deprisonment

2008-12-16T19:51:00.000-08:00

Thanx (for those who don't fear liberation!)

Sweet richly deep
avant-garde memories
Sunday morning breeze
Action, inspiration, dedication
that inundates the drab cold
loneliest of places,
depression's isolation!
undauntful dreamer,
sagacious visionary
1st to secure the load.
Stepping stone, paved road
over pitfalls, potholes
virtuous urban graffiti
black guerrilla in a concrete jungle,
oppression's warren.

2008-12-13T19:09:00.000-08:00

That dream from a couple of nights ago is still on my mind. It reminds me of when i was about 6 or 7. i used to imagine (although i don't believe i was imagining it. It was real. i just don't want you thinking i'm crazy!) i could walk up these invisible stairs, and at the end, or top, of the stairs was an open doorway. Well, i'd gone up about to the 5th stair alone, with no one watching, and always fallen down. I could never get to the door. Then one day I convinced my childhood friend Chris to watch me. now, the skeptic in people will say it's just the imagination of kids going wild. But he watched me walk up those invisible stairs to about or at least the 5th step. No lie.

However, the price for showing him that i could basically walk on air was i lost the ability. i never had that happen again, sadly, until that dream a few nights ago. Although it was a bit different than my childhood.

2008-12-13T05:00:00.000-08:00

Well, since i can't sleep i figured we'd expand on that earlier convo. Real conversation. Let's make a necessary distinction here. Talk is useless, conversation builds! Get it? Got it? Good!! Real convo, that is outside of that. Talking to others is usually especially for Blacks because we're kept isolated, not only i n the s.h.u., but also isolated from other Blacks. So you'll find whole units (a unit is made up of 6 pods. Each pod is an isolated lock, housing up to 12 captives), in every unit you'll find no more than 2 or 3 Blacks. Of course, i'm speaking of how things are here in the C side of the shu. As you know they've begun turning the D side into an island within the shu. shu within shu. Supposedly i'll be going there soon.

And then, we'll be in separate pods. So, for example i'm in E pod and have been for about 4 or 5 years. Theres' one other Brother in f pod who's been there just as long as i've been here, and we've never seen or talked to one another in all these years. It's like being a ghost, or around ghosts. you know the presence is there, but you'll never see them!

So in that way Blacks are double isolated and often put in the most hostile environment. One Black in a sea of racists, wannabe nazis and gangbangers who want to show others how much they can play puppet racist and hate Blacks too. Silly shit, really, so i don't know if this unfamiliarity with verbal communication comes from the fact that i (we) only talk back here. There's never any opportunity of conversation. Or it could be isolation in general does something to one's humanity and self worth. That's another can of worms altogether!

2008-09-27T14:55:00.000-07:00

This caged bird sings too (ode to Maya Angelou)

"She, all we have to do is hang on." Maya Angelou

shoulder to the wheel
i still push forward
"on a move"...
like kentucky shaman
in this life's struggle
i dance to...
the song of
Miss Calypso,
and even though
we don't always agree
i see
the prophecy
she spills forth to me,
my sistah,
my wordmotha
my love,
like you...
This Caged Bird sings!

2008-09-27T14:54:00.000-07:00

The Cycle of Life (Ode to KHSU)

In this hole: death's womb
insatiable parasites masticate
dreams and sunlight confined
beneath the copsewood of hate
and self serving propaganda.
Still, even a sliver,
allows the lotus
to bloom and in an instant
the reprehensible swamp
becomes
a redemptive pond.

2008-06-29T20:13:00.000-07:00

I've been allowing my beard to grow for some time now, which is another issue entirely. See, i can't use those disposable razors. They break out my skin. The power that be only allow us to use hair clippers (the machine type) once a month and we've got to use them after about 20 or 30 people, depending on where out of the entire unit, in line your pod, tier and cell falls that weekend. Now most of these men have Hep-C (A or B) some have flus and some have everything from HIV/AIDS to nail fungus which is contagious, and head lice or rashes which are contagious. yet, they force us to use these clippers (hair nad nail) in the most dangerous and unsanitary manner possible. Gotta go!

2007-12-27T20:36:00.000-08:00

Oh shoot, the storm troopers just came to my door and told me i'm moving to D-1-210. The Island. Remember we talked about it before? Well, i'm sure they're gonna take all my property and not let me have a lot of the stuff i've managed to accumulate over the past 7 yeas. Books, papers, etc. So let me get ready for this move. I've got to mentally prepare myself. They gave me 5 minutes to pack my stuff. I"ll get back when i'm settled in!

2007-12-25T20:35:00.000-08:00

Here's a thought...

Belief and faith are seed and soil
Study and intuition are sun and water
Knowledge the root
Experience the tree
Prosperity the fruit!

can you dig it?

2007-12-24T20:33:00.000-08:00

I suppose one reason it seems i'm always focused on the poor quality of life is because my incarceration, the captivity of a million Black men and women, 1/2 of the entire population locked up in Amerika, is an extension of the whips, the cutlass, the branding irons, the dogs, the shotguns and noses that once tore into innocent flesh, severed bone from body and breath from life!

Only these modern day shackles are psychological, the physical unsightliness has been done away with, hidden from tender eyes; in laws like 3 strikes, mandatory sentencing, immigration reform, wars on drugs, crime, homelessness, poverty, and other lies.

2007-12-23T20:30:00.000-08:00

Things here are fair to middling. I hate to write sometimes because i don't want you to get the idea i'm always down, depressed or in a foul mood. I'm not even in the worst of times and places. There are moments, many many moments, that add up to days of grace and hope. In all honesty, i'm one of the chosen few who are specially blessed.

I have the love and support of my family. I have wonderful, supportive, loving friends - my extended family in key and G and now out of the blue an old love, actually my first love. T has reappeared in my life. If, as usual, she only stays around for a season, it will be a glorious season, as it always is when she shows up!

2007-12-22T20:27:00.000-08:00

Don't people realize, that as a Black man, i'm aware of the fact that when they use racist, stereotypical, and hate-filled remarks bout others in my presence, they'll be using the same types of remarks about Blacks when i'm not around? Do people really think other people are that stupid, not to notice that the only reason you're not addressing me in the same way is because i'm in your presence? That's why every Black person (all people, jsut especially Blacks) should get really offended when they hear those types of remarks!

That's one fo the things i truly love about being a multiethnic Black and having the experiences i've had. A lot of people pay lip service to not having racist hangups and all that, but once you live in multiple worlds, you experience the best and worst of two cultures. You truly come to see that, in general, people are all the same. Humanness is universal and everything else is icing on the cake.

2007-12-21T20:24:00.000-08:00

I think i'm becoming less willing to share my thoughts and ideas, to discuss what's going on in the world and around us. I've already, over the last 11 years, become someone i've never been, and i'm afraid i won't get the old me back. I've become more closed off, untrusting, introverted and suspicious of other people's motives and intentions - a very necessary and life-saving disposition to have cultivated in prison. However, i know it's eating me alive inside. it blocks out my sunshine and won't work when i have a relationship with a woman again.

I can't be human and be this way. It won't work. But, i'll never be human again if i'm not this way. I won't survive. I just pray i'll learn to turn it on and off as need be!!

2007-12-20T20:21:00.000-08:00

Everyday stress. Sometimes i swear i can't tell who's more ignorant - the K9s or the convicts. Just imagine living in your bathroom, with 9 other men, all of whom are under some illusion of class, gender, or race superiority. Some...most, under all at the same time. You can't see one another but on the rare occasion one of you is let out of your compartment, your bathroom sized cage. All of our sense of depth and sound has been torched, eroded by the constant humming of industrial lights, toilets and various other sounds that make it seem you're in a working machine shop or warehouse where pipes and metal are being moved around all day...banged...clanged...So they, we constantly find ourselves yelling everything we say. You haven't been told good morning till its been yelled at from down the tier!!

2007-12-19T20:15:00.000-08:00

So i cut my beard and was going to the doctor or testing somewhere, when i had to come in contact with another idiot K9. The first thing he says (see, because of their position of authority, they all feel like they can talk to you in any manner they want. You're just a low life and plus they've got the power of the sate with all its weapons - legal and extra legal - and the immediacy of a trigger-happy sadistic idiot standing over your head with a mini 14 assault rifle locked and loaded). "Damn, you cut that beard Castlin? We were hoping you'd let it get long enough so we could give you the Abu Ghraib treatment and say you're one of those Muslim terrorists."

