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Title: Letters from Prison Author: Kuwasi Balagoon Date: 1983-1985 Language: en Topics: anti-imperialism, anti-imperialist anarchist organization, armed struggle, black anarchism, Black Liberation Army, Black Panther Party, Bulldozer, critique of leftism, expropriation, prison, prisoners, letters Source: A Soldier’s Story: Writings by a Revolutionary New Afrikan Anarchist (Montréal: Kersplebedeb, 2003; pages 101-125)
April 12 1983
We’ve been dealing with the public movements so much with explaining our
stance and perceptions that it has twisted me to the point where i’ve
written very little suitable for publication for Bulldozer. Having to
unify with M-L [Marxist-Leninist] and Nationalist and to defend the
rights to nationalist aspirations have pulled me a bit out of line with
my predilections...
December 9 1983
That bullshit about seventy five years wasn’t designed to effect me, i
had been sentenced to twenty five to thirty before. Dec 22, i’ll be 37
years old. That sentence was to effect others to frighten others into
giving up their lives altogether without fighting for real control of
their lives. But if i worked thirty years at the post office and went
bowling on Thursdays or doing anything but opposing the U.S. i’d be
worse off, it would be like making a rope so my children and myself
could be tied up.
Jan 25 1984
The federal trial ended with the five most politico people taking the
most principled position getting convicted of conspiracy, two others
convicted basically for not turning their backs on their friends once
they were wanted (aiding and abetting) and two acquitted altogether, one
which all they had was a traitor cocaine fiend’s word on, the other who
had two traitors words against him—and had fled to Belize (British
Honduras) and extradited back. So people called it a victory—but i
really don’t think so, the government didn’t get all they wanted but 4
out of 6? and the two most politico, getting the highest convictions?
The line i put forth is that the question of if it’s a victory, lies
with how many people are mobilized by it the same with our portion of
it. i am glad for the people who are home now, but legally didn’t that
much happen, simple math. Politically i feel a bit disappointed, but at
the same time i know that the weight of what went down and what we said,
etc. should grow, people will get better at explaining it, that just our
defiance in the face of what the state says is life, will have more
impact as life progresses.
May 31 1983
We had to hassle with the Guardian to git one article countering some
reactionary shit they were saying and the rest of the “left” has
disassociated themselves from us like most of the left in Canada
disassociates themselves from the Vancouver Five. We took Prisoner of
War positions to forfeit the illusion of the state being able to judge
enemies of the state. In the first place most of the left didn’t even
speak to it, the “establishment” press mentioned it first and a lot of
the folks who protest U.S. involvement in Central America condemn us
for, git this, shooting three working class people. You know who they
are talking about, a sweat hog guard and two outright pigs.
Two papers especially, the Village Voice and the Rolling Stone are
mistakened for left because they cover anti-nuke rallies and etc., had
it in for us from the beginning. They would print accounts by police and
creeps nowhere near the underground and at the same time refuse to print
anything any of us had to say. It’s still their policy. The Voice
demanded the inside scoop on one person’s sex life after they sent in a
political article, the Rolling Stone wrote a series on the Weather
people at about the same time the national news agencies were doing a
number on us, dripping with sexual accounts, even a picture (a drawing).
May 31 1983
i think we tend to use the term “left” too loosely, everybody left of
Reagan ain’t left. Basic self-determination, the means of production
being in the hands of the workers, should be the criteria of recognizing
an ideology as left. Just because someone doesn’t want some fool in
Washington to blow the world to pieces doesn’t make them left. Everybody
who protests the curtailing of civil liberties that effect them, ain’t
left. And we make a mistake when we assume that they are, and they let
us know we made mistakes when the basic issues arise.
May 31 1983
When a gay group protests lack of police protection, by making an
alliance with police to form a gay task force, they ain’t making a stand
against the system they are joining it. Putting more power in the hands
of those who attack them for being what they are in the first place.
Those women’s organizations with members with underpaid Black, Puerto
Rican and Mexican maids, who decided to vote differently when the Equal
Rights Amendment was defeated, can’t be called Left, just as Blacks
mobilizing to field a presidential candidate arn’t left. Left is the
land and means of production in the hands of the masses and Right is
land and the means of production in the hands of a few pigs. As i am
writing this it occurs to me that it sounds rigid, but dealing with land
and the means of production in a different manner calls for a different
system. This is not to say that we should sabotage anti-nuke...
organizations that call themselves “left”... but we should keep the
basics constantly in debates and we should establish the working
definition.
