“For years we were called Niggers to indicate we had no value or worth and that anything could be done to us. Then the word ‘nigger’ became politically incorrect. So, they began calling us criminals. When you say a person is a criminal it means that what happens to them does not matter. It means he or she is a nigger. It means that he or she is a nigger. It means they deserve what they get.”
Revolutionary greetings!
In Texas
we know that we are being exploited, mistreated, degraded and abused.
Many prisoners in Texas are content with the modern day slave plantation
system, which is managed and operated by the Texas Department of
Criminal Justice. However, many prisoners are not content; in fact, they
are frustrated and angry. The strategies utilized by prisoners in other
states that have similar conditions to Texas don’t necessarily apply
here. More accurately stated, we cannot do what others have done because
we have not reached the level of solidarity and political development
prisoners in other states such as California have reached.
This
is not to belittle or degrade my fellow prisoners in Texas; I’m just
stating facts. The hunger strike and work stoppage in California forced
prison officials to re-assess the oppressive policies which have led to
the inhumane treatment. Many human beings are trapped in Pelican Bay and
numerous other solitary confinement units in California. Solitary
confinement is torture, whether it is utilized by CDCR or TDCJ.
Abolition of this form of punishment is the only correct solution. The
question which has plagued prisoner rights activists such as myself is:
“What is the best strategy for Texas?” How do we initiate a movement
that will be embraced by Texas prisoners and their families alike? Texas
is a family oriented state. You cannot proceed with a serious
initiative without including family members who will lobby the state
legislature and speak to the media on behalf of their loved ones. I was
very impressed with the support that California prisoner and Pelican Bay
Freedom Fighter Sitawa Nantambu Jamaa received from
his sister. Every time I opened the Bay View, there she was – at
protests, speaking to the media, legislators, truly awesome!
The Slave State
I
strongly support abolition of the prison industrial complex; I would
like to see an end to mass incarceration. I am a multi-racial New
Afrikan Black mixed with Arab and Latino. It is our populations that
have been hurt the most by the so-called “war on drugs.” Texas is the
most racist and oppressive state in Amerika.
Texas
did not want to recognize the emancipation of Black slaves in Amerika;
that is why Juneteenth was created, to celebrate Texas’ two-year-late
recognition of federal law. You see, Texas has a history of ignoring the
human and civil rights of disadvantaged minorities.
If
Texas can usurp or circumvent federal law or the U.S. Constitution in
order to oppress Blacks, Latino/as or even poor whites, it will. The
uniforms that Texas Department of Criminal Justice employees wear are
patterned after Confederate soldier uniforms! This is the truth.
Texas
wants to remind you constantly that it supported and still supports the
subjugation of New Afrikans. When prisoners are taken to the fields to
pick cotton, green beans and corn, among other crops, TDCJ officers sit
on horses with cowboy hats on and hold shotguns, screaming at you, “You
better get your cut, Washington, or I’m writing you a case!” I am not
lying. This is the reality here in Texas.
The
current conditions in Texas dictate that we must address our treatment
as slaves and the inability of the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles to
recognize our good time and work credits. We want these credits
directly applied to our sentences, so we can return to our families and
communities. What Texas has engaged in is a form of sophisticated
deception.
The main individuals
being deceived are our family members. Most of us prisoners are well
aware of the deceptive practices perpetrated by the Parole Board. Their
actions are promoted, sanctioned and condoned by the Legislature and the
Texas Board of Criminal Justice.
The slave model in Texas is perpetrated by what TDCJ calls TCI or Texas Correctional Industries.
On paper, TCI is set up as a non-profit that provides job skills and
on-the-job training for prisoners who work in various factory and light
industrial jobs throughout Texas. The model is deceptive and TDCJ spends
a lot of time and resources giving the general public the impression
that rehabilitation is its focus.
However,
once a person starts digging and researching the financial records and
transactions being made, you will uncover something else. You see, I
spent time as an accountant working in the office of the now defunct
Stiles Unit Metal Fabrication Plant located in Beaumont, Texas.
What
I discovered is that TDCJ and Texas is making a huge profit on the
backs of prisoners who provide free labor. Palms are constantly greased;
back-door deals are being made in order to keep investors, corporate
representatives, and independent contractors happy. It is all a very
elaborate system.
The senior
wardens of these prisons in Texas act as CEOs ensuring a constant flow
of slave laborers to run “the factory.” It may be a tire plant,
meatpacking plant, furniture factory, textile factory, computer recovery
plant, mattress factory, or metal fabrication plant. Profits certainly
are being generated, but prisoners in Texas don’t get paid! Why is that?
Prison
officials and legislators say TCI is providing valuable job skills and
training for free. All right then, if that is the case, why won’t the
Parole Board recognize the good time and work time credits of all Texas
prisoners?
Anyone who has
worked in one of these factories knows you can’t be a “bad actor” to
work in the factory. If I’m being forced to work for free, I want to get
back to my family as soon as possible so my family can benefit from my
new job skills. But that is not how the slave model is set up. No! It is
not working like that.
I have
met numerous men who have toiled in these various factories for years,
some even decades, yet here they remain, still working for free and the
work conditions continue to get worse. Some prisoners work 8- to 12-hour
shifts at various factories throughout Texas; many like to drink coffee
or work out during breaks in order to relieve stress.
TDCJ
officers who are assigned to “the factory” make it a point to be extra
harsh in their management style because they know these factory jobs are
preferred by prisoners. I mean you’re stuck here! Texas doesn’t give a
damn about you and they certainly aren’t interested in paroling you, so
if you had a choice between working like Kunta Kinte in the field or in a
factory job, which would you choose? Prisoners in Texas are caught
between a rock and a hard place.
The Texas philosophy
For those who are well versed in Texas history, you will know that Texas was founded on the precept of white supremacy.
The current governor of Texas, Greg Abbott,
subscribes to a eugenic type of thinking in which Black and Brown
people are inferior to whites, and this thinking justifies our current
enslavement and inhumane treatment. Alexander Stephens, the vice
president of the Confederate States during the U.S. Civil War, best
described the philosophy of Texans like Gov. Abbott and Brian Collier,
the executive director of TDCJ, when he said in an 1861 speech:
“The
Confederacy cornerstone rests upon the great truth that the Negro is
not equal to the white man; that slavery, subordination to the superior
race, is his natural and moral condition.” 1
This is what we are up against in Texas.
Our philosophy and strategy
In
Texas as throughout Amerika the so-called low class “Negro” comes in
various colors, shapes, sizes and genders. There are white, Black,
Latino, Asian and Arab “Negros” trapped inside Texas prisons. Original
Black Panther Comrade Fred Hampton best illustrated
this point when he entered a white bar in the late ‘60s to recruit white
people to take part in socialist change.
I
want you to understand exactly where I am coming from so there won’t be
any confusion. So, I ask you to read and analyze this quote from
Comrade Fred Hampton; it comes from a speech he made in 1969:
We
got to face some facts. That the masses are poor, that the masses
belong to what you call the lower class, and when I talk about the
masses, I’m talking about the white masses, I’m talking about the Black
masses, and the Brown masses and the yellow masses too. We’ve got to
face the fact that some people say you fight fire best with fire, but we
say you put fire out best with water. We say you don’t fight racism
with racism; we’re gonna fight racism with solidarity. We say you don’t
fight capitalism with no Black capitalism; you fight capitalism with
socialism. 2
This quote
embodies the theory, philosophy and revolutionary practice of the New
Afrikan Black Panther Party, Prison Chapter. Of course, we love and
respect New Afrikan Black people, but we shun this uber Black
nationalism which is embraced by other groups passing themselves off as
Panthers. You can’t brutally attack an elder in this movement and say
you are representing the best interests of the people. No! That’s not
Pantherism – but I digress. Let’s stay on point.
As
prisoners in Texas, we have to grab the bull by the horns and take
control of our own destiny. Free world supporters can’t do this for us.
They can help, but ultimately the grassroots organizing, and effort must
be done by us.
First, we must
educate our family and friends in reference to the nature of the
problem. We must show them the deception and illusion of this imaginary
pay and fraudulent good time and work time credit system.
Truthfully,
all Texas prisoners have to do is send their family and friends a
print-out of their time slip. There are thousands of men and women
trapped inside Texas prisons. They possess time slips which clearly show
accrued flat time, good time and work time credit percentages which
equal 100 percent of their current sentence or more!
Texas
has built a system which has systematically weakened and destroyed
inner city and urban communities. These communities have been targeted
by the state and corporate entities for gentrification. The inhabitants
of these communities are predominantly Black and Brown.
In
Houston, Texas, we have even seen a school superintendent get in on
“the action.” HISD Superintendent Terry Grier did all he could to weaken
the schools in Houston that service Black and Brown inner city youth.
And
when you deny people adequate access to quality education
opportunities, you create conditions which push them into the waiting
arms of the criminal justice system. Mr. Grier has announced his
resignation. Let’s hope Houston chooses an HISD superintendent who will
have a vested interested in our success.
So
in a nutshell, TDCJ and the Board of Pardons and Paroles work in
concert with capitalists in order to sabotage the self-determination of
certain communities of color. What this amounts to is a not so subtle
program of Social Control.
We want freedom!
What
we are asking is that Texas prisoners have their families visit our
Facebook pages and websites in order to see the information we have
posted there which explains the issue in easy to understand terms and
language. We have phone numbers of key Texas legislators available. What
we are proposing is that prisoners encourage their family and friends
to contact these legislators and urge them to craft legislation which
will fix this fraudulent slave system.
The bottom line is this:
- We want our good time and work time credits counted! Stop telling us you are counting them when you are not.
- We want to be paid for our labor!
- We want our right to vote restored.
- Stop fudging the census numbers of the rural communities in which these prisons are located making it “look like” we are citizens when in reality we are slaves! Texas is “gaming the system,” making areas look like they have more constituents than they really have.
What
benefits do we get? We’ve seen these games before. Texas loves to play
with re-districting maps and the votes of disadvantaged minorities. Many
people don’t see the connection between the Texas slave plantation
system and the manipulation of the vote – I see it.
Solidarity is needed now!
There
are approximately 150,000 prisoners housed in Texas prisons. If half of
us can convince our loved ones to contact Texas representatives and
senators in relation to this issue, we can make a significant impact. We
need to start discussing this in the day rooms, on the rec yard, or
while we are slaving in the fields or in these factories.
It
is going to take all of us women and men. I’m not going to talk this
issue to death; I’ve never been much of a “rapper.” I’m about that
action! Are you about that action?
If you are serious about change, have your family visit http://www.facebook.com/comrademalikwashington or http://comrademalik.com/. Look for Campaign to End Prison Slavery in Texas.
You
see, comrades, I am not operating under any illusions. As I said at the
beginning of this essay, some will be content with this slave-like
existence; some won’t be content. Some may go tell the “boss man,” “That
guy Malik is stirrin’ up trouble again, Boss” and,
as always, the oppressors will do what they’ve always done – lock me up
in solitary, transfer me, write bogus disciplinary reports, deny my
parole or try to get some misguided street tribe members to assault me.
I’ve been through all that and more. I am determined to improve our
condition even if it kills me. For those of you who are sick and tired
of being slaves, I ask that you help me End Prison Slavery in Texas Now!
I leave you with another quote from Comrade Fred Hampton:
“First
of all, we say primarily that the priority of this struggle is class.
That Marx and Lenin and Che Guevara and Mao Tse-Tung and anybody else
that ever said or knew or practiced anything about revolution always
said that a revolution is a class struggle. It was one class – the
oppressed – against the other class, the oppressor. And it’s got to be a
universal fact. Those that don’t admit to that are those that don’t
want to get involved in revolution because they know as long as they’re
dealing with a race thing, they’ll never be involved in a revolution.
They can talk about numbers, they can hang you up in many, many ways.”[3]
So
what will it be, a life of involuntary servitude, helping to sustain
this slave system, or freedom building up your communities and
supporting your families?
We have nothing to lose but our chains! Dare to struggle, dare to win, All power to the people!
What’s Next in 2018!?
In
2018. Heshima Denham of Amend the 13th- Abolish Legal Slavery in
Amerika- Movement and myself want to broaden and expand our support
base. We would like to enter into a pact of mutual aid and solidarity
with Nube Brown and the growing new abolitionist movement. We would like
to invite interested members of Red Neck Revolt to join us in our
struggle to abolish and end prison slavery in Amerika,
We
want to continue working with the Free Alabama Movement, fight toxic
prisons, and the entire ABC network. I would like to see more support
from our LGBTQ sisters and brothers.
Personally, I have a vision for class solidarity which transcends Race, Creed, and Gender.
Lastly,
I am suggesting that the IWOC and IWW aid us in organizing a rally and
protest on June 19th 2018 (Juneteenth). We would like to do banner
droppings, public service announcements, and webinars. Our focus will be
to raise the public’s awareness concerning our abolition movements.
Texas, California, Florida, Alabama, New York, Georgia, New Jersey,
Colorado, and Virginia are some of the states we want to see get
involved.
It is my sincere
hope that in 2018 we can form relationships that are inclusive as
opposed to exclusive. And the next time we call for a march on
Washington we would like to attract tens of thousands as opposed to only
300 humyn beings!!
Multi-racial
unity is certainly needed. As the crystal-methamphetamine and opioid
addiction crisis ravage Amerika, we must realize our white sisters and
brothers are hurting too! And I am seeing more white faces in these
slave kamps and gulags every day!
So,
what will it be, a life of involuntary servitude, helping to sustain
this slave system, or freedom building up our communities and supporting
our families?? We have nothing to lose by our chains!!
Dare to struggle, Dare to win,
All power to the people
Short biography about the author:
Keith
‘Malik” Washington is a cofounder and chief spokespersyn for the End
Prison Slavery in Texas-Movement, he is a proud member of the
Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee and the deputy Chairman of the
New African Black Panther Party (Prison Chapter).
Malik
has been instrumental in calling for the abolition of legalized slavery
in Amerika and is very active in the Fight Toxic Prisons campaign. You
can view his work at comrademalik.com or you can also read articles and
essays that he regularly writes for the San Francisco Bay View-National
Black newspaper. You can visit directly at
http://sfbayview.com/?s=keith+malik+washington or you can write to Malik directly at:
Keith “Malik” Washington
TDC# 1487958
Eastham Unit
2665 Prison Rd. #1
Lovelady, Texas 75851
1 Quoted in an April 8, 2014 Houston Chronicle story on a visit by racist eugenicist Charles Murray to Rice University.
2 Quoted in Kevin ‘Rashid’ Johnson, “On the Question of Race and Racism,’ at rashidmod.com.
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