I Have Seen You
by Lolita Lebron

I have seen you as I searched
in the shade
of this terrifying and cold silence.
Some furniture falls to pieces…
and I’m left with the cell,
bereft of warmth and humor.
Everything is so alone. So disquieting.
Love has gone so far away from my eyes…
And there is no chirping from the birds
to make me smile away my sorrow…
“I am trembling, companero,
with painful and exhausting uneasiness!”
My shoulders hurt…as if sinking under
the weight of tortured rock,
The hour is dark.
The day silent with a moan
hidden in its great burden.
Even prayer is wounding: in the depths of my entrails
pain tearlessly weeps.
I like forests and gardens.
The waterfalls and their tiny crabs,
their rocks,
their murmurs and bubbles,
their radiant streams,
the thought of their mysteries,
with flowers and plants surrounding them.
Their aromas.
And how I loved the washerwomen,
scrubbing upon the rocks
with a box of bluing at their side.
How they remind me of mama!
Here, jail is like a tempest,
heavy and hard-hearted…
A ruin that reeks of death
and unspeakable pain.
It is the white bear’s domain.
Keys and blows, headcounts,
injustices and schemes.
Undisclosed tortures
from an unwritable book.
The real story of death,
unwritten, without pages.

by Ariel Springfield (2013)

I decided to share this great reminder from 1971 in the radical feminist publication “Off Our Backs (PDF)” when it was still a newsletter. Below are some excerpts from the publication that includes an essay about prison abolition.

Women Prisoners Revolt

In support of their brothers at Attica and the 28 demands they made, the women incarcerated at Alderson demonstrated peacefully on Tuesday, September 14. The demonstration developed into a total strike with the women refusing to return to their cottages. Later they met with representatives of the federal prison parole board and presented additional demands including fair wages for work performed in the jail (they presently receive 7 cents an hour); mail privileges; and treatment facilities for addicts. Frustrated by the out-of-hand rejection of their demands and the harsh and adamant attitude of the prison officials, the women rioted. Tear gas was used. They were all then locked into the cottages. Three sisters “escaped” from the rooms to tell the press what had happened.

Unprecedented actions have been taken against the women who presented the demands. Sixty-six of them have been transferred to to a male youth reformatory in Ashland, Ky. Additional male guards (there are usually * 60) now patrol Alderson to enforce “order.” Authorities will not release the names of women who have been transferred or say where they will be sent now.

How Many Lives?

How many years of people’s lives must be lost, hidden, and brutalized, before we see that prisons must be abolished?

How many Atticas, San Quentins and Aldersons will it take till we realize that our society has created these monstrous institutions out of fear — fear of human freedom, cultural differences, loss of capitalist property. The ethics of our society have been distorted by this fear, and are then imposed on non-white people, poor people, young people and women to make survival and experimentation crimes. Why should people in Amerika spend years in jail for such “immoral” acts as smoking grass, getting drunk and singing in the streets, making love or printing “obscenity”, much less for standing by moral decisions not to kill or work for an immoral government? If prisons were really to protect us from psychopaths, murderers and thieves, they would contain Nixon, Rockefeller, Mitchell, Reagan, Agnew, owners of motor industries and oil dynasties, slum land lords, church leaders, and Pentagon officials. Prisons are the extreme domestic example of the racism, sexism, militarism and imperialism that we have been watching for years in Vietnam.

Who needs “rehabilitation” in our society? Not the slaves of ghetto deprivation and drugs pushed by those who wish to dull possible insurgency. Not the men and women who have learned to hustle and survive despite all efforts to destroy them. Not revolutionaries like Angela Davis and George Jackson. The people who need to be “rehabilitated” (if that’s even a correct attitude to have toward any human beings) are those whose minds and bodies have been warped by false value systems that convince them that some people must die so they can live, many must starve so they can eat, all must slave so they can enjoy rest.

“Rehabilitation” is the pacification program of liberalism. Even if we did want to “rehabilitate” sick or deviant minds or bodies, prison would be the last place to achieve it. We need to rid our selves of prisons. They are a danger to society not only because they are schools for “crime” (70% of all “crimes” are committed by ex-convicts) but because they try to erase from our consciousness people who could possibly bring about exciting changes in our social order. We need women like Angela Davis, Erica Huggins and Madame Ngo Ba Thanh among us. We need the Puerto Rican revolutionaries locked inside Alderson.

To abolish prisons we may have to develop “reforms” that carry within them contradictions that will make it hard to achieve them without drastically changing prisons — black prisoners’ unions with collective bargaining power, ending detention before conviction, a national prisoner monitoring system, open door policies, viable alternatives to incarceration. But whatever approaches are used, the goal should be prison abolition. To have no alternative at all would be better than to continue the present reality. And we can’t wait for the ending of racism, sexism and poverty in this country before we begin tearing down the walls. It may be in our own self-interest.

The question on the table: which current feminist publication can you imagine would publish such words?