How do you respond to something like that? Mind you, you're standing there, butt-naked, doing the whole bend-and-cough b.s. How do you deal with that and the normal stresses of captivity? How, where do you find the strength to not reach thru the little 12 by 8 or whatever it is, slot in the cage door and try to pull his entire, fat body through?

2007-12-18T20:06:00.000-08:00

What is it about some people that makes them feel they can say anything about other people to anyone? Or, rather, to someone whom they are familiar with? it completely boggles my mind. Why do people feel like they can use stereotypes, racist imagery and just plain ole stupidity about other people to anyone as long as the object of their ignorance isn't around? I hear and have to check it all the time from the stupid k-9s to the inmates, no matter what level of supposed consciousness or supposed authority they have. I had this one cop (k9) who was doing my legal mail one day, noticed the sender's address was frisco. This guy starts going off about homosexuals and how they are this and that...extremely ignorant stuff.

ignorant because for one it's mindless regurgitation of some other idiot's stereotypes. When or with whom a person, or how a person has sex - which is an act, a physical act, has not a thing to do with gender identity. Also, because you listen and you know this guy hasn't given any original thought to the point. They're basically parakeets with no home training. So i'm forced to put this guy into his pocket and let him know, "man, don't you realize you're talking to a Black man? Listen, spare me your brilliance - it's blinding - and just process my mail. It was sad because you can tell from the guy's wait and complexion the fact that he's perspiring just opening a letter that he cares nothing for himself and disparages others in order to, in the great amerikan class's democratic way, have someone to step on, to make himself feel better about his own shortcomings.

2007-12-17T20:01:00.000-08:00

Blowin' Bubbles (a love poem!)

Your
I LOVE YOU
is;
a soapy slick
translucent bubble
blown by,
warm wind from
luring pouty lips
thru 3 rings of
a pink circus wand
dipped,
churned
in watery solutions,
floating limp.
a spend rocket
spiraling, crashes down
with an anticlimactic
empty thud
unable to dent
this newly
arctic heart!

2007-12-14T19:40:00.000-08:00

"I watch the best minds not like dogs,
for scraps of flavour, I am nearing middle age,
burnt skin peels from my hand like paper,
onion-thin, like Peer Gynt's riddle"
-From "Codicil" by Derek Walcott

I love this passage. It's so true to my personal circumstance. How can i help them. Somebody please help me help these beautiful, strong, courageous Black men!!

2007-12-14T19:14:00.000-08:00

Today i'm afraid of what this isolation, this constant, chest deep negativity is doing to me. Not physically, but more deeply - spiritually - mentally. i'm afraid my heart won't service my desire to be of use to someone other than myself. My love for people is slowly being chipped away along with my ability to confidently communicate. i've begun to notice in my conversation something i noticed about all the old guys whom i've met who've been caged back here for 10-20 years. There's a staccato stuttering, almost apprehensive cadence to their verbal communications. As if words are strangers and rocks that block your thoughts, so it's as if we're forcing them, pushing them out of our minds, our mouths, and they land with aloud thud, losing meaning in the noises, distraction.

I don't know if it comes from the fact that so much of the conversation is done in one's own head.

2007-12-12T13:02:00.000-08:00

Just got back from yard. The fresh air was helpful. I like going out there best in the morning, while the air still has that chill to it. I can watch the sky break sometimes, if i'm lucky. It goes from a dark, almost purplish, blue to an ocean blue, then backyard swimming pool blue and finally a bright, warm, almost neon blue. In those times i always find myself standing there in the middle of the yard, neck bent to the point of pain, eyes focused with a fighter pilot's intensity, on the little space between the grill gate, or manhole cover, that runs the entire length of the yard, and the surveillance camera. In that 2 or 3 inches between the metal spikes for security, if you tweek your neck just right and squint your eyes, there's a spot you can see through with absolutely no obstructions and you get a clear view of the sky as far up as my eyes can take me.

I imagine swimming in that sky of oceanblue tranquility, floating away or i just let my eyes go as far as they can, for as long as my neck can take being in that position.

The unfortunate part, although i try not to think about it, is i always walk away feeling a bit sad - feeling a bit like the trap where they put a nut in a container with a small hole and then tempt the monkey to get the food out. He'll never be able to get his hand back out the hole with a balled fist, yet he's so hungry, so desperate for food, he won't let go. That's what it feels like. The sky is so beautiful up here. So peaceful and pure looking when everything around me is the exact opposite. How can i let it go? But at last i must. It's just another piece of beauty i'll never know!!

2007-12-11T18:04:00.000-08:00

I dozed off for a few hours and had the strangest dream. In it there was myself and a bunch of other people. I can't say who any of them were in particular. You know how dreams tend to morph into other dreams?

The part i woke up thinking about was this: we were held up in a rickety old squatter building. Mattresses on the floor, clutter... There was a working telephone. I know because i remember having the feeling we were waiting for a specific call, so no one touched the phone. However i also remember you could sense we were all there waiting to do something righteous. The place was stacked from floor to ceiling with books, bags, papers, sleeping bags, clothes, food bags. Stuff scattered around from corner to corner and everybody was sitting around talking some really heavy stuff about when we get the call. We'd, or they'd - do this or that. This isn't something i actually remember hearing. It was more like a feeling you could feel it in the air. Thick like the smell of gasoline or burning wood.

So anyhow there was a small toilet-room - no bath, just an old rusty porcelain toilet, stained with old urine and who knows what else. It was overflowing so bad the water - foul smelling water - appeared to glow. A greenish brown glowing, foul-smelling liquid, or more like a thick slime, was spilling out and over the bowl, boiling up almost beginning to flood the room with all our supplies and sleeping bags, yet no one moved to stop it or move the supplies.

So myself and some old guy (i only remember he felt me with a snow white beard) trying to fix the problem. We're knee deep in this stench. it's in our pores and you can taste it almost! The dream was thick with disgust at this point!

So i have to go downstairs to get some type of plumbing supplies or a bucket or something from a man downstairs, who again felt like me. Only he was more like i am now, entering middle age and hopeful. I distinctly remember getting a sense from him that as soon as the call came he'd be the one who'd organize everyone. It's a weird feeling. We talked. i don't remember about what, exactly, but that was the vibe i got! i got the bucket from him and went back outside. the stairs had turned into these old wooden dilapidated stairs. They seemed to be falling way from the building and appeared to be 50 stories high. i tried to climb the first one, got to about the fifth, and they began to fall from under my feet. i slipped, the hand rail disappeared, and i tumbled and dropped to the ground.

Here's the trip. i saw the toxic slime drowning the people in the room, all of who seemed to now have these huge wings, and could've gotten out but wouldn't. They just lay there looking at me, calling and reaching out to me. Some had the slimy liquid coming out of their mouths. I remember feeling desperate and panicked. Some were still talking about when we get the call. I realized then i have wings too, why can't i fly to save them? Why don't they fly out?

I stood there trying to figure out how to use my wings. How do they work, why can't i fly? What's holding us back? I remember thinking we've got to go, the call ain't coming!

Then i woke up, feeling very uneasy, and i'm still feeling it with a hint of depression - from a dream. Is that crazy, or what? I keep thinking i let those people down in that room, because i didn't help them. i wasted my talents or gifts or something. My wings, when i had the chance, why didn't i fly to them? Then i get angry because they didn't save themselves either. We all were too busy waiting on some call or flapping our gums instead of our wings.

I think i'm gonna be depressed all day. i feel it. it always starts this way. I sink deeper, the more i think about it, but i can't stop thinking about it!

2007-12-10T17:57:00.000-08:00

To pick up from where we left off, the question is; isn't it just as possible to project enough negative energy into the atmosphere, so that it would keep the world in a negative mindset, unable to move beyond a semi-comatose state, zombies, or drones, like worker bees in a hive? Could you keep enough war, famine, senseless t.v. programs and just plain ole lies being projected into people's lives that they unwittingly are programmed to act only on a very low, animalistic level? Just a thought. I'll have to clean it up and do some research. I know i'm not nowhere near the first ot think it. There's something to it!!

