Criminalizing “Panther
Love” and the New Wave COINTELPRO Tactics in Texas Prisons
by Keith “Comrade
Malik” Washington
Deputy Chairman of the
New Afrikan Black Panther Party (Prison Chapter) – Texas Region
“Panther Love is
revolutionary love, liberating love, world-changing love. Panther
Love is a concrete expression of our social commitment to the masses
as well as a moral stance that breaks free of the old and backward
social relations in the Black sub-culture of criminality and gang
warfare and in the 'perfumed circles' of the Black bourgeoisie.” -
excerpt from “Mass Line of the New Afrikan Black Panther Party”,
by Shaka Sankofa Zulu, Chairman, NABPP (PC)[1]
Revolutionary
greetings, comrades!
We continue to see and
hear lies coming from US Law Enforcement and Intelligence Agencies in
respect to their hyper-surveillance of groups and individuals who are
New Afrikans and who engage in constitutionally protected activities
such as protests, rallies, marches, litigation and political efforts.
Many mistakenly believe
that the fascist oppressors within the US are only interested in
disrupting the New Afrikan organizations in free society. With this
essay, I seek to give a detailed explanation into the ongoing
campaign of retaliation and harassment the members of the NABPP (PC)
have been subjected to.
We Are Not Black
Separatists!
Kevin “Rashid”
Johnson is the Minister of Defense for the NABPP (PC). Prior to
Rashid's arrival in Texas (June 2013), I had read about his
experiences with the Virginia Department of Corrections. One day I
was studying a volume of the journal Socialism & Democracy and in
the footnotes to an essay written by Rashid, I noticed a report by
the Virginia State Police and the Virginia Fusion Center.
I was very alarmed
because these Fusion Centers were established post 9/11 in order to
promote the sharing of intelligence information among federal, state
and local law enforcement in the manufactured war against Islam &
terrorism.
In other words, you
usually only hear the words “Fusion Center” in the context of
counter-terrorism investigations. I read the analysis provided by the
Virginia State Police and they had classified and falsely labelled
Rashid as a Black separatist!
For clarification's
sake, I state for the record that the NABPP(PC) is an above-ground
political organization that embraces socialist and communist
doctrines. We are anti-racists, anti-imperialists and we do not
promote, condone or sanction illegal activity. We do believe in
self-defense and we do believe in serving the people with a special
focus on the incarcerated lumpen in the US, Europe, Asia, the Middle
East and Africa. We are abolitionists who can't wait to see the
demise of the prison-industrial slave complex. Our broader vision is
to create conditions where a dictatorship of the proletariat becomes
a stark reality within the United States and throughout the world.
It is clear that the
Department of Homeland Security (DHS) had a special interested in
Rashid and the NABPP(PC), but the $6 million dollar question is
“why”?
Rashid spent a large
amount of his time reporting on the barbaric conditions and heinous
acts of abuse he witnessed and at times was subjected to at Wallens
Ridge and Red Onion slave kamps in Viriginia. So what made Rashid
such a “person of interest” to the pigs at the Fusion Center?
I believe scholar &
activist Angela Y Davis may be able to shed some light on that as I
quote from her essay, Political Prisoners, Prisons and Black
Liberation:
“Finally, a major
catalyst for intensified political action in and around prisons has
emerged out of the transformation of convicts, originally found
guilty of criminal offenses, into exemplary political militants.
Their patient educational efforts in the realm of exposing the
specific oppressive structures of the penal system in their relation
to the larger oppression of the social system have had a profound
effect on their fellow captives.”[2]
This quote from
Professor Davis does an incredible job of illuminating the real
“Rashid” Johnson. However, what has happened is that DHS has
collaborated with the State Police and various prison agences
throughout the US in order to abuse their authority and discretion to
make or create terrorism suspects out of prisoners who exercise their
constitutionally protected Free Speech Rights!
Since I took time to
illuminate who and what Rashid is really about, let's take a closer
look at the fascist pigs at DHS and see what they are about. Here is
a quote from Department of Homeland Security spokesman SY Lee in an
email sent to the Intercept:
“The Department of
Homeland Security fully supports the right of individuals to exercise
their First Amendment rights and does not provide resources to
monitor any specific planned or spontaneous protest, rally or public
gathering.”[3]
Well, I think Black
Lives Matter, Occupy Wall Street, and the Water Protectors at
Standing Rock would agree that these are lies!
Most people who follow
Rashid's work know that he is no longer here in Texas. After doing
multiple exposes describing the untimely deaths of numerous prisoners
who were housed at the Bill Clements Unit in Amarillo, Texas, Rashid
was unceremoniously transferred out of Texas to Florida, where he
continues his revolutionary journalism.
All Eyes on Me!
Truthfully, as far as
my situation is concerned, I knew something wasn't quite right when I
was at the HH Coffield Unit in Tennessee Colony, Texas, in 2016.
I got serious about the
Movement to Amend the 13th and End Prison Slavery in
November of 2015. In March 2016, the San Francisco Bay View National
Black Newspaper published my essay, End Prison Slavery in Texas
Now[4]. This was the first time I did a serious critique and analysis
of the ultra-racist and bigoted prison agency known as the Texas
Department of Criminal Justice [sic!].
In April 2016, there
were multiple work stoppages at various male and female prisons
across Texas. When the dust settled, the prisoncrats and legislators
were mad as hell. Who was stirring up our “Happy Slaves”?
The first move was made
in May 2016 when the TDCJ-CID director William Stephens retired. He
was replaced by Lorie Davis. I soon discovered that Lorie Davis had
vowed in her her heart to place me in long-term solitary confinement.
The first step was to find a snitch/informant who could get close to
me and track my moves. They found a Muslim prisoner who I had
befriended, we will call him “Big Boy”. I was going to refer to
him as “Big Man”, but I decided that would be disrespectful to
the original Big Man, Comrade Elbert Howard. No! This fool could not
hold Comrade Elbert's jock strap, so we will stick with “Big Boy”.
In June 2016 at the
Coffield Unit, I became the target of a full-fledged investigation
conducted by multiple agencies.
Bruce Toney of the
Office of Inspector General (OIG), Robert Grant of the TDCJ Security
Threat Group Department along with members of the Joint Terrorism
Task Force, FBI and DHS all wanted to know what Keith “Malik”
Washington was up to.
I spent most of the
month of June 2016 in pre-hearing detention on the H-Line at
Coffield. My status was Transient (Other), the “Other” was a
special indicator that I was the subject of an investigation but
no-one would say who was investigating me. Then something
extra-ordinary happened.
On or around June 21st
2016, Big Boy was visited by STG and OIG/DHS officials from
Huntsville, Texas! When I pressed him about the meeting he broke down
and said “they were wanting to know about you, Malik, but I didn't
tell them nothing.”
OK, so here I am in
lock-up under some mysterious investigation – the pigs come see my
closest comrade on the unit? Very strange!
Things got even
stranger from there! One week later, after “Big Boy” met with his
new handlers, I am released from lock-up. I am given a job on the
utility squad I was moved to a laid-back housing unit called N-Wing,
or Nancy-Wing, at Coffield. Would you like to guess who was housed
directly above me on Nancy-Wing? That's right, my respected comrade –
“Big Boy” – the informant.
While all this was
going on, other dedicated members of the Incarcerated Workers
Organizing Committee (IWOC) were being subjected to “New Wave”
COINTELPRO tactics.
Imam Siddique Abdullah
Hasan was targeted by a Muslim volunteer in Ohio who falsely claimed
that my brother in struggle asked him to bring in some type of
explosive device!
You see comrades, there
was a co-ordinated effort by the US Government to disrupt the
organizing of the 2016 national prison work strike!
Specific prisoners were
targeted! After the September 9th work stoppage began, the
tactics of repression became even harsher. Kinetik Justice of the
Free Alabama Movement was set up to be assassinated by the Alabama
Department of Corrections! The method they used was withholding
Kinetik's high blood pressure medication and isolating him in such a
manner that his free world support network couldn't reach him!
Kinetik survived.
However, we must understand that as we proceed in this protracted
struggle to abolish legalized slavery in Amerika that the prison
agencies and US Government (FBI, DHS & JTTF) will collude and
conspire with each other in order to harm our most advanced political
elements. It may be that we have become blind to the sinister nature
of the capitalist ruling class and their dupes inside the labor
aristocracy.
Abolishing prison
slavery has been characterized as a threat to national security, and
those of us who have defined ourselves as dedicated freedom fighters
have been labelled as domestic terrorists!
Lorie Davis, the
director of TDCJ's Correctional Institution Division, hatched a plan
to take me out! She had me placed in positions where I would face
attacks and threats to my personal safety and security.
Days before September
9th 2016, she had a white supremacist placed in my cell
who had attempted to decapitate a Texas senator's wife! Then she had
me transferred to the Telford Unit in New Boston, Texas. I was there
only a month when I was placed on a bus in which there were 3 bloody
assaults. I had no enemies on the bus, which was headed to the
Eastham Unit in Lovelady, Texas. Once on Eastham, things really began
to develop into a full-fledged counter-intelligence operation.
Lorie Davis, Robert
Grant, Eva Shiver and Bruce Toney have shown themselves to be rabid
racists and white supremacists. They orchestrated the fabricated riot
case and place me in ad-seg (solitary confinement). They created a
bogus Security Threat Group designation and confirmed me as an STG,
and then they attempted to infringe upon my religious rights by
fabricating an arbitrary Escape Risk designation!
And most people would
think that this would be enough for them, but it wasn't!
“Big Boy” the
informant had done such a good job slithering up close to me at the
Coffield Unit that TDCJ/OIG/DHS/STG decided to run him at me again,
but this time I was ready!
In March 2017 I
discovered that “Big Boy” had arrived at the Eastham Unit in
Lovelady, Texas! I smelled a funky-ass rat.
I really want you to
understand the high-level collusion we are dealing with here.
Coffield Unit and
Eastham Unit are in totally separate regions within the framework of
the corrupt and racist TDCJ prison agency. So this move operation had
to be coordinated by TDCJ State Classification Committee members in
Huntsville, Texas. Employees Bonnie Fiveash, Tara Burson, Region I
Director Tony O'Hare and the sinister and conniving Lorie Davis! All
of them engaged in an elaborate conspiracy to violate my Civil
Rights!
And what exactly am I
guilty of? Striving hard to achieve the following goals:
Pay for all Texas
prisoners and a clear path toward Freedom!
Clean and safe
water supplies for prisoners and guards
Eradication of
black mold in Texas prisons
Proper treatment
for mentally ill prisoners
Closing down these
ad-seg units and abolishing the death penalty in Texas
At the end of the day,
these are my perceived “crimes” against the state!
If there is one thing
that I want everyone to learn this Black History Month, it's that the
FBI in Amerika executed and assassinated our most promising and
gifted Black Leaders during the Civil Rights Era! The FBI continues
to target Black organizations, Black individuals, our communities and
neighborhoods. Their tentacles have stretched into these Department
of Corrections all over the United $tates.
While here at Eastham
Unit “Big Boy” reported to Security Threat Group Sergeant Richard
Stower – another bona fide white supremacist who feigned ignorance
when I questioned him about his spy tactics. Eastham Unit Prison
Officials utilized “Big Boy” to infiltrate the Muslim community
in order to place my brothers in harm's way!
With the help of the
National Lawyers' Guild – Prisoners Legal Advocacy Network I have
been able to expose Lorie Davis and all of her dupes who work in the
Prison Administration at Coffield, Eastham, and throughout TDCJ.
What we have discovered
in Texas, Ohio, Alabama, California, New York and all points between
is a program not much different from the FBI's original COINTELPRO
activities which sought to:
“expose, disrupt,
misdirect, discredit or otherwise neutralize the activities of black
nationalist, hate-type organizations and groupings, their leadership,
spokesmen, membership and supporters, and to counter their propensity
for violence and disorder.”[5]
Comrades, this is not
my language, this is from J Edgar Hoover's FBI, a memo from 1967. The
targeted organization was the original Black Panther Party.
Fifty-one years later,
and nothing has changed at the FBI. The FBI is still targeting New
Afrikans who engage in Civil Rights and Humyn Rights Activism.
Christopher Wray, the current director of the FBI, has created a new
“label” for us – Black Identity Extremists. As with most police
agencies in Amerika, the FBI is full of bigots and white
supremacists, they just have advanced college degrees.
I want to be crystal
clear about a few points: one is that there are white folks in
Amerika and Europe who have strongly supported the right to
self-determination of black people, Palestinians and wimmin! Not
every white persyn is a racist, but we must call out those who are
and isolate them. Activists and freedom fighters of all stripes must
stop being naïve! Our survival depends on it.
I have said this once
and I will say it a million times if necessary:
Alicia Garza, Patrisse
Cullors, and Opal Tometi, co-founders of Black Lives Matter, have
never promoted, condoned, or sanctioned the use of violence in their
fight to protect the lives of black people. So the question presents
itself: “why has the FBI and the Department of Justice attempted to
target them and demonize/ridicule their message?”
However, it is not just
BLM that the FBI is targetting. The IWW & IWOC, the Free Alabama
Movement, Amend the 13th, the New Abolitionist Movement,
the Black Riders Liberation Party, the National Black United Front,
the New Afrikan Black Panther Party, the Free Ohio Movement, and even
the young solider of the people Kwame “Beans” Shakur in Indiana
have all become a target of the “new wave” COINTELPRO tactics.
To be aware is to be
alive.
Bennu Hannibal Ra-Sun,
formerly known as Melvin Ray, is a key spokespersyn for the Free
Alabama Movement who has crafted an amazing strategy for the way
forward. I highly recommend every imprisoned and free world
abolitionist read and study Bennu's essay: We are all Bound by the
Same Chain.[6]
To our free world
allies and supporters, I leave you some words of wisdom from Maurice
Mitchell, an organizer with Blackbird. Mitchell says: “this
continuing surveillance serves not only to keep tabs on black
activists, but also to deter them from pushing forward. Surveillance
is a tool of fear. When the police are videotaping you at a protest
or pulling you over because you're a well-known activist – all of
these techniques are designed to create a chilling effect on people's
organizing. This is no different. The level of surveillance, however,
isn't going to stop us. After all, we organize because our lives
depend on it.”[7]
50 years ago, this
beautiful, intelligent and passionate Black man, Dr Martin Luther
King Jr, attempted to organize and educate all of us in respect to
his “dream”. I haven't forgotten about the suicide letter the FBI
crafted aimed at Brother Martin! I haven't forgotten about the tape
the pigs played for our sister Corretta Scott King hoping to destroy
the bond between her and her husband. And when every other tactic of
the FBI failed, they conspired to have Dr King murdered in Memphis!
Yes! I see you, FBI,
but do you see me? I represent a new generation of freedom fighters
who have learned from the mistakes of our fallen ancestors, and even
if you succeed in killing me, another, wiser and stronger, comrade,
will take my place.
If anything I have said
helps to awaken just one free world persyn or imprisoned humyn being
and directs that persyn to action against this imperialist system I
will have done my job.
I leave you with the
words of Bennu Hannibal Ra-Sun:
“In 2016, we had one
nationwide event on Sept. 9. In 2017, we had one nationwide event on
Aug. 19. Now what? The government doesn’t take off. Our suffering
goes on daily. Nationwide. Thus, it’s time for our planning and
organizing of campaigns to expand, too... We have to be mobilizing
and organizing people around a singular, clear cut plan to solve the
problem.”[8]
I send a clenched fist
salute to all sisters & brothers in the struggle. Dare to
struggle, dare to win! All power to the people!
TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN:
THE PERSON REFERRED TO IN THIS ESSAY AS “BIG BOY” IS A TEXAS
INMATE NAMED MICHAEL LEWIS, ALSO CALLING HIMSELF MUSTAFA. HE IS AN
AGENT PROVOCATEUR AND AN ENEMY TO THE MOVEMENT. PLEASE PROCEED WITH
CAUTION WHEN ENCOUNTERING THIS INDIVIDUAL. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!
Your Brother and
Comrade, Malik
Keith ‘Malik’
Washington is a co-founder and chief spokesperson for the End Prison
Slavery in Texas Movement, a proud member of the Incarcerated Workers
Organizing Committee and Deputy Chairman of the New Afrikan 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 write him directly at Keith ‘Comrade
Malik’ Washington, 1487958, Eastham Unit, 2665 Prison Rd. #1,
Lovelady, Texas 75851.
References:
5] Cited in The
COINTELPRO Papers – Documents from the FBI's Secret Wars Against
Dissent in the United States, by Ward Churchill and Kim Van der Wall,
Chapter 5 – COINTELPRO and the Black Liberation Movement
