However this reality doesn’t change who i am. i am a descendant of Marilyn Buck, a revolutionary subject who has been forged through practice, sacrifice and accountability, who underwent rebirth, wherein my “whiteness” was destroyed. Nor does it dictate my politics. Overstanding that Amerikkka is a prison house of nations that are culturally and economically held in check by a garrison population of citizens who believe in amerikan exceptionalism, manifest destiny and the inherent inferiority of everyone but themselves, my guiding political line is Revolutionary Nationalism.

This is not assimilation into New Afrikan identity, it is to struggle for the liberation of New Afrikans under New Afrikan leadership. i know my place, it is not telling New Afrikans how to liberate themselves. That is not what i am doing in my writings. My politics are heavily influenced by some of the New Afrikan Nation’s keenest ideologues and theoreticians i.e. James Yaki Sayles, Sanyika Shakur, Bilal Sunni-Ali, Jalil Muntaqim, Shaka Shakur, Komrade Kwame Shakur and many others. Thus my writings are not to be taken as a directive, i am simply discerning what i am learning, which brings me to the following.

Recently i came across Aminata Umoja’s [of the New Afrikan People’s Organization] “Revolution Without Women Ain’t Happenin’” presentation that she gave at the 1993 “New Afrikan Women in the Field: Cultivating Our Legacy of Struggle” regional conference. Throughout this presentation she spoke on sexual oppression and the pathology of patriarchy and the urgency for redress.

Komrade Aminata’s presentation was so profound that it inspired me to write the following. I hope the reader finds what I have written useful and meaningful.

Without Women There Is No Revolution

It is imperative that we overstand women are not an “auxiliary” to national liberation—they are a central force in making a nation and building the people’s will, reproducing the culture, holding the line under repression, organizing the revolutionary transformation of family, gender relations and community life. Any liberation strategy that does not place women’s leadership, protection and ideological struggle at the center is simply incomplete—it reproduces the same colonial-patriarchal social order that the revolution claims to abolish.

This thesis argues four interlocked claims:

1. Women have historically provided the organizational backbone of liberation struggles—from mass mobilization to underground resilience to prison resistance—often while confronting both state violence and internal patriarchal conditions.

2. National liberation requires social transformation, not only a change of flags or boundaries. Women’s liberation is therefore not “after the revolution” but a measure of whether the revolution is real.

3. The colonizer uses gender violence as counterinsurgency. Sexual violence, family separation, criminalization of mothers, and “welfare policing” are not side issues, they are strategic weapons against nationhood.

4. A liberated nation demands revolutionary gender practice: women in command, collective care systems, accountable revolutionary relationships, protection from gender harm, and political education that uproots mail supremacy as a colonial implant.

What follows is a revolutionary nationalist framework, grounded in the guidance of New Afrikan writers who have had the greatest impact on my transformation—from a criminal mentality to a revolutionary mentality .

1. Women as Nation–Builders: Beyond Symbol, Into Structure.

Revolutionary nationalism overstands “nation” as more than territory: it is people with a shared historical experience, kulture, political consciousness and collective will-developing institutions and organizations capable of self-determination. In that sense, women are nation builders in at least three concrete ways:

Reproduction of the Nation: Not Biology – Political Continuity

Women’s role in sustaining the people is often reduced to childbirth, which is the most colonial way to talk about it. The revolutionary point is not biological reproduction, it is political continuity: raising consciousness, transmitting kulture, defending memory, and turning daily survival into organized resistance.

Assata Shakur’s writing is instructive here because she refused to separate the personal from the political. She described how state power targets the intimate sphere—love, family, motherhood and identity—not as “private drama” but as battleground. Her insistence that the struggle must include the everyday realities of women is itself a political line: revolution that cannot protect women’s dignity cannot protect a nation.

Mass Work and “Survival Pending Revolution”

Liberation movements have repeatedly depended on what might be called the infrastructure of care: food programs, political education for youth, mutual aid, medical support, legal support, visitation networks, commissary support, and defense committees. These arenas are often feminized—treated as support—yet historically they are core to maintaining a movement under repression.

This is why the Black Panther Party tradition matters here: women ran programs, chapters, and political education, often holding organizations together during intense COINTELPRO contradiction: men praising “the people” while resisting women’s leadership over them. The lesson is transferable: the revolution must restructure gender power inside the movement, not just denounce it outside.

Women as Strategist, Organizers, and Combatants (in the broad revolutionary sense)

“Combat” here is not a romantic slogan, it includes security kulture, clandestine logistics, communications discipline, political leadership and community defense. Safiyah Bukhari-Alston’s life and writing reflect the totality: she moved across community organizing, underground conditions, imprisonment and continued political work after a release from prison—demonstrating that women are not merely “participants”, but strategic actors across every terrain the struggle is forced to operate on.

A liberation movement that recognizes women only as mourners, girlfriends, or “behind the scenes helpers” is not revolutionary nationalism it is patriarchal nationalism wearing a radical mask.

2. The Colonizer’s Gender War: Why Women are Targeted

A revolutionary nationalist analysis treats gender oppression as a colonial tool. It is not an accident that the state’s violence has a gendered shape, it is policy, practice, and psychological warfare.

Sexual Violence as Counterinsurgency

From slavery’s plantation terror to modern and prisons and policing, sexual violence has been a weapon to break collective will—used to humiliate, intimidate and fragment communities. When the people’s women are made unsafe the entire nation is destabilized: relationships fracture, trust collapses, and fear becomes a governing force.

Revolutionary nationalism must therefore treat protection from gendered violence—inside and outside the movement—as a national security issue, not a “women’s issue”.

Criminalization of Motherhood and the Family-Separation Regime

Family separation—through foster systems, incarceration, child welfare policing, housing displacement, and economic coercion—functions as a structural attack on nationhood. A people who cannot keep their families intact or raise children free from state interference is a people under occupation.

Women of oppressed nations, particularly New Afrikan women disproportionately carry the burden of this occupation: navigating courts, schools, hospitals, social services, and prisons. That daily navigation becomes political when it is organized—when it turns from individual survival into collective resistance.

The Prison as a Gender Factory

Prisons do not only cage people, they attempt to reshape them. Women in prison face layered punishments—medical neglect, sexual-harassment, separation from children, and public stigma. Revolutionary prison writing—by New Afrikan and allied radicals—show that imprisonment is designed to produce despair and compliance. Women’s prison resistance therefore is not marginal to the national question, it is front-line.

Jalil Muntaquim and other New Afrikan political prisoners have long emphasized prisons as instruments of gender war—and why women’s leadership in prisoner support, political education, and re-entry organizing is decisive.

3. Internal Contradictions: Patriarchy as a Colonial Implant Within the Nation

Revolutionary nationalism is not immune to contradiction, in fact, nationalism can become reactionary if it preserves patriarchy, heterosexism and gendered domination “for the sake of unity”. That false unity always protects men’s power at women’s expense—and then calls women “divisive” for demanding liberation.

Patriarchy Reproduces Colonial Social Relations

The oppressed nations within the US empire cannot be built with colonial gender relations intact. If men command and women serve; if women are silenced, exploited or harmed, if leadership is male by default—then what is being built is not liberation but a darker copy of the oppressor’s order.

This is why many revolutionary women insisted on a line of two-front struggle: against the state and against male supremacy inside the movement. The point is not moral perfection, it is political necessity. A nation that oppresses half its people cannot mobilize its full strength.

Revolutionary Discipline and Accountability Must Include Gender Harm

Movements often develop rules for security, money, and loyalty but become vague on sexual coercion, domestic abuse, and harassment—treating them as “private matters”. A revolutionary nationalist framework must reject that. Gender harm weakens discipline, destroys trust and gives the state leverage for infiltration and blackmail. Protecting women is not only ethical, it is strategic.

Women’s Leadership is Not Optional Representation

“Add more women“ is not liberation. The line must be: women lead because they have proven leadership, because the nation requires it, and because leadership must reflect the total reality of the people. Anything less becomes tokenism.

Assata Shakur’s refusal to be reduced—her insistence on political clarity, dignity and self definition—models this principle: women do not ask permission to be revolutionary subjects.

4. The Revolutionary Tasks Women Advance in National Liberation

Here are concrete revolutionary tasks women have historically driven—and must continue to drive—within a national liberation strategy:

Political Education: Producing Consciousness, Not Followers

Women have often served as political educators in homes, community programs, visiting rooms, and informal networks. Political education is not just reading lists—it is training people to interpret their conditions, recognize enemy tactics and practice collective discipline.

A movement that does not educate its women is disarming itself. A movement that educates women but does not follow their analysis is insulting itself.

Building People’s Institutions

Women’s organizing has been foundational and building institutions that look like early forms of state power: mutual aid networks, community conflict resolution, childcare collectives, health support, legal defense and communications. In revolutionary nationalist terms these are not “charities”—they are embryonic organs of self-determination.

Transforming the Family as a Revolutionary Unit

The colonizer’s family model often rests on male domination and women’s unpaid labor. National liberation for the oppressed nations here in the u.s. demands a new model: collective responsibility, protection of children, shared labor, and relationships rooted in consent and accountability.

A revolutionary family is not one where a man is “head” and a woman is “support”, it is one where everyone is politically developed, materially secured, and emotionally safe.

Kulture Work: Memory, Language, Art, Ritual and Spirit

Nationhood requires kulture: memory of struggle, honoring ancestors, producing art that teaches, and developing rituals that unify. Women have often been guardians of memory and kulture—yet also innovators who turn kulture into a weapon against assimilation. Kulture is not decoration, it is political technology.

5. Programmatic Principles for a Woman-Centered National Liberation Line

To make this thesis actionable revolutionary nationalist movements should adopt principles like these:

• Women’s leadership at every level (cadre, education, security, diplomacy, institutions).

• Zero tolerance for gender violence and coercion—with clear accountability processes.

• Collective care as revolutionary infrastructure (childcare, health support, prisoner support, mutual aid).

• Political education that targets patriarchy as counterrevolutionary. Protection of women as national defense—including combating harassment, abuse and state targeting.

• A liberation vision where women’s freedom is a benchmark, not a promise deferred.

These are not “women’s demands”. They are national survival requirements.

Conclusion: A Nation Cannot be Free Without Women’s Liberation

We do not treat women as an interest group inside of the nation. Women are a decisive segment of the nation, their condition reflects the nation’s condition. When women are unsafe, undervalued or silenced the nation is occupied—externally by the state and internally by patriarchal power.

Women’s liberation is therefore not a side struggle to be postponed until “after victory”. It is part of what victory means. Nationhood is not merely something to be declared, it is something to be built—through organization, consciousness, kulture, and transformed social relations. Women have been building it all along. The task now is to align the movement’s line with that truth—so the nation that emerges is not only independent, but genuinely liberated.

In the spirit of Assata Shakur,

Komrade Shine White

Suggested reading list:

1. American Nation or Aryan Nation: White Women and the Coming of Black Genocide by Bottomfish Blues

2. Patriarchy and Accumulation on a World Scale by Maria Mies

3. The Black Woman: An Anthology by Toni Cade Bambara

Still on hunger strike. 6 others joined. Maybe more by now.

i will remain on hunger strike until you hear my actual voice for yourself! Period! i agreed to stop strike the other day when they promised i could call home if i stop. That did not happen!

On 3/8 a prisoner was found dead in his cell. After asking for medical attention!

Entire prison has been on lockdown for a few days. By the time you get this if you haven’t heard my actual voice for yourself DO NOT STOP. Do not give up on me or my komrades!

My mail is coming through but i know it’s not all of it since you are referencing other letters I have yet to receive. Keep writing. Keep it going! i am here! i am holding on!

CALL/EMAIL

• Stephen Jacobs — Director, South Central Region

  ☎️: 910-565-1473 and ask for Director Jacobs

  📧: stephen.jacobs@dac.nc.gov

• Mary Locklear — Warden, Scotland Correctional Institution

  ☎️: 910-301-1712

  📧: mary.locklear@dac.nc.gov

• Scotland Correctional Institution

  ☎️: 910-390-4700

SAMPLE SCRIPT:

“Hello, I am calling about Joseph Stewart, OPUS #0802041. Joseph describes the conditions at Scotland Correctional as some of the worst he has ever experienced.

Joseph began a hunger strike on February 24th and will remain on hunger strike until the following demands are met: 1) he is given phone time to talk with loved ones and 2) he is provided a tablet and regular access to his mail.

I am also requesting that Disability Rights NC and the ACLU of NC immediately investigate Scotland Correctional for violations of NCDAC Institutions Policy and Procedures Manual, Chapter O Section .0300 - Conditions and Confinement including but not limited to:

• Prison staff exacerbating inmate mental illness through physical abuse, neglect, and psychological torture in the form of solitary confinement.

• Prison staff denying prisoners mental health care and appointments with prison psychologists by falsely claiming that prisoners don’t want their appointments.

• Prison staff failing to conduct hourly rounds and scheduled security checks.

• Prisoners being denied the opportunity to exercise outside of their cell, even though policy states they have a right to outside rec 5 times a week.

Thank you for your attention to this urgent matter.”

TIPS

• Begin by using a respectful tone. Escalate if/when necessary.

• Do not mention Shine by name until time to read script.

• Wait to read script until transferred to the appropriate line.

• Leave a message if sent to voicemail.

• If comfortable, feel free to mention any relevant titles you hold (Ex: Clergy, Dr., Lawyer, etc.) or the State you are calling from—no need to be hyper-specific. It is important that NCDAC officials know that influential people from around the country support Shine and are aware of the conditions in NC prisons.

The past four months has been a constant struggle. i’ve been attacked, gassed, beaten, tased, subjected to thirst, starvation, and held incommunicado all @ the hands of my overseers. After ending a 42-day hunger strike in December i was transferred from Central Prison to Scotland Correctional where in 2018 after organizing around the 2018 National Prison Strike, guards broke my writing hand with a baton after i had wrote a expose shedding light on the inhumane living conditions here we’re subjected to. Eight years later the same conditions exist.

Prior to my recent transfer I was asked by my partner and a couple of my komrades on the outside to avoid confrontation with my overseers and try not to provoke them. i agreed and promised to “stay out of the way” which i have done despite their ongoing reprisals.

Upon my arrival here i was placed in a cell where the entire ceiling was/is covered with black mold, i immediately informed the staff and the on duty Sgt, nothing was done. For the past two-months i have been breathing the mold in, last week my eyes began to water and burn and i started having headaches. Yet i remain patient.

After being here for a month out of nowhere all of my incoming mail via TextBehind began to be rejected. When those on the outside attempted to message me their messages were rejected and they received a notification stating “This prisoner is unable to receive mail at this time.” (see attachment) For over two-weeks all my mail was denied. After my supporters on the outside called/emailed prison administrators seeking redress was the “glitch fixed,” which is what those who called were told. However, Facility Intelligence Lt. Peuitte (SRG) who i’ve known for years, who has always been solid, informed me that a ranking prison official outside the facility has contacted TextBehind and instructed them not to process any of my mail.

Subsequently after the “glitch” was fixed my tablet (which is how i receive my mail, access the NCDAC policy & procedures and the law library) come up missing. i’ve been without a tablet for over a month now, the mailroom was instructed to print out all my incoming mail and send it to me. However when a particular Sgt, Sgt Plowman works i never receive my mail. It isn’t because i’m not getting mail, my partner and supporters message me daily.

This past week it was revealed that Sgt Plowman has been withholding my mail and books. Lt. Peuitte personally searched the mailroom and found a dictionary that was missing, while another guard happened to look in Sgt Plowman’s locker/box and discovered 13 of my letters and 3 of my books. When questioned about it he claimed he has confiscated them from another prisoner. LIE.

This is the same Sgt who when during showers he always claims that i refuse my shower. He is the same Sgt who when feeding gives me ghost trays (trays with no food on them). But i have remained patient.

For the past month i’ve been living off of fruit, packs of peanut butter and canteen when my partner and komrades are able to send the funds.

i don’t want y’all thinking that i am being hyperbolic, it’s a fact that certain guards have been messing with my food. A guard that sympathizes with my situation informed me that her co-workers have spit in my food and have sprayed my food with mace. But i have remained patient.