2007-12-07T13:15:00.000-08:00

Man it's cold, cold, cold in here this morning! Of course there's cold recycled stale air blowing full-blast out the vent. here's a thought; sound waves which as we know are simply energy can be projected out to fill an entire arena, or any space for that matter and either positively or negatively affect those who hear the projected sound - like a wave or water soaks all it covers. Well, we know energy, sound, radio, micro, ultraviolet (light) rays have the power to change people's demeanor by acting on their vibratory rate, to the point of making them suicidal, depressed, gritty, happy and any other emotions (e = out motion = to move). The energy field in our bodies affects not only our psychological health but our physical health too! Gotta go, we'll talk tomorrow!

2007-11-15T19:41:00.000-08:00

I'll never overstand how so many people, with so many resources at their fingertips, just sit back and watch the world. No matter what part of the world you call yours. No matter how small, or how apparently peaceful it is now. (You must feel the evils of the larger society, closing in on your little sanctuary of peace and prosperity, like the fly trapped in a corner of a window feels the human hand of death closing in on it!) being slowly devoured by the greed, lust and usury of the miserable few who mask their self-loathing in the misery of others.

How can we claim to love those who've fought and given up liberty for our sake, and do nothing to liberate them? How many international free Mumia rallies will there be before we, say, put a nail-file in the cake? Before we realize the criminality in the courts' toying with his/their liberty? How many more Georges, Jonathans, Richards, Nuhs must die before someone says - with action, not words - 'i won't stand for this injustice. i won't allow these political prisoners, and good men being held in the shu at places like Pelican Bay, to die in a cold cell isolated from everything and everyone they sacrificed for.' How long before some one says 'you know what? without the best minds sitting here around the campfire of love and liberation, we'll never have an egalitarian society.' How long, people, we'll keep playing at this thing? Children are dying. Their mothers and fathers are rotting in prison cells!

2007-05-12T12:35:00.000-07:00

[i should have received this entry months ago, but just got it now, because the prison had censored it on the grounds that it talked "about rioting/and revolutionary ideas," was "deemed to be a threat to legitimate penalogical interests" and "contains material or literature which would pose a threat to institutional security or the safety of other person if allowed to be possessed by inmates." So please forgive the outdatedness, but this gives you a sense of what we're dealing with.]

Thanksgiving: Doorway to the Holidaze Season

As politicized prisoners of consciousness, pushing through the George Jackson Phenomenon, it can be difficult reconciling our reconstructed consciousness and political awareness to the consumer, consumption and debt our loved ones are seduced into each year, beginning with the sanctimonious and hypocritical Thanksgiving: doorway to the holidaze season of greed, gluttony, and depression. A season in which the number of suicides, murders, divorces, nervous breakdowns, intra-family disputes, leading to violence, assaults, robberies, alcohol an drug-related overdoses are increased exponentially.

In attempting to raise consciousness, we must remember our loved ones are trapped in the hustle and bustle of everyday life, most working two or three jobs trying to stay a step ahead of bill collectors and keeping our children away from negativity. Therefore, our approach must be grounded in a sincere desire to insure their daily experiences are free of manipulation, usury, and exploitation.

Which is why George Jackson's teachings are the ideal sounding board to gauge our motivations, approach, and goals. G teaches that "revolution should be love inspired" and that "consciousness is the opposite of indifference or blindness, blankness promoting consciousness involves the general dissemination of the concept that each of us is part of a universal action and interaction. That poles are somewhere connected that there are material causes for trauma, vertigo, degenerative disease, connections, cause and effect, clarity on their relation and interrelations. The connection with the past, continuity, flow, movement, the awareness that nothing, nothing remains the same for long."

Consciousness being the opposite of indifference of blindness, blankness refers to the fact that tour position as ppoc is predicated on the fact that we at some point had chosen material gain or personal pleasure over social well-being.

Not being indifferent or blind in this reality allows us to empathize with why our loved ones fall victim to the amerikan holidaze season. From this vantage point we are able to grasp the full meaning of G's teaching that "acceptance of enslavement is deeply buried in the pathogenic character types of capitalism. It is a result of the sense of dread and anxiety which is the lot of all men under capitalist rule. Compulsive behavior and disordered obsessional longings are actually made synonymous with "character in disordered society" and that "at the center of revolution is realism."

This realism allows us to realize that in actuality our loved ones gathering on the last Thursday in November for Thanksgiving is more about their socioeconomic condition. Therefore, we should not criticize them for gathering together or exchanging gifts/pleasantries during this holidaze sickness.

Instead, we should offer elucidations of the bodies buried in the soil of Thanksgiving. Ultimately, our aim is that they will begin expressing Thanksgiving/Christmas cheer, love, and commitment to one anther's' well-being every day as a natural occurrence of their beginning to heal the "pathogenic character types of capitalism."

This isn't to say that the amerikan holidays are the be all and end all of our problems. They are a large part, perhaps a kind to the needles, that have been used to infect unsuspecting Black, First Nations and Mexican women with sterilizing drugs and "degenerative disease" throughout amerika's history.

We cannot fail to point out that in amerikan elementary schools our children, the descendants of amerika's most heinously unadjudicated crimes are being indoctrinated and trained to celebrate the holocaust and genocide committed against their ancestors. Perpetuating their calcification while maintaining this Empire's occupation, mass murder, rape and robbery.

In truth what is celebrated as Thanksgiving today originated in 1863 under Abe Lincoln, who after being forced by the unrelenting ass whipping his union troops were suffering at the hands of the confederate army, from 1861-62 decreed emancipation in January 1863 to all "colonial captives (slaves) in rebellion states who would fight for his union. This forced decision and the infusion of Black men who would fight for his union. This forced decision and the infusion of Black men turned the tide, forcing confederate troops to surrender. Enabling Lincoln's troops to cut Texas, Arkansas, and Louisiana off leading to the Union victory. Wanting to appease the wounded egos of his defeated brothers and restore peace amongst the amerikan settlers, he issued the 1863 proclamation which stated in part, "it has seemed to me fit and proper that they should solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice, by the whole Amerikan people...to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next as a day of Thanksgiving."

By going about our task of raising consciousness in this manner it becomes much easier to draw-out not only the contradictions, such as celebrating slavery/colonialism and the mass-murder of First Nations people under the lie of Thanksgiving but we are able to display the "connections, connections, cause and effect, clarity on their relation and intra-relations, the connection with the past."

As well as satisfy the requirement and accomplish "the general dissemination of the concept that each of us is part of a universal action and intra action." In this way our loved ones will begin to realize that "the poles are somewhere connected" enabling them to self-diagnose the fact that "there are material causes for trauma, vertigo, degenerative disease."

Self-diagnosis in connection with truth will begin to act as a depurative once purged of the decadent "Holidaze" consciousness begins to rise and in this way we move a step closer to making Jonathan Jackson's call for love and loyalty to be our new medium of exchange reality.

push up. push out. push back.
akili.

2007-05-12T11:50:00.000-07:00

200 Years - Nothing's Changed!!

The month of March marked the 200th anniversary of Britain's legal abolition of its slave trade. Of course, this proclamation was more word than deed, more pomp and circumstance, holier than thou nose thumbing than righteous moral repentance for the hundreds of thousands of human lives brutalized and snuffed-out as a direct result of its (Britain's) legalized, sanctioned, unabashed genocide.

This is evidenced by two facts.

One, Britain has maintained or created colonies (both internal and external) for over 150 years after (and arguably up to this very day) through neocolonialism and occupation directly supported by slavery - in many of its subtle forms, which by definition are hard to detect.

Two, nothing was done then, or over the past 200 years, to repair the unfortunate damage to Afrika and her people throughout the world, caused by Britain's zealous slave trade.

During the month of March, all over Afrika, there were ceremonies of remembrance and reflection on the genocide and holocaust that Afrika's people, diaspora-wide, have endured as a result of colonialism (of which slavery is a major tool).

However, here in North Amerika, there was even less news coverage about Afrika than usual - this most important authentic Afrikan memorial ceremony was subjected to an all out whiteout. We must think about this in a context that lies deeper than the surface racism and supremacist disdain western culture has towards Afrikan peoples and peoples of color in general. Such thinking allows one to come up with two of the main causes or points behind such continued hatred.

