplemental Demand No. 12</span></b><span lang="EN-US"> increases money allowed for canteen
because of higher prices in canteen. Price gouging is the problem here in PBSP
canteen, because prices fluxuate through a manipulation of product changes. For
example, in the CSP-SAC canteen list there is a 1 pound bag of hot cocoa for
$3.85. In PBSP the exact same bag costs $4.85, a dollar difference. PBSP
canteen managers have been scheming on money from prisoners for years. So, it
should be granted that all prisoners be able to spend $65 per month, regardless
of whether they are in a step-down program or not.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><span lang="EN-US">Supplemental Demand No. 13</span></b><span lang="EN-US"> regards prisoners being able to
donate to outside charities. Now this exposes the true wicked intentions of
CDCr’s claim that they rehabilitate prisoners, when they bar us from supporting
community projects like charities. We know that no matter where people are at
or what color they are, if they are poor, they are struggling. Prisoners have
good in them and should be able to benefit the communities. Allowing us this
project is the least CDCR can do. Times are bad. Allow food drives to occur as
much as possible in order to serve the community around us.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><span lang="EN-US">Supplemental Demand No. 14</span></b><span lang="EN-US"> regards typewriters being allowed.
CDCr in Sacramento approved that prisoners in solitary can have a typewriter,
but now some overzealous property officers at PBSP have interfered with the
process, repeating their famous line that it affects the safety and security of
the prison.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><span lang="EN-US">Supplemental Demand No. 15</span></b><span lang="EN-US"> allows prisoners to have multiple
appliances. CDCr has approved the purchase of radios through their designated
vendor, so allow us to have them. The games continue.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><span lang="EN-US">Supplemental Demand No. 16</span></b><span lang="EN-US"> calls for electrical outlets in
cells and fire sprinklers in cells. CDCr mandated through a 602 appeal process
that was granted that all Ad Segs can have electrical outlets, and yet PBSP is
being disingenuous when they deny us the right to have them.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><span lang="EN-US">Supplemental Demand No. 17</span></b><span lang="EN-US"> reinstates family visits for
General Population lifers. The CDCr campaigned against allowing conjugal family
visits for prisoners, saying it was not economically feasible for them. But
this puts them in contradiction with their own rehabilitation policy that
family visits are the most beneficial to families and prisoners, as well as an
incentive for controlling prison violence, hopelessness, depression etc.
because prisoners value the union with their families and so do the families.
It was a wicked attack against the family program.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Family
visits were initially banned for sex offenders, yet when it was all said and
done, CDCR ended up banning conjugal visits for all prisoners. Hell, all
non-sex offender prisoners hate child molesters, rapists and domestic abusers.
Any abuses against women or children are seriously looked down upon by a high
percentage of prisoners.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: inherit;">So when
CDCr proposed the order to the Legislature and got it through, they did it by
attaching the sex molester stigma to it. The Legislature will now have to
change it back in order to allow family conjugal visits again for
non-molesters. But let’s be clear: The CDCr is the one that destroyed this
important family-based program, which was effective and a more humane deterrent
for prisoner misbehavior than some savage debriefing program. Reinstate the
Bill of Rights for Prisoners, and a lot of these issues will be resolved.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><span lang="EN-US">Supplemental Demand No. 18</span></b><span lang="EN-US"> calls for Prison Industries of
America, California, to supply standard quality products and food. PIA is
fleecing taxpayers all across Amerika. Monopolies shut out citizens and small
businesses from getting contracts with the state, by demanding that all prisons
purchase only their items, and then they can produce low quality products, from
food to mattresses. Their lumpy mattresses are like sleeping on a bunch of softballs,
causing one’s blood circulation to be cut off if sleeping on one’s side and
also causing crooks in the neck and hip pain. PIA’s poor quality food is
infamous.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><span lang="EN-US">Supplemental Demand No. 19</span></b><span lang="EN-US"> regards PIA producing substandard
clothing. Again, PIA is incompetent in manufacturing its products.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><span lang="EN-US">Supplemental Demand No. 20</span></b><span lang="EN-US"> concerns the contents allowed in
annual and semi-annual packages for prisoners. On June 5, 2013, CDCr officials
granted T-shirts, along with sweats, thermals, etc. Now it should be obvious that
all these non-food items can and should be able to be purchased once a year. We
shouldn’t have to compromise one of the two annual food packages that prisoners
are allowed to have, by including clothing as part of one of the two food
packages.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The supplemental
demand requests one non-food package per year, solely for clothing, which can
be heavy when a pair of shoes is enclosed. Here the supplemental demand is
requesting a non-food package in order to get these items. CDCr’s answer was
deliberately evading the question. Plus, special purchases can easily be
implemented through the warden’s OP procedures, which is allowed once a month
already. So CDCr’s designation of the contents in the boxes, i.e., clothing,
ribbons, cups, bowls, headphones, paper, colored pencils, etc. is reasonable.