However, what i am unable to remain patient about is how those around me are being mistreated. When it comes to this my patience has been stretched to its limit, stretched to the point it is beginning to resemble cowardice.

Scotland Correctional is one of the few close-custody facilities that houses prisoners who suffer from mental disorders, who receive psychotropic medications. Hence you would think prison officials would take the necessary steps to prioritize engendering a safe environment for these prisoners. However they have been deliberately indifferent in doing so.

Prisoners assigned to this unit who are in need of psychiatric treatment must contend with conditions that exacerbate their illness while receiving less treatment than they would in a normal prison setting.

The dearth of psychiatric treatment and the abuse, neglect and unprofessionalism that runs rampant on this unit is due to there being a lack of meaningful oversight and this prison being extremely under-staffed. The deficiencies in the day-to-day operations of this unit have been longstanding, persistent and well documented. Warden Mary Locklear, who is responsible for establishing, monitoring and enforcing policy directives and procedures that would ensure constitutional confinement and treatment of all prisoners assigned to this unit has done the total opposite. Which is why:

• Mental health treatment on this unit is non-existing—of course we agree that prison staff cannot be placed in the position of guaranteeing that prisoners will not harm themselves or commit suicide. On the other hand, if such staff know or should know of the particular vulnerability, to self-harm of suicide of a prisoner, the 14th Amendment imposes on them an obligation not to act with reckless indifference to that vulnerability. Their way of dealing with the unstable prisoner is with brute force or excessively using their mace. And the psychiatric treatment is a joke. It consists of perfunctory visits @ the door of the prisoner’s cell.

• Majority of the staff assignment to this unit fail to conduct their hourly rounds—pursuant to Chapter [O, Section .0300 - Conditions of Confinement] of the NCDAC Policy & Procedures manual: “Housing officers will make rounds of their assigned block at least every hour. All rounds will be documented via the electronic rounds tablet.

  “The unit sergeant will make rounds on head block at least twice per 12 hour shift. All rounds will be documented via the electronic rounds tablet.”

i am always truthful when reporting on the conditions within these prisons, thus i need to point out there are some Sgt and officers who make their rounds. However you have sergeants like Sgt Plowman who does no rounds nor does he ensure his subordinates are making their rounds. i.e. on the night of 2-27-26 and the early of 2-28-26 no rounds were made by him or his subordinates. Both the camera and the electronic rounds tablet will confirm this.

Why is making rounds important? As i aforementioned this unit houses prisoners who have been diagnosed having mental disorders and the isolation of this unit heightens the risk of suicide and with there being no working call-buttons in these cells it is of grave importance that staff make hourly rounds. If anything was to go wrong; we are completely dependent upon the rounds staff are supposed to make.

• Prisoners are being denied the opportunity to exercise outside their cell—i have been here now for over two-months and i’ve been afforded the opportunity to rec twice.

Pursuant to Chapter O Section [0.300 - Conditions of Confinement] “Offenders assigned to RHCP [Restrictive Housing for Control Purposes] WILL be afforded the opportunity to exercise outside the cell one hour per day, five days a week. Outdoor exercise cells should be used as the primary exercise area except during inclement weather, in which the indoor cages will be used.”

There is a broad consensus among mental health professionals, U.S. courts and international bodies as to the serious risk that solitary confinement poses to the mental and physical health of prisoners, even prisoners who are otherwise healthy. Restriction of environmental stimulation exacerbates symptoms of mental illnesses and can increase the risk of suicide. However, despite several prisoners writing grievances about the denial of recreation, we are continued to be denied any form of recreation.

People, a punishment need not leave physical scars to be cruel and unusual. Nothing can undo what we are experiencing here, but steps must be taken nevertheless to engender humane living conditions here on this unit.

The use of solitary confinement raises a number of issues, many of which relate to the balance between respecting the human rights of prisoners housed on this unit, while at the same time protecting other prisoners and prison staff from physical harm. At the crux of this balance is meaningful oversight.

Unlike prisons, however, other public institutions benefit from “natural constituencies,” or empowered consumers who have a vested interest in maintaining certain performance standards and highlighting instances when those standards are not met. In contrast, prisons house disempowered individuals who lack the necessary political capital to advocate for oversight that could improve Our daily living conditions. Meaningful oversight helps prevent a prison’s “natural drift” towards abuse, neglect and other forms of unconstitutional treatment.

In the RHCP setting, staff hold the power to control our lives, but this power is exercised in a space from which those on the outside are barred. This secrecy places all of us here @ risk and cultivates a belief among staff that they can do as they please and that they know their job is secure due to the systemic staff shortages.

Those who are responsible for promulgation of the policies and procedures and allowance of the aforementioned practices/customs must be held accountable.

South Central Regional Director Stephen Jacobs, Warden Mary Locklear and those who oversee this unit, Mrs. Jernegins, have demonstrated that they do not care about how prisoners are being treated here @ Scotland Correctional. Therefore i entreat that those reading this bring these issues to the attention of the following:

Call/email South Central Regional Director Stephen Jacobs & Warden Mary Locklear demanding that the conditions on this unit improve, inform both that we are demanding an internal investigation be conducted by Disability Rights NC and the ACLU of NC.

Stephen Jacobs — Director, South Central Region

• 910-565-1473 and ask for Director Jacobs

• stephen.jacobs@dac.nc.gov

Mary Locklear — Warden, Scotland Correctional

• 910-301-1712

• mary.locklear@dac.nc.gov

Call/email NC [House] Representative Robert Reives. As his constituents we demand an internal investigation be conducted into the ongoings here @ Scotland Correctional.

Robert Reives — NC House Representative

• 919-733-0057

• Robert.Reives@ncleg.gov

Call/email Senator Natalie Murdock and demand that she intervenes and uses her position to ensure an internal investigation be conducted in the ongoings here @ Scotland Correctional.

Natalie Murdock — NC Senator

• 919-733-4599

• Natalie.Murdock@ncleg.gov

Lastly, I ask the reader to call/email Disability Rights NC and ask them to utilize the working relationship they have with NCDAC officials to help redress the foregoing issue here @ Scotland Correctional.

Disability Rights NC

• 919-856-2195 and select option 7

• Sign their End Solitary NC Petition

i have only scratched the surface of the wrongdoings that occur daily on this unit, they have been longstanding and will continue to exist until we do M.O.R.E. [Mobilizing, Organizing, Revolutionizing, and Educating] to address them. i am asking that all of you struggle with us and help us carry out a campaign that will bring an end to the abuse, neglect and the unaccountability.

📌Update (3/10): As of a letter dated 3/3/26, Shine stated that his cell was partially cleaned by janitors. He had to acquire makeshift cleaning supplies to complete the job. Due to the delay between communications, there has been confusion about the amount of time Shine was on strike. All signs indicate that his demands were met shortly after his strike began. Thanks to everyone who participated. Stay tuned for a new call to action.

After being held at Central Prison’s Urgent Care unit for over 2-months recovering from my hunger strike i was transferred to Scotland Correctional, where in 2018 guards broke my writing hand with a baton after i wrote an article that was published in the San Francisco Bay View exposing inhumane living conditions prisoners were subjected to.

After i had organized a mass hunger strike on the Restrictive Housing Unit here and two guards were assaulted then SRG (Gang Intelligence Staff) Captain Henderson had me emergency transferred to Granville Correctional wherein i was placed on Supermax.

Upon my arrival here approximately two months ago i was placed in a cell in which the entire ceiling is covered with Black Mold. i immediately informed staff as well as several Ranking Officials to no avail. i was told “You’ll be alright you’re a Big Bad Revolutionary.”

Subsequently all my incoming mail had been stopped. Those on the outside who attempted to write me via TextBehind received notifications that i wasn’t allowed to receive mail as this time. This went on for over two weeks only after my partner and supporters on the outside began to apply pressure was the “glitch” corrected.

Immediately after this my tablet was confiscated. At first i was told that SRG confiscated it. However after constantly inquiring about why my tablet was confiscated i was informed that NCDAC officials in Raleigh’s offices suspended my tablet.

For prisoners housed on Restrictive Housing the tablets are used to access our mail, the law library and NCDAC’s policies and procedures. However being that i have no tablet my mail is printed out and given to me @ night on night shift. Sometimes it is given to me sometimes it isn’t. Then out of spite when it is given to me, they wait until its time for 1st shift to return before giving it to me.

Returning to the issue with the mold. It has begun to give me headaches, cause my eyes to burn and my nose to run. i’ve submitted sick calls to be seen by medical staff. Just as my DC-410 [internal grievance] forms, my sick calls have went unanswered.

i am asking that the reader and all of my supporters please contact [South] Central Regional Director Stephen Jacobs and Scotland Warden Mary Locklear and demand that the retaliation cease and my tablet be returned immediately.

i am sending this out on 2-22-26. i will start my hunger strike on 2-24-26 and will remain on it until the foregoing issues are redressed.

i’m here, i’m alive, i’m struggling

CALL AND READ SCRIPT TO

• Stephen Jacobs — South Central Region Director

  ☎️: 910-565-1473 (ask to be put through to Director Jacobs)

• Mary Locklear — Warden, Scotland Correctional Institution

  ☎️: 910-390-4700 (ask to be put through to Warden Locklear)

EMAIL

• Stephen Jacobs — South Central Region Director

  📧: stephen.jacobs@dac.nc.gov

• Cynthia Thornton — Deputy Secretary, Institutions Admin. Programs & Standards

  📧: cynthia.thornton@dac.nc.gov

• Peter Buchholtz — Deputy Secretary, Institutions Operations

  📧: peter.buchholtz@dac.nc.gov

SAMPLE SCRIPT:

Hello,

I am calling about Joseph Stewart, OPUS #0802041. Joseph describes the conditions at Scotland Correctional as some of the worst he has ever experienced, including no recreation, not enough food, and broken toilets. For over two months Joseph has been stuck in a cell contaminated by black mold, causing him headaches, burning in his eyes, and nose irritation. He has filed grievances about this through the proper channels (sick calls and DC-410 forms) and they have all been disregarded. Joseph also has not had access to a tablet for over a month and has had his mail stopped without explanation.

Joseph began a hunger strike on February 24th and has stated that he will remain on hunger strike until the following demands are met: 1) immediate removal of the mold in his cell and 2) that he be given a tablet and regular access to his mail.

I would also like to request immediate attention to the following policy violations occurring at Scotland Correctional:

• Prisoners receiving no recreation, even though policy states they are supposed to have recreation 5 times a week.

• Prisoners being allowed far fewer showers than prison policy states, as well as being denied haircuts and shaves.

• Prison staff not making scheduled security checks. Some nights there are no staff present at all.

• Prison staff denying prisoners their appointments with prison psychologists by falsely telling the psychologists the prisoners don’t want their appointments.

• Prisoners not being afforded the opportunity to clean their cells, when prison policy states they are to be allowed to clean their cells once a week.

• Prisoners’ cells are filled with mold. Staff have been notified but it has not been removed.

• Prisoners are afraid to file grievances due to staff threatening to beat them and deny them food.

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

TIPS

• Begin by using a respectful tone. Escalate if/when necessary.

• Do not mention Shine by name until time to read script.

• Wait to read script until transferred to the appropriate line.

• Leave a message if sent to voicemail.

• If comfortable, feel free to mention any relevant titles you hold (Ex: Clergy, Dr., Lawyer, etc.) or the State you are calling from—no need to be hyper-specific. It is important that NCDAC officials know that influential people from around the country support Shine and are aware of the conditions in NC prisons.

Anti-racism, abolitionism, allyship—these have become the sacramental language of liberal redemption. But in reality this is a fantasy.

It is not enough for “white” people to oppose racism. Racism is not an attitude error, it is a material relation. It is not sustained by ignorance alone but by land theft, stolen labor, state power, and a socialized class structure that grants wages—psychic and material—to those classified as “white”. To oppose racism while clinging to whiteness as a social identity is to oppose the symptoms while defending the disease.

Franz Fanon warned Us long ago that the colonizer who wishes to remain “moral” without ceasing to be a colonizer is engaged in a contradiction that can only be resolved through rupture. In Wretched of the Earth, Fanon wrote that the colonial world is “a world divided into compartments” and that this division is not simply spatial or kultural but ontological—a division of being itself. One is either on the side of the colonized or the colonizer. There is no neutral ground.

You see whiteness is not merely a phenotype. It is a political identity forged in the crucible of slavery, settler colonialism, and counter-revolution. It is an identity that cannot be reformed, only abolished. Thus, for those who identify as “white” the question is not whether you are anti-racist, but whether you are willing to commit class suicide, destroy whiteness as a lived identity and be reborn into a revolutionary peoplehood. Anything less is charity, charity is not liberation.

Whiteness as a Class Position, Not a Moral Failure

Liberal discourse treats racism as a defect of the heart or mind. New Afrikan Revolutionary Nationalism (NARN) overstands racism as a structural technology of class rule. Whiteness functions as a cross-class alliance among Europeans and their descendents, binding poor whites to the ruling class through shared access to stolen land, elevated social status, and protection by the colonial state. This is why anti-racism without class suicide is incoherent. Atiba Shanna [James Yaki Sayles] in his book Meditations on Frantz Fanon’s Wretched of the Earth made it clear for Us that the colonial subject is not only oppressed by force, but by a system that recruits inter-mediaries, buffers and collaborators. Whiteness, in the settler colony, is precisely such an intermediary identity. It recruits even the poorest white worker into the project of domination by offering them distance from the colonized and proximity to power.

Thus when a “white” person declares themselves an “ally” while remaining invested in the wages of whiteness—property rights, police protection, national identity, kultural centrality— they are not breaking with colonialism. They are renegotiating their role within it.

Fanon describes this phenomenon when he critiques the “colonized intellectual” who wishes to humanize colonialism rather than destroy it. The same critique applies here. White anti-racists who seek inclusion within the moral economy of the oppressed, without serving their material and political ties to whiteness, are attempting to humanize an inhuman structure.

This is counter-revolutionary.

Why Abolitionism Alone Cannot Save You

In recent years, abolition has become a fashionable word. Police abolition. Prison abolition. Border abolition. Yet too often abolition is framed as a policy demand rather than a total transformation of social relations.

For New Afrikans abolition is inseparable from national liberation. The Police are not an accidental institution, they are the domestic army of a settler state built on the capture of control of Black bodies. Prisons are not broken, they are functioning exactly as designed.

White abolitionists who oppose prisons but do not oppose the settler state that requires them are engaging in abstraction. You wish to dismantle the tool without dismantling the hand that wields them.

Fanon warned that reforms offered by the colonizer are designed to stabilize domination, not end it. Abolition that does not challenge land ownership, sovereignty, and national oppression becomes another reform—a safer, kinder colonialism

This is why abolition is insufficient without disidentification from whiteness. Whiteness is the political identity that authorizes the police, legitimizes the prison, and sanctifies the border. To oppose these institutions while remaining white is to oppose the consequences while affirming the cause

Class Suicide: The Necessary Betrayal

Fanon introduces one of the most dangerous ideas in revolutionary theory: class suicide. He argued that for a revolution to succeed, certain classes must annihilate themselves as classes. This is not metaphorical. It means abandoning the material interests, social privileges, and ideological commitments that bind one to the old order.

As one of the founders of the Class-Suicide theory, Amilcar Cabral, the revolutionary leader from Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde explained:

Class suicide by the revolutionary petit-bourgeois leadership amounts to listening to its own revolutionary consciousness and the culture of revolution rather than acting on its immediate material interests as a social class. It must sacrifice its class position, privileges and power through identification with the working masses.1

In this formation the danger for revolutionaries from relatively privileged classes is not just material co-optation but ideological assimilation into the dominant kulture and economic interests that keep the oppressed in subjection

For Whites of the oppressor nation, class suicide necessarily includes social suicide/white supremacy suicide.

To commit class suicide as a white person means:

• Renouncing the privileges of settler colonial status/whiteness: this involves not only economic and social privileges but also the internalized assumptions that accompany them.

• Centering the voices and political goals of the New Afrikan Nation: advocates from outside the New Afrikan Nation must avoid commanding or defining the struggle on behalf of the New Afrikan Nation.

• Transforming one’s own identity and practice through long-term engagement: Genuine solidarity is not a one-off action but a sustained process of learning, unlearning, accountability, and shared struggle.