Xmas Night, 1983?
The point is that there are only a few people in the “left” about armed
struggle and self-determination, so although i personally think they are
ideological imperialist, i will work with them as i do with nationalist,
even though they are hierarchical and righteous Muslims even though i am
anti-religion. i think it’s OK as long as you don’t get lost in the
sauce, so to speak—that is abandon anarchist principles and the
objective of building anarchist organizations.
Xmas Night, 1983?
It’s a very dangerous period we have been going through, the state is
quickly consolidating fascism on the one hand and on the other hand
there’s no mass movement. All kinds of laws are being passed with no
debate, and people are looking to Jesse Jackson to change the focus of
things, and not only is he electoral (which goes without saying) but
he’s reactionary. He stands up in front of rallies and says things like
“if we (got that we, that tells you he’s an uncle tom right away) can’t
have enough marines in Lebanon to do the job, we should bring the
americans home. Bring our boys back.” Well, if we have any boys in the
Marines then obviously our boys have gone astray. What in the fuck are
they doing over there in the first place? Why are there so many ads in
Black magazines and in the commercials at basketball and football games
and boxing matches with Blacks and the phrase “Be all that you can be”
for the U.S. Armed Forces? There’s nobody Black addressing that.
Xmas Night, 1983?
Not since the Western Federation of Miners and the Wobblies in the 30’s,
have workers been struggling for actual control and in fact ownership,
but in the past couple of years Greyhound Bus Company, National Baseball
League and some other unions have been kicking it around. At the same
time all the public movements—since they are too elitist to even want to
organize the working class and they fear them like the plague because
the public movements are largely petty bourgeois, college students,
white collar workers, etc.—have been debating each other in a vacuum,
instead of really going out to work.
Xmas Night, 1983?
After that ass-kicking in Southeast Asia you can bet your life they went
through a lot of mass psychological preparation before going to Lebanon,
or invading Grenada, but their calculations proved true. There has been
no real response from the black colony here—and culturally and
historically the Grenadians are so similar to us that it’s incredible.
They’ve been able to do all of this because there’s been no real mass
movement and so many outright reactionaries like Jackson, who has the
blessings of all the egghead, pencilneck, armchair Marxist and black
cop-out artist posing as progressive. The only high points occur when
the United Freedom Front or United Fighting Group or FALN strikes, which
at least has been happening fairly consistently.
Jan 22 1984
It’s a small circle of revolutionaries in this hemisphere or in the
Northern half of it, we can’t just deal within the same small circle, at
some point new recruits must be won over, youth must be ignited: all the
rallies have got basically the same people showing year after year. i
ask do these activists talk to people outside the movement, obviously
they don’t talk to people about the movement—we got to build a movement
of activists who... address people who are already committed as well as
people who are into other things. “The revolutionary war is a war of the
masses: it can be waged only by mobilizing the masses and relying on
them.”
Jan 25 1984
[...] the sad thing is those white M-Ls who are really few in
number—when it comes to supporting armed struggle, have no foothold in
the white working class, and being mostly of a petty bourgeois
background not only don’t know where to begin but are contemptuous of
the working class—even though the petty bourgeoisie as a class is at
least as reactionary. Plus they are just beginning to be clear as to the
fact that New Afrikans are indeed colonized and what that means and just
beginning to accept their role in the struggle to initiate the overthrow
of the bourgeoisie and the establishment of a dictatorship of the
proletariat—they ain’t really Marxist and morality has been their line
rather than the nuts and bolts of what is really going on. That in
itself wouldn’t be so bad but the fact is the Nationalist on this coast,
where the [Brink’s] trial actually took place, simply refuses to
organize in the black community, no survival programs which New Afrikans
need, no challenging the neocolonial Uncle Toms, like
Jackson-Washington, etc., no showing up at police brutality hearings to
declare that the issue is not a few mad dog cowboy cops, but a mad dog
cowboy empire, no going to the New Afrikan colonies at all. To them, it
is enough to tell people what is happening with us, which is ridiculous
when people are starving, freezing and getting shot themselves, but they
believe in magic words.