Making it necessary for us to include clothing in one of our food packages is
outright unreasonable.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><span lang="EN-US">Supplemental Demand No. 21</span></b><span lang="EN-US"> regards the list of items allowed
to be purchased. Well, I’m glad CDCr said “partially,” because there’s no food
or spices that we should be denied. But having it written on the matrix
specifically shows the psychological torment – power play – that we are
subjected to by prison property officers who get a sadistic kick out of
confiscating food items, which are our property, on only a technicality.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><span lang="EN-US">Supplemental Demand No. 22</span></b><span lang="EN-US"> calls for getting rid of PIA as a
food supplier. CDC did not respond to the request from prisoners to “refrain
from utilizing CAL-PIA for food products due to poor quality,” and we are left
with food not worth taxpayer dollars for the poor quality provided. This
monopoly is double taxing taxpayers, because the poor quality food does not
provide nutritional value, and that leads to medical problems, creating another
expensive contradiction where taxpayers foot the bill.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The only
way to demonstrate the truth about the food is to allow an independent
dietician to investigate the actual food being served to prisoners. Currently,
the prison dieticians can call the food we get a “heart healthy diet,” because
the CDCr dieticians never examine the food, just the menu. The prison food
managers are the real conspirators (criminals) when it comes to the feeding
practices, because they do not provide, nor prepare, adequate nutritional calories
in food items. Using terms like “one each,” they serve you a muffin for
breakfast the size of a biscuit and tell you it’s adequate because the menu
says “one each.” These are price shaving tactics and schemes most prison food
managers use at the expense of prisoners’ health.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><span lang="EN-US">Supplemental Demand No. 23</span></b><span lang="EN-US"> concerns portions of food now
served to SHU prisoners. I know for a fact that PBSP does not provide an
adequate amount of nutrition and calories, and SHU prisoners do not receive the
same amount of food as do GP prisoners. Whoever in Sacramento responded to this
question is lying outright. I have studied extensively the food at PBSP and the
deliberate games employed to inadequately feed prisoners in order to profit.
Plus, I have the evidence to prove it, if CDCr’s Michael Stainer and Kelly
Harrington are interested in the truth. Oh, there is no need to tear my cell
up; it’s in the hands of the lawyers.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><span lang="EN-US">Supplemental Demand No. 24</span></b><span lang="EN-US"> regards the severely limited movies
available to prisoners. Again, the CDCr has implemented policy around
discrimination by cutting out R-rated movies and programming documentaries,
plays, etc. CDCr has been able to take away 85 percent of the New Afrikan and
Latino-Mexican movies and programs, because most of our programming is R-rated.
This is the situation now with the implementation of this race-based policy.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Furthermore,
the state has abused the obscenity penal code policy by deliberately
misinterpreting its purpose and meaning as defined by the court in the Martinez
case. The PBSP warden has been censoring PG-13, PG and G movies by cutting away
whatever some officer feels is too offensive or too suggestive for the viewer, and
his personal standard is cutting 40 percent of the movies.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: inherit;">But
what’s really disturbing about PBSP practice is that they are paying $100 per
video, which some if not all the time they edit to only an hour and 10 minutes
per movie. OIG (Office of the Inspector General) Renee Hanson told me she was
reviewing the expenditures of the IWF, Inmate Welfare Fund, and I informed her
that PBSP officials have been embezzling, stealing as well as misappropriating
IWF monies, when they claim to be paying $100 per video, which adds up to
$2,400 to $2,600 per month. I find this to be outright criminal. I have the
evidence to back up these facts, if Undersecretaries M. Stainer and Kelly
Harrington wish to look into these allegations.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: inherit;">No need
to search my property; the lawyers already have these facts in their
possession. CDCr has to, in the interest of fairness, remove this silly state
regulation that is designed to racially discriminate against prisoners.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><span lang="EN-US">Supplemental Demand No. 25</span></b><span lang="EN-US"> concerns the limited number of TV
channels provided. CDCr claims PBSP prisoners have access to 23 channels. Now
this is a lie that has already been proven to be a lie. Under no circumstances
does PBSP provide 23 cable channels. I am shocked that they even claim it in
the public media. The public should demand the name of all 23 channels they say
they provide.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: inherit;">This is
what I mean by the arrogance and abuse of power. The CDCr and PBSP officials
feel they can lie, steal and cheat the people and then just provide some lame
nonsense of a story and that justifies it. There needs to be an open,
independent investigation of these outright lies, because this is why we went
on two hunger strikes and are again on a peaceful protest hunger strike, due to
lies.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Scott
Kernan, former undersecretary of CDCr, admitted he was duped on the 23
channels. Now I see Michael Stainer of the Inspector General’s Office and his
cronies are using this same lie as a means to deny a reasonable supplemental
demand.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: inherit;">These
