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Interview :: Prisons |
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Interview with the ABCN (U.S) |
Current rating: 0 |
by Lawrence ABC
Email: abclawrence (nospam) riseup.net (verified)
Address: PO Box 1483 Lawrence, KS. 66044 |
21 Aug 2005
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Prisoner Support may not be something you think about very often, but if
you ended up being jailed due to a mistake or unfair sentencing due to
politics, such as racism or classism, Prisoner Support organizations could
literally be your only lifeline. |
Prisoner Support As Civil Rights Activism (A 3-Part Series/ Part 1)
by Kirsten Anderberg (www.kirstenanderberg.com)
Prisoner Support may not be something you think about very often, but if
you ended up being jailed due to a mistake or unfair sentencing due to
politics, such as racism or classism, Prisoner Support organizations could
literally be your only lifeline. Part of the frightening aspect of prison
is the isolation. As human rights activists, the prison situation is
pertinent on many levels. First of all, a very disproportionate amount of
black males are in jail, which is a red flag for racism. Secondly, a
disproportionate amount of those charged with crimes require a public
defender (a PBS special I saw said 90% of those charged with crimes
nationally in the U.S. need public defenders, which also shows who they
are charging with crimes). This is a class issue. Thirdly, the human
rights conditions within prisons are atrocious and violate laws.
Enforcement of the human rights laws within jails is the issue there, and
it is prison solidarity groups that are pushing for human rights
enforcement within the jails from outside. So I just outlined three
reasons to get involved with prisoner support: Racism, Classism, and Human
Rights Enforcement.
As a young child, the Pete Seeger “Live at Carnegie Hall” album was played
often in our house. During the “We Shall Overcome” portion, two things
struck me as a young child. One was he had the audience sing “We are not
afraid.” And then he said, “We sing “We are not afraid” even though we are
afraid.” That statement has stuck with me my whole life. We make sure to
sing “We are not afraid” and in unison, *even though we are afraid.*
Another thing he said during that song on that album was, in essence, if
you are feeling like your life is meaningless, you need to go down to
places where people are dealing with serious issues of racism, classism,
civil rights issues, and he promised you that if you went down to
Mississippi and Alabama and got involved in the civil rights struggle,
putting your body on the line, that the meaninglessness in your life would
go away. That also struck a chord in me, even as a very small child. I saw
that my own mother was most alive when she got very active in political
struggle, whether that was in feminism , anti-classism, or anti-racism
protest.
Right now, one place you can guarantee your work will be appreciated is in
the area of prisoner support. If you are feeling your life is meaningless,
if you feel you just work, buy, consume and get ready to die, you can
change that today, by getting involved with prisoner support. As I said,
people are jailed for their race and for their social class in America,
and these people need the support of people outside jails. The Anarchist
Black Cross/ABC (http://www.anarchistblackcross.org) is a prominent
prisoner support organization. I interviewed 4 members of the ABC about
issues ranging from public defenders to women prisoner needs to political
prisoners we should know about now. The answers the ABC Network (ABCN)
provided were so informative that I felt I needed to publish all of their
answers, so this article is broken up into a three part series. Part One
explores how ABCN volunteers first got involved in prisoner support, what
the ABCN is, how human rights and prisoner rights activism are related and
what has touched these activists most about their work with prisoner
support. Part Two explores the issues of public misconceptions about
prisoners, women prisoner needs, public defenders, and state harassment
for prisoner support work. Part Three gives current information about how
to get involved with prisoner support now, including the names of
individual prisoners, different ways to get involved, and prisoner
support resources to further your education on this subject.
PART ONE:
I interviewed Mr. Twitch (ABC Legal Services), Anthony Rayson (ABC
Network), and Tony Young and Chantel G., both from the Lawrence ABC in
Kansas. I asked what the ABC prisoner support network is, as it appears to
be a network of smaller ABC groups. Mr. Twitch said “the sizes and
continuity of the groups vary like the breeze at times unfortunately. I am
an entity of one here at the ABC Legal Services myself, and truly
autonomous, as a current ally-member to the ABCN. Mainly, we try to focus
on Anarchist Political Prisoner support, and the eventual abolition of
prisons as they are, period. We are also involved in Prisoner Book
programs, and attempt to educate other prisoners to politicize themselves
through zine distribution and correspondence. I supervise a small prisoner
legal network mostly within the state of Texas.”
Anthony responded that “the ABC Network is a collection of autonomous ABC
chapters focusing on open-ended prisoner support. We want to learn from
and help educate prisoners (mutual aid) in order to strengthen awareness
and resistance to the prison system. We want to support resisters, be they
anarchist, New Afrikan or whatever. We want to make connections with the
most oppressed sectors by working with those held captive by the state.
Our goal is to provide the most insightful material, inside and out, often
written by prisoners, to help swell the ranks of those in resistance to
the state, to work towards the abolition of prisons, capitalism,
governments and other oppressive systems. Also, we want to make the human
connections with prisoners, educate those on the "outs" about the evils of
this slave-based system of repression. As serious anarchists, we think it
is tactically necessary and important to focus on the massive
incarceration industry in the U.S. A main tenet of anarchism is prison
abolition.”