• Subordinating oneself to the leadership and discipline of the New Afrikan nation: Fanon was ruthless on this point. He argued that the colonized must lead their own liberation, not because they are morally superior but because only they have an objective interest in destroying the colonial system completely. Those who benefit from the system, even marginally, will always be tempted to compromise.

This is not self-flagellation. It is political rebirth.

Atilba emphasized that Fanon did not call for guilt, but for transformation. Guilt leaves the structure intact. Transformation destroys it. The white revolutionary must cease to exist as white and come into being as something else—a revolutionary subject forged through practice, sacrifice, and accountability.

This is why New Afrikans have always been and should always be wary of white participation that is not grounded in discipline. History is littered with examples of white radicals who retreated the moment the struggle demanded real loss—loss of status, loss of safety, loss of legitimacy.

Social Development Written in Disappearance

For those of us who study social development eventually notice a pattern: when the struggle intensifies, white radicals disappear.

They are present at the beginning—at the rallies, the study groups, the early organizing meetings. They speak the language fluently. They quote Marx, Angela Davis etc… They wear the symbols, chant the slogans, post the statements. But when the struggle moves from discourse to danger, from critique to confrontation, from protest to power, the numbers thin. When repression comes, when stakes rise, when consequences sharpen, many retreat back into the safety of whiteness.

This is not a personal failure. It is a structural tendency. White nationalism in the settler colony has historically functioned as a pressure valve rather than a revolutionary force. It absorbs dissent, gives it an aesthetic and a vocabulary and then disperses when the system threatens to impose real costs. The retreat is often justified in the language of “strategy”, “self-care”, or “long-term sustainability” but the culture is the same: abandonment of the oppressed at a moment when solidarity is most needed.

This pattern is not mysterious, it is the predictable result of a radicalism that refuses to sever itself from whiteness as a class position.

Whiteness as an Escape Hatch

Whiteness is not just privilege. When repression intensifies, white radicals possess options that New Afrikans do not. They can relocate without suspicion. They can blend back into civil society. They can be reabsorbed into institutions—universities, nonprofits, media outlets etc…—that reward dissent so long as it is detached from revolutionary consequences.

New Afrikans do not have this luxury. The State does not allow Us to become neutral. New Afrikans are marked bodies within a racialized colonial order. Even Our silence is read as a threat. Even our reformism is criminalized. There is no retreat into innocence for a people whose very existence is framed as a problem to be managed.

This asymmetry produces a fundamental contradiction in multiracial movements that refuse to confront whiteness directly. When risk escalates, those who can leave often do. Those who can’t are left to face repression alone. Fanon overstood this dynamic clearly. In The Wretched of the Earth, he observed that the colonized have no interest in gradualism because they live under conditions that make patience lethal. The colonizer—and those aligned with the colonizer—can afford delay. Delay is itself a privilege.

White radicals who have not committed class suicide retain access to delay. That access shapes their politics whether they acknowledge it or not.

Liberal Co-optation and the Professionalization of Dissent

One of the most effective counterinsurgency strategies of the settler state has been the professionalization of white dissent.

Universities, foundations, media institutions, and nonprofit organizations absorb white radicals by converting rebellion into expertise. The Revolutionary becomes a consultant. The organizer becomes a program officer. The abolitionist becomes a policy analyst. The language remains radical, but the function changes

Atiba Shanna warned, following Fanon, that the greatest danger to revolutionary struggle is not repression alone, but co-optation that redirects revolutionary energy into harmless channels. White radicals are especially vulnerable to this process because the system is designed to rehabilitate them.

The settler state has no interest in rehabilitating New Afrikans as revolutionaries. It seeks to neutralize Us through imprisonment, surveillance, or death. White radicals by contrast, are offered platforms, grants, fellowship and visibility—provided they translate liberation into reform and revolution into rhetoric.

This is how White radicalism becomes a career rather than a commitment. You see this is not simply hypocrisy. It is a function of class position. Whiteness allows dissent to be monetized rather than punished. That fact alone disqualifies unruptured white radicalism from revolutionary leadership.

The Myth of Equal Partnership

i touched on why white radicals must submit to the leadership of New Afrikans/the oppressed earlier, however i feel the need to elucidate upon it more in depth here.

Calls for “equal partnership”, “shared leadership” and “coalition politics” often obscure the reality that New Afrikans are an oppressed nation, not a demographic interest group.

Coalitions that refuse to acknowledge national oppression reproduce colonial dynamics under a progressive banner. They ask the colonized to negotiate their liberation with members of the colonizing group who have not relinquished their structural power.

As i pointed out earlier, Fanon was ruthless on this point. He argued that the colonized must lead their own liberation, not because they are morally superior, but because only they have an objective interest in destroying the colonial system completely. Those who benefit from the system even marginally, will always be tempted to compromise.

NARN therefore rejects the idea that leadership should be shared simply because oppression is interconnected. Interconnection does not erase hierarchy. Solidarity does not erase contradiction.

White radicals who resist New Afrikan leadership often do so unconsciously, framing their resistance as concern about “authoritarianism”, “exclusivity”, or “identity politics”. But beneath these concerns lies an unwillingness to relinquish control.

Class suicide requires precisely that relinquishment.

Betrayal as a Political Category

From the perspective of the oppressed, betrayal is not an emotional accusation—it is a political category.

When White radicals retreat, moderate, or defect under pressure, the consequences are borne disproportionately by New Afrikans. Informants are produced. Movements are exposed. Security kultures are weakened. Strategies are diluted. The cost of white retreat is paid in New Afrikans’ imprisonment and death.

The historical memory informs New Afrikan skepticism. Distrust is not cynicism, it is survival.

Atiba emphasized that Fanon did not romanticize unity. He insisted that unity must be forged through struggle and tested through crisis. Those who remain when the cost is high demonstrate their commitment. Those who leave reveal the limits of theirs.

Why this History Demands Class Suicide

The repeated failures of white radicalism are not inevitable. They are the result of an unresolved contradiction: attempting to wage revolution while remaining socially white.

Class suicide is the only mechanism capable of resolving this contradiction. It eliminates the escape hatch. It forecloses the option of retreat. It binds the individual’s fate to that of the New Afrikan Nation.

As i aforesaid, when a white person commits class suicide:

• Your material interests no longer align with the settler order.

• Your safety is no longer guaranteed by racial identity.

• Your future becomes inseparable from the success of the liberation struggle.

Only under these conditions does solidarity become structurally reliable.

This is why the Republic of New Afrika does not—and cannot—base inclusion on sentiment or ideology alone. Revolutionary movements that fail to draw these lines invite sabotage, dilution and collapse

The Door is Narrow

Anti-racism is not enough. Abolition is not enough. Even Solidarity is not enough if it is not accompanied by rupture.

The door into revolutionary identity is narrow because liberation is not a performance—it is a transformation. For white people, that transformation demands betrayal: betrayal of Whiteness, of the settler state, of inherited privilege.

Only on the other side of that betrayal does the possibility of revolutionary belonging emerge.

New Afrikan Revolutionary Nationalism does not deny the possibility of white revolutionaries. It denies the possibility of revolutionary whiteness. Those are not the same.

Only those who have broken decisively with whiteness, who have accepted New Afrikan leadership, who have demonstrated loyalty through sustained practice, may be recognized as komrades and under specific conditions granted forms of political belonging within the Republic of New Afrika.

But this belonging is not symbolic. It is governed by discipline, accountability, and Umajaa—not as abstraction, but as lived unity forged in struggle.

We are our own Liberators

REBUILD TO WIN

Komrade Mzungu

Formerly Known As

Komrade Shine White

Revolutionary Greetings,

i take this opportunity to greet you all with a spirit of revolutionary love and rage. Foremost, i want to thank each of you who provided your time & energy to ensure my overseers knew that the way i was being treated would not be tolerated

To those of you who made calls and sent emails daily to prison officials, thank you. For those who utilized their platforms to shed light on my situation, i thank you. For those who attempted to send me letters of support, i thank you. And for those who showed up and showed out at the rally, i am beyond grateful.

Despite being held incommunicado for nearly 40 days i could tell that the support on the outside was growing and intensifying by the way my overseers were intensifying their reprisals.

It began with the Warden Ben Carver ordering his subordinates to confiscate my tablet, which is how i received my mail. Every time i would attempt to send mail out, the facility intelligence Lt. Nichols would write me up for an infraction. Then came the daily room searches wherein the pigs would destroy my cell, this was followed by the confiscation of my blankets and taking me to a strip-cell, where the toilet was cut off as was the drinking water and i was forced to sleep on a sheetless mattress for nearly 30 days.

The medical staff were complicit in the pigs plot to kill me by claiming that i was refusing daily medical assessments (blood pressure checks and sugar checks). It wasn’t until the facility’s doctor personally came to my cell and assessed me did i know the state i was in. i had an increased heart rate and my sugar had dropped significantly, resulting in me being sent out to the local ER.

While at the hospital one of the officers (Styles) who escorted me received a call from Warden Carver, i could immediately sense that something was being said that concerned my well being. After hanging up he informed the other transporting officer (Jones) that that was the Warden and he would tell him the details of the conversation later.

Normally i would’ve been transferred to Central Prison’s urgent care unit after being discharged from the hospital. However, the Grand Wizard, Warden Ben Carver had a different plan. He was unable to contain his hate and anger. They had tried everything to break me, but i continued to resist and defy.

Once back in the transport van, the officer who took the call typed out a message for his partner to read off his phone, which i was able to quickly read. It read, “the warden said bring his ass back, that they weren’t transferring him until he was about dead.”

i was returned to the same cell, where the toilet hadn’t been flushed in two weeks, and where the only time i could get a drink of water was when i was able to het them to briefly cut the water on while they were making rounds, usually once a day.

After 34 days, the facility’s doctor intervened and openly expressed to me in front of the unit manager and a couple guards that if they denied or delayed his recommendations to transfer me to Central’s urgent care unit he would report them to NCDAC’s Health and Wellness Director.

They waited until a Friday night to transfer me. i was placed in full restraints that had been put on so tight that i still have cuts on my wrist and ankles, i was then thrown in the back of a van where the officers transporting me blasted the AC for the entire 4-hour drive.

Upon my arrival here medical staff harshly criticized the officers who transferred me for having the restraints so tight, and ordered them to be removed immediately. Once removed, pictures were taken of my wounds and documented.

Subsequently i was assessed revealing an extremely high heart rate and a sugar level of 63, and i was dangerously dehydrated. They frantically rushed to get me hooked up to an IV drip and pleaded with me to drink water, which i complied. However, i remained on my hunger strike.

This is no attempt to be hyperbolic, i’m firmly convinced that they would’ve killed me if it wasn’t for you all. Albeit those sadistic dogs were relentless in their reprisals, the power of the people prevailed.

The whole experience revealed two things. 1) that those sadistic dogs are willing to take it to great extremes to break those who try to defy their omnipotence. 2) it’s obvious that they feel safe and secure in their attacks on prisoners. The cause of this is due to the lack of outside support for prisoners here in NC. They know no one is coming to the prisoner’s aid.

This is a dire issue that demands our immediate attention!

As a practical person i’m able to recognize that today’s dominant revolutionary paradigm offers selective justice, a fashionable outlet for personal biases of which struggle one deems most worthy of our time. Hence, there has been relatively little organized action and great disunity when it comes to organizing for and around the struggles of prisoners on the outside.

This is a serious issue, being that NC prisoners are subjected to some of the harshest living conditions in a prison setting.

Moreover, the prisoners who are engaged in the struggle to expose said conditions are under attack. We are being thrown in solitary confinement for years at a time. We are strategically being silenced and censored by the state in an attempt to cover up their crimes.

The state is stopping any newspapers or publications that speak out against modern day slavery and the economic exploitation of our families, they are now stopping any books that educate prisoners on these issues, they are attempting to cut us off from the outside world by restricting our incoming & outgoing mail and denying us access to the phone.

The seriousness of these conditions should impress itself on you all. This is happening right here in your back yard at a prison near you!

For instance, at Marion Correctional there is a kulture steeped in racism and racial violence. It’s located in the Western mountains region of NC. It has an all-white staff who come from race segregated communities wherein they have no interactions with New Afrikans or other Brown people. Marion’s predominantly New Afrikan prison population constantly find themselves under attack by said staff and there’s no one coming to the aid of these prisoners.

Huey P. Newton used to say you can’t talk about fighting racism without trying to destroy kapitalism and vice-versa. What i say is that you cannot talk about fighting ICE or fighting the colonization of the Palestinian people without tying the struggles of prisoners into the fight, for there is an undeniable link between the aforementioned struggles and the Prison Industrial Slave Complex—the U.S. imperialist empire is responsible for the deployment of ICE agents across the country, they provide bombs and other weapons to the zionists to keep Gaza occupied, and we know all about how the U.S. empire benefits from the Prison Industrial Slave Complex and the purpose it serves. And while prisons certainly operate as a tentacle of an apparatus emanating from what bell hooks would call a white supremacist imperialist patriarchal structure, it would be a fatal mistake to allow potentially passive minds to tacitly develop a mindset that dislodges prisons from their parent company of U.S. imperialism.

i find this particularly important as present day abolition rhetoric tends to be divorced from overall revolutionary internationalist ideation and as such cannot be an effective method by which to challenge what author of Carceral Apartheid: How Lies and White Supremacists Run Our Prisons, Brittany Friedman calls, “Carceral Apartheid.”1

To be blunt, a struggle that addresses one branch of suffering while ignoring the rest is a pseudo-struggle without foresight of conscience, which ultimately leads to repeated failures. Struggles of the past have proven this.

Moving forward our strategy must be to treat the Prison Industrial Slave Complex like a social cancer: we must fight to eradicate it while treating those affected by it.

Although i am bold and sweeping in my ambition, i am not a naive dreamer. i realize this demands a mass organized effort, for which is why it is of paramount importance that we bring NC prisoners and outside activists, groups, organizations, etc. together across barriers of nationality, ideology, geographical lines, gender, religion, etc., thereby enabling us to effectively FORCE prison officials to welcome our desired changes.

The failures and the dissolution of previous organizations have served as an excuse for anti-organizational tendencies: attacking and undermining all forms of organization. The ideal prevails that organization means giving up individual integrity, or is by definition oppressive. Like every other revolutionary movement on earth, we desperately need a good organization, strong and healthy, to embody the struggle of prisoners and direct our energies like a spear.

As i’ve said before, twos and threes is not good form for anything—it won’t put out a newsletter, organize campaigns, or prepare prisoners for their return to society.

What i am suggesting is that we move from the particular to the general—about moving from where we are right now, to actually doing Mobilizing, Organizing, Revolutionizing, & Educating in each prison, so as to build the foundation upon which will stand a NC prison movement. i’m talking about preparing prisoners to return to their communities where they will engage in transforming said communities into base areas of kulture, social, and political revolution. i’m talking about transforming these koncentration kamps into schools for liberation and to provide prisoners with the necessary resources needed that would ensure a successful reentry upon their release from prison.

To succeed in each of these objectives, we need organization. And here is the thing, we wouldn’t be building such organization from scratch. Thankfully all that is needed is to adopt the principles and ideology of Prison Lives Matter (PLM) and form a PLM chapter here in NC.

Prison Lives Matter is a United Front for Political Prisoners, Prisoners of War, Politicized individuals behind enemy lines and their organizations, as well as any outside formations in unison to abolish legalized slavery. Our goal is connect all the abolition networks together to create an organized body to be a force to be reckoned with. This requires much organization, communication, and education.

Something of importance to stress here. PLM is not solely about prisoners or the conditions within the walls of these razor wire plantations. It also serves as a vehicle for decolonization, a united front based on the blueprint of *FROLINAN* and the concept of We Are Our Own Liberators.2

We must get serious about building infrastructure to step up, reach out and establish a base here in NC.

If you are interested in learning more about PLM and how it is structured from the National Coordinating Committee (NCC) to the Regional Organizing Committees, i encourage you to read “Kwame ‘Beans’ Shakur: Call to Action for National Unification.”