actions speak to the wickedness of CDCr to deny adequate, meaningful
programming for prisoners held in solitary. They are bent on punishment and
this has been their core drive – punishing prisoners until they break us. I
wouldn’t be surprised if they are taking taxpayers’ money out of the state
budget for those 23 channels. PBSP only provides one cable channel. There
should be an independent investigation of these allegations, enough so there is
public outcry.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><span lang="EN-US">Supplemental Demand No. 26</span></b><span lang="EN-US"> regards access to cable channels
for prisoners. Well, taxpayers already cover these fees and the PBSP officials
are able to reroute these fees by writing down that they have purchased
educational programs, when in all actuality they have paid for nothing. And
when we do get to see education programs, they are repeats of the same
programming we’ve been seeing for over 20 years, which allows them to pocket
the funds that were meant for new programs.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: inherit;">This is
where the real crime is committed. Ask what they spend for the 23 channels, and
it’s probably a ridiculously low price. But again, we get nothing for it. It’s
the same as with the $100 they say they spend for each video. There needs to be
an independent investigation as to these allegations.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><span lang="EN-US">Supplemental Demand No. 27</span></b><span lang="EN-US"> calls on CDCr to purchase dip and
pull-up bars with IWF funds. Some people stay in ASU (Administrative
Segregation Unit) for months and years, and these isolation units can be worse
than the SHU in most cases, with no personal property and nothing to do on
these so-called ASU recreation yards. The excuse being made is weak and
disingenuous because CDCr knows they should not hold people in ASU for years.
So be truthful, CDCr.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><span lang="EN-US">Supplemental Demand No. 28</span></b><span lang="EN-US"> asks for weight-lifting equipment
on yards. Again, CDCr has gone on a smear campaign about how letting prisoners
lift weights is a threat to citizens. They put a bunch of money behind the bill
and into politicians’ campaigns, urging that we have to get rid of these
weights because prisoners are getting out stronger and can then victimize
Amerikans. This is how our privileges for weights were lost.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The
California Legislature needs to immediately reverse this bill, because all it
did was create a medical crisis, where there were many prisoners whose health
deteriorated due to lack of exercise. Taxing who, again? Yes, taxpayers.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The CDCr
claims its policies are about the safety and security of the public and the
prisons. You can easily see the truth when you look at the details. For
instance, the weights that we used to have access to on the yards kept the
prisoners occupied, exercised and tired after weightlifting.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: inherit;">This was
one of those situations where CDCr took away the weights out of pure spite,
nothing else. It’s kind of a sad state how prisoners are being caged on prison
yards, locked in concrete slabs with nothing to do, sectioned off by race, just
looking at each other all day, as if they are in Roman caged gladiator fights.
And here we are in the 21st century.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><span lang="EN-US">Supplemental Demand No. 29</span></b><span lang="EN-US"> calls for a stop to “contraband
(potty) watch” practices immediately. Let’s call it what it is, “potty watch,”
for the sole purpose of humiliating the prisoner. It is a savage practice where
you are taken to some cage and held in “slave shackles” until you defecate.
This is a reflection of the nature of the beast that we are dealing with: CDCr
uses the procedure to entrap the bowel movement in your jumpsuit.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: inherit;">These
savages tape the jumpsuit to your ankles. They make you defecate three times
before they relieve you of this torture. There is no real reason for a high
percentage of these potty watches. It’s speculative for the most part and, as
requested, they need to be banned immediately. The whole procedure is nothing
but a trauma, and points to the military personnel working inside the prison.
It’s a brutal practice; some prisoners have been known to spend three nights
and days on potty watch.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><span lang="EN-US">Supplemental Demand No. 30</span></b><span lang="EN-US"> calls for Medical Doctor Sayre to
be fired and never hold a position of authority over prisoners again. CDCr
stands behind their crooked Dr. Sayre, who is head of medical care at PBSP.
They don’t seem to be able to get rid of Dr. Sayre. He has done too much and he
knows too much. He can destroy the whole system’s secrecy, which is why he will
never be fired.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The mere
fact that he attacked one of his own co-workers over a parking space that he
claimed was his speaks to the instability of Dr. Sayre. He has been demoted,
but the irony is that he still runs everything. They simply put his girlfriend
in his spot, so he still runs medical at PBSP.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Just so
you can see his arrogance, he took away many men’s medications before the
hunger strike and during this hunger strike. This guy is a threat and a danger
to all Pelican Bay prisoners. When who ask to see outside doctors for serious
health issues, no matter how sincere the request nor how well it is documented,
he denies it.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: inherit;">This is
why CDCr keeps him, because he saves CDCr money in medications and treatments.