First and foremost there is the issue of self-determination. For any people, but especially Afrikans, to commemorate the holocaust which we've survived as a result of western man's blood thirsty lust of war, murder and power, is for Afrikans to announce worldwide, "Never Again!" It is to display our refusal to be dominated, controlled, or subservient and to celebrate our and all oppressed people's ability to thrive in the face of the ugliest evil mankind can bring to bear on mankind.

This is the one thing that cannot be tolerated, simply because it is evidence of free thinking, of courage in the face of fear. And freethinking, courageous people equals free beings. This is the antithesis of western power.

Secondly, it's one example of the fact that the old divide and conquer game is still in full swing. The supremacist thinking goes something like this...If the self-determination being displayed by Afrikans in Afrika, in commemorating and reflecting on our holocaust, is shared with other Afrikans throughout the worldwide Afrikan Nation, you'll begin to have a united Afrikan people. False identities (Afrikan-Amerikan, Latino, etc.) begin to fall away like leaves in Autumn. We would begin to experience the realization that the bonds which bind us to Afrika and Her to us are far deeper than the false citizenship in the home-colonies of our abuser, murder, and criminal host. This they cannot allow, for obvious reasons.

Nonetheless this is exactly the type of solidarity we as the Hip Hop Generation must begin to push for amongst all people who dabble in our cultural expression throughout the world. This push needs special focus on north amerika, because it's here in north amerika -- by virtue of its position in the leadership of western imperials -- that all the world is focused on.

We hip hoppers, activists, and conscious people in general cannot afford to continue missing the boat on such chances to solidify and work in solidarity with hiphoppers all around the world. No more lip service. If hip hop is the music of a new generation, of breaking down old walls, let us prove with action that there exists a better way of live for all human beings. This is where the revolution will be launched and from where unity is found.

There is honor, love, and loyalty in our historical perspective, cultural reality, and suffering.

love and loyalty,
akili

2007-04-26T14:27:00.000-07:00

Another Blow Against Equality

What's behind baseball's endless infatuation with the racist era? That's right - i said Racist Era 1900-1047. Most people don't know it but in the late 1800s, baseball was integrated. However, whites disliked being embarrassed by Blacks so it was decided not to allow anyone with 'dark skin' and 'kinky' hair to play against whites anymore. I remember when i was in fifth grade and two of my classmates, who argued all of the time about sports, were crying about whether or not Franco Harris and Rod Carew are Black (for the record, one of my classmates is white and the other is Black). They asked me what i thought and my answer was simple. Neither could have played sports in the NFL or MLB during the Racist Era. With that, my point was made. Needless to say, my white friend still disagreed.

As i grew older and watched baseball games, I realized that that the Racist Era is considered baseball's golden era (i.e. best era) and modern players will always be compared to players form the Racist Era. Many times i've heard Bob Costas downplay Hank Aaron's feats while comparing him to Babe Ruth saying "not to take anything from the Hammer, but the Babe did it in fewer at bats." He blatantly ignores that Babe Ruth played against inferior competition. I've never heard any commentator attach Racist Era to the names of Babe Ruth or Joe Dimaggio, but these same commentators act as if Barry Bonds and the Steroids Era are inseparable compound words. Why is that?

Baseball just celebrated the 60th anniversary of Jackie Robinson breaking the color-line, and i realized how he spoke out against and confronted inequality at every opportunity, unlike Hank Aaron who simply rolls with the tide. I have never heard Hank Aaron take a stance against the media's symbolic attacks on today's players and on him. With 755 home runs, Hank Aaron is the home run king. Why are there any questions? Journalists such as Jim Rome and media outlets such as ESPN and Fox repeatedly downplay Hank Aaron and taint everything Barry Bonds does. It's obvious that all they want to do is keep the Racist Era golden.

With all of these questions and suggestions about asterisks for the so-called Steroids Era, why is there no talk about doing the same for the Racist ERa? I guess it's better to be a racist and face inferior competition than to use steroids. What integrity does baseball have to protect from steroids when it glorifies racism? Now imagine the effect if this question had been asked by Hank Aaron, Mr. Leave Me Out Of It. When he broke the racist records he was scorned by the ML commissioner and now he intends to do the same to Barry Bonds. That's why Blacks have no interest in baseball!

The Racist Era will always remind them that they are not worthy, the same way it does Barry Bonds, who was a three-time MVP, only member of the 400/400 club and a sure Hall of Famer, had he retired before 1998 (and don't forget the 8 gold gloves).

In 1996, MVP Ken Caminetti admitted that he used steroids and that so does at least 65% of all players, yet there was no steroid problem until Barry Bonds broke the single season record in 2001.

Do you honestly think Blacks do not notice that?

Push up. Push out. Push Back!

2007-03-14T18:21:00.000-07:00

War ad Racism in the New Millennium (a sentencing statement!)
(see previous post for background)

Foremost, i ask the court to overlook my being seated as i address you! It seems i am chained to this chair as i have been since day one of these proceedings. Actually, that's part of what precipitates today's sentencing and plea agreement, and is the basis for this statement.

It is painfully obvious to me, that in a day and age where i am chained to a chair much like the suspects chained to benches then interrogated with rubber hoses in the "war on terrors'" secret prisons, my chances for equity are slim to none. Pre-ordaining that i am to be treated as an "enemy combatant" found guilty without hearing or trial of harboring an uncontrollable potential to do harm to anyone in this courtroom. While five guards lurk over my shoulder and five pounds of chains and locks render my arms, wrists, and legs immobile is to say in no uncertain terms; "although you've shown absolutely no desire for such acts, although we have no record of your being deranged, violent, or even unpleasant in the least. You are the latest Frankensteinesque monster in a long line of monsters we've paraded into this...our sacred club house.

Experience has taught us to chain, to shackle, to lock up the monsters. Your honor, i am without doubt this spirit of "better safe than sorry" would have infected any jury sitting daily in its mist. While wrestling to extricate the truth form sensationalized arguments about my guilt under the burden of subconscious alarm bells ringing reminders of being programmed with the state's propaganda about pelican bay prison - security housing units, worst of the worst, tv shows like Prison Break and other such nonsense, resulting in another wrongful conviction.

I ask the court to take into consideration that such treatment combined with the two degrading strip-searches one is put through before arriving to the court, spending up to four hours in a dehumanizingly filthy holding cell here in the court, while shackles swell one's wrists and ankles, having your legal property, property which could have proven your case, thrown away by pbsp staff, as mine has been. Creates a psychological strain, reinforcing the state's already overwhelming advantage. Tipping the scales of justice in their favor to the point of breaking the blindfolded lady's deformed arm.

Your honor, the offense to which i have plead guilty, and the original charging offense "possession of a weapon" are not evidence of a desire on my part or the part of any Black captive to coalesce with criminality but stand to strengthen and protect the vanguard trails blazed by Blacks since our captivity and colonization on this continent began. It is no more coincidence that today the 9th day of Black history month 2007, i stand (or rather sit) before you charged as the result of an officer's bruised ego, for the offense of arming oneself against the same vile spirit of greed, animosity, incompetence, racist hate, terrorism, and skin privilege, which have always been, and continue to be, leveled against Blacks throughout amerikan settler society, whether in its prison plantations or ghettos.

Attested to with murderous attacks condoned through inaction by the administrators of amerikan jurisprudence and the enforcers of law and order. To be Black in amerika is to be hunted into near extinction like the grey wolf or silver fox, for the preciousness of our labor, intellect and culture. Blacks represent 35% of arrests, 55% of convictions, and 74% of prison sentences. Where the hunt is intensified to the point of life and death.

Point in fact:
November 16 2005, Chadwick Cochran murdered by racist in LA county jail.
September 6 2005. Lloyd Avery murdered i prison cell, pelican bay state prison.
January 13 2006. Outnumbered Black captives attacked in San Quentin reception center.
February 4 2006. Outnumbered Black captives attacked in Castaic County Jail, Los Angeles. Another Black is murdered.
February 15 2006. Pitchess Detention Center, LA County, 35 Black captives forced to defend themselves against 170 armed attackers.
February 8, 2006. More attacks on outnumbered Blacks in CTF Soledad's B-Yard.
February 10, 2006. Outnumbered and shackled Blacks attacked with weapons by racists on a bus en route to court.
February 14 2006. Two more such attacks, where the attackers are armed ad unfettered while the outnumbered Blacks are shackled.
February 10, 2006. More racist attacks on Black captives.
February 12 2006. Anthony Thompson murdered while defending another Black under attack by racists at odds of 4 to 1. The same day, still more attacks on Black captives.
February 13, 2006. Outnumbered Blacks attacked by racists at Sierra Conservation Center State Prison.
From February 17, up to the present day, we can list more of the same types of racist violence against Black captives.