The wonderfully generous and talented artist Ariel Springfield contributed three pieces of art work to our Black and Blue: Art on Policing, Violence & Resistance exhibition. I share her contributions below:

by Ariel Springfield (2013)

by Ariel Springfield

by Ariel Springfield (2013)

photo by Sam Love – Protesting to Close TAMMS

After years of organizing and struggle in Illinois, TAMMS Supermax is closed. As of last Friday, so too is Dwight Prison. These are tenuous victories to be sure because there are many who continue to believe that prisons must remain a permanent fixture.

There are still some who continue to call for Dwight to remain open citing prison overcrowding. But this is surely not the solution to address overcrowding. Instead the state should develop or expand the use of initiatives such as good time credits or diversion programs. More importantly, we should reduce our prison population while improving public safety by investing in communities to ensure that people do not end up behind bars in the first place.

In communities all across Illinois, women and men are caught in a vicious cycle of arrest, conviction, prison, surveillance and re-arrest, making it nearly impossible to maintain housing, health, jobs, and relationships. Rather than contribute to this tragedy, we must invest in prison alternatives and community-based services, while addressing the root causes of incarceration. We need to rebuild the social infrastructure rather than spend more on a failed prison system. Closing Dwight and other prisons in Illinois will help us to find new resources to invest in these better options.

The shuttering of Dwight follows the closing of two youth prisons: Murphysboro and Joliet. Last month, Vikki Law wrote about the activism that helped lead to the closure of the two youth prisons. Regular readers of this blog know that I have been working for years to close youth prisons in this state. You have read some of my rants over the past couple of years. We finally have our first victories and I have found it difficult to articulate my feelings. I am overcome.

So many people have had a hand in these victories but I want to specifically single out my friends and allies at TAMMS YEAR 10. For over a decade now, this dedicated group of organizers, educators, activists, family and community members has been calling for the closure of the torture chamber formerly known as TAMMS Supermax. They organized direct actions, lobbied legislators, hosted countless workshops, created art, wrote letters and so much more. Most importantly, they were a voice for those who didn’t have a public one: the men who were locked up at TAMMS.

Prison destroys lives. This is a fact. I am thinking today of James who spent time at IYC-Joliet and came out scarred and damaged seemingly beyond repair. I am thinking of another young man who told me that IYC-Joliet was a living hell for him.

There are still about 50,000 adults and nearly 1,000 youth locked up in prisons across Illinois. I know that closing four prisons is only one part of a long struggle to decarcerate Illinois. All of the people who are still locked up today in prisons need our advocacy. We must and will continue to press for their freedom. We have some encouragement in our work. We know that it is possible to close prisons in Illinois. We must build on these victories and remain in the fight for the long haul. One of my favorite poets, Gwendolyn Brooks, is someone I always turn to when words fail me. So today I rely once more on her wise words:

Say to them,
say to the down-keepers,
the sun-slappers,
the self-soilers,
the harmony-hushers,
“Even if you are not ready for day
it cannot always be night.”
You will be right.
For that is the hard home-run.
Live not for the battles won.
Live not for the end-of-the-song.
Live in the along.

“Speech to the Young, Speech to the Progress-Toward (Among Them Nora and Henry III)”
by Gwendolyn Brooks

La Lucha Continua! La Lucha Continua!

I received a few emails/tweets from readers asking for my thoughts about the conviction of two young men for raping a young woman (Jane Doe) in Steubenville, Ohio. Some wanted to know if I thought that “justice” was served. Others asked a variation of this question that came from a Twitter follower: “How do u respond to Steubenville case? How to remain survivor-centered but show that “rot in prison” is not an answer?” I had resolved not to write about the verdict and sentence but since I feel a responsibility to respond to the emails/tweets, I have decided to share my thoughts here today.

Those who don’t know the background about Jane Doe’s rape in Steubenville should read this excellent article. What she experienced is unacceptable, immoral and wrong. PERIOD. How she has continued to be treated in her community is unconscionable but unfortunately unsurprising. It points to how endemic rape culture is and also to the failure of a primarily criminal legal focused approach to eradicating sexual violence.

Currently, survivors of violence have one option for seeking public accountability for the harm that we experience: the courts. For a number of individual and systemic reasons, many survivors decide not to pursue this option. For example, rape can be hard to prove and as has been the case in Steubenville survivors are often blamed for our victimization. So those who do choose to pursue a legal avenue for accountability are often faced with a broken system that is usually unable to produce the outcomes that we seek. The truth is that the courts fail most survivors. This has led many advocates to suggest reforms that they say would make the courts more responsive to survivors’ needs. When reforms have been made however, they have mostly fallen short.

It’s no wonder then that news of a conviction in the Steubenville rape case was greeted with relief and in some cases optimism. This is perfectly understandable. Few rape cases ever even make it to trial. When they do, convictions are rare. Most people are very invested in the law and the legal system. They desperately want to believe that it can provide “justice.” This verdict feels like some vindication of that hope.