Dr. Sayre, in my opinion, is a heartless murderer by proxy. Many PBSP prisoners
have suffered under him and continue to suffer. This is no doctor.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><span lang="EN-US">Supplemental Demand No. 31</span></b><span lang="EN-US"> regards maintenance of cells,
painting them. We have been locked down for cell painting each week lately, so
it shouldn’t be a problem to meet this request.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><span lang="EN-US">Supplemental Demand No. 32</span></b><span lang="EN-US"> concerns maintenance of the
ventilation system. Now the problem here is that Pelican Bay is breaking down
and they are trying to do maintenance when the buildings are structurally
incapable of functioning for another 20 years. The whole system is collapsing
from the inside out, and the bandaid fixes will only be temporary fixes.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The
ventilation is extremely poor, and we prisoners are made to suffer due to this
poor structure. We might as well be outside when we’re inside a building as far
as temperatures are concerned, because there is no insulation anywhere in the
prison. So if it’s freezing cold outside, we are freezing cold in the building.
If it’s burning up outside, we’re burning up inside. The PBSP plant operation
cannot protect us from this reality, because the problem is in the structure.
Independent investigation will bring out these facts.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><span lang="EN-US">Supplemental Demand No. 33</span></b><span lang="EN-US"> regards Lexan plastic plates on
cells. CDCr is still using them, making excuses that are disingenuous, because
there are many avenues to gas or attack an officer, if that’s the prisoner’s
objective. To have Lexan or Plexiglas on cells is a health hazard.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: inherit;">What
does the Occupational Safety and Health Board say about the plastic being a
health hazard to prisoners due to collecting bacteria in the cells? They didn’t
put me behind them because I made them spray the door regularly in order to get
at that bacteria. Plus people with real bad asthma and allergies are at risk.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: inherit;">There’s
hardly any violence in PBSP solitary units despite all the hype by CDCr about
how dangerous we are. If you cut away the plastic at the bottom of the cell walls,
there’s no real threat to staff, no matter who is in the cage.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><span lang="EN-US">Supplemental Demand No. 34</span></b><span lang="EN-US"> regards the percentage CDCr can
take for restitution. Now here is a policy that is exploitative in all its
practices. Here is the state abusing its authority by taking 55 percent of each
dollar that a prisoner who owes restitution gets from his friends or family.
And to say it is benefitting “crime victims,” well, the statistics say that
most convicted felons commit offenses against their own race – New Afrikan on
New Afrikan, Mexican on Mexican, or white on white. One thing we do know, poor
lower class on poor lower class applies.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: inherit;">None of
these victims are receiving any of this restitution money. So where is the
money going and where is it at? If the dollars were going to them, the state
would have never raised it to 55 percent, because they don’t want them to have
it either. The injustice is that there is a conspiracy where the judicial
proceedings tack on all these outrageous restitution fees and the CDCr then collects
them for the court, and then CDCr charges the prisoners a 5 percent fee for
removing them off your books (trust account).<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: inherit;">This is
criminal and the real victims never see a penny of this money. The 33 percent
is a reasonable request, but I would go further and say that it should not be
taken from anyone who owes restitution unless it’s going to the victim of the
crime they committed or any prisoner who does not have a pay number.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The
money that family and friends send in from the streets should not be touched at
all. The prisoners should have access to a pay number to pay off their
restitution. Independent investigation is needed to locate where this money is
going!<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><span lang="EN-US">Supplemental Demand No. 35</span></b><span lang="EN-US"> allows mail to be delivered and
legal and family visits to be normal again. The SSU (Special Services Unit),
IGI, ISU and OCS (Office of Correctional Safety) are the biggest SHAM I’ve ever
been able to witness and the public should be outraged at all the time
consuming hours and taxpayers’ dollars wasted into this sham of a system.
Although there is a lot of hype on gangs, these guys have not even been able to
manufacture any criminal gang behavior convictions.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The
extent of their service is gang validations, which they have given 80 percent
of the prison population. They have a track record for terrorizing poor, weak
citizens of this nation, they sweat everything too frivolous to mention, and
they do nothing but harass prisoners and their families and communities. They
have been sued countless times and their arrogance allows them to commit the
same constitutional violations of a prisoner’s rights, over and over again.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: inherit;">But this
is because they do not foot the bill; therefore, they have no discipline in
their actions. They have not made communities safer, nor prisons. So what is it
all for? There has to be a benefit from such an expensive gang investigative
unit, but in 30 years the CDCr gang investigators have only allowed gangs to
expand – in and out of prisons. So where is the safety and security?