However, it's best we look at the Black community at large: 2005, 13 year old Devin Brown was murdered for joy-riding by Los Angeles police, who are not charged after an internal investigation rules the murder unjust.
October 31, 2006. Ten Black children ages 12 to 17 are rounded up like escaped slaves for defending themselves against racist threats, in Long Beach California. Alla re now incarcerated in a case eerily similar to the 1931 Scottsboro Nine case.
November 26, 2006. Sean Bell murdered by NYPD in a hail of 50 bullets the morning he was to marry the mother of his child.
November 2006. Atlanta police raid the home of 92 year old Kathryn Johnson, murdering her in cold blood.
December 30, 2006. Westlake Louisiana's first Black Mayor Gerald Washington murdered after receiving racist death threats.
December 15, 2006. 14 year old Cheryl Green murdered by racists for allegedly violating racist no Blacks allowed prohibition in the Harbor Gateway area of LA.

Throughout Los Angeles county, Black children already oppressed by insignificant educations are right now being terrorized with death threats if they attend school on certain white and non-white settler holidays. This your honor is War and Racism in the New Millennium.

Allow me to offer a quote: "when people walk on each other, when disharmony is the norm, when the structure which mediates relations between the races has fallen apart, it is the fault of those in charge. Where such conditions exist, a wise man generally adapts to prevail." George Lester Jackson.

In closing, suffice it to say, under such conditions as i've outlined to the court herein, it seems the truly wise would find it criminal not to take advantage of their right as stated in the u.s. constitutions' second amendment. "A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bare arms shall not be infringed."

Free all PP/POWs and PPOCs.
Shut down the SHUs
Haroun Akili Mungu Mtumishi

2007-03-14T17:24:00.000-07:00

Egos, COs, and Razors!

Here in PBSP's infamous shu (security housing unit), everything is done with the intent of breaking one's spirit. You can lose your mind to the sensory deprivation and isolation, earning a release to a psu (psychiatric unit) which is no better and i some ways worse. The other option is to become a rat, a snitch, and a pc (protective custody inmate), which means you make up really fantastic lies...the types most people see on shows like Prison Break, about real people who the administration hasn't been able to break.

"What about parole?" I hear you saying. Well even that's a fantasy which most of us who have parole dates will probably never see come true, for several reasons. Here's one...

It all began on August 1st, 2006, as i sat i this cage attempting to do some legal work. I say attempting, because when you're so cold that your hands are swollen, every letter of every word you scratch out becomes a syringe jammed into your fingers, each prick injecting anti-though serum that prevents one from doing much of anything other than climbing into every piece of raggedy clothing one can find and under anything available for warmth (i've heard stories of guys lining their bedding with newspaper, magazines,and brown paperbags).

What's worse is knowing it's being doe as a form of torture. The reasoning behind not turning on the central heating and turning up the cold air when it's raining and 30 or 40 degrees is to break one's spirit. It makes conditions so unbearable, one is forced to act in ways those applying the technique want...torture!

So i'm sitting here and two troopers storm up to this cage... "Castlin, report to the front of the cell and submit to cuffs, for a cell search!"

"Search for what? Why do you need to search?"

"Don't worry about that. I'm ordering you to submit to cuffs!"

"First, who are you? Second, i don't take orders. i'm not in anybody's gang, definitely not yours, and i don't work in a fast food joint. And third, the rules and regulations section 3287 says that during special inspections or searches, initiated because the inmate is suspected or having contraband the inmate should be permitted to observe the search. Therefore, i need to know the purpose of the search."

"You're fricken making this more difficult o your fricken self. Submit to cuffs now, or i'll call the sergeant and you'll be fricken sorry!"

"Listen little fella, you call the sergeant, the govern-nator, and the president! The rules say what they say, so i want to observe the search!"

Well, to make a long story short, eventually the sergeant comes. He tells me the search is for an inactive gang status review. I cannot observe...because in his words "we don't follow those rules. We've got our own and if you don't like it, file another lawsuit." [every six years they put on this facade, pretending to review one's shu placement and either release you to a general population (gp) yard, or keep you in shu for another six years. This charade goes on constantly, with them using such innocuous things as a book by George L. Jackson (Blood in my Eye) which i ordered and was approved to have by the same staff, or a poem by Hugo Pinell which was taken out of a magazine they approved us to have, as evidence that you're not only a member of a 'prison gang' but an 'active member,' which really means you haven't been broken of your political activism.]

Not wanting to be physically removed, at which point they'd still have searched the cell with the added satisfaction of beating on me under the pretense of law and order, i allow the search. Thirty minutes into it, the same officer who threatened me comes to where i'm being held in an even smaller cage and says

"We've got you now; I'm booking your for the weapon."

"What weapon?"

"The razor. I found it in your cell."

"You didn't get no razor from my cell!"

"Prove it!" he said with a grin.

So now, 6 or 7 months later, this is where we find ourselves. i was charged with a felony. "possession of a weapon" [which, by the way, is impossible to get. In the shu, we are only allowed disposable razors three times a week when we shower. You're issued one razor with your cell number on it, as you enter the shower stall. Immediately after you come out, you must return the razor, little clear plastic cover and all, to the CO who inspects it, ensuring your number and all its parts are untampered and intact.]

If i'm convicted of this felony, i'll be given a life sentence. It's really that simple; at any moment of any day, any CO, for any reason, can simply say i did or didn't do something, i had or didn't have something, and the fantasy of a parole date vanishes like smoke before a fan...or is pushed another year or two away. This has not been a total bust. i did learn a few things.

1. This charge is a matter of business as usual, or should i say sports as usual. Here in crescent city, they've got a nice con-game going, where a triad of pbsp, the DA's office, and the public defenders' office line up tenpins (convicts) with meaningless petty offensives (initiated by COs) then charge them with strike-able felonies (done by the DA) and finally they're bowed down (by a public defender pretending to give a damned) with an 8, 12, or 16 pound ball (representing the number of months they give you in a plea agreement. Or you can play baseball (3 strikes and you're out!) take your bogus case to a jury trial with no money, no chance of wining, and all the players - even your appointed attorney and the judge - on the opposite team.

Either way, the triad wins. The DA gets another conviction on her record, a notch in her belt come time to run for office. The public defender racks up another favor and paycheck; the COs get job security, along with the added satisfaction of teaching you a lesson and supporting their lies about "the worst of the worst" and other such nonsense with stats.

2. What i was missing throughout this entire ordeal is...it never was about the physical razor, which the CO claims to have found in my cage. That was just a prop in the game - a physical metaphor, if you will, for the real razor. My willingness to stand up to their supposed authority. My wit, my tongue, which on that cold August morning in 2006 was sharp enough to cut one of pbsp's igi officers (the worse of the worst!) clear down to his soul, exposing the fragile and timid ego of a child. So, inflated with the pompousness of class orientation and skin privilege he believes as they all do. He's done nothing wrong. Perhaps he hasn't...as laws were made to protect people like him from the desperation of the oppressed slaves, like me!

3. The pomp ad circumstance of a trial would only be used to further bolster the farce of a working judicial system in amerika. Although it bruises my own often inflated ego to acquiescent once again to another unjust plea agreement, this travesty proves for the last time the truth of Gs words..."You don't get justice in amerika. You take it!"

So, i'll accept this latest plea agreement, return to my cold cage, continue to study, write, and smoulder, always on the look out for a chance to set the prairies ablaze!

push up. push out. push back.
shut down the shus
akili

(post note: 1. the next post will be my sentencing statement; 2. Of course, i was denied inactive gang status. big surprise.)