Moreover, if you believe in our mission, due to me being in solitary confinement i encourage you to contact komrade Kwame Shakur, co-founder of PLM, via email: Kwame.Shakur@yahoo.com. Subject: Supporting Komrade Shine White In Building a PLM Chapter in NC.

The komrade will instruct you on how this is to be done.

In closing i want to thank you all for y’all’s support. i’m here, i’m alive, i’m struggling.

We Are Our Own Liberators

REBUILD TO WIN

Komrade Shine White

Introduction

by Comrade Triumphant

Preface

The forthcoming writing is by no means an exhaustive piece. It is however a needed perspective and voice in the class and national struggle(s), particularly as We strive to awaken, unite, and mobilize Our Lumpen class peers. The Comrade Shine White [now known as Joka Jeupe Mkali] has been doing good work in this field and asked for my input on this subject. It is my intent that my words may educate, and inspire towards revolutionary action and commitment.

Introduction

i want to begin with a sort of disclaimer on qualifier, due to the fact that many speak on the realities of the lumpen, particularly the street gang elements, who’re not cut from that cloth, if you will.

Although i am now a committed New Afrikan Freedom Fighter, i was initiated into what is now the Forum Park Crips, in Houston, Texas, when i was in my early teens. My life in the street was one of tribal animosities and strifes, territorial beefs, and a survivalist level of hustling and scheming. i did everything one does in the street life from selling narcotics, to thievery, burglary, armed robberies, pimping, and of course “sliding”, as they say nowadays.

As a result of this lifestyle and my social ignorance, and lack of a firm identity, purpose and direction, by age nineteen i found myself wanted for capital murder, and by twenty-one sentenced to life without parole for said murder, while holding strong the key principle one was taught in the lumpen style-culture, “No Snitching!”

Prior and during my prison stint i operated as a makeshift hystorian, and due to my persynal background i’ve paid much attention to the hystorical development of the lumpen in North Amerikkka in general, New Afrika in particular, and the lumpen-organizational development specifically. This along with my adherence to the hystorical dialectical materialist philosophy, i believe, qualify me to speak with a certain level of knowledge, Wisdom and understanding on the subject.

The Foundation

At the moment in time of the founding of the original Crips, one of its co-founders, Tookie Williams (Ajamu Niamke Kamara) states plainly, “The Crips mythology has many romanticized, bogus accounts.”1 i believe We in the revolutionary take these and other similar ones too literally and therefore misrepresent the origins and hystorical functions of the Crips and others within the class and national liberation struggles. In this realm We often promote an idealized, non-materialist perspective. Mr. Kamara (Williams) continues, “Another version [of Crip mythology] incorrectly documents the Crips as an offshoot of the Black Panther Party. No Panther Party member has ever mentioned the Crips (or Cribs) as a spin-off of the Panthers. It is also fiction that the Crips functioned under the acronym C.R.I.P., for Community Response Inner-City Project or Community Revolutionary Inner-City Project. (Words like ‘revolutionary agenda’ were alien to our thuggish, uninformed teenage consciousness.) We did not unite to protect the community; our motive was to protect ourselves and our families.”2

i’ve begun this ‘Foundational’ part of this piece with these Words from the late Mr. Kamara, because We too often, and too easily romanticize the beginnings of the urban amerikkkan street organizations. Now that i’ve clarified that the Crips weren’t exactly founded with a revolutionary or progressive intent it makes it clearer why the Crips have been largely stagnant in their operations for so long now.

The late Malcolm X once said that “Prison is the poor man’s university,” and proving his maxim true, it was many of the first generation of Crips who populated the prisons in California, being influenced by the politicized culture in the prison established by those who came before them, who began an effort(s) to improve the imagery, and provide meaning to what Mr. Kamara himself even called “a causeless cause.”

When the imprisoned Crips began to become more culturally aware in the 80’s and onward they sought to stir the Crip force in another direction by establishing a constitution, which was largely influenced by the BGF Constitution, they functioned under acronyms like C.R.I.P., for Community Revolution in Progress and other similar ones, brothers began becoming Afro-centric and instituted speaking Ki-Swahili. Also, many around those times became radical and politicized.

Some formed orgs like Black Riders Liberation Party, a new generation Black Panther Party that was formed in the 90’s by young former Crips and Bloods. Others formed more groups like the C.C.O. (Consolidated Crips Organization) which was to be a de-tribalized more centralized and politicized version of the Crips Street gang. Many of these brothers had intentions of changing the various communities and ‘Crip Turfs’ they represented upon their release from prison. More often than not their efforts were not effective enough to curtail or re-focus the self-destructive culture that had by then turned Southern California upside down.

Simultaneously the Crips and other similar groups were spreading throughout the north amerikkkan continent, what wasn’t spreading however was the more refined and socially aware sectors or versions of the Crip entity. So instead of ‘hoods’ across amerikkka emulating a Conscious Crip, they were emulating cats who were Crip Crazy, and this subsequently intensified elements of self-destruction among the New Afrikan nation in amerikkka.

Building of the Foundation

As the 21^st century came and settled in, the spread of the Crips to every corner of the KKKountry resulted in different locales placing their own unique cultural traits and adding on to the hystory of the original formation Mr. Kamara and Raymond Washington founded along with Mac Thomas. Therefore, many people, and groups Built on the Foundation.

i’ll preface the following by stating that lumpen organizations have repeatedly showcased a capacity to turn away from basic parasitic criminality. However, they’ve done this in two similar but unique ways. One way is progressive in terms of its benefit to the revolution. The other way is progressive in that it provides the break from the criminal mentality, and is also revolutionary in that it seeks to join the revolutionary forces in collective war against the state and its enemy institutions.

We’ve seen examples of the first way numerous times. One which may be familiar to some is the 1966 arranged truce between the then Blackstone Rangers and the East Side Disciples, which was instigated by the promise of $930,000 in grant money from the Federal government through the Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO). The grant was based on a deal that the two street organizations would cease their beef and come together to prevent uprisings, which had become common throughout heavily populated New Afrikan enclaves throughout the KKKountry.

Local politicians in the Chicago Democratic Party and the Southern Democrats in Congress did not approve of these particular elements being provided with grant money from the government, and the grant was canceled a year later (1968).3

In 1968 the Chicago BPP was founded and these same lumpen orgs were enlisted or attempted to be enlisted by the federal government to prevent the ride in influence of the BPP and its revolutionary line. The Rangers and the Conservative Vice Lords opted for the former way, and were showered with grant money from the bourgeoisie (Clement Stone of the Combined Insurance of America; Sear’s; First National Bank of Chicago, among others) These lumpen moved towards Black Capitalism, and filled the vacuum in what was then a new non-profit sector instituted to remove the teeth from the revolution and revolutionary potential of the lumpen particularly.4

On the other hand, the East Side Disciples changed their name to the Black Disciples (identifying as Black instead of negro was a culturally progressive action at the time) and formed an alliance with the Chicago BOO.5

So as this hystorical account illustrates, the lumpen are a vacillating class. We can flow whichever way the wind blows, but Our life experiences under monopoly capitalism and imperialism, suggests that absent a form of ‘class-suicide’, We will do like the Rangers and take the capitalist road, which will have us cozied up with the bourgeoisie, making love with Our enemies and murdering Our friends.

Within the Forum Park Crips experience there has been an evolution and a certain level of class struggle, and ideological struggle (which is one in the same thing). To quote Malcolm X, again, ‘Prisons are the poor man’s university’. One member of the Forum Park Crips (FPC) spent time incarcerated and chose to apply himself. He learned something from cats like myself who have become politicized while in captivity and he began to develop a New Vision for Our street tribe. Upon release, he began to institute the New Vision. See everyone and every entity has a basic identity, Purpose and Direction, and as evolution takes place it takes place within the nature of these three elements of the entity in question. So upon release the first step was to apply a New Vision to what the Identity of a FPC was/is. Like the brothers in California decades under their C.R.I.P. (Community Revolution In Progress), the homie strived to finetune the image, by establishing Forever Protecting the Community (FPC) as an official Community Organization dedicated to mentoring the youth, minimizing gang violence, and empowering the community.

Because of the numerous influences, and illegitimate capitalism being foremost among them, FPC in its beginning stages turned down a similar road and Jeff Fort’s Rangers in 1960’s Chicago. FPC received grants from the city and used them to, along with other similar formations, fund a purchasing of acreage to start a community garden, promoting food sovereignty, a memorial tribute to victims of police and gun violence. Prior to the grants FPC provided school supplies and thousands of backpacks, sponsored summer kids’ festivals, and mentored school children by doing speaking engagements at local schools.

As i’ve pointed out. These efforts are progressive in the sense they’re a long way from the parasitic criminality the homies had been involved with prior. However, it can be reactionary in the sense that absent any sense of revolutionary orientation this amounts to nothing more than mere community service, and never digs at the root of the systematic problem that cause the surface level expressions of the oppressive social contract.

After discussing this somewhat with some of the guys plans have come to fruition to establish a campaign that attacks a particular vestige of the genocidal culture in the Forum Park area. This being the out of control open-air sex trafficking that de-values Our community and makes elements in Our community uncomfortable and unsafe. The campaign will create a class struggle for unity both within the community and organization, and will make the bond between the org and the people. Moreso, it will begin to establish what will hopefully become a distinct line of demarcation between the local government, and the rest of the non-profit sector, who’ve become entranced with utilizing the plights of the people as a stepping stool to gain economic upliftment. As FPC and other similar formations move out of that mode of operations, and begin to call others out on it and for their deceitful service to the people, it will create unity within the class, a part of the local class struggle.

In closing, i’ve found the observation of Comrade Jalil Abdul Muntaqim to be true:

Beneath the Black working class are the subculture lumpen-proletariat, the unskilled and menial laborers whose primary means of subsistence is based on hustling (stealing, selling drugs, prostitution, etc) marginal employment, and welfare. For the most part, the socio-economic provisions within the subculture are maintained by the ‘illegitimate capitalist’ activity of the lumpen-proletariat. In accordance with their aspirations to fulfill the social values of the bourgeoisie, they employ business acumen in criminal activity for subsistence and profit. As they seek material wealth and social status of the bourgeoisie within the confines of the subculture, they are in many ways politically reactionary, unconcerned with anything other than personal survival and individual gain. It is only when the lumpen-proletariat are educated and become politically aware of their socio-economic condition, that the possibility exists for them to become staunch supporters of the revolution, recognizing their dire standard of living is based wholly on the system of oppression they are desperately trying to emulate...6

As has been routinely stated, revolutionary forces must ingratiate themselves within the activities of the lumpen organization. Specifically once they’re already reached a certain level of collective social awareness and activity. And then, influence the development of their social awareness and activity by providing political education, by conceptualizing programs that are pertinent to the particular lumpen community one is seeking to organize. The lumpen is a vacillating class, which can and often does see-saw between revolutionary and reactionary activities. There are some socially aware and materialistic elements, particularly among the oppressed nations in north amerikkka, who can be coached towards full support of the revolution, the choice between serving the people, heart and soul, and the reactionary read are ultimately up to the lumpen themselves. i’ll leave with a word from Comrade George:

Settle your quarrels, come together, understand the reality of the situation, understand that fascism is already here. That people are already dying who could be saved, that generations more will die or live poor butchered half-lives if you fail to act. Do what must be done, discover your humanity and your life in revolution. Pass on the torch, join us, give up your life for the people.7

Intensify The Struggle For Class Unity

Comrade Triumphant

Box Brown Collective, NAIM

Voice of the Lumpen

Introduction

The purpose of this zine is to shedd light, open up much communal discussion and encourage the reader to do M.O.R.E. (Mobilizing, Organizing, Revolutionizing & Educating), with the aim of transforming the Criminal mentality into a Revolutionary Mentality.

So the content of this zine wouldn’t seem one-sided and/or biased, i’ve asked Komrade Triumphant, a committed New Afrikan Freedom Fighter and former member of the Forum Park Crips for his input on the subject expanded upon this zine.

The enemy recognizes the potential the Lumpen Organizations have to become Revolutionary Organizations. Hence extreme measures have been taken to disrupt, disorganize and quell this potential. We must understand that the violence, crime, lost lives, and suffering that has/is taking place within/between OUR “Hoods” is the result of an officially orchestrated scheme of divide and rule in the context of a system of class exploitation and a policy of deliberate genocide.

i call upon all of you who are representatives of your “Hood” to examine the truth elucidated upon in this zine and use it to serve, uplift, protest and defend yourselves as well as your communities from the social alienation, political disengagement/dependence and economic insecurities WE find Ourselves subjected to.

Factors at Play

Many of Us profess to be “Real Right” representatives of our respected “Hoods,” however Our actions don’t reflect what is being professed. Many of today’s prominent Lumpen Organizations began or at some point aspired to uplift and defend their communities. As Komrade Kevin Rashid Johnson pointed out:

Before their leaders were picked off (killed or imprisoned), the Vice Lords became revolutionary. They styled themselves after the BPP, wore brown berets, etc. The Young Lords (NYC, Chicago, Philly) evolved into the Young Lords Party and became full allies of the BPP. They wore purple berets and later morphed into the Puerto Rican Revolutionary Workers Organization. In 1968 the Blackstone Rangers were paid to attack the anti-war demonstrations at the Democratic National Convention, but instead joined with the revolutionary demonstrators in fighting the pigs, who attacked the demonstration…

Large contingents of the Almighty Latin Kings & Queens Nations turned out at the demonstration in NYC, including against the bombing of Iraq. In the 1940s the ALKQN began as a group that assisted Puerto Ricans immigrating into the U.S. and Chicago, and soon spreaded to the Mexican barrios providing the same support services…

In 1992, following the L.A. uprising, Bloods and Crips leaders in L.A. worked out a truce that included an economic plan for improving the communities. The pact lasted two years during which gang related killings declined immensely. The Establishment targeted the leaders and ultimately sabotaged the alliance…

The Gangster Disciples were funded in the early 1980s with a program of community support in Chicago influenced by the past example of the BPP.8

Blood is not excluded from these origins or aspirations, like so many other organizations We have seen derailed from this path. Long-gone are the days of practicing Brotherly Love [to] override oppression & destruction,

Instead We have complicitly expedited Our own demise. There are multiple factors at play here that have engendered deadly internecine conflicts and left Us leaderless. One being the government implementing policies directed at destroying the leaders who attempted to steer the Lumpen organizations into a productive and positive direction. One of the most prominent policies was the policy that was set out in the National Security Council Memorandum No. 46 (NSC-46), which was implemented by the National Security Council in 1978. The purpose of this policy was to cause splits and internal conflicts within our movements and communities. Some of the proposals in NSC-46 were:

The concern for the future security of the United States makes necessary the range of policy options. Arranged without intent to imply priority:

...(b) to elaborate and bring into effect a special program designed to perpetuate division in the Black movement and neutralize the most active groups of leftist radical organizations representing different social strata of the Black community; to encourage division in Black circles;

...(c) to preserve the present climate which inhibits the emergence from within the Black leadership of a person capable of exerting nationwide appeal;

...(e) to support actions designed to sharpen social stratification in the Black community ~ giving rise to growing antagonisms between different Black groups and a weakening of the movement as a whole...9

Another factor at play here is the police and other government agencies fomenting deadly conflicts between the Lumpen Organizations. In 1976, the U.S. congress released the Church Committee report which found that the F.B.I. and local police were involved in inciting gang wars:

This report does demonstrate... that the chief investigative branch of the Federal Government, which was changed by law with investigating crimes and preventing criminal conduct, itself engaged in lawless tactics and responded to deep-seated social problems by fomenting violence and unrest…

The select committee’s staff investigation has disclosed a number of instances in which the FBI [ manipulated ] violence prone organizations in an effort to aggravate ‘gang warfare’... equally disturbing is the pride which these officials took in claiming credit for the bloodshed that occurred.10

Furthermore, in his book, Blue Rage, Black Redemption, Stanley “Tookie” Williams (Aramu Niamke Kamara) shared with Us how the police incited and escalated gang wars:

Yes Amerika, as unbelievable as it may seem, ‘hood cops’, with impunity commit drive-bys and other lawless acts. It was common practice for them to abduct a Crip or Bounty Hunter and drop him off in hostile territory, and then broadcast it over a loudspeaker. The predictable outcome was that the rival was either beaten or killed on the spot, which resulted in a cycle of payback. Cops would also inform opposing gangs where to find and attack a rival gang, and then say “Go handle your business”. Like slaves, the gang did exactly what their master commanded. Had they not been fueled by self-hatred, neither Crips, Bounty Hunters, nor any other Black gang, would have been duped.