Independent investigation is necessary here.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><span lang="EN-US">Supplemental Demand No. 36</span></b><span lang="EN-US"> concerns timely hearings when RVRs
are issued, or dismiss them. Well, CDCr is the one that changed the state law
and it should be changed back, because it goes against the fairness of our
procedural due process, in which we are punished for time constraints
violations. Yet staff violates time constraints all the time; it is considered
harmless and they are still able to impose on us the worst punishment by
violating prisoners’ time constraints. But if we dare to violate the time
constraints, we have our complaint dismissed. Unfair practice!<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><span lang="EN-US">Supplemental Demand No. 37</span></b><span lang="EN-US"> calls for timely hearings for serious
RVRs. The answer to this response from CDCr is above, in <b>No. 36</b>.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><span lang="EN-US">Supplemental Demand No. 38</span></b><span lang="EN-US"> asks for an independent audit of
IWF. CDCr did not comply. The key word here is “independent,” because it will
show the misappropriation of the IWF monies. OIG’s Renee Hanson is doing a
review of IWF and we want those findings released to the public. Independent
investigation is key here.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><span lang="EN-US">Supplemental Demand No. 39</span></b><span lang="EN-US"> would reinstate the monthly
meetings between the associate warden and prisoners to address problems. If
this ever becomes fact again, few if any of our complaints would be necessary.
The [now former] warden at PBSP, G.D. Lewis, was as incompetent as they come.
He did not have the backbone to put an end to the gang officers basically
terrorizing other staff and then dictating to every functionary in the solitary
confinement units, so that they now feel free to attack prisoners in those
areas through mail restrictions, bad food, property abuses, corrupt canteen
practices, poor movies, and lack of medical care, education, supplies, law
library access etc.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: inherit;">They
make it a living hell for prisoners and not one supervisor or manager has ever
made rounds to talk to prisoners, even after receiving complaints, and nothing
has changed at all. So supervisors and managers have not been doing their jobs
in over 23½ years at PBSP; I’ve never seen them walk in my 15 years here.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I have
been here, and the avoiding by the guards of answering our questions is
deliberate. The question asked was that the associate warden ensure that prison
issues will be resolved and we prisoners should not have to wait until we can’t
take the suffering any more and act on our own. When prison officials get paid
good money – some better than college or university graduates – to maintain prisoners’
lives along with the safety and security of all prisoners, then we expect that
to happen.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><span lang="EN-US">Supplemental Demand No. 40</span></b><span lang="EN-US"> asks for hunger strike and work
stoppage negotiations to be conducted with the prisoners’ mediation team and
the press in attendance. CDCr has never been supportive or about transparency.
They know they are not going to be trusted in a closed room with our
representatives, without witnesses or third parties, but they continue with the
lies they have told about our reps.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Hell,
Michael Stainer told our mediation team that he sees all of the 40 supplemental
demands as being reasonable and that it is just a matter of working out the
details. Then he two-faced everyone, so no way can we now trust what comes out
of CDCr’s mouth.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-US"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Plus,
the governor vetoed the Media Access Bill, because CDCr is not about
transparency. And the question was clear during hunger strike negotiations, and
no one said anything about any of the points made in any of the hearings on
these matters! CDCr is evading the real issues again.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;"></span></span><div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">These counter-responses
were written by Mutope Duguma toward the end of the 60-day hunger strike and
work stoppage in 2013 – i.e., when he had eaten nothing for nearly two months.
Send our brother some love and light: Mutope Duguma, s/n James Crawford,
D-05996, PBSP SHU D2-107 up, P.O. Box 7500, Crescent City CA 95532. In the
past, statements like this have come from a collective, and the Bay View has
published the names of all those involved. Now, however, Mutope Duguma must be
shown as sole author to avoid an accusation by officials that multiple
authorship is evidence of gang activity.</span></i><span style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-US"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span> </span></span></span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11567149038098652272noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8156907989517204422.post-55903928140618719222013-11-26T04:37:00.000-08:002013-12-02T04:38:09.348-08:00Herman Wallace, who gave his life to end solitary confinement, got no mercy<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-US">November
26, 2013<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">In:
<a href="http://sfbayview.com/2013/herman-wallace-who-gave-his-life-to-end-solitary-confinement-got-no-mercy/" target="_blank">SF Bay View</a></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><br /></span>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-US">by
Mutope Duguma<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-US">The
system, whether it is in the state of California or Louisiana, has demonstrated
that those of us held in solitary confinement will receive no mercy. The recent
actions surrounding our dear New Afrikan Brother Herman Wallace is a sharp
reminder on how each and every one of us will be treated.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-US">Here you
have a New Afrikan man who gave up his life in order to challenge the systemic
attacks by the powers that be that deliberately target the poor and oppressed
people of this nation. For taking this position, Herman Wallace would find
himself trapped inside the belly of the beast, Angola Prison slave complex,