May 2 1984
There’s a lot of Islamic influences in our movement now—there always
have been—but now more than ever. i am flooded with Islamic propaganda
through the mails that i pass on to Muslims, and at the same time i am a
bit shook up about it, but rather than counter this, i intend to
cooperate when it’s principled, continue to argue when points of
difference arise and busy myself with what i am up to my neck with and
let the people decide.
Jan 9 1985
i hope this finds you in the best of health and spirits as it leaves me
feeling OK, considering everything. At least except for the last round
of busts nothing of consequence has happened and at the same time
there’s been a lot of busts. Supposedly support is growing, people from
other movements have been shook up by the indictments for thought crime
and there has certainly been enough grand jury subpoenas to constitute a
witch hunt (28 this far to my count) and the black colony is stirring
behind it, but i don’t know what the movement is doing inside the
colony. i’ve heard they have vowed to do more grassroots organizing and
i hope so because people are upset about the pigs who’ve really been
getting away with the grossest murders as well. In one case they
tortured a guy to death for allegedly writing on the subway walls and in
another they shot a sixty year old woman while evicting her. So any
retaliation action should have the nod.
Jan 9 1985
[T]he part of the “left” that has no interest in what is happening to
prisoners and prisoners of war, is not left. If the difference is that
we believe in the decentralization of wealth, the redistribution of land
and armed struggle—and those of the right believe in amassing more
wealth, building empire and repression—then these are the lines by which
we should define “left” and “right”. We can’t go by other people’s
definitions—even their definitions of themselves—suppose Rev Sun Myung
Moon declares he’s left, against the establishment and has been
victimized by racism. The left here is small in proportion to the
population no matter how you define it—but when you talk about
redistribution, freeing the colonies, etc. it’s micro and when you talk
doing and actually do something—people look at you as if you’re from
Mars—RARE SPECIES. You put that same measure to Canada, I’d bet it’s
micro too. So if we limit our propaganda to people in the left and
Bulldozer reaches a small percent of that, people who are down
already—Martians.
Revolution
May 31 1983
When a principled conscientious public movement is developed there’s no
problem finding soldiers, and in terms of being as best as you can,
figure what the revolution needs: there’s a lot you can do that can’t be
taken for granted. The speech you make at the rally would be impossible
to give if you were underground and you would have to hope that someone
else would. All of us who agree would have to hope also. Meanwhile by
the time the public movement gits built to the point where you know
those things will be said, and there’s comrades out organizing people to
take their lives into their own hands, there will be an army to play its
historic role.
i never was happy with the amount of input i could contribute when i was
in the underground. There’s little chance to debate with people doing
aboveground organizing, and if you don’t agree with how they are going
about things there’s not much you can do. That problem is not
unavoidable, but it is a problem.
May 2 1984
And although there’s been a lot of bombings, i think that the hierarchy
embedded in the consciousness of the movement prevents the type of
attacks we used to stage with the sole purpose of punishing pigs with
death. There’s not enough real [punishment] for them kind—translated
into a body count, that registers in the population—that these creatures
can indeed be dealt with, and the way i see it retaliation will have to
be common place for a long time before people are really prepared to
support revolution. With all kinds of things happening to
revolutionaries and people who just mind their own business and nothing
happening to the pigs and very little happening to turds like [Samuel]
Brown—just doesn’t seem to be a balanced and attractive occupation.
July 28 1984
Reaction has been moving on a grassroots level uncontested. Here the
Klan says that illegal aliens take jobs, while Ford, IBM and so many
other corporations move plants to South Africa, England, Korea, etc.
There’s plants operating in Mexico where U.S. corporations ship parts to
be assembled and shipped back to the U.S.—why don’t the corporations git
blamed for stealing jobs? What’s the difference, except that the
corporations pocket the difference in wages? The Klan, Nazis, etc.
spread their crap uncontested as champions of the white workers, when
it’s clear that they are dupes of the ruling class. If we really adopt
the preamble to the wobblies’ constitution, that the working class and
the ruling class have absolutely no common interest, we will beat them
on the ground level, we will out-organize them—and as they are tools of
the empire, we will begin to be out-organizing the empire. Once the
fragments of the working class are united in hostilities against
reaction instead of each other—the tide will begin to shift.
An anarchist underground will develop in turn, with the only connection
to the aboveground being anarchist ideology which is enough. The
relatively simple tasks the pigs have now of peeking into the visible
and exposed sections of the movement, to aim their gadgetry for
suspects, will be fruitless, with really widespread mass mobilizations.