...The ‘hood cops’ were pledged to protect and serve, but for us they were not there to help, but to exploit us - and they were effective. With the cops’ Machiavellian presence, the gang epidemic escalated. When gang warfare is fed and fueled by law enforcement, funds are generated for the so-called anti-gang units. Without gangs, these units would no longer exist.11

These are only a few of the abundant examples of the government manipulating Us to war with one another rather than focus on the real enemy. One of the other factors at play that i want to elucidate upon here is one that informs Our decisions and actions pertaining to how We conduct Ourselves. It is the disconnect from any roots and the lack of knowledge and under-standing of how to be Blood.

History is a Weapon

In order to fully understand and ascertain the history, principles and purpose of Blood, it is necessary that i give a dialectical and historical context of the relationship between Blood and other “Hoods.”

Albeit my perspective is one of an East Coast Blood (GKB), i cannot deny the fact that the origins of Blood derive from the streets of Los Angeles, California. Throughout the early 1960s there were multiple street “gangs” present in the streets of L.A. i.e. The Slausons, the Farmers, the Gladiators, the Businessmen, the Avenues and many others. However, none has outlived nor has remained more prominent than the Crips.

As a Blood it is mandatory that We ascertain the history of the other “Hoods,” particularly the history of the Crips, being that they played a significant role in Blood being formed. Nonetheless, i will use the information provided by the National Gang History website, as it pertains to the origins of Crip instead of the information i have ascertained over the years, simply because this information may be incorrect:

In 1969, a Los Angeles youth named Raymond Washington, 15, organized a group of other neighborhood youths and started a gang called the Baby Avenues. The Baby Avenues wanted to emulate a gang of older youths who had been involved in gang activity since 1964 and provided minor crimes for the Black Panthers of Los Angeles. Raymond Washington, along with Stanley “Tookie” Williams and several other gang members from the Baby Avenues gang were fascinated with the hype of the Black Panthers and they wanted to develop the Baby Avenues gang into a larger force. The Baby Avenues gang began using the name Avenue Cribs since members lived on the avenue (Central Avenue). Crib members would wear blue scarves (now called bandannas) around their necks and hands. The color became their representative color.

...In 1971, the use of the word ‘crip’ had become so common around the Avenue Cribs that it became an acceptable name for the gang. Meanwhile, Raymond Washington and his collection of young gang members influenced other area youth gangs resulting in the formation of many Crip sets. Some of these sets included Avalon Garden Crips, Eastside Crips, Inglewood Crips, and Westside Crips. Crip gangs were violent and constantly expanding their turf. Because of their aggression, several rival gangs joined forces as a gang collective called the Bloods. They adopted the color red as their representative color. A fierce rivalry between these two gangs existed throughout the 1970s and 80s. By the early 1980s Crips gangs were heavily involved in the drug trade that they commenced an expansion throughout the United States to sell a new drug product called ‘crack.’ Throughout the 1980s and 1990s the Crips developed intricate networks and a respected reputation with other gangs across Amerika and neighboring countries.12

As aforementioned, Blood was formed to resist the invasion of the Crips. The most prominent individuals to resist this invasion were Rooster of the 30 Pirus, Peabody of the Denver Lanes, Puddin of the Westside Pirus, and the Westside Brims.

Just as the Crips recruited other sets to join them, the aforementioned individuals done the same, resulting in the formation of the citywide Bloods in the early 1970s. As the Bloods began to find themselves imprisoned and outnumbered by their nemesis, the Crips, they had to increase their membership if they were to survive. Thus they created a Bloodline (BL) constitution patterned after the constitution of the Black Guerrilla Family (BGF), a prison-based politicalized cadre made up of New Afrikan prisoners whose most recognized member was the Honorable George Jackson. The BL Constitution contained the Blood’s history, by-laws and code of conduct. By implementing the BL constitution the homies aim was to unite all Bloods into one organization while in prison.

The BL constitution would remain in place up until the late 1970s when OG Peabody, who disagreed with how those of the BL were conducting themselves, formed the United Blood Nation (UBN) constitution, designed to unify all Bloods in prison under the UBN banner. This is where the term “one Blood” originated from.

The West Coast Bloods would later abandoned the name UBN, leaving it to be adopted by Omar Portree (OG Mack) the founder of the New York Bloods.

A Eastside Story

OG Mack, a New York native from the Bronx was compelled to abscond to California in the late 1980s. While out West he was introduced to the Miller Bloods (a Branch of the Brims). He quickly assimilated himself into the culture of the Bloods. Upon leaving California to return to New York, members of the Miller Bloods encouraged OG Mack to introduce Blood to the East Coast, however they emphasized that it could not be Miller Blood, due to it being a set strictly for Miller Street.

After returning to N.Y. Mack was immediately apprehended by law enforcement an[d] taken to Rikers Island to await trial for his pending charges. During this time Rikers Island was a stronghold of the Spanish “gang” the Neyetas and the Puerto Rican “gang” the Latin Kings. A lot of New Afrikans at the time were associated with the Nation of Islam (NIO) and the 5%ers. For those who wasn’t, they found themselves targets of the Neyats and Latin Kings.

Lacking the numbers needed to protect himself and other non-affiliated New Afrikans from the Neyetas and Latin Kings, Mack suggested that both the NIO and 5%ers unite with the non-affiliated New Afrikan prisoners in order to counter the attacks being carried out by the Neyetas and Latin Kings. Neither the NIO or the 5%ers were interested nor willing to unite with the others. They were of the belief that if they didn’t want to join the NIO or the 5%ers then they were not worthy of their protection.

Subsequently another New Afrikan prisoner heard about what Mack was suggesting and approached him. OG Dead Eye assured Mack that if he was serious then he supported the idea of organizing those who were not affiliated with the NIO or the 5%ers and he knew some other solid prisoners who could be relied upon.

Subsequently Mack met with the others. He introduced them to the ways of Blood and indoctrinated them with the teachings he learned while on the West Coast. On June 16, 1993, the New York Bloods were formed. Where they lacked in numbers, they made it up with violence, which was necessary at the time if they were to survive.

Witnessing the relentlessness and determination of Mack and the other Bloods, the New Afrikan prisoners began to seek out membership, thus causing their numbers to increase throughout the New York Department of Corrections, which resulted in the birth of other sets and eventually the adoption of the VBN Constitution in 1998.

Throughout the history of Blood either on the West Coast or the East Coast there is the recurrence of Our ability and willingness to unite and resist any oppression being applied by other “gangs,” but why is it We’ve yet to unite and resist the oppression of Our real enemy?

110%

WE, by and large have fell by the wayside, We have allowed Ourselves to be conditioned to compete, not cooperate; to revere hyper-individualism while looking skeptically upon collective work and responsibility; to be dependent on the same institutions responsible for the social alienation, political disengagement/independence, and economic insecurities We find Ourselves subjected to.

i’m firmly convinced this is due to the lack of understanding of what constitutes a “Real Right” Blood. The blame for this lack of understanding and the peril We find Ourselves living is to be placed at the feet of the leadership. Similar to Our predecessors on the West Coast, Our predecessors here on the East Coast have bequeathed a constitution that contains Our code of conduct, history, concepts and bylaws that govern the UBN for the purpose of educating and informing us of the ways of a “Real Right” Blood. But yet this constitution and other related documents have been disregarded as being extraneous.

One of the concepts that desperately needs to be resurrected and implemented is the 110% concept. This concept compartmentalizes the 110% into five separate increments: 25% Education; 25% Social; 25% Economics, 25% Political, and 10% Gangster. By putting into practice each increment one becomes a “Real Right” Blood.

For the reader to fully understand this concept i find it necessary that i elucidate upon each of the five increments. Therefore the reader will grasp the significance of this concept and why as Bloods WE must adhere to this concept and demand others to do the same.

25% Education

And finally, in my sincere appeal for peace and unity: Those of us that have experienced being our Brother’s keepers – We must educate our members around us, Education brings about awareness. Awareness generates the ability to think.13

Our Culture disparages education as the province of nerds and lames. This makes education less attractive to Our peers and others on the lower end of the Socio-economic Continuum.

By limiting Our education We allow Ourselves to be kept in check by Our oppressors. The lack of education prevents Us from learning of Our plight, that We can do something about it, and how to do it. Education enables Us to detect and understand facts, to make and respond with reasoned arguments, to tolerate social differences while valuing membership in communities, and to comprehend and engage with avenues for political participation and protections against oppression. Education equips Us with the analytical and perceptive abilities to discern what needs to be done to ameliorate Our situation.

The prohibiting of reading by slaves exemplifies the importance of education. Slaves were prohibited from reading or possessing any books. Being caught reading or in the possession of any books resulted in severe beating or even death. The slave-masters were hell bent on keeping their slaves “deaf, dumb & blind.” Because as Thomas Jefferson, a prominent slave-owner of his time argued, general education was necessary to enable every man to judge for himself what will secure or endanger his freedom.

Education, of course, need not be limited to a classroom. Some of Our greatest revolutionaries were autodidacts (self-taught people). Malcolm X and George Jackson converted their prison cells into a college university:

I met Marx, Lenin, Trotsky, Engels and Mao... and they redeemed me. For the first [five] years, I studied nothing but economics and military ideas. I met the Black Guerrillas, George “Big Jake” Lewis, Janes Carr, W.C. Nolen, Bill Christmas, Tory Gibson and many others. We attempted to transform the Black Criminal mentality into a Black Revolutionary mentality.14

I have often reflected upon the new vistas that reading has opened to me. I knew right there in prison that reading had changed forever the course of my life. As I see it today, the ability to read awake inside of me some long dormant craving to be mentally alive.15

As prisoners We must not solely focus on educating Ourselves, the initiative must be made to transform these prisons into “Schools of Liberation”:

The prisons must truly become Universities, [Cadre] Training Centers. There must be planned, systematic programs to meet us when we arrive behind the walls. Seminars are part of a well-though-out, coherentized curriculum. Organized.16

This is done via the social principles of “each one – teach one” (e.g. Communal – cooperative work). The social concept of “each one – teach one” essentially entails replacing “individualism” with “Collectivism,” where the problems of the “individual” become the problem of all of Us, by speaking with one voice via Our collective struggles of unified activity, that is geared towards finding and developing community-based solutions that will protect the health of Our communities.

By transforming the criminal mentality into a revolutionary mentality We equip Ourselves with the discernment that’s needed to transform Our communities into base areas of Cultural, Social, and Political revolution, which is the necessary first stage of the Revolutionary war.

Yes, War, because the enemy has waged a War of educational, economic, social and political exploitation upon Us.

25% Social

With the fratricide, the fostering of decadency, and with Us being impervious to Our conditions, We are being confronted with a Social Crisis in which WE must now wage struggle in order to redefine Our existence and place in today’s society, so that We are able to effectively combat the many social ills that plague Our communities.

It is imperative We learn to make assessments and reassessments of Our assessments. We must recognize Our faults and work toward improving our method. It is not defeatist to acknowledge We have made bad decisions and are suffering because of it. But without such an acknowledgment how can We expect to regroup as a nation? If We expect to actually succeed, it’s of paramount importance that We remember to remember to keep it real!

Social interactions and Social Cooperation is particularly important within Our communities (prisons are communities as well), where, due to long-standing socio-economic pressures and political disengagement, virtually every dimension of Our daily lives requires interaction With and Cooperation Within and between Our communities (not in the context of Intercommunalism.) For a host of social, cultural and economic reasons, being socially engaged is key to personal and collective identity as well as physical, emotional and economic survival.

Social relates to communal living that’s occupied with matters affecting Our welfare. By practicing the social increment of the 110% We assume the responsibility of taking care of Our own, which can only be done with social cooperation and self-reliance.

What does this look like? For starters We must establish social programs (e.g. The Black Panther Party’s “Serve the People” programs) and autonomous infrastructure in Our communities that are based upon self-reliance and Community-based people’s power. We mustn’t depend on the Same institutions that are responsible for Our oppression, to do for Us What We can do for Ourselves through Social-Cooperation and Self-reliance. Whatever these institutions give, they can take away, and whatever they create will be used against Us. Learning to create and administer Our own programs, and exercising people’s power on a neighborhood level, will prepare Us to do so as a Nation in the future.

25% Economics

Our struggle in this regard runs completely against the current of the hostile individualist, nihilist, cynical, cutthroat economics, which produce these same values in and between the people in their political, cultural, and social relations. When We understand that as, Amilcar Cabral recognized, “the basis of culture is economics” (i.e. how we interact with and relate to one another in our efforts to survive determines what type of social relationships we develop) We then realize at what material level our practice must be focused. In other words, We must change how we interact with one another economically (practicing to be cooperative, instead of competitive and domineering with each other) in order to begin the necessary progress of revolutionizing our own values.17

To say that We have no idea on economy would be incorrect, for one of our bylaws asserts that we establish a kitty that requires each of us to contribute to it monthly for the purpose of supporting our “Homies” who are incarcerated. Albeit this example is on a microscale, it exemplifies that We understand the need to create an infrastructure capable of addressing the needs of Our people.

The naivete about this economic matter is not that there has been no thought of economy. It is that the economy of organization prominent in the scheme of things hasn’t been recognized or been taught.

Moving forward it is imperative that We bring the mission of governing to fruition. Our efforts to shift power over Our communities into the hands of those who make up Our communities must coalesce on a solid foundation of commonly held principles and values that inform demand development and guide decision making.

The beginning, end, and in-between of Our thoughts and actions must be focused on making Our communities self-sustainable and empowering Our peers, to work for the community’s economic and social betterment. If Our peers are incorporated as active participants in the reconstruction of their local economies, they will be empowered through the process. A community builds power by exerting ongoing influence over decision-making structures in a way that ensures that development efforts are responsive to community needs. Again this must be done as a community before it can be done as a Nation.

Because no people have ever tripped and fallen into freedom, and no oppressors have ever accidentally freed their oppressed, fundamentally altering the power dynamic between the oppressed Nations and the oppressor nation can only happen if the initiative to feed, clothe, and shelter Ourselves and achieving Self-determination is evident in all Our thoughts and actions. In all Our theories and politics.

I suggest We adopt the Presa Canario Movement’s way of doing things:

1. Know the value of your work in the scheme of things and deliver it.

2. Be mindful of the value of your word in facilitating success. Keep it when you give it.

3. Invest in us; pool your money, your ideas, your energy and proven experience with us. Show faith, push us forward with your skill and good will.

4. Practice criticism and/or self-criticism for it is fundamental to success. No concept materializes perfectly formed, all theory is dependent on practice. It is naturally flawed and needs criticism like theory needs practice. Do not fear it.

5. Avoid destructive criticism, which enhances nothing and amounts to no more than bourgeois aversion to collective discipline.

6. Always remember to not fail to teach. Jealousy destroys. It is a cancer from which nothing but disease will grow.

7. It is possible to possess the method and mind to act but lack the means and fail because of it. Guard against such failure. Diligently strive to build an economy, which is at our service.18

Moreover, as Komrade George Jackson emphasized, “We must build a subsistence economy and a socio-political infrastructure so that we can become an example for all revolutionary people.”19

25% Political

To be political, you must have a political consequence when you do not receive your desires – otherwise you are non-political.20

We have developed a functional blindness to our defects. We are not suffering because We can’t solve Our problems, but because We won’t see Our problems. This inhibits Us from re-imagining Our identities and the role We play or should play in the development of Our people. Other “hoods” have made the initiative to transform their “hood” into a vehicle for political education, social and economic power, with the intention of being involved in the development of themselves and their people on an objective basis. The most noteworthy being the transition of the Gangster Disciples to Growth & Development, spearheaded by Larry Hoover.

The time is now for a total refocusing of our efforts, away from non-productive distractions and other elements of temptations, and focus towards those disciplines that will make use real [contributors] in our communities. We must stop the gangbanging and drive-nys. Our Nation is being destroyed by the killing [drugging and imprisonment] of our youth. We must stop hating one another because of the block, hood, turf, and color we represent, these actions only continue the cycle of self-destruction.