The ABCN Mission Statement of the U. S. says, “ABCN is a network of
anarchist prison abolitionists…Through solidarity work with other groups
and the ongoing work to help serve the needs of our locked up brothers and
sisters, we seek to overcome fear, ignorance, and apathy.” Chantel said
“each ABC group affiliated with the Network makes its own decisions about
what projects to undertake and what prisoners to form relationships with.
There is no ABCN central office telling groups what to do.”
I asked these activists how they got interested in prisoner support. Mr.
Twitch came into ABC through his affiliation with Pirate Radio in Austin,
TX. in 1999. He became an official member of his local ABC collective in
Spring 2002. Anthony Rayson got involved with prisoner support after he
began the South Chicago ABC Zine Distro in 1998. He said it was the
responses from the prisoners that were most compelling. He said he was
mentored into prisoner support work by Sean Lambert, a bi-sexual prison
abolition anarchist out of New York and continues to work in prison
support as he sees it as “ground zero” in “the struggle at home.” Tony
Young’s first experience with prisoner support was in 2002, when he wrote
a political prisoner in Nebraska named Mondo We Langa. Later, he moved to
Kansas and got involved with anarchist-activists and “began thinking about
the importance of prisons in sustaining the State and capitalism. After
several months of varied involvement, I decided that my activism would be
aimed at destroying the belief that locking people in cages makes us safe
and I would do my part to tear down the prison-industrial-complex.”
Chantel said she heard an anarchist who had spent several years in prison
speak at the 2002 North American Anarchist Gathering. She said she had not
really thought much about prison issues before that, and the speech really
moved her. Chantel said the ex-prisoner spoke of the “way white
supremacist groups recruited men in prison by having people on the outside
correspond with them and send birthday cards. I was struck by the fact
that anarchists need to be doing the same thing, not just as a way to
recruit for our “cause,” but because we really care about people and want
to reach out to them.” She ended up being one of the founding members of
the Lawrence ABC in the Fall of 2002.
I asked how human rights activism and prisoner rights activism are
related. Mr. Twitch said “As you may or may not know, the state of Texas,
being one of the largest prison populations in the world, equally
alongside the state of California, has perhaps the most egregious and
human rights abusing forms of isolation imprisonment formats in what they
call here, "Administrative Segregation"; this is a 23-hours a day total
maximum security prison-within-a-prison solitary confinement. Much of what
has been publicized in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo, goes on daily
in our countries maximum security facilities. Just the dietary needs are
at times barely admissible as humane treatment in the name of budgetary
austerity; illness, contagious disease, and sanitary conditions are
rampant problems inside.”
Anthony responded that “Prisoners are human beings, ensnared by a criminal
government. The 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution specifically
designates prisoners as slaves. Slavery - economic, prison, sexual - is
the bedrock of capitalism in America. Prisoner "rights" (and lack thereof)
goes to the core of the modus operandi of this government. The most
important resisters to the government are often prisoners. Laws written by
predators are not legitimate. Prisons are how America keeps poor people
down. The world gets bombs and we get bars.” Tony responded, “One cannot
talk of defending human rights while supporting a system that depends on
psychological, sexual, and physical torture.” And Chantel said, “Prisoners
are human beings. As human beings, they are entitled to the same basic
rights as other people. Being in prison is punishment enough; having
their human rights stripped from them is a double punishment.”
I asked what had touched the ABC activists most deeply about their ABC
work? Mr. Twitch said, “The strength of some of these people to keep
going and resist the oppression and the sheer constant feeling of despair
that pervades prison life; the relentless ingraining of the
institutionalized mindset; I don't know how I would hold up emotionally
knowing that much of my intense love for freedom was taken away. I have a
lot of respect for that in some folks I represent.” Anthony said, “I guess
I would say the most heartfelt benefits from this work have been the
outpouring of guidance and affection I have received - especially in the
aftermath of my father's death in January of '01. The courage in the face
of brutal repression they are forced to endure is very inspiring, too.
When a prisoner we have supported is finally freed, it is a very
exhilarating feeling! And, the electrifying brilliance of their artwork
and political analyses is awesome, as is the stellar quality of the
writing. To me, it is the most remarkable and vibrant and useful
information being created dealing with present-day conditions. Plus, the
realness, genuine warmth and honesty of our relationships, and the humor
and soul-searing truthfulness in the midst of such Dante-esque living
conditions, provides motivation for strong resolve. Every day, many new
situations arise.”
Tony said, “I have been writing to two men on death row regularly for over
a year now. It can be difficult at times. It's hard knowing that two
people I consider to be my friends may be executed for acts of harm that
they quite possibly did not even commit.” Chantel commented, “I am touched
whenever a prisoner sends us a couple of stamps or a few dollars to help
us with our literature distribution. I know these people don’t have many
resources, so I am deeply appreciative when they share what they have so
that we can continue to get reading material to other prisoners. I was
also touched when I helped organize a prisoner art show last summer. There
are many talented people in prison, and I was grateful for the folks who
were willing to trust us with their work.”
(This is part one, in a three part series of interviews, with the ABC
prisoner support network. Visit
http://resist.ca/~kirstena/pageabcinterviews.html for the entire series.) |
See also:
http://www.kirstenanderberg.com
http://www.anarchistblackcross.org
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This work is in the public domain |
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