With a federated army of collectives, striking at whatever is opportune
in the area of monopoly capital, imperialism and repression, we will be
settled down in a long protracted people’s war, that can’t be nipped at
the bud, until the governments simply cannot exist and authority and
economies collapse. To of course be replaced by one built around
collectives, rather than capitalism or state capitalism. All railroads,
ship lines, airlines, phone companies, oil, gas and electric companies
will be socialized, all trucking will be put into the collective
ownership of drivers, all overseas possessions left to sink, all textile
mills collectivized, all military industries and arms manufacturers
taken over by militias. A people’s referendum is set for Native, New
Afrikan, Chicano and Puerto Rican nationals in the mainland, to decide
on autonomy with 1.7 acres set aside in a common area for all that vote
for Nationhood. As well as a referendum for Whites who wish to live
separately. The chemical companies, banks, etc. and other capitalist
residue being the province of the will of the people who live in certain
areas.
If we don’t already have an established territory and perhaps if we do,
we set another people’s referendum for those of us who want no
government. A federation of collectives would conduct the referendum,
the local militias would mop up the reactionary residue. With no public
capital in private hands there wouldn’t be any ruling class to suppress
in the anarchist areas, where people choose state socialism, there would
be no interference from us. Just what i envision, but the idea of doing
away with money—just arranging things so that everyone who wants gets
necessities, food, clothing, housing, education—knocks me out. If we
needed a transitional period we determine that reefer is currency...
May 2 1984
The Native American struggle is against imperialist occupation. Because
the present movement doesn’t know how to deal with this doesn’t make it
any less so. That’s just a shortcoming of the movement, but a second’s
thought would have to tell us that Native Americans were indeed the
first victims of imperialism in this hemisphere and if we are to be
anarchist in the here and now and thus be anti-imperialist as one cannot
be an anarchist and not be against imperialism, we got to accept the
Native struggle as our own. If the greeds had not put the Natives in
their position, none of us would be in the position we are in.
May 2 1984
It’s clear to anyone that Native peoples are repressed more so than
anyone else, that genocide has been practiced against them more so than
any people who still exist as a people. Well that means we got to defend
them—fight alongside of them just like they fought alongside of the
slaves. People shouldn’t be able to forget for a moment that this land
was under the guardianship of Native Americans for centuries before
anyone else arrived. Anyway the way to start is by recognizing if you’re
supporting land and liberation for Native Americans, you’re
anti-imperialist and should be in a movement that recognizes and
includes that and if there’s no movement—well, you got to build one.
May 2 1984
[T]o me it’s the ultimate meddling... for a white person supposedly for
the revolution to oppose tendencies for third world people confined to
various reservations in the present U.S. It seems rather clear to me how
our history here would kind of inhibit us from wanting to continue to be
outnumbered and surrounded by whites.
July 28 1984
This is the place to begin erasing borders, not only because the U.S.
uses up 40% of the world’s resources and the bottom fifty percent of the
population controls only eight point two percent of the economy
(nationally) but on top of it five percent of the population controls
seventy percent of the land. Peoples from the South whose land and
resources have gone into this empire are coming to get it and are
entitled to it just as the West Indians and East Indians are entitled to
the portions of the British Empire they were forced to donate as
colonial subjects. Anti-Imperialist struggle grows out of
anti-capitalist (class struggle) just as imperialism is a development of
capitalism.
Jan 9 1985
Right now i am into a slight struggle, with a comrade who put forth the
proposition of whites supporting national liberation as i (especially
after reading Mythology of the White Proletariat) believe in parallel
development, complete movements engaged in national liberation and class
struggle Civil War inside the oppressor nations. The fact that this is
now only beginning to happen, that whites are striking blows at the
colonial apparatus is one thing—but colonial subjects should be free to
attack monopoly capital [...] phone companies rip everyone off, but
these policies in the black community are really different, when i lived
in a predominantly white neighborhood i never was pressured to pay like
friends living in the colonies and whereas the defense industrial
complex may rip everyone in the confines, it murders us. i’ve read the
Mythology of the White Proletariat and know what i would write in a book
review now... it’s enlightening, but i would hope that it wasn’t used as
an excuse by a lot of whites to not attempt to organize inside the
oppressor nation...