And finally, in my sincere appeal for peace and unity: those of us that have experienced being our brother’s keeper–we must educate our members around us. Education brings about awareness. Awareness generates the ability to think. Our youth must know the end result of crime is shame, disgrace, and imprisonment to themselves, as well as the community. We must come to the point of outlawing those who willfully disrupt our communities and our call to protect the community. Crime must not be accepted as the normal way of doing things.21

Becoming political and making such a transition wouldn’t be something novel to Us. In fact, We would simply be returning to Our roots. Our predecessors understood the importance of being political. Once it became clear to them that Our oppression was/is political and economical and that the political reinforced the economic, they commenced to rid themselves of self-destructive and counterproductive behavior, enabling them to engage in the socio-political battles their communities faced. Armed with discernment, they began to understand that the interests of their people had to be represented by the community, in the political sphere, and subsequently political bodies were formed. Alprentice “Bunchy” Carter’s efforts to transform the Slausons into an L.A. chapter of the Black Panther Party epitomizes this. By organizing close to 5,000 Slausons into a vehicle for political power in opposition to the people’s real enemy, instead of assisting the enemy of the people in the destruction of the people and their communities, Bunchy–just as Malcolm X did and just as George Jackson did–became political.

This is why the FBI/CIA had all three of them murdered.

You see, the BPP was influential among the “gangs” and understood the importance of being political, which is why the FBI had labeled them “the greatest threat to U.S. national security,” subsequently becoming the number one target of J. Edgar Hoover’s Counter-Intelligence Program (COINTELPRO).

Huey P. Newton understood the significance of being political and of political power:

When Black people send a representative, he is somewhat absurd because he represents no political power. He does not represent land power because we don’t own any land. He does not represent economic or industrial power because Black people do not own the means of production. The only way he can become political is to represent what is commonly called a military power–which the BLACK PANTHER PARTY FOR SELF-DEFENSE calls Self-Defense Power. Black people can develop Self-Defense Power by arming themselves from house to house, block to block, community to community, throughout the nation. Then we will choose a political representative and he will state to the power structure the desires of the Black masses. If the desires are not met, the power structure will receive a political consequence. We will make it economically non-profitable for the power structure to go on with its oppressive ways.22

There is no way the enemy could allow the BPP to organize around these politics. In the late 1960s and early 1970s the government moved to suppress and destroy all revolutionary political consciousness within the oppressed urban communities. Ultimately, the BPP was destroyed by its leaders being murdered, imprisoned, or exiled.

The destruction of the BPP is important to this discourse because it was in the wake of their destruction that the Bloods, Crips, G.D.s, etc. established themselves. The establishment of these formations was facilitated by the war initiated on the BPP and the subsequent elimination of progressive, productive, and revolutionary leadership in the communities.

Huey Newton [the BPP’s Minister of Defense] gave a lecture on that one time and we had foreseen that this was gonna happen. After the leadership of the BPP was attacked at the end of the ‘60s and the early ‘70s, throughout the Black and other oppressed communities, the role models for upcoming generations became the pimps, drug dealers, etc. This is what the government wanted to happen. The next result was that the gangs were being formed, coming together with a gangster mentality, as opposed to the revolutionary progressive mentality we would have given them.23

In the wake of the destruction of the BPP, the government employed elicit methods to ensure We wouldn’t fill the vacuum left by the BPP. Throughout the mid 1980s and into the 1990s the CIA flooded urban communities with both crack cocaine and military grade weapons which engendered the sanctioned culture of gangsterism among us:

In the early 1980s, events occurred that pushed these and other urban youth gangs into prominence, namely the introduction of crack cocaine into the inner cities–starting with Los Angeles–by the CIA, under President Ronald Reagan. Reagan’s Vice President, George Bush Sr., a prior CIA Director, was appointed to be head of Reagan’s National Narcotics Border Interdiction System and immediately expanded the CIA’s role in drug operations. Under the Reagan-Bush administration, the CIA channeled tons of cocaine into the hands of the Bloods and Crips in L.A. through a local dealer named ‘Freeway’ Rick Ross (who processed it into crack cocaine). Crack, which is both cheap and highly addictive, proved to be a very effective weapon in the government’s attack.24

i’ve expanded upon this history in order to illustrate the power of being political and the threat it poses to the enemy. The BPP was able to deliver political consequences, thus the government went to great extent to neutralize them. Do you think We would exist as We do if We actually posed a threat to the Establishment? Of course not! By being non-political it benefits the enemy.

The government’s diabolical schemes have induced the social alienation, political disengagement/dependence and economic insecurities We find Ourselves subjected to today. In conjunction with the uncountable murders, drug overdoses, fractured families, fatherless/motherless children, mass incarceration, etc., We have become totally politically impotent. Albeit, We don’t want to admit it. We are being used like so many before Us, by the very forces that are responsible for our plight. To continue to act against Our own interests is to commit crimes against the people. i entreat that We wake up and realize that We have the potential to deliver political consequences.

10% Gangster

Our culture believes that a gangster is what is depicted in the movies, music videos, on social media, etc. Contrary to this belief, a gangster is one who stands on principles, never compromising them; a gangster is motivated by morale, and never falters or wavers when faced with adversity.

i believe Tupac Shakur said it best:

Now if we wanna live the THUG LIFE and the gangsta life and all that, okay, so stop being cowards and let’s have a REVOLUTION. But we don’t wanna do that, dudes just wanna live a character. They wanna be cartoons, but if they really wanted to do something, if they was tough alright, let’s start OWN COUNTRY, let’s start a REVOLUTION, let’s get out of here [prison], let’s do something.

Conclusion

It’s only right that i wrap this up with the words of Komrade George Jackson:

Settle your quarrels, come together, understand the reality of our situation, understand that fascism is already here, that people are dying who could be saved, that generations more will die or live poor butchered half-lives if you fail to act. Do what must be done, discover your humanity and your love in revolution. Pass on the torch. Join us, give up your life for the people.25

We Have To Do

Mobilizing Organizing Revolutionizing & Educating

We Be The Vision

Joka Jeupe Mkali, aka Komrade Shine White

Joseph Stewart #0802041

Central Prison

P.O. Box 247

Phoenix MD 21131

The following is a conversation with Shine White. Shine White is the former spokesperson for the National White Panther Organization, a part of the United Panther Movement. There was quite recently a split in the UPM and Shine White is now affiliated with the Revolutionary Intercommunal Black Panther Party.

In this conversation, Shine White talks about the White Panther Organization that he was representing at the time of this chat, how he became politicized in North Carolina Prisons, the terrible conditions amidst the covid pandemic and beyond, anti-racist and anti-capitalist organizing in the NCDPS system, the use of the Security Threat Group status in NC prisons and reprisals he’s faced for his call out in 2018 for NC prisoners to participate in a Prison Strike which dovetailed well with the Nationwide Prison Strike of that year as well as other organizing.

TFSR: For the listening audience, would you please introduce yourself with your name, location and how you came to be there?

Shine White: Foremost, All Power To The People! My name is Joseph Stewart, but I am known by my komrades and others as Komrade Shine White. I am the national spokesperson for the White Panther Organization.

I am currently being held at Alexander Correctional, one of North Carolina’s worst prisons due to the racist and prejudiced beliefs that are espoused by the Administration all the way down to the slave patrol guards who patrol the concrete fields of this razor-wire plantation. Alexander Correctional is located in a rural area of North Carolina, the radio of whites to people of color who are employed here is 8 to 1. The environment is very hostile.

I was emergency transferred here a couple of months ago during this pandemic despite the courts ordering prison officials to halt all transfers to prevent the spread of the corona virus. I was transferred from Central Prison due to my political organizing there. Within the past four years I have been transferred from facility to facility, which is a tactic used by prison officials to stifle my advocacy efforts, to impede me from organizing prisoners, which is vital if we intend to redress and ameliorate the living conditions within these prisons

TFSR: How did you come to be politicized and what is the nature of your current endeavor?

Shine White: I am a firm believer that poverty and repression compels one to become politicized. But there was an incident that occurred while I was in the county jail awaiting trial for the charges I am currently incarcerated for that was the catalyst of my politicization.

It was in 2012. I had assaulted a guard that was employed at the county jail that had been antagonizing me for several months. It wasn’t an average assault, I had taken it to the extreme. For this I wasn’t placed in a Regulatory Solitary Confinement cell, I was placed behind the wall which is a cell that’s secluded from everything and everyone.

Placed in the cell with nothing but the jail uniform I had on there was nothing to do but reflect on life and what the future would look like if I continued living the way I was, engaged in lumpen activities failing to realize that imposing the oppression I was subjected to on others made me a proxy of those I claimed I hated…

As the days passed, boredom began to set in. I decided to get down and do some push ups. As I was on the ground I happened to look under the bed and noticed a book in the far corner. Crawling under the bed, retrieving the book I noticed the words “Blood In My Eye.” Assuming that it was an urban fiction book that was based on the Street Formation I was representing I quickly got back on the bed and attempted to read the book.

I say attempted because at the time I was unable to read or write past the 6^th grade level. I spent most of my adolescent years in and out of state-institutions. An education wasn’t the primary focus of those who ran these reform schools, group homes, etc.

Unable to read or comprehend the book, I became frustrated and threw it to the side. By this time I had been told by the guards who would bring me my three meals a day that I wasn’t leaving that cell unless I made bond or was sent to prison.

My days were spent trying to read George’s book. Weeks had passed and I was still unable to read the majority of the book. I began to write all the words I could not pronounce or understand on the walls of the cell. This went on for two months before anyone noticed. One morning a Sergeant of the jail who I have known my entire life brought me my breakfast tray, noticed the walls covered in writing, questioned what I had going on. I explained that the words on the wall were out of a book I was trying to read, I wrote the words on the walls to memorize them so once I had access to a dictionary I would look them up. He asked me what I was reading, I showed him the book that had been thrown across my cell many times, bent up and been cursed by me out of frustration stemming from my inability to read it.

Weeks had passed before this same Sergeant came back to visit with me. Bringing me my breakfast he had two books in his hand and a note pad. He said if I agree to stop writing on the walls and clean off what I had written, he would give me the books and the notepad. Quickly agreeing, I was handed over a Websters dictionary, “Soledad Brother” and a notepad.

Neglecting to eat my tray there was a word that I was dying to look up the meaning of.

“Revolutionary: one engaged in a Revolution”

Quickly moving on to search for the word Revolution.

“Revolution: a sudden, radical or complete change”

I asked myself “Am I a Revolutionary? What am I changing?” Not fully comprehending what revolution was at the time, I moved on to other words, but the question “Am I a Revolutionary?” continued to enter my mind. I wanted to make a change, I wanted to be a Revolutionary because George had been a Revolutionary and he spoke highly of other Revolutionaries. A Revolutionary is smart, I wanted to be smart. Revolutionaries fought, I wanted to fight. I had to become a Revolutionary. I didn’t fully understand what a Revolutionary was, but yet I knew to become one I had to become smart. The dictionary became my best friend, reading George’s books were painstaking in the beginning. I had to stop every other word to look up its meaning.

Komrade George changed me, he Revolutionized me in a small cell secluded from everyone for 9 months. I had become politicized! Sentenced close to twenty years, I’ve been feeding my consciousness ever since. I don’t tell a lot of people but I have a learning disability that becomes discouraging at times. It’s difficult for me to grasp what I’m reading the first time, I have to read it over and over before I am fully able to comprehend it. I am self-educated, the past four years of my life was spent in solitary confinement. I have recently been released to general population thanks to the support of my outside network coordinating a national campaign to have me released.

Solitary confinement compels me to either grow or die mentally. I used my time to further my education in areas that would benefit the movement. Being that I am incarcerated and will remain incarcerated for at least the next seven years, my primary focus is to build up the White Panther Organization within prisons nationwide. For a Revolutionary or liberator of the people who is incarcerated, our primary focus should be to transform these razor-wire plantations into schools of liberation. Thus, upon their release, prisoners can return to their communities armed with an education that would enable them to transform their communities into base areas of cultural, social and political Revolution. This is the necessary first stage of the Revolutionary war.

TFSR: Would you tell us in some detail about the White Panther Organization, it’s philosophy and it’s activities as you can?

Shine White: The WPO serves as an arm to the peoples vanguard, the New Afrikan Black Panther Party (NABPP) whose primary purpose is to lead the fight against national oppression and link this to the international proletarian revolution. Our ideological and political line is Pantherism. The politics of Pantherism is Revolutionary nationalism and internationalism illuminated by Marxism-Leninism-Maoism. Our strategy for Revolution is a national and international United Front Against Imperialism.

Our job as White Panthers is to put in work among the white masses and poor white communities, winning them over to support the Panther 10-point program. The 10-point programs of both the NABPP and the WPO.

As White Panthers, we are more than a white support group of the NABPP. History has shown that white support groups advance the Revolution. We as White Panthers recognize that we must be all-the-way Revolutionaries that work diligently to organize and build anti-racist, anti-fascist, anti-capitalist and other progressive consensus among poor whites who are also subjected to class oppression.

As I already mentioned, it is our primary focus to transform these razor-wire plantations into “schools of liberation” and the oppressed communities into base areas of cultural, social and political Revolution. To do so, it’s imperative that we re-educate our white brothers and sisters as well as our non-binary komrades who have been deluded by racist, White Supremacist propaganda and ideology into opposing their own class interests.

With the help of my Anarchist Komrades and my partner, Nadia, we have started a WPO newsletter. A dope newsletter, I must say, that serves as an educational tool used to teach and popularize the history of our ancestors who recognized the need for Resistance against slavery and recognized the need of Class Struggle such as John Brown, Bill Blizzard, Marilyn Buck, Mother Jones and many more.

Prisons are seedbeds. This is where the Revolutionary is grown. Our newsletter prunes and nurtures the reader, enabling them to blossom into all-the-way Revolutionary thinkers.

We have a Toy Drive for the children of prisoners. We understand the importance of family and the need of a father in the lives of these children. At this time we are limited to what we’re able to do to ensure relationships between prisoners and their children remain strong and continue to grow. We did this toy drive to show prisoners as well as their families that the Panthers have their back. The first 30 prisoners who wrote to us with their child’s name, age and address got toys sent to them with a message from their father . You know we are just trying to serve the people. We have plans once this covid-19 mess clears up to provide transportation for the families of prisoners who are unable to visit their incarcerated loved ones due to lack of transportation. Strong family ties create strong community ties, both are vital to advancement of our struggle.

We have a couple different endeavors in the works such as an STG / SRG campaign to address the draconian policies that those of us who have been validated as an STG / SRG are subjected to. This is something I will expand on later in this interview.

But I hope I am able to provide the resources needed to have Ruchell Magee released from prison. I intend to exhaust every avenue to have this done. Several of the elders have been released, most recently Jalil Muntaqim.

Ruchell is one of the longest held political prisoners, he has been incarcerated since the 1960’s, people, it’s time that all put forth effort to have Ruchell Magee released. We, despite what political ideology you espouse, must work diligently to expose the use of the criminal [in]justice system as an instrument of political repression and demand amnesty for our imprisoned elders. Those of you who desire Revolution, it’s essential that you defend the imprisoned Revolutionaries. This is an essential part of building for Revolution.

TFSR: You have received push-back from the NCDPS for your political organizing, including your call in 2018 for NC participation in the Nationwide Prison Strike. Can you talk about the repression you’ve faced?

Shine White: As our Minister of Defense Kevin Rashid pointed out, “Nothing is more dangerous to a system that depends on misinformation than a voice that obeys it’s own dictates and has the courage to speak out.” Since gaining the support of my komrades on the outside who amplified my voice, I’ve been working diligently to report and pursue public exposure and redress of the brutality, torture and abuses taking place within these razor-wire plantations. As I mentioned earlier, the past four years of my incarceration were spent in solitary confinement. After calling for for NC prisoners to participate in the 2018 national prison strike I was sent to NC’s only supermax unit at Polk Correctional. On this unit, the cells are secluded from everything and everyone. You don’t leave your cell for nothing, a cell that’s smaller than the average parking space at your local Walmart.