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It’s Women’s History Month and my friends are pretty great… My friend, Katy, made this coloring page illustration of Audre Lorde and the PIC. Feel free to copy and share with the young/older people in your lives. You can download the PDF HERE.

by Katy Groves

I compiled this list to share on Wednesday at the Free Angela Davis and All Political Prisoners screening and roundtable.

Special thanks to my Facebook friends for their help in crowd sourcing this list. I tried to make sure that there is at least one thing that someone can do on here.

1. Fight against the proposed CPS School closures. Community members and local organizations are packing meetings citywide to express their opposition to closing more schools in already devastated neighborhoods. OnMarch 8 from 6 to 8 p.m. testify at a Citywide People’s School Board Meeting. First Unitarian Church, 5650 S. Woodlawn Ave.

Join the Grassroots Education Movement on March 27 for a city wide rally to save public education. Contact organizing@ctulocal1.com or 312-329-6227 for more information about both opportunities.

2. Learn about and advocate for restorative and transformative justice. OnMarch 16, there will be a Southside Restorative Justice Expo from 9 to 1:30 p.m. Details are here.

3. Join the Mental Health Movement which is fighting to save our existing mental health clinics from closure in Chicago.

4. Interrupt the School-to-Prison Pipeline. Support the Yes to Counselors, No to More Cops in Schools Campaign. Find out more here.

5. Interrupt the School-to-Prison Pipeline. Teach youth how to catalogue police harassment and overdiscipline at school. Encourage youth to join existing coalitions like Voices of Youth in Chicago Education (VOYCE) to organize against harsh school discipline policies that lead to school pushout.

6. Support the young people from Fearless Leading by the Youth (FLY) as they organize to bring a needed trauma center to the Southside that will serve EVERYONE. Sign their petition here and organize with them here.

7. Close Dwight Prison Now – Tell your legislators (more information is forthcoming).

8. Learn about the history of policing, violence, and resistance. Attend a series of events starting March 18th. Details here.

9. Support the efforts of several community organizations to close the Cook County Juvenile Temporary Detention Center (JTDC) and re-direct the funds to community-based alternatives to detention and to programming that will support youth. Read their position paper.

10. Support youth-led efforts like the Street Youth Rise Up Campaign(organized by the Young Women’s Empowerment Project) which are documenting and organizing against institutional violence. Share their Bad Encounter Line report with others.

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I should probably take some time before I write about this but writing helps me figure out what I think. So here goes…

We are told that Hadiya Pendleton’s killer has been apprehended and has confessed to her murder. I am not a friend or family member of Hadiya’s. Perhaps those closest to her are feeling relief amidst their pain today. Understandable. Perhaps they are eagerly awaiting the trials and a guilty verdict. I don’t know. Maybe they are hopeful that the young man who killed their sister, cousin, friend and daughter will spend his life in prison. I haven’t heard or read anything to this effect but perhaps…

I anticipate the angry emails that are sure to come after I post this here. It won’t be the first time that something I have written provokes anger. I’ll surely be accused of coddling murderers. That’s OK. I might be accused of never having been victimized by violent crime. I have but that’s not important. Here’s what I have to say.

When I heard that two young black men had been arrested and charged with Hadiya’s death, I felt nothing but soul-deep sadness. No relief. No joy. Nothing but sadness. After my friend Dara posted their mug shot photos on Facebook, my sadness intensified in a way that was suffocating.

There are many reasons for my sadness. I will share a few. First, I am sad because of headlines like this one: “Chicago Teen Killed After Performing At Inauguration Was Victim of Gang Violence.” Why is this headline problematic? Because the reader will assume that he/she now understands what happened. The ThinkProgress post attributes shootings in Chicago to “rampant gang violence.” This is asserted as an incontrovertible fact. [Incidentally, the attorney of one of the suspects says that his client was not a gang member.] Still it’s the gangs, stupid.

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This post is going to be disjointed and disorganized. Feel free to skip reading it…

I am back from several days in Detroit where I attended the Allied Media Conference while also visiting friends. It was good to meet so many energetic, smart, and young people who are committed to social justice and transformation.

Today I want to write about the last workshop that I attended on Sunday which focused on how to address sexual violence through community accountability (without relying on police and prisons). The workshop was very ably facilitated by Philly Stands Up! If you don’t know about the organization and its work, you should take some time to familiarize yourself. The collective does wonderful transformative justice work.

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photo by Sam Love – Protesting to Close TAMMS

One of the prisons that the Governor will close is TAMMS-Supermax which I have written about several times on the blog. Simply put: TAMMS is a torture chamber where prisoners are kept locked in their cells for 23.5 hours a day. Many groups, particularly TAMMS YEAR TEN, have been advocating for years to close the facility. It is almost too much to believe that this might be coming to pass.

As a reminder of the mental torture that is incarceration, I want to share an excerpt from another letter written by Alfred Hassan, a prisoner whose letters were published in a 1972 book titled “Maximum Security: Letters from Prison.” His words are searing and powerful and true.

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