April 12 1983
i hope this letter finds you in good health and high spirits as it
leaves me none of the worst for wear and really happy to hear from you
as Bulldozer is my favorite political publication. i really hope we can
work well together and promise to make a sustained effort in keeping the
lines out and open and working as although i share a lot of feelings and
principles with the Nationalist and Anti-Imperialist movements i am an
Anarchist and feel rather isolated ideologically and low for not pushing
my politics as much as i should. This has mostly been due to a lack of
connection with the anarchist movement due again for my being on the
lamb and working with who i could readily see were opposing the state.
Xmas Night, 1983?
i think that throughout this hemisphere we should unite with real get
down anarchists first and then others, and recognize that the so-called
left doesn’t really represent a lot of people. The politics of the
so-called left hasn’t reached a lot of people and their elitist airs are
actually turn offs—there’s not much mention of “serving the people”. If
we start putting things together that actually do serve people the day
when Anarchy is seen as a viable way of life rather than chaos will not
be far away, because most people when they stop and think of it have to
admit that the empire sucks.
Jan 22 1984
Tonight i am up eating peanut butter sandwiches, just putting the stale
bread over steaming water, when for years i automatically threw it out
and fed it to the birds (this being one of the few times the birds might
be better off for it). i think that waste and bourgeois thinking really
affects how we operate, both in terms of perceiving strong points and
weak points and effectiveness, when it comes to acting after we make our
observations. In Viet Nam, G.I.s had to burn, bury and grind the stuff
they sent to the dumps, because the Cong would use the tin cans, wire,
bottles and whatever else against them. They can’t do that here because
they’re always encouraging people to consume more and make more waste.
On the other end i think that making the most of everything is
exemplified pretty well by working in a collective setting and living in
a co-op, and it seems like it would be an easy thing to found an
anarchist food co-op somewhere in Toronto. As time goes on
Anti-Imperialist Anarchism will prove to be the only anarchism, since
others will need to make alterations. We should push the idea of
collectives and federations while continuing to support anti-imperialist
struggle with the aim of not merely building a real movement that really
supports armed struggle, but an actual infrastructure.
Jan 22 1984
[T]he idea of collectives was alien to the Panther Party. We had
different survival programs and people were involved to be part of them,
to donate time, afford to git things/stuff [from] businesses operating
inside the community, to use the space of institutions such as churches.
But the Party being a hierarchy simply could not simply initiate
alternatives—it felt it had to lead them—it was to be in its mind and
words not just the leading party but the sole representative of the
Black colony. So there was not any organized effort to take space in the
colony and to actually produce (only to distribute) or to provide
transport or a militia. It was miles away from all of that because it
was a hierarchy. To fully take on the power structure in a given area,
you got to not only provide alternatives, but institutions that render
the old ones useless. Just completely take their place, that provide the
[goods] itself so it’s not a question of a merchant giving material aide
to our operation or being boycotted, but a mechanism where one by one,
the outlets become collective, because the economy evolves to the point
where the corporate fingers just cannot pull the strings. You don’t call
a checker cab when an outlaw gypsy cab service will take you where you
want to go cheaper, you don’t shop at Safeway if you can buy what you
want cheaper at a co-op. People are putting all kinds of co-ops
together—the trick is to form a federation that takes care of the needs
of its members and invites more. That teaches self-reliance and
demonstrates it. That supports and practices Anti-Imperialism and
demonstrates that you don’t have to be a party to it and that
Imperialism is not necessary because capitalism is not necessary, rather
than necessary evils they are just evils. This sounds like preaching,
but without examples how would you expect it to sound.
Jan 25 1984
Why ain’t an Anti-Imperialist Anarchist organization—that’s pro-armed
struggle + self-determination for oppressed nations + socialism and
liberty and complete egalitarianism been formed? With collectives in
areas wherever there’s enough individuals to put one together and an
International Hemispheric program? A “Committee to Promote Anarchy”.
That way at least people who think similar to us would at least have a
unified voice inside and outside the prisons. The Network for all its
looseness does cover a lot of territory—rather than debut with the
anarchist who ain’t about what we are about or compromise with M-Ls and
Nationalist, we should start building something to take directly to the
masses. That doesn’t mean everybody who thinks similar to us, isolating
themselves, the way i am, not dealing with M-Ls, Nationalist and
Anarchist or even trying to ignite reformist—but it means putting
something of our own on the ground.