While being held there I witnessed prison guards wantonly murder prisoner Freddie “Barn” Pickett. I exposed those involved as well as their claim that he had committed suicide. This got national attention and some of those involved were fired. This is when the reprisals really intensified. On January 14, 2019 (my birthday), shards of glass were found in my food. A call to action was put out demanding that I be transferred. During my transfer, all of my personal belongings were lost, this has taken place several times.

After organizing a hunger strike and my outside support network coordinating a phone zap to address the living conditions at Scotland Correctional, prison guards entered my cell and physically attacked me, fracturing my ribs as well as my right hand.

I’ve been subjected to many forms of reprisals at the hands of my overseers and continue to this day to be subjected to harsh mail censorship. Correctional officers spread propaganda that I am a snitch. I’ve seen it all and at times I almost allowed it to deter me. But the words of Komrade George would always enter my mind when I was weak, “If we accept Revolution, we must accept all that it implies: repression, counter-terrorism, days filled with work, nervous strain, prison, funerals.” You can always tell how much of a threat you are by the intensity of the repression or the actions taken to suppress your advocacy efforts. Wait until we kick off this SRG campaign.

TFSR: There are all sorts of organizations inside prison walls and the WPO and affiliated New Afrikan Black Panther Party organizers have received persecution by authorities with the claim that these groups are SRG’s, or Security Risk Groups. What is an SRG, how do you answer the charge of the accusation of being essentially a gang inside NC prisons, and how does it’s membership relate to other groups determined as SRGs?

Shine White: Prison officials claim that a Security Risk Group (SRG) is a group is prisoners that set themselves apart from others, pose a threat to the security or safety of staff or other prisoners, or are disruptive to programs or the orderly management of the facility.

Our Minister of Defense, Komrade Kevin Rashid, recently wrote a piece on this, titled “How the pigs abuse gang levels,” explaining how a majority of the SRG investigations and their staff are white and have been trained into a hostile doctrinaire view of the so-called ‘gang culture.’

I can’t speak about other states and how a prisoner becomes validated as a member of an SRG, but here in NC the slightest thing can get you validated such as having tattoos of stars or associating with prisoners who are already validated.

The North Carolina Department of Public Safety (NCDPS) does not have an SRG policy in place to outline reasonable due process rights to dispute being validated or to present evidence that would prove that the claims being made against you are false. I know several prisoners who have been validated that are not affiliated with any group. They are subjected to repressive sanctions and discriminatory treatment which have no reasonable purpose or justification. Some of these sanctions are, but aren’t limited to:

• longer solitary confinement terms than non-validated prisoners for rule violations that are not ‘gang’ related;

• restricted to two 15 minute phone calls a month, please tell me how a father can maintain a healthy relationship with his child with only two phone calls a month…;

• harsher and often unreasonable censorship of mail, both incoming and outgoing. SRG staff use the claim that my mail is being denied due to it being SRG related. I deal with this at least 4 times a week. They use this to impede and disrupt my correspondences. Everything coming in from my partner Nadia is denied. She knows how harsh the censoring of my mail is, she has been dealing with it for over a year and a half now. She isn’t going to write anything out the way. But, yet Hitler’s helpers find an excuse to deny her mail often. My mail is being held for weeks at a time before it is sent out, if it even IS sent out. The incoming mail is held for weeks before it is given to me. SRG feels as if they can do as they please and until their arrogance and pompousness is checked they will continue to do as they please. This is why it is imperative that we coordinate a campaign that we not only expose these SRG sanctions but also compel public officials to redress the violation of our Constitutional rights. This isn’t just happening here in NC, this is taking place across the nation, people. And as advocates inside and outside of prison, a campaign addressing the draconian policies that prisoners nationwide are subjected to, we must put our resources together and organize against this;

• Prisoners who are validated are only permitted visits with immediate family members when there is no evidence to prove that visiting with someone beyond an immediate family member would be a threat to the safety of the facility;

• prisoners who are validated are being denied access to any type of educational or rehabilitative programming;

• on February 5^th of 2019, Prison officials incorporated a policy that prohibited prisoners from receiving financial support from anyone that wasn’t on the prisoners approved visitation list. As I have mentioned, Prisoners who have been validated can only receive visits from immediate family members. The majority of the prisoners who ARE in gangs come from broken families or have been raised by aunts and uncles. This restriction targets poor, Black and Brown prisoners. If one has been adopted, or if their mother, father, sister or brother has been convicted of a felony, they are unable to apply for visitation. This restriction has created an environment within these prisons that makes it hard on the average prisoner due to all of the strong-arming and extortion taking place from prisoners unable to receive financial support due to their SRG validation. But by creating such an environment, it solidifies the request for more funding to solve the so-called ‘gang problems’, it solidifies the 23 hour a day lock-downs.

As far as the WPO or NAABP being recognized as an SRG in NC, that danger doesn’t currently exist due to my relentless advocacy efforts to have both removed from the list as an SRG. This was done with the help of Senator Jayce Waddell who sits on the Senate Select committee for Prison Safety, as well as with the information provide by Komrade Malik Washington.

You see, the US Supreme Court has long held that “minority”/ dissident groups such as the WPO and NABPP have the same First Amendment right to engage in political expression and association as do the two major political parties.

The NABPP and the WPO are above ground Communist, Non-violent, Anti-Racist, predominantly New Afrikan and white organizations/ political parties. In no way do we promote anything illegal, or gang related. The courts outlawed censorship and discrimination against Communist groups by government officials long ago. By pointing this out to prison administrators and showing case laws such as Brandenburg v. Ohio, I was able to have both the NABPP and WPO removed from the list of recognized security Risk Groups. But this still hasn’t decreased the political intolerance shown by prison officials.

I am validated as a level 3 Blood, the only white person in NC validated as such. This stems from when I first entered the prison system back in the early 2000’s. With this label on me, SRG staff use it to suppress my advocacy efforts claiming that I am organizing gang members.

To be completely honest, it’s vital that we gain the support of the street formations. Their support is essential to redressing not only these SRG restrictions but society as well. Both the government as well as these prison officials are aware of this, this is hwy they’re diligently working to create situations and environments to keep the members of these street formations at each others’ necks.

For example, the J-Pay Restriction policy I mentioned earlier that was incorporated on February 5^th, 2019. By prohibiting prisoners who have been validated as an SRG from receiving financial support from anyone beyond immediate family, the policy has drastically increased the violence between the street formations within NC prisons. Poverty breeds violence. Not only has this policy increased the gang on gang violence, but also has fostered a very dangerous environment for those who are not affiliated with any of the street formations. Prisoners I’ve known for years are now joining these street formations just so they can enjoy the Canteen they’re able to purchase. The miscreants who incorporated this policy claimed it was done to prevent the strong-arming and other criminal activities that take place within NC prisons. This policy has done the opposite.

These are not tactics only being used in NC prisons, it’s taken place nationwide. We as Panthers are working to build a Clenched Fist Alliance, that would united all the street formations toward a common Revolutionary alliance that would address the oppressive living conditions within all prisons. I‘m aware this is a colossal task, but it can be done and should be done.

The members of these street formations relate to us and the Panthers relate to them, not relating to their lumpen tendencies but along the lines they are brothers and sisters who are from our communities, who are subjected to as many forms of oppression as the next person. Before I came to be a Panther myself, I was of the lumpen strata. Just as each and every member of both the NABPP and the WPO were.

The lumpen are not a class in the fullest sense but part of the lower strata of the proletariat. Lumpen means broken. The lumpen proletariat are those who exist by illegal means or hustle. The street formations are made up of the lumpen proletariat. They’ve been conditioned to believe that they only way to survive is by illegal hustles and in some of their situations this is true.

Some of them cannot be reached, but there are many who can. By showing them patience and that we are dedicated to redressing issues that affect them we’re able to Pantherize them, gaining their trust as well as their support. I’m in the trenches with these guys daily and many are my close komrades, their struggle is my struggle.

There’s other self-acclaimed prison activists within NC prisons who consistently write about gang violence and how they are being affected by it and how the street formations are retaliating against them because of their advocacy efforts. I’m sure some of the listeners have read about this recently. I want to clarify something quickly before we move on to the next question. I’ve been on the frontlines of this prison movement here in NC for the past six years and have organized many demonstrations which had the support of the street formations, not once have any members of the street formations attempted to retaliate against me. So for the prisoner who has been writing to those of y’all on the outside who publish and support our advocacy efforts here in NC, telling the people that he was attacked by gang members because he had exposed the prison officials where he was being held at, it is falsehood. I myself personally investigated his claims and found them to be untruthful. By lying, it only help s those we’re supposed to be fighting against. I know this doesn’t relate to the question you asked, komrade, but I wanted to put that out there because this movement is very important to me. I have sacrificed so much and I’m willing to sacrifice it all to assure the movement continues to thrive here in NC.

But, as far as the relationship between myself and those of the street formations, I stand in solidarity with them and will continue to work diligently toward building a Clenched Fist Alliance amongst them.

TFSR: Race in the US is a major schism among the working classes that is used to pit us against each other, as is pretty standard in settler-states founded by Great Britain. And prison hierarchies and organization reproduce and often improve upon those divisions. Can you talk about the importance of white folks, and white prisoners in particular organizing in anti-racist formations like the WPO? And do you feel there is a danger to organizing along the lines of racialization rather than class lines?

Shine White: As Komrade Kwame Nkrumah pointed out to us, “racist social structure is inseparable from capitalist economic development. For race is inextricably linked with class exploitation, in a racist-capitalist power structure, capitalist exploitation and race oppression are complementary. The removal of one ensures the removal of the other.” We White Panthers, and any other whites who are anti-racist, anti-capitalist, etc... have a special opportunity and responsibility to counter the influence of racist ideology and organizing within the working class and poor white communities by re-educating. Those who have been deluded by racist, white supremacist propaganda and ideology into opposing their own class interest, enabling them to uphold proletarian internationalism and the unity of a multi-national, multi-ethnic working class against national and capitalistic exploitation and oppression.

The WPO recognizes this class struggle but before we’re able to organize as a multi-national, multi-ethnic working class, it’s our duty to make whites see themselves “as they really are, instead of who they think they are” to quote Karl Marx.

The WPO refutes the concept of White Power as well as the ideology of white supremacy. As Komrade Spidey, the original spokesperson for the WPO recognized, “White Power not only fails to empower poor white people, it is a psychological trap that masses of people fall into that renders us politically impotent. We become unwitting tools of our own oppression. It blocks our only avenue of advancement which is through class consciousness and unity. It makes us the unwitting tools of oppression of not only non-white people but ourselves as well.”

When trying to educate white prisoners on the truth about race and why racism keeps us oppressed, the majority of them reply “Why don’t you never write or talk about Blacks being racist?” And, yes, I agree that there is such a thing as reverse racism. But as a white person, it’s my duty to re-educate the whites and it’s the duty of any New Afrikan komrades to educate the New Afrikans.

How much success would I have if I attempted to talk to New Afrikans about why they shouldn’t e racist, that’s not my place, my place is to re-educate the whites. The United Panther Movement recognizes that there’s only one race, the human race. But if we’re going to successfully combat racist oppression, we must recognize that discrimination comes down different on different groups of people and that it is important to organize within each group of people in accordance with the way they are perceived in society. That’s why there’s a Black Panther, a White Panther and a Brown Panther to carry out the task.

TFSR: There has been an outbreak of covid recently at Alexander CI, where you are imprisoned. I hope you have been able to avoid it. How has the NCDPS and your facility in particular handled the pandemic, how have prisoners reacted to the pandemic and what, if anything, have you seen from outside supporters and the wider public ala covid-19 and prisons?

Shine White: Thank you for asking, Komrade, in my opinion supporters on the outside here in NC fail to realize how grave the current living conditions are right now for prisoners during these unprecedented times.

Those of us who are currently imprisoned are utterly at the mercy of the miscreants who patrol these concrete fields. With there already being issues with overcrowding in NC prisons and prisoners being corralled in small housing areas, we’re unable to maintain social distancing, to control our exposure to vectors for disease transmission, to choose the quality of type of mask we wear, unable to seek independent medical treatment, overall unable to protect ourselves from the corona virus.

This is in spite of several health experts having suggested that prisoners with upcoming release dates and at high risk of medical harm be released from the custody of DPS. They explained to prison officials that by doing so it would address the crowded living conditions that have led to numerous constitutional violations and has been a cause of several covid outbreaks within NC prisons. Prison officials claim that if they were to release these prisoners, it wouldn’t really make a difference. I’m inclined to disagree with this, to date several prisoners who reside in the same block as I do have release dates within the next two months, but yet are being held and impeded from earning any extra gain days that would enable them to be released as early as tomorrow.

This isn’t unknown to prison officials, to keep it plain and simple they just don’t give a damn. The death of Ms. Faye Brown proves it. She was a female prisoner who was held at the women’s prison in Raleigh, NC. At the age of 65 she died of covid earlier this year. What is sad about this particular case is that prison officials had trusted Ms Brown enough to permit her to ride the city bus five days a week to Sherrill’s School of Cosmetology where she was employed as a teacher, unsupervised. It was evident that she wasn’t a threat to society but being that she had been convicted in 1975 for participating in a bank robbery in which her co-defendant killed a state trooper, Commissioner of Prisons Todd Ishee denied her an early release which led to her death.

I contracted the virus myself. It could have been avoided but prison officials failed to take the proper steps that would have prevented this and would have saved the life of Jenny Combs. There was a prisoner housed in the same block as me who was showing all of the symptoms of covid, often complaining to the guards. He was able to get one of them to escort him to the nurse’s station, he registered a temperature of 102 degrees. Instead of having him placed in a block that had been set up for quarantine, he was allowed to return to the block to move around, spreading the virus for three days before his test results had come back positive.

By this time, several prisoners out of the 48 who lived in B-Block were showing symptoms of covid. On November 2^nd, prison administrators had the block locked down and all 48 prisoners were tested for covid. It was 21 prisoners who had tested positive. Mr. Jerry Combs as well as myself were not of those 21 prisoners, but being that prison officials compelled us to remain in the block with those who had tested positive, those who hadn’t tested positive eventually did. Mr. Jerry Combs contracted it, complained to medical staff and prison officials that he needed medical attention beyond some non-aspirins, prison officials allowed his please to fall on deaf ears. Two days later he was found dead in his cell.

Prison officials quickly claimed that he had committed suicide by overdosing on his medications. I know this to be untrue, they are only trying to cover their tail as they always do. Despite three prisoners dying of covid here at Alexander, the precautionary steps that should be taken to prevent this are not being taken. They continue to move prisoners around, the guards fail to wear their masks and we are not being given the needed disinfectants to disinfect any living spaces.

This will continue until supporters intensify the struggle on the outside. I will be honest, this is my opinion. NC movements on the outside need to step it up on all levels. I know what I’m about to say will ruffle some feathers but I’m speaking the truth. The inhumane living conditions prisoners in NC are forced to endure could be ameliorated if outside supporters would take the advice of certain prisoners who have proven to be able to organize those within the walls. This struggle is one that requires much work and dedication, this isn’t a weekend thing.

We all have to be on the same page, if we are going to compel prison officials to make changes that would enable prisoners to successfully rehabilitate themselves. NC prisons are among the five states across the nation that don’t have tablets. We are forced to remain locked in our cells, no access to educational programming or rehabilitation programming. The primary objective is to rehabilitate the prisoner, correct? Well, that isn’t the case here.

Article 2 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, set forth by the United Nations, says “Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, color, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.” One of the “rights and freedoms set forth in this declaration “ is the right to education, as stated in Article 2t6. Yet prisoners here in NC are denied higher education because our states of incarceration. This is blatant discrimination. Y’all on the outside are being told that we are being offered educational opportunities. This is a lie.

What does this have to do with covid? Well, I just wanted to point out that it shouldn’t take a pandemic for those on the outside to organize to redress these living conditions. It should be taken serious at all times. As I already mentioned, I am working on an SRG campaign that would address the draconian policies prisoners are subjected to. If you would like to know more about it and how you can help, write to me:

Joseph Stewart #0802041

Alexander CI

633 Old Landfill Rd

Taylorsville, NC 28681

Or email my support network at pantherlove@protonmail.com and someone will contact you. 2021 is upon us. Let’s make this the year of intensifying the struggle on all levels. Bridges have to be built, meaningful working relationships have to be built. It takes both the prisoners and those on the outside.

Prisoners have to see the fruit first before they are willing to put the work in that’s needed to ameliorate the situation. It’s sad but it’s true. You must keep in mind that many of us have been abandoned by family members and other loved ones. So, they find it hard to believe that there are people on the outside that care about their well being when their own family doesn’t. By showing prisoners that you are willin gto struggle with them, you gain their trust and support, which is necessary if we aim to mobilize and organize.

TFSR: How do you see the struggle against racialized capitalism in the so-called US developing moving forward into a Biden presidency and what suggestions do you have to organizers on either side of the razor wire?

Shine White: As Mark Twain pointed out to us ,”If voting could change anything, they wouldn’t let us do it.” It doesn’t matter who is the president, because they all share the same objective: expanding the dominance of capitalism.

As long as the masses maintain constituent allegiance to the parties such as the Democratic and Republican parties, racial capitalism will continue to thrive and expand. A vote for any representative of either party is a vote of confidence in the reform-ability of capitalism and a vote against the need for socialist revolution. If we’re going to advance the struggle against racial capitalism, we must stand in implacable opposition to the dual parties of capitalism.

If the overall objective is to create a mass-oriented socialist system of mutual cooperation, fair and equal distribution that would benefit us all, certain methods will have to be adopted in order to be compatible with the newer systems which we the people are trying to establish. The primary method should be eradicating racism and taking an empathic stand against the false ideology of white supremacy. Both allowed capitalism to be sustained. Dividing the working class along racial lines is key to maintaining capitalist rule in the US conscious of the social power that the proletariat would attain through unified struggle. The ruling class utilizes divide-and-conquer strategies that have proven effective for over 400 years now.

The most important factor in the advancement of our struggle is action. We must begin to put our thoughts and strategies into action. Komrades, without action there is no mobility. Moving forward we must intensify the struggle at all levels. This includes lines of communication between prisoners and those of you on the outside.

We musn’t continue to operate from old strategies that are not effective, it is a waste of time and energy. Those on the outside must do more to support the prison movement here in NC and across the nation. Changes don’t happen without reason. People must become the reason.

TFSR: Well, we thank you for your time and I really appreciate this interview. Before we wrap up, do you have anything else you would like to share with the listening audience?

Shine White: Yes, it’s imperative that I thank my support network. Without their support and love I would be one of the many prisoners here in NC whose screams for help fall on deaf ears.

Dria, my komrade out on the West Coast. I love you deeply, friend. You have stuck by me throughout it all. I have so much to thank you for I don’t know where to start nor where to end. Just know I am grateful and I cherish our friendship.

Professor Victor Wallis, thank you for all the educational material and for taking the time out of your busy life to educate and mentor me from many miles away and through this razor-wire and concrete. You deserve to be acknowledged even though I know you don’t desire it. Thank you, friend, I am grateful.

Penelope, even though all the work you do is unknown and behind the scenes, it’s imperative that you know that without you and the desire you have to support the struggle any way that you can, our newsletter may not have made it off the ground. When you are absent, you are missed. Thank you for all you do.

Leah, in a short matter of time I have so much to thank you for. You go to the extreme to make sure I know you care about means well as my well being. Even though our political praxes are somewhat different, you are dedicated to ameliorating the living conditions prisoners are forced to endure. Thank you for all you do for me on a personal level and the love you give. You are loved.

Nadia, I know the listening audience can’t see the smile I have on my face, but thinking of you causes the biggest smiles. I want to thank you for your willingness to compromise. I know you are a serious anarchist and you’re against organizations and uplifting the names of them. I just want everyone listening to know that you helped me revamp the WPO, it was dead within these razor-wire plantations. With you at my side I was able to bring it back to life. You dedicate so much time to both our Newsletter as well as the New NABPP Newspaper. I know you would disagree with this but you are a Panther, may it be an Anarchist Panther, you are still a Panther. I love you endlessly and you are my best friend.

Also big salutes to Komrade Rashid, Keith Malik Washington, Jason Renard Walker and Kwame Shakur. I see your vision, Komrade. I’m with you, let’s make it happen. And I would like to thank Final Straw Radio for giving us a platform and for amplifying our voice. Thank you. All Power To The People.

—Shine White

It is somewhat frustrating but not at all confusing. I have come to overstand you people clearly, the discernment to do so is sharpened daily. Y’all may be subjectively sincere in attempts to build solidarity behind these walls, however, objectively what is taking place is quite the opposite—because at the same time that y’all choose to do what is comfortable, y’all are consciously ignoring the overall struggle of NC prisoners which impedes the growth of an actual “Prison Movement” here in NC. Y’all have refused to deal with the complex problems and responsibilities of building an effective sustainable prison movement by pretending that you are too busy with other projects related to the struggles of prisoners. The prison movement here in NC is nonexistent and the struggles centered around prisoners have been trivialized to represent a recreation or a hobby by those of you who profess to be abolitionists, anarchists, activists etc.... To say that you are for something—such as prisoners rights—but to have no strategy or willingness to actually ameliorate the living conditions prisoners find themselves subjected to can only raise questions.

As it stands you all have an unfortunate propensity to create false hope amongst NC prisoners. Falsely assigning y’all’s “activism” a “solidarity” status covers up for slighting the legitimate political needs of these prisoners. Of course they don’t recognize this for numerous reasons. Prisoners tend to be receptive to what y’all may tell them—y’all’s stated intentions. Prisoners are a particularly vulnerable and desperate social group, an isolated group whose severely miserable predicament leaves them desperate for any sympathetic ear and tending to be less critical of those who present themselves as sympathetic. The average prisoner generally lacks political awareness and training and access to revolutionary literature. So they are least suited to critically challenge what is being presented to them as being “revolutionary,” “prison abolitionism,” “solidarity,” etc.

Furthermore, when criticized, y’all have the tendency to either ignore the criticism totally or blame others. How do you suppose we identify and correct errors and solve problems that affect the struggles of prisoners? The answer is simple. The way to do this is by the democratic method, the method of discussion, criticism, persuasion and education and not by ignoring the problems. As Mao recognized:

“What is work? Work is struggle. There are difficulties and problems in these places for us to overcome and solve. We go there to work and struggle to overcome these difficulties. A good comrade is one who is eager to go where the difficulties are greatest.”

He went on to say:

“We must thoroughly clear away all ideas among our cadre of winning easy victories through good luck, without hard and bitter struggle…”

The seriousness of what is at stake should impress itself on us all. I’m talking about moving from the particular to the general—about moving from where we are right now to actually agitating, educating, and organizing in each prison, so as to build the foundation upon which will stand a NC prison movement. I’m talking about preparing prisoners for the return to their communities wherein they will engage in transforming said communities into base areas of culture, social, and political revolution. I’m talking about providing prisoners with the necessary resources needed to assure a successful reentry.

To succeed in each of these objectives, we need organization. We cannot entertain thoughts of ameliorating the lives of prisoners until we have the requisite power to do so. In order to obtain such power we must acquire and effectively use the weapon/instrument of organization. Any and all activities initiated by us in this protracted struggle must be organized. Anything that undermines this must be viewed as a danger.

Prisoners need organization. Organization unites, gives direction, and breadth to particular work. The lack of organization affects all other problems. It leaves prisoners with no place to go to join the struggle, no way to connect to something larger than ourselves, no form for struggling and resolving our problems. The failures and the dissolution of previous organizations have served as an excuse for anti-organizational tendencies: attacking and undermining all forms of organization. The idea prevails that organization means giving up individual integrity, or is irretrievably sexist/male dominated, or is by definition oppressive. Like every other revolutionary movement on earth, we desperately need a good organization, strong and healthy, to embody the struggle and direct our energies like a spear. Twos and threes is not good form for anything—it won’t put out a newsletter, organize campaigns or force administrators to compromise.

Again, I question your objectives. If you are involved simply because you are chasing the emotional impact of being rebellious and confrontational, then by all means continue as you have, however you should let the prisoners whom you “support” know that you are not actually for ameliorating the lives of prisoners but that you are chasing an emotional high and you have no intentions of stepping outside your comfort zone.

In closing, I want to point out that some of my komrades and even a mentor of mine suggested that I reconsider sending out this letter simply because it may offend some of you, resulting in the loss of y’all’s “support.” I’ve taken this into consideration and I hope that won’t be the case. I cherish the relationships I have built with y’all, however the words of Mao come to mind:

“We must undoubtedly criticize wrong ideas of every description. It certainly would not be right to refrain from criticism, look on while wrong ideas spread unchecked and allow them to dominate the field. Mistakes must be criticized and pernicious weeds fought wherever they crop up.”

I sincerely hope that we can struggle forward and figure out what it is that we must do moving forward. But to imagine that ameliorating the lives of prisoners is conceivable without Mobilizing, Organizing, Revolutionizing, and Educating, we will always be at odds!

REBUILD

Komrade Shine White

When i was first introduced to the concepts and ideology of NARN (New Afrikan Revolutionary Nationalism) and New Afrikan Nationhood i subjectively analyzed it, thinking that it was based on narrow-nationalism that was focused on representing “race.” My narrow-mindedness would act as an impediment to my own development, which would ultimately prevent me from ascertaining that NARN actually provides a complete social, political and economic theory that constitutes a comprehensive network of principles, rules, beliefs, values and morals that teaches Us the importance of decolonization and National Independence.

You see many of Us profess to be all-the-way revolutionary, when in fact We are actually robots running on dogmatism and stale formulas. i myself was a robot running on dogmatism and stale formulas, a robot that was inimically opposed to any and all concepts and ideologies that were not compatible with my own.

My ignorance would persist up until recently when i had an experience similar to the supernatural experience that all Christians claim to have, e.g. “i heard god talking to me and i seen the light.” However, my experience was corporeal.

i use the analogy because it epitomizes exactly what transpired. i was reading Atiba Shanna’s (AKA James Yaki Sayles) book Meditations on Frantz Fanon’s Wretched of the Earth. But it was Atiba Shanna himself talking to me and “the light” grew brighter with each page i read, i began to have a different perspective.

Prior to being aroused from my pontifical stupor i had wrote a response to a poem titled, “White in the Mix” that had been published in the No. 82 Summer 2023 edition of Under Lock & Key, wherein i criticized the author’s idea of not seeing color as it related to “race” and proceeded to provide what at the time i thought to be insight into what is the criterion for the “white” revolutionary. Who else better than me to elucidate this? A former member of the White Panther Organization and the epitome of an anti-racist. One would assume that i was more than capable of elucidating race/racism.

Instead of being published my letter was met with criticism, which i automatically assumed was subjective, due to the disputes i had with the komrades of MIM (Maoist Internationalist Movement). However, this assumption was a manifestation of my own subjectivism. The truth is my criticism was based on binary opposites “Black” and “White” (racial categories), thusly the komrades rightfully deemed my response to the poem as being contradictory to NARN and a further perpetuation of the myth of “race.”

It is difficult not to perceive everything through a racialized lens when the truth is that hundreds of years of racial oppression have ingrained this way of thinking in our minds. Even thinking of ourselves as “Whites” or “Blacks” testifies to the success the colonizers have had in undermining Our conscious as human beings.

Moreover, said thinking upholds the concept of “race” and promotes racialized thought and practice that ultimately impedes the advancement of national and social revolution.

Even though the author of the poem claims to see no color (which is an idea promoted by the conservative bourgeoisie that perpetuates the concept of “white” power) it is obvious that his ideas and ideals are based on society’s racialized paradigms, moreover, it is evident that the komrade has yet to understand that until he commits class suicide/white privilege suicide, that he is indeed complicit in the oppression of the oppressed nations that is perpetuated by the oppressor nation—the Amerikan nation.

As komrade Atiba emphasized:

“To ‘commit class suicide’ means to ‘kill’ the (class) consciousness of the bourgeois/capitalist order that exercises hegemony in our lives and minds. We tend to think of revolutionary activity as that which takes place outside ourselves—as overthrowing the capitalist institutions and property relations—but We seldom think of the need to uproot the bourgeois ideas in our own minds, to repudiate the values, morals, and the entire range of beliefs that We now hold ‘in so far as they are bourgeois.’”1

Class suicide was first a theory engendered by the great Amilcar Cabral, therein he was referring to the Afrikan petty-bourgeoisie (a very small elite class in 1960s-1970s Afrika). This class were the only “natives” with a full colonial style education, had been to universities in europe and amerikkka and had returned and been hand-picked by the colonialists to work in the government public institutions. Similar to DuBois’ Talented Tenth Theory, Cabral saw that the Afrikan masses would have to be led by that petty-bourgeoisie, but to prevent the reality of a new bourgeoisie and neo-colonial establishment in native face, the petty-bourgeoisie had to commit “class suicide.” They had to bring what made them “elite” and lay it at the feet of the masses, allow those masses to gain and learn from the elite’s expertise and learn from the masses.

What that meant was forgetting the subtle notions of white supremacist theories they had been implanted with from youth. Forget the notion that all things Western are superior, come back to “the source”, return to the culture of your native people, relearn your native tongue, remove the Western name you’ve adopted, the clothes, the wealth and privilege. PAIGC (African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde) cadre were stationed in the countryside engaging with the peasants, seeing their daily lives, creating the institutions and programs to improve their lives (from the masses to the masses). The peasant masses were getting political education and tools needed to defeat the enemy. This was “class suicide” for them. Similar to Mao’s Cultural Revolution in China around the same time.

Now as it pertains to the Euro-Amerikkkan committing “class suicide” the process will be different, but to make it as clear as possible you will have to objectively forget your whiteness, while simultaneously utilizing it to gain advantages for the New Afrikan Independence Movement (NAIM). You would be required to engage in the most extreme revolutionary factions instead of hiding in the comfort of your whiteness.

As the Komrade Triumphant advised me: “Forget your whiteness even when those around you (especially New Afrikans) try their damnedest to make you remember. Forget your whiteness.”

Our class is the lumpen, and here in Amerikkka We’ll have to simultaneously organize as a class for itself while also committing class suicide, by abandoning the culture (ways of living/thinking) that accompanies the lumpen, in favor of an international proletarian class analysis. This abandonment is the fundamental function of class suicide and white privilege suicide.

When committing to such an endeavor one must be scientific in their thinking and not be like the “whites” Malcolm X spoke of, those who join the struggle for New Afrikan liberation because they are seeking to appease their conscience for all the horrible things done to New Afrikans and other oppressed nations by the oppressor nation.

Most “whites” will not be able to make such a commitment, not until there is a deep societal change among those who make up the oppressor nation and this is fine, because the New Afrikan nation doesn’t need the support of the colonial-oppressor system. In fact, as New Afrikan Revolutionary Nationalists not only are we actively seeking to resist all oppression and the malignant sickness of the colonial oppressor-system but we are striving to build our own independent nation that would enable us to provide our people with food, shelter, clothes, education and other such essentials for Our own self-determination.

In closing, i want to express that i know there will be many who vehemently disagree with what has been said and will assume that i’ve taken this “wanna be” to a whole other level and i am laying the foundation for the New Afrikan identity to be hijacked by “white” people. My response to you is this:

“Let me hasten to point out: By ‘New Afrikans’ i don’t mean ‘black’ people. i mean those who came to identify their nationality as ‘New Afrikan,’ and who thus exhibit the consciousness and embrace the values and philosophy…those who pursue the goals of the ‘New Afrikans.’ To me, to be a ‘New Afrikan’ is not about the color of one’s skin, but about one’s thoughts and practice. i know that not everyone agrees with this, but that’s their problem…”2

Free the Land

Da Real One

Postscript: It’s only right that i give a clenched Fist Salute and a sincere thank you to the komrade Triumphant of T.E.A.M.O.N.E & The Brow Box Collective for being so instrumental in my political development as a New Afrikan Revolutionary Nationalist. Thank you, komrade, you walk it how you talk it.

Tip of the Spear is an essential and electrifying work that redefines how we overstand resistance, incarceration, and the legacy of New Afrikan radicalism in amerikkka. More than just a historical study, this book is a piercing analysis and a tribute