2007-03-06T15:56:00.000-08:00

Smoke and Mirrors

When one accepts consciousness, one of the first skills s/he learns is to read into the rhetoric that is amerika's cultural legacy, better known as 'double talk,' or 'telling little white lies.' This cultural heritage is grounded in fairy-tales such as 'amerika is founded on principles of democracy and freedom for all,' 'Thanksgiving' and 'amerikan moral conscience.'

Mythomania pervades every institution of amerikanism from the hypocritical constitution, which includes the laudable words, 'all men are created equal' yet was written at a time when Afrikans were legally and socially considered three-fifths a man, property worth no more than the two hogshead of rum its first president George Washington sold his slaves for.

To its cock and bull political system, which murders hundreds of thousands of innocent poor people worldwide, under the guise of 'delivering democracy' and 'making the world save from WMDs.' Double talk never delivers the promised democracy or safety, but manages to keep the corporate benefactors rich, and the politicians' constituency too busy ducking bullets and falling buildings to turn their guns on them.

These are illusionist times of smoke and mirrors, where the meaning of words disappear like nickels dropped into a magicians' top hat, and reappear from behind the ear of some totally unconvinced spectator who's all too happy to participate in the show and have his/her ego stroked.

Therefore, it comes as no shock that the words 'peace' in the official title for California prison guards (i.e. peace officers) or the recently re-adopted 'rehabilitation' are nothing more than nickels in the hands of the state's greatest illusionists, California Correctional Peace Officers' Association (CCPOA - california's largest and most powerful union).

The facts are

1. The prisoncrats who reap the rewards from the corrections business want peace and rehabilitation like poor people in Louisiana want another hurricane!

2. Amerikan prisons are testing ground for the most egregious and wanton disregard for a person's humanity, where the highest paid and supposedly best trained paramilitary/peace officers in the world [only outdone by the UN's murderous blue helmet peace keeping forces] learn the tricks of the trade.

Every day, captives are forced to endure a sadistic officer's attempts to provoke a violent confrontation. These acts run the gambit, from instigating captive on captive combat, ignorance and cultural insensitivity on their part, to the outright criminally racist and purposeful exploitation of their positions and the power it gives them.

Case in point: i was attempting to attend the law library recently, and undergoing a degrading strip search. Naked, i hold out my hands, palms up, palms down. "Okay," says the guard. Open my mouth, stick out my tongue. "Okay," says the guard. Run my fingers through my hair. "Okay," says the guard. Lift my scrotum, run my hand under. "Okay," says the guard. I turn around. Lift my left foot. "Okay." Right foot. "Okay." Squat, cough and turn back around to retrieve my clothes when he snidely says, "bend over again, touch your toes and point that thang at me!"

How do you respond to such vulgar and disrespectful statements? Think about your vulnerability. You're naked in front of two guards, another lurks above you with a loaded mini-14 assault rifle.

Is it a setup? Are they trying to provoke a response? What do you do? What do you say?

Personally, i refused and was denied my law library privilege and given a disciplinary report, in which said officer failed to mention what he had said to me. So, i followed up with a staff complaint against the officer, which was dismissed by the appeals coordinator, claiming i abused the grievance system and that what the officer said was perfectly respectful and justified. Next, i sent the complaint to the Ombudsman, who responded by basically saying i violated the rules by not following the officers orders to "point that thang at him" and should get over it! i can't help but wonder what she'd have to say if one of her supervisors told her "bend over and point that thang at me!" Sexual harassment perhaps!

So, in trying to figure out why the prisoncrats who regulate the interaction between guard and captive would habitually ostrich-up when they are informed of such potentially volatile actions, I was driven to my Oxford Amerikan dictionary/thesaurus to look up the word 'rehabilitate.' It says
1. restore to effectiveness or normal life by training.
2. restore to former privileges or reputation or a proper condition.

However, the answer didn't fully come to me until i read a proposal given to the administrators here, by some of the elder captives who they've erroneously and vindictively labelled prison gang leaders.

This proposal would have ended the racist violence that plagues california's prisons/jails and has now spread out into the 'free' community with the murder of 14 year old Cheryl Green on December 15th, 2006.

The reality is they don't intend to, nor do they want to stop the violence, much less create or keep any kind of peace in california prisons or poor communities. Why? Because, failing schools, drug addiction, petty criminality, joblessness, homelessness, untreated mental illness etc etc. habilitate people to be violent and/or nonviolent products that lead to the astronomical profits the prison industrial complex makes.

You know the saying, "don't bite the hand that feeds you!" Well the corrections business is feeding a whole lot of people and their children, which reminds me of something a mentor told me before he was moved: "you can't fix this system, because it's not broken! It's working just as it's intended to!"

Double talk, little white lies, myth and all!

push up. push out. push back.
a

2007-02-12T18:34:00.000-08:00

PPOC Perspective: A Well Developed Kick!

Ever since MIchael Richards (Cosmo Kramer of Seinfeld) came screaming, ranting and raving out of the closet, ripping off his clothes like a lunatic version of Clark Kent to reveal his Super Kluxer uniform complete with pointed hat and all. Playing the same white supremacist, hate mongering, "membership by right of birth," racist card the majority of European settlers hold and wish desperately to play.

The negro* community and its appointed leaders have been conducting what amounts to nothing more than a pitty party, or better yet, a coming-out party, complete with all the fixins assimilators love. Lights, cameras, tape recorders, press cards, and appearances by the guest of honor: Kramer himself. Most notably, on Jesse Jackson's radio show, which is broadcast out of Chicago IL.

Luckily for me, I don't own a television, so i wasn't subjected to hearing or seeing this sad display first hand. However, i do read and in all the paperes for the last few weeks there's been this mad dash by these self-appointed, out of touch, wannabe amerikan minimes, jockeying and some even pushing their way into position at the nearest podium like starved piranhas during a feeding frenzy, fighitng over the last blood-drenched morsel fo Afrikan dignity reduced to a sound byte.

The most these 'children of impotent revolt' have been able to come up with is a laughable, out-dated and undignified ban on the N word. Don't misunderstand my critcism. The essence of their premise is correct. The word is the uggliest, most vile, adn vicious word you can hurl at someone. They are correct; there is absolutely no way of 'changing' the power, intent, or meaning of the word through usage, spelling, or semantics. It is what it is; it means what it means; and it does what it does! Which is to perpetuate the self-deprecating hate and intensify the psychological dis-ease we the victims of Willy Lynchism (i.e. a method used int eh colonialism process) suffer from (and not only Blacks).

The entertainment industries boughta nd paid for lie; that its a term of endearment is a bucket without a base. Easily proven to be so by... 1) the hypocritical stance of all those who use the word and make their living by trading in mental slavery. They claim Europeans/non-Afrikans are somehow restricted from saying it. Yet, as Kramer demonstrated at the Lugh Factory by delivering a kick devleoped over 400 plus years to a mostly Black audience bombarding and knocking many into open-mouthed disbelief with his verbal attack about history, amerika, forks and a n-----'s "historiclaly correct' place in relation to a white man (from the privileged point-of-view) and the fork's proper place in the n----r when being willed as a weapon by the devilish amerikan white man. Not one of those Blacks - specifically the one he was directly insulting - acted to inforce this restriction of use. Any law, rule, ordinance or policy is only made relevant by the power of enforcement.

2. The next time one of those abject fools who uses the word refers to their mother, sister, children, wife, or husband as lowlife bastards and bitches and watch how they'll pretend to be angry. Some will even go as far as posing as pugalists but stay cool, don't laugh at their buffoonery, then tell them wiht all the sincerity you can muster, "i meant it as a term of endearment, just like n-----!" Watch how they trip over those big floppy shoes, trying to rationalize the difference.

The laughable, outdated and undignified characterizatio of those whom would run to masta while in the mist of throwing another temper trantrum is evidenced by the fact that they know just as their "ban on the N-word" will once again prove. They are not leaders and have absolutely no power over the billion dollar entertainment industry which rolls around snorting, farting, and laughing like fat hogs i their own slop at the fact that they've got negros who'll sell their own people into mental slavery, degredation, and dehumanization for the fool's gold of star-dumb and ever fading fame!

2007-02-12T18:25:00.000-08:00

Altruistic (Neo-Colonialism)

800 to 3000 hard u.s. currency.
For kidneys, from desperately poor people in the phillipines.
LImbs for diamonds in Sierra Leone.
Assumed consent means...every hue-man's a donor to the
rich, unless we petition not to be, if you're not a member
of the ivory league it's assumed you can't speak...
that's Representative Democracy!