where he would continue to challenge the system from within, where the
treatment of prisoners is blatantly horrendous.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-US">Herman
Wallace was no criminal. He was a just and righteous human being, one who hated
injustice so much that he sacrificed himself in order to bring about change for
the lot of us. Many need to realize that the commitments and the suffering for
such commitments are very serious and selfless acts on the part of many like
Herman Wallace, when they challenge the injustices against our very humanity,
even at the cost of their/our very own lives.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-US">The
system has no mercy for no one. It’s totally committed to annihilating any and
all resistance, whether violent or non-violent. Solitary confinement is but one
of the many tools used to carry out that very annihilation of anyone who
attempts to challenge its power, and the system uses all means that they deem
necessary.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-US">For 41
years, Herman Wallace was shown no mercy by a system that has never shown any
mercy to anyone it considers its historical or present enemy. Herman Wallace
was made to suffer at the hands of local, state and federal governments. No
matter how bad his situation got, there was not one human being within this
system, or government, who sought to provide Herman Wallace any mercy.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-US">He would
be made to suffer in isolation, solitary confinement. Today’s solitary
confinement uses a more diabolical approach, yet this does not under any
circumstances negate the isolation, sensory deprivation and physical and
psychological torture of being placed in such an environment for an inhumanely
long period of time, during which the torture is magnified.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-US">Forty-one
years is a crime against humanity, and since Herman Wallace was a prisoner of
war and political prisoner (POW PP), this treatment of him was a war crime,
because the system sought to torture Herman Wallace and all similarly situated
prisoners throughout this nation toward their and our extermination.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-US">To use
the most powerful state and federal governments in the world to kill and
neutralize prisoners of war and political prisoners is a direct violation of
national and international laws. Herman Wallace would be murdered by way of a
civil death by the United States government, yet not one of those laws would be
adhered to in respect to Herman Wallace, nor to countless POWs and PPs
throughout Amerika.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-US">Why? Was
not his life and the lives of similarly situated prisoners of any value to the
state and federal governments, who have a responsibility to all their citizens
of judging who falls within the human race? If prisoners are human, why not
show mercy for all fellow human beings?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-US">To have
a man or woman linger inside solitary confinement for 41 years and no local,
state or federal government official – politician – had the human capacity to
show this human being any mercy: That is a government that is a threat to all
mankind.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-US">Our
fight to end long term solitary confinement is one of major urgency, because
allowing human beings to continue to exist under such a merciless system with
such brutality is a direct reflection of the very nature of our humanity! The
very practice of solitary confinement is barbaric.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;">Bless
the revolutionary spirit of our New Afrikan Brother Herman Wallace to whom no
mercy was shown.</span></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11567149038098652272noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8156907989517204422.post-49792643925684414832013-11-26T03:44:00.000-08:002013-12-02T03:45:18.635-08:00Being normal is not OK<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-US">November
26, 2013<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">In:
<a href="http://sfbayview.com/2013/being-normal-is-not-ok/" target="_blank">SF Bay View</a> </span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-US">We
prisoners are being told that as long as we are mentally healthy or not
succumbing to CDCr’s debriefing policy, we will not be eligible for release
from solitary confinement. Despite all the hype promising change, CDCr is still
claiming that our placement inside solitary confinement is justified, despite
the clear injustice of holding us here indefinitely, to no end, for nothing.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-US">Because
many of us have maintained our mental stability under such a barbaric system,
we do not meet the criteria for release, but as soon as we begin to exemplify
any signs of mental illness, we immediately qualify for release. Does this not
suggest that our placement inside solitary confinement is for the sole purpose
of driving us to become mentally ill patients?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-US">CDCr
simply waits for us to begin to suffer from the effects of mental illness like
so many before us. They’re looking for us to put fecal matter all over our
bodies, talk to ourselves, beat on the cell door, holler at the top of our
lungs until we fall asleep from exhaustion, throw urine and fecal matter on
staff and prisoners, commit suicide or attempt suicide, become anti-social
etc., only to be taken out of our cell by force and placed in four corner
restraints and heavily sedated and neutralized into a zombie state.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-US">This has
been the pattern for all of those we have seen driven into mental illness, due
directly to their placement in solitary confinement. Why does CDCr even wait
for any of us to succumb to mental illness when we are, for the most part,
normal – unless being normal is not OK.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-US">Many of
us have kept our mental stability or capacity to some degree throughout all the
years we’ve been in solitary confinement. Wouldn’t it be only right for the
state – for CDCr – to prevent prisoners from eventually succumbing to such a
fate, because we all know the longer you’re here, the greater your mental and
physical deterioration.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-US">Hasn’t