May 2 1984
What’s as bad is that public movements can’t grow into mass movements,
not because of the apathy that they claim everyone else has but because
of a fantastic elitism. If they organize a mass movement, they’ll lose
their identities. They won’t be so much smarter than the people they’re
supposed to be organizing and providing models for. Of course there’s
other real reasons too, the almighty media and state floods peoples
minds with the centuries of chauvinism and diversions coupled with an
economy that makes rent too much to think about. But the main thing that
effects people is that they know no other way and have no access to a
living breathing ideology or a movement that does things differently.
But there’s no public movement that recognizes this, and i think that
that is partly because the next step would be doing things
differently... at the same time what you do shapes how you think, so
it’s a vicious cycle.
Anarchy is the ideal way to break out of it, but since it’s been defined
as chaos, by every other proponent of every other ideology on one hand,
and defined by too many people who define themselves as anarchist as
“whatever”, it is simply not being presented for people’s inspection. A
collective is not only (for lack of a better word) a propaganda organ
because its members may say or print certain things, it’s a propaganda
unit [...] If a collective chooses to recycle and accumulate capital for
a co-op of sorts, people will see people working together [...] they
will see a process that can be duplicated. [...] With eggheads sitting
around spinning yarns and isms you have something that can be
duplicated, but for what? The masses are smart not to get involved in
any more bullshit.
July 28 1984
The crazy thing is that there are no anti-imperialist organizations with
a class analysis or program. Of the “communist” who speak of (their only
support of) strikes, none of them really make a stand for
self-determination of oppressed and super-exploited colonies, of the
anti-imperialist organizations who do support self-determination, there
are none that explain the exploitation of the working class in terms of
its relation to imperialism.
If an anti-imperialist anarchist organization establishes itself and
calls for an end to imperialism abroad and within the borders of this
hemisphere and supports self-determination for oppressed nations and
supports the working class struggle against the same monopoly
capitalists who reap the lion’s share of super-profits from the
colonies, it will be the only organization with a complete ideology. If
this same organization begins modest programs in the most depressed
areas, centered around survival, turning waste into capital, taking over
spaces and occupying them for the good of the community, offering
services denied to the communities like food co-ops, clothing exchanges
and book exchanges and then extended this into taxis and a militia to
deal with the Klan and other predators, but on top of this supports auto
workers, hospital workers, etc. when they are on strike, etc. and
reports and explains why, we will soon have an international
community-based organization that people will support. They will not
only buy a paper that could expand into an international paper with its
own distribution system, but cultural activities, because they will see
what’s happening with their support and more importantly they will have
access to a new way of living.
July 28 1984
Maybe i’ve been sitting around thinking of the same shit too long, but
it seems to me that Anarchy would have to be anti-imperialist, that
there’s no other ideology that refuses to recognize borders. Every
communist regime has degenerated into a narrow nationalist state
capitalism, almost as if and i tend to think that they couldn’t help it.
Stalin might have been a bastard but he wasn’t corrupt, or Mao for that
matter, the masses were certainly willing to make sacrifices, but what
do we have now, the very first communist state invading another country
“to protect its borders,” and the second making a treaty with the U.S. Â
August 18th 1983
... a physical propaganda offensive has been escalated against
supporters and other aboveground legal people. About a month ago two
sisters and three children, one only two years old, came to visit. At
first the cops gave them a run around about how they dressed, which was
bullshit and then they gave them a run around about ID. Their ID works
out OK when they visit other jails, but after being held up and insulted
by pigs with no name tags or badge numbers, they were told to leave.
When they went back to their car and drove off they were stopped by a
pig who went through their papers and mumbled some sap rap and let them
go. This made them really paranoid, and they drove way under the speed
limit which saved their lives, because a wheel started to wobble. Once
they wobbled into a gas station and had it checked out they discovered
that the bolts between the wheel and the axle had been loosened. Had
they driven on the highway at 55 miles an hour they would have had an
accident and with five people in the car, three of them children,
there’s no telling how bad it would have been. One accident occurred
like that after the John Brown conference in Chicago last year and
another at a conference in Texas a bit before that, you would think by
now people would automatically check wheels. About two weeks after that
one of the sisters, _____, after going to court, where her old man is on
trial, went shopping and then caught a subway not far from her home,
when she got off and decided to catch a bus to git closer, two white
guys stepped in and asked her for directions. When she took her
attention off them, one of them started punching her while the other
acted as a lookout. The one punching her knocked her down, continued to
punch her, took her pocket book with rent and bill money, and then kept
on punching her in the face, while sitting on her. Just before he
stopped and left, he said, “Your husband can’t help you now.” There’s
been the usual break-ins and women running into guys they find out later
are cops. Right-wing underground harassment (so far it seems) groups
have been stepping up their activities. So that’s the general tone of
things.