Thanx to government subsidies amerika's new slum lords
bought the projects and tore down what our representative called
an eye-sore, to build the factory that creates pollution from
the lead used to increase missiles that protect this decadent
capitalist society!
That's the War Industry!

Toxic mold in poor folks' homes making children so socik
they can't think. Babies who can't breath, eat or sleep!
Yet, there's no e.p.a. office in 3rd class communities
or ELF rallies to save poor babies.
That's Misanthropic Environmentalism!

Embargoes and sanctions equal civilian casualites.
7% interest on loans to former colonies, here, in Canada
and across the seas.
Miliary intervention wherever there is an assumed need, "they've
got weapons of mass destruction...invasion is a necessary evil" says
the commander in chief.
Necessary to mask the greed...
That's Global Economy!

Parents relying on the cdc to create a new pill
because the corporate funded doctor said, "JR is autistic" and
"daddy's little girl has ADHD."
at $20 a pop that's another 30 hours of labor per week,
with no pay increase.
Or...you coudl end up property of the D.O.C. under the
family protection act and child protective services endangerment policy.
That's the Health Care Industry!

2007-02-12T17:33:00.000-08:00

Limbs for Diamonds

Down in the trenches minds, mine stone in Sierra Leone.
War in Afrika...funded a global cartel.
The Black Man's Hell!
Life denied for 4% tokens of love, blood stones
sparket reflecting legs, arms, toes, hands and feet... all gone!
Slick, blood money on the slide creates
amputee kamps. The result of conflict diamonds
While the U.S. purchases more than any other nation to
insure only 15% of the world's diamonds are clean.

Diamond diggers and farmers' fields under perpetual siege.
A backstage war for survival, and the head role...
wealth, domination of the world stage.
A June wedding, a July anniversary disguise the apple
that crowns poverty. The aim of aristocracy's archery,
breeders of disunity, buidng its African Empire from sea to
shining sea.

Kick-rocks, symbol of children's innocence, until the game is
played by a Brit who findds the Eureka Stone. 1/2 visionary
1/2 scoundrel...100% murderous thief. Hacks Kisingani
out of his peace, into pieces and like starving jackels to
rotten meat. Rhodes sells to Debeers...trickery, lies, and false
treaties from warzone to jewelry stores.
Combat diamonds finance rebels in Angola where one hundred million
Black bodies decay with toetags that read
Tiffanies, Cartier, Harry Winston, Jacob the Jeweller, HipHop and celebrity.

While wholesale buyers traffic these traps of human souls.
Sporting the jewellers of amerika ban on their sleeves.
Where once the Star of David could be seen. No more do they
need expensive ships with diamond cargo-holds to
trade in the destruction, subjugation, exploitation and
murder of potential Kings nad Queens!

H.A.M.M.

2006-12-17T11:02:00.000-08:00

Politicized Prisoners of Conscious Perspectives: She's Right 'Cha Know!

Been born a Black male of dual socio-economic and ethnic heritage in amerika, meaning my mother is a self-skilled Black woman who struggled tooth and nail to maintain the deed on the little two bedroom house she raised my brother and me in, praying to one day leave it to us, but out of necessity mortgaged so much of that little gingerbread house that eventually she lost it to the finance company. My father being a self-skilled white man who undoubtedly due to his own ingenuity (what we call hustle) and the privilege of skin was able to own several pieces of property, a successful business and other ventures which afforded him the ability to purchase all his cars and the other trinkets boys in amerika supposedly need.

This is by no means an indictment of who was richer or poorer. I can tell you empirically, material possessions are no true gauge of wealth. My father passed away in 1999, broken hearted and remorse filled, and my mother - who at one time seemed the warm, bright day in a world of cold, gloomy days, especially when we were at our financial wits end - has become just as gloomy and cold as the world around her. Two sides of the same coin, my inheritance. But I digress...that's another story for another day!

My point here is to simply elucidate the fact that having been born into this duality - the gray haze that lies between amerika's socio-economic color consciousness in every possible way - i am intimately familiar with the role of 'outsider' and being/feeling as if your existence is somehow on the fringes of acceptance even amongst those who you most sincerely identify with. "I am the lone wolf, devoted member of the pack by right of birth, no less or more than any other...yet, alone nonetheless!"

So when i read Jasmyne A. Cannick's essay "Where's the Outrage?" (Los Angeles Sentinel 11-23/29-2006 - JasmyneCannick.com) calling all of us to task for our failure to defend and stand up for the preciousness of Black life in general, but specifically as it unfolded in the prison of a 29 year old Michael Sandy of New York. I was moved to do what little i can from this cage, my enclosure on the fringes of society!

As Jasmyne tells it, "Michael was brutally attacked by a group of white men who intentionally lured him to a parking lot to rob him and ended up killing him." Keep that in mind because it is the only factual truth we will probably ever know in regards to yet another purposeful murder of an Afrikan by amerikan settlers, whether police or civilian.

Jasmyne goes on to report that "according to police, on October 8, John Fox, 19, and Ilya Shuror, 20, posed as gay on an internet chat room for gay men looking for a person to rob. They lured Michael Sandy to a parking lot near Sheepsheard Bay with that in mind" and that "Sandy was robbed and beaten by four men. He managed to break free but was chased onto the Belt Parkway where he was struck by a car and severely injured. He never regained consciousness from his injuries and died after family decided to remove him from a life support respirator that had kept him alive since his attack."

She goes on to inform us that "Anthony Fortunato, 20, one of the four suspects arrested has already been released." No surprise three, and that "all of Sandy's attackers were white and it is still unclear if he was also targeted because of his racial identity."

Well I won't even address the absolute stupidity of even questioning whether Michael Sandy was targeted because he was a Black man - that would be like arguing whether water is wet, because it's water! The absolute reality is that Michael Sandy was murdered. Michael Sandy was a Black man who was murdered by white men who chose him to bait and trap for the purpose of murdering a Black man, knowing, subconsciously at least, that hunting Black men is amerika's true favorite pastime. Not baseball, or the 'war on terror.' That because Michael Sandy was a homosexual who they stalked and locked onto like blood thirsty spiders via the web, they could count on his being an easier and safer target with less backlash and outrage from the Afrikan community, because everyone knows we are, if nothing else, famously tight-lipped about our 'embarrassing' kinsfolk and shortcomings.

To even suggest that the murder of a Black man by four white settler youth is anything other than them acting out their historic socio-political class role is to bury our heads in a melting-pot of amerikan dung!

Jasmyne Cannick is absolutely right..." Michael Sandy could have been any one of us, and yet he was us. He was a Black, he was a Black male, and he was a Black gay male.

However, i am not interested in how Michael Sandy chose to indulge his lust or who he chose to sleep with. Just as i am not interested in how a heterosexual person chooses to do so. Those are questions we as a community, as a people, must iron out in our own homes. What does concern me as a captive, as someone who for all intents and purposes has been buried alive and prematurely taken away from his people and community by the hands of amerikan injustice - just as the murdered Sandy was - is that we continue to collectively engage in behavior patterns that are conducive to our being subjacent to and subjugated by a culture and people who have demonstrated through action/inaction their absolute willingness and desire to have Black necks and backs to step on as they reach over the proverbial rainbow for their pots of gold!

Two such acts i want to address in support of Jasmyne's call to action are, 1) Our passive acceptance of and failure to purge ourselves of those whom would falsely position themselves as leaders of our people and their antiquated useless ideologies, theories, and practices, which only serve them and their masters and keep the masses entangled in a web of fits and false starts. Jasmyne attempts to do so, but in my opinion falls a bit short of the mark as she states, "If Michael Sandy would have been heterosexual, would that have brought our the Rev. Jesse Jackson's and the Rev. Al Sharptons of Black America? Would that have made it okay for the NAACP to get involved and for other Black civil rights groups to take notice?"

Undoubtedly, it would not have! What we tend to know in our hearts of hearts but do not address in all our self-deprecating politesse is that Rev. Jesse Jacksons, Al Sharptons and the NAACPs of amerika know what side their bread is buttered on...they know who manufactures and supplies the activator for their perms and s. curls and puts them on tv to look good for the 'people'; who owns the runways their private jets take off from, and who owns the high-rise office buildings their corporate organizations are housed in. They know that the idea of civil rights is a minstrel show, complete with its starts and bit players. And they know their role.