CDCr created enough mentally ill prisoners through the use of solitary
confinement? Hasn’t CDCr caused enough suicides through the use of solitary
confinement? Hasn’t CDCr emasculated enough prisoners through its de-briefing
policy? Why can’t we – normal, functioning human beings – remain as such?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">
</span><br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-US">END LONG
TERM SOLITARY CONFINEMENT NOW!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11567149038098652272noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8156907989517204422.post-77597226422052544982013-10-26T04:19:00.000-07:002013-11-20T04:21:16.982-08:00What a vacation: 400 miles by bus on hunger strike’s 47th day<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
From: <a href="http://sfbayview.com/2013/what-a-vacation-400-miles-by-bus-on-hunger-strikes-47th-day/" target="_blank">SF Bay View</a>, October
26, 2013</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-US">by
Mutope Duguma<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-US">It was
on Aug. 23, 2013, that I was removed out of my Ad-Seg cell around 5 in the
morning and placed on a CDCr transportation bus. I had been housed in Ad-Seg
since Aug. 5 due to my participation in a mass hunger strike.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-US">I was
stripped of all my belongings except my shoes, socks, T-shirt and boxer shorts
and given a dark blue jumpsuit, in which I could not fit, so I was allowed to
wrap the arms around my waist.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-US">If you
have to spend a vacation in prison, this looks a lot more inviting than Pelican
Bay.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-US">Our mass
hunger strike started on July 8, 2013, and we were 47 days without eating at
the time we were placed on the bus. I heard several prisoners ask, “Where are
we going?” The response from the transportation officer was “New Folsom,
CSP-Sac” (California State Prison Sacramento).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-US">We
pulled out of PBSP Ad Seg around 8 a.m., and it was a grueling ride due to our
conditions. I was in a dual situation, where I was able to enjoy sights that I
hadn’t seen in years, yet I was very conscious of the pain and suffering that
we all were enduring.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-US">It was
one of the most physical challenges that I had ever experienced in my life. I
considered myself to be very strong, yet here I was dealing with my obvious
physical weakness and my mental strength, which was creating a contradiction in
which my physical weakness had begun to attack my mental strength. It was
obvious to me that I would lose this battle eventually, because time would
dictate my fate and I was running out of time.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-US">Once off
the bus, it seemed surreal, because there were people everywhere, something
unusual for me, especially since I had been held in a solitary confinement cell
for the last 13 years, isolated from people and normal outside environments. My
reality of the last 13 years is concrete and steel and that’s it; no normal
human relations for me. This created a contradiction in which I would be
overwhelmed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-US">CSP-Sac
was wide open. People were everywhere, 24/7, doing everything. I saw New
Afrikans, which is something I hadn’t seen in years. I saw countless Mexicans,
Asians and Afrikans off the continent. I saw regular behaving white people. I
saw every nationality under the sun in one day’s time.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-US">I was
dying of starvation but I was alive. I enjoyed every single bit of my human
interaction. I felt just like my grandmother’s dog Roscoe. Every time I went to
her house as a young boy she would tell me, “Darren, go out back and take
Roscoe for a walk.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-US">Roscoe
was a golden retriever three times my size and very strong. He was a real
happy, energized dog, but when I got back there with him, his excitement was
unmeasurable. I couldn’t get the chain loose to free him because he kept
knocking me down in pure joy that I was back there with him.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-US">Roscoe
knew that I wasn’t there to feed him or to briefly play with him and leave. He
knew every time I came back there, he would be free. This is what drove his
excitement, freedom.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-US">On
hunger strike after 49 days by then, I was extremely excited. I felt just like
Roscoe. It was literally overwhelming. I took full advantage of every human
being I came in contact with, except those green suits! They were psychs, RNs,
assistants to RNs, countless LVNs. It was crazy different people every day, in
their regular clothes – no uniforms – every single day.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-US">I talked
to the Imam, a Muslim chaplain, who was allowed in the solitary unit at his
will. I talked to Christian chaplains, who were allowed to visit the solitary
units at their will, too. I talked to maintenance – free persons who worked
inside the prison.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-US">I talked
more in a period of 12 days than I had in my whole 13 years of solitary
confinement. I was taken to legal visits across the yard. I saw countless
prisoners moving about freely.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-US">The sun
was beaming down on me, with no blockers – just me and the atmosphere –
although I had waist chains on in which I was made to walk to the attorney
visit, which was a half a mile away from B Facility to A Facility. Under any
other circumstances this would be exactly what it was, torture, but I was so
overwhelmed, my mind was absorbing it all rapidly.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-US">I saw so
much in such a short period of time, after being isolated and confined in
solitary for 13 years in PBSP. This was my freedom. It started to have an
adverse effect on me personally, because if the 20 representatives had not
suspended our mass hunger strike … I, for sure, would have been dead, because
this was one vacation that I, under no circumstances, would ever have ended.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-US">I
reminisce over Roscoe today, and I now realize that he was imprisoned most of
his life, because we humans unconsciously didn’t recognize his imprisonment.
And I look back on all my loneliness, quiet time and wonder, “Did Roscoe suffer
in silence as I do today?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">Send our brother some love
and light: Mutope Duguma, s/n James Crawford, D-05996, PBSP SHU D2-107U, P.O.
Box 7500, Crescent City CA 95532</span></i>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8156907989517204422.post-63226865975145718532013-10-26T04:15:00.000-07:002013-11-20T04:17:47.921-08:00Hunger strikers: Our resolve remains strong<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<a href="http://sfbayview.com/2013/hunger-strikers-our-resolve-remains-strong/" target="_blank">SF Bay View</a>, October
26, 201</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Our
resolve remains as strong as ever, and we continue to press forward despite our
torture being taken up a notch. We send a clenched fist salute to everyone who
has been supportive of our on-going struggle to be liberated from these
man-made gulags called Security Housing Units (SHUs) and Administrative
Segregation Units (ASU).</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-US">The
30,000 prisoners who spoke out against the dismal reality in which prisoners
are being held should be a clear message to CDCr [California Department of
Corrections and rehabilitation – prisoners often write the “R” in lower case
because rehabilitation is denied them] officials that the dire, desperate conditions
that we continue to endure are unacceptable!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-US">No one
should receive a sentence from a court and then have those responsible for
carrying out that sentence exact revenge and arbitrary punishments at their
whim. This is the reality that 30,000 men and women lent their collective voice
to opposing.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-US">No one
should receive a sentence from a court and then have those responsible for
carrying out that sentence exact revenge and arbitrary punishments at their
whim. This is the reality that 30,000 men and women lent their collective voice
to opposing.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-US">The
“crying gang” game is all cried out. It’s time to treat human beings like
humans. A third of the prison population has clearly said that the inhumane
conditions of long term solitary confinement and prison oppression must end.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-US">The
exploitation of prisoners must end. The exploitation of California taxpayers
must end. There is no justifiable reason why a man or woman imprisoned in the
1960s or 1970s or even 1980s should still be languishing in prison.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-US">We stand
in solidarity, continuing to press forward with our protracted struggle to end
these inhumane conditions.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-US"><b>Against
all odds</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-US">Within
Pelican Bay SHU, within our struggle to shed light on the inhumanities of
prison conditions and state sanctioned acts of aggression and torture, we would
like to extend our prayers and thanks to the 16 hunger strike representatives
who were kidnapped from Pelican Bay State Prison (PBSP) Short Corridor on July
11, 2013, and unjustly placed on “hell row” in the Ad Seg torture chambers. New
Afrikan Abdul Olugbala Shakur was unceremoniously kidnapped from the Short
Corridor as well, on July 24, 2013, and subjected to the same atrocities. We
stand with you.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-US">With the
addition of Abdul Shakur, one should take notice that he is not a rep, but
instead is a critical New Afrikan thinker, who is a strong adherent to New
Afrikan politics and an accomplished jailhouse lawyer. He has five pending
lawsuits against the state tools of repression, CDCr and PBSP, for the
injustices and inhumane conditions and treatment in blatant disregard of
prisoners’ First Amendment rights that are continuously inflicted upon
kaptives.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-US">It’s a
clear fact that Abdul was targeted by prison officials for removal and
containment with the 16 reps in order to subject him to the pain and suffering
handed down to all our reps, for his and their unwavering stances against
prison injustice.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-US">As a
result of this system’s propensity for corrupt practices and the constitutional
violations of prisoners’ rights, we contend the following prison officials
conspired against Abdul Shakur and all 16 hunger strike reps to place them in
Ad-Seg torture chambers [the first three with the CDCr’s Division of Adult
Institutions and the second three at Pelican Bay State Prison]: </span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-US">Chief Deputy
Administrator for Special Projects Susan Hubbard, </span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-US">Chief Administrator for
Special Projects George Guirbino, </span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-US">Director of Adult Institutions Michael
Stainer, </span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-US">Pelican Bay Warden G.D. Lewis, </span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-US">Investigative Service Unit (ISU) Capt.
G. Barnenburg, </span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-US">and Institutional Gang Investigator (IGI) Lt. J. Frisk.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<span lang="EN-US">It’s a
clear fact that Abdul was targeted by prison officials for removal and
containment with the 16 reps in order to subject him to the pain and suffering
handed down to all our reps, for his and their unwavering stances against
prison injustice.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">These
acts against Abdul and the reps were purely retaliatory by CDCr officials, who
utilized a peaceful protest as a pretext to justify subjecting each and every
one of us to a more intense and discriminatory torture.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">We will
not be broken by vicious systematic attacks carried out by the CDCr hierarchy.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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