Xmas Night, 1983?
There’s a conservative wave sweeping the U.S., lots of mob attacks on
Third World people, lots of police killings, one cracker in Detroit got
two years probation because he beat a Chinese guy to death and the judge
said the punishment should “fit the criminal, not the crime”. Vietnamese
in Boston and Texas are being attacked at random. In Western
Massachusetts the Feds were called in to investigate attacks on women,
and started investigating the women’s links with “terrorists”, at the
same time there’s been 30 fires in a women’s dorm and they’ve arrested a
Black woman who lived there and kicked her out of the school, a white
guy who is charged with rape still goes. The local pigs have raided the
projects (public housing) with slug hammers twice under different
pretences that didn’t pan out, the feds did security for the United
Technologies Corporation, which has been having a secret conference
there—as if those turds can’t afford to hire Pinkerton. And ROTC, the
young Republicans, S.H.U.N. (Stop Homosexual Unity Now) and every other
type of Nazi is running rabid and that’s just one town. And as i said
there’s a wave of conservatism.
Xmas Night, 1983?
i think that you got to stop thinking in terms of the U.S. and Canada as
separate and literally in terms of the hemisphere as far as organization
goes—which the Network is definitely right in doing—and i think
politically we should attack the whole of imperialism, that is not only
dealing with a particular government force that’s involved in, say El
Salvador, but any ruling class power involved in Imperialism. This means
not only noting South African involvement with IBM and ITT’s involvement
in Chile, but every link in the Fortune 500.
May 2 1984
Here, some new laws have been passed that make support for “terrorists”
a crime, and to change the feds into a more clearly military outfit.
There was an even more outrageous murder in NYC, a brother was beaten to
death, supposedly for putting graffiti on a subway car. Not a murder
where a guy gits hit on top the head one too many times and dies, but
torture and overkill. There’s been forty blacks murdered this year and a
general upswing throughout the country. No retaliation, though, no pigs
caught up and filled full of holes.
July 28 1984
i think that we simply have to be clear about the fact that the media is
part of the state’s arsenal, they never contradict the state. They
universally and totally miss the point of the matters that pertain to
the opposition of the state. For instance the Watergate shit that
happened here a few years ago made the press look good but there was
never any print about all the lawyers’ offices that were broken into,
when left-wing clients were involved. They never talk about the things
that DINA or Alpha 66 has gotten away with, they covered our case
without mentioning colonialism one time even though our position was/is
that New Afrikans are colonized and have a right to defend against
colonial oppression. [Associated Press] quoted a statement by me, after
i handed it to them, as i did every paper that covered the trial, but
nobody thought it newsworthy to make a clear statement about our
position. So it’s not just a thing about a press ban on the proceedings
involving the Armenians. The press knows their job and they know it’s
not to do our propaganda for us, the New York Times couldn’t address
U.S. corruption in Quebec, when the separatist was clearly challenging
the ruling class of the entire hemisphere! A guy with a trench coat
doesn’t meet with all the reporters overnight, to tell them what to
write or their editors what to print. These caffeine crazed patriots
censor themselves.
August 18th 1983
Meanwhile i am freer to write and will be writing this week for sure—the
only thing that will hold me up is a lack of stamps if i can’t work out
some kind of deal with the commissary guy tomorrow. The food is so bad
here that when the order blanks come around i don’t think of anything
besides getting enough to eat. However my discipline shall improve.
December 9 1983
As to the seventy five years i am not really worried, not only because i
am in the habit of not completing sentences or waiting on parole or any
of that nonsense but also because the state simply isn’t going to last
seventy five or even fifty years. If there’s not a revolution in thirty
years—in which case i really don’t care to live anyways, or an atomic
war, the environment will for all practical purposes resemble the
aftermath of an atomic war. The jerks in charge now are not only
committing genocide but destroying the biosphere.
Xmas Night, 1983?
There’s nothing to be amazed of as far as continuing to struggle in
jail, what else can you do? The struggle continues and if you don’t, if
you give up, you die, you are damned, because it takes effort just to be
in contact and when they put you in isolation, fuck with your mail, etc.
you have all the proof you need that whatever it was you did, it was of
consequence. “As long as you fight, the decision is still up in the
air,” Ruchell Magee. They only win when we are convinced to let them
have their way.
Xmas Night, 1983?
[W]hereas i would be up writing at night i am going to the movies, they
had “Flashdance” and “Raiders of the Lost Ark”, i’ve been telling myself
that it’s impossible to know whats been effecting the masses if you
don’t check out what they have—nothing superfragalistic has been
revealed to me—but i figure as long as i ain’t betting football games or
some nonsense like that a little diversion doesn’t hurt.
Jan 22 1984
Well due to the storm we’ve been locked in for two days, which in and of
itself wouldn’t be such a big deal but i am locked beside one
motherfucker who plays oldies twenty four/seven and on the other side is
a Cuban who Castro kicked out of the country for singing. He starts
right after breakfast most mornings and continues each time he comes
back to the cell, until he falls out sometime around eleven, so last
night i kept him up a bit longer with some of my singing.
July 28 1984
i’ve meant to write you for a long time but i guess a combination of
factors have slowed me down in correspondence, for one thing the pace of
writing two or three letters a night and feeling like i’ve been
sentenced to writing, kinda worn me out. Then of course, i am still
going to trial. Since eighty two there’s been some kind of bullshit with
legality. i am tired of it, but must pay attention to what’s happening
in court, cause no matter what we must preserve the position that the
state simply has no right to try us. At the same time these bastards got
over sixty suspects in this case, including every busted B.L.A. member,
a statement by a traitor that they want to act as if they never had and
a hundred thousand dollar reward. It’s outright disgusting how people
were turning in ex-employees, drinking partners and etc. So it’s an
ideal opportunity to show in detail how the pigs are trying to change
New Afrikan culture into a snitch culture, ready to support fascism.
But every time i go to court i really fall behind in letters, last time
they moved me six times in six days, cuffed and shackled, it was
impossible to git visits because i was never at a jail during a time
when visiting was allowed, a third to half of the time in bull pens or
in a van, the few letters i did write are just getting where they were
addressed. Added to the court time is the trip we go through once we
return. It’s a week before you git any addresses or even legal papers,
another week confined to the cell, last time i went to the hole for a
day, because there wasn’t any empty cells and for some reason i always
git the same cell, which isn’t for anyone else, and it’s pretty possible
that the whole thing will be happening again before the 31st. So in
letters i’ll be even further behind.
July 28 1984
Over the weekend a pig shot a brother down in the yard. The official
version is that he was swinging a baseball bat at another prisoner and
some pigs and to protect lives the pig in the tower had to shoot. Of
course that’s bullshit, there was no one close to the guy when he got
shot, he had gotten stabbed just before and the pigs broke camp.
Prisoners had to pick him up and carry him to the door and demand he
receive medical care for the M15 wound, which you know is difficult
because the bullet tumbles to make wounds large and break bones, to make
more missiles inside the body to penetrate more organs. Anyway after the
shooting, a hundred and eighty men refused to lock in—you got to be
literally mad to see someone shot and risk your lives just to make a
point. Meanwhile the pigs have everyone who witnessed the crap first
hand locked down...
Nov 29 1985
Friday they told me to go back to the block (and i immediately thought
transfer) when i got back to my block they said i was to be kept locked,
when i said “for what?” they said “investigation,” then within a half
hour or so, this pig comes to tell me i am being transferred. Then i was
brought here, kept in lockup until yesterday at noon and released into
population. But that has just meant another day with the same underwear,
only one blanket and asking over and over about my stuff. i got a chance
to talk to one of my comrades personally, and in the process of doing
some chin ups some turkey lifted my coat, so i couldn’t go out tonight
and am basically in limbo. Tomorrow night there’s no yard or opportunity
to use the phones in the yard. So basically i’ll be stuck with whatever
i have after wading through bullshit in broad daylight. i can’t remember
a similar situation but it kinda feels like sitting around a dusty empty
apartment waiting for the landlord to put the heat on—walkin’ to the pay
phone never catchin’ him, looking forward to next to nothing.