They know Blacks throughout the diaspora are human beings, that the crimes committed against us have never been a matter of isolated civil incidents. We are not and have never been simply the poor disenfranchised 'citizens' of this or that capitalist nation. They preach integration and assimilation, yet practice segregation and isolation when it comes to defending the lives of the least of our communities or united with and defending all Afrikans throughout the diaspora as one people, one nation, one blood.

They know Malcolm X spoke truth when he asserted "they key to our success lies in United Action. As long as the freedom struggle of the twenty-two million Afro-Amerikans is labeled a 'civil rights' issue, it remains a domestic problem under the jurisdiction of the United States. But, once our struggle is lifted to the level of human rights, our freedom struggle has then become internalized...we assert that in those areas where the government is either unable or unwilling to protect the lives and property of our people, that our people are within their rights to protect themselves by whatever means necessary."

They know by virtue of their status as the 'talented tenth' that we did not simply fall upon these unfortunate circumstances due to an oversight of civil amerika to afford its former slaves civil rights. They know we were never slaves, but the victims of a purposeful genocide and that we were never meant to survive our captivity, much less meant to still identify as Afrikans and influence the world as we do.

They know that those founding fathers of amerika and the NAACP recognized in our refusal to be annihilated, the need to compromise on their intended destruction of our people and began a very systematic and complete plan of creating oppo-same organizations and leaders who would keep the disjoined Afrikan Nation from coalescence on an international scale as one people and from addressing the real issues we face such as human rights, war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide, the freeing of our political prisoners and prisoners of war, substandard education, HIV/AIDS, etc. etc.

Jasmyne, they know just as i am sure you too know there is nothing civil about amerika, or being an amerikan again. Our Malcolm said it best, "we have to get together and eliminate the vices, alcoholism and other evils that are destroying the moral fiber of our community; we ourselves have to lift the level of our community. Make our own society beautiful, so that we will be satisfied in our own social circles. Don't change the white man's mind. You can't change the white man's mind, and that whole thing about appealing to the moral conscience of America - America's conscience is bankrupt, so it's not necessary to change the white man's mind. We have to change our own mind."

Furthermore, they know the issue of Michael Sandy's sexual preference doesn't outweigh the socio-political, historical, cultural, and spiritual need our people have for reciprocity. They know to not act is to tell the world Black life is worthless. They know Michael's mother is still his mother, like my mother is still my mother and their mothers are still their mothers and all mothers deserve the comfort of knowing the life they created had value and their child's murder didn't go unanswered by her own people. No Jasmyne...it's not a matter of sexuality, it's a matter of puppet and puppeteer.

However, that is not the whole issue. Fact of the matter is those are not the leaders of our people or community. They are the hired mouth pieces of corporate amerika and the useless rhetoric they dribble is as stale and offending as the minstrels they perform. The world has been taught 'action speaks louder than words,' therefore we must purge ourselves of them along with this backwards idea that pomp and ceremonious displays of our outrage are taken seriously by anyone other than our well meaning selves.

Allow me to expound. The second act we need to address is the fantasy that we as amerika's 'permanent slave class' can find justice and equality in master's mansion under master's rules and this idea of allowing amerika to dictate what our issues are and who we will defend and raise to the position of honored spokespersons.

The reality is even if any of those who Jasmyne is calling out were to speak up, what good would it do, besides firing up a few tempers and letting off a bit of steam? We could write entire encyclopedic volumes covering the names of Blacks who've been murdered in cold blood by amerikan settlers and the corresponding marches and committees of this or that government body, yet still we are being hunted, trapped, and shutdown in the streets of amerika on a daily basis, and no matter what the state sponsored statistics report, the reality is government hired hands and civilian white settlers murder more blacks per year than Blacks with far more damaging psychological effects (point in fact, as i am writing this, the NYPD has just murdered 23 year old Sean Bell, filling his car with 50 some odd bullets!)

The amerikan court system and its so-called justice is a sham. Let's look at their own statistics and see..."A study published in the May 2006 issue of psychological science, the journal of the association for psychological science has proven that Black defendants in capital cases receive the death sentence more frequently than white defendants." "In Maryland alone, 60% of all homicide victims are Black, yet there is only one person currently on death row for the killing of a Black person" according to David Eillout of the NCADP. "Between 1976 and April 2006, Texas executed 78 Black defendants for the killing of a white victim, adn has executed only two white defendants for the killing of victims of mixed race" according to the 2006 quarterly report by the NAACP legal and educational defense fund."

"Three in every four men in prison (here in California) are nonwhite, 38% are latino, 29% are African American, and 6% are 'other.' Adult Afrikan American men are 7 times as likely as white men, and 4.5 times as likely as latino men to be incarcerated. The prison population is aging and currently the share of prisoners aged 50 and older is 11%, up from 4% in 1990." This in particular is very important because it's indicative of a class of prisoners who were captured in between the late 60s and early 80s. Men and women who unselfishly took it upon themselves to defend and define Blackness by fighting for our right to self-determination and a meaningful existence. More times than not, they were sold out and convicted in show trials complete with fabricated evidence and total disregard for the amerikan constitution and international law. Many of these men and women who now make up the 11% of captives aged 50 and older were from unskilled, unemployable classes and joined the movement and its formations toward liberation as enlisted men and women carrying out the difficult and monotonous daily tasks of a people getting together and lifting the level of our community and for their undying commitment to acting on the outrage Jasmyne is in search of, have been purposely neglected and written out of our collective memory by the Rev. Jesse Jacksons and Al Sharptons and NAACPs, who continue to parasitically relish in their status as political prisoners, prisoners of war, and politicized prisoners of conscious, because they know that with the true leaders, defenders, and honored spokespersons of our community sold into slavery and locked under hatches, they can safely continue as starts of the amerikan minstrel show.

In practical terms, what do all the numbers and words mean? Simply this...no matter what courtroom in amerika the white settler youths who murdered Michael Sandy are tried, if they ever are, there will be no justice for Michael Sandy's family or the Black community in general, because the amerikan jurisprudence is just as the tree and rope were 50 some odd years ago...tools in the psychological campaign of terror against Blacks. Michael Sandy will be portrayed, if not outwardly in the media, then in the minds of every juror and judge as having committed some crime and in some way brought this on himself...the story will go..."the poor white boys who unfortunately got caught up in his rage when their 'innocent' prank turned deadly are the true victims, because everybody knows Black men are naturally aggressive and violently irrational!" So, in answering the question, 'Where's the outrage?' I say it's here slammed down in amerika's new styled plantations, along with the elders who can and have organized and acted on that outrage in the past, had we not allowed them to be falsely convicted to begin with or not allowed them to languish in prisons throughout amerika over the last 35 years without our collective support through direct action, to insure they were brought home and not forgotten. I doubt if Michael Sandy or any other Black in amerika would still be victims of these types of killings. I know for sure, there would not be silence!

In closing, Jasmyne you write, "Tomorrow isn't guaranteed to any of us. The least we can do is make sure that we don't encourage these types of murderous acts by our silence." However, i have to respectfully disagree with your underlying premise. Real outrage, real healing, real reciprocity and the real discouraging of such 'murderous acts' will not come through marches and ostentatious soliloquist locking to capitalize politically or financially off the murder of Michael Sandy and the people's pain. We can only protect ourselves from amerika's historical addiction to murdering Black people. We can only heal our community and discourage these murderous acts by first freeing all political prisoners, prisoners of war, and politicized prisoners of consciousness who have proven their worth and love through action and deed, putting all puppets and poverty pimps on notice that we will no longer tolerate their kind, employing our own cultural means of justice and adjudicating crimes against our community, and finally by heeding and living up to the prophetic words of Marcus Garvey: "In the next few months we will be so organized that when they lynch a negro below the Mason and Dixion line, if we cannot lynch a white man there and since it is not safe to lynch a white man in any part of america, we shall press the button and lynch him in the Great Continent of Afrika!"

Do you care enough to help release the outrage?

2006-09-20T17:00:00.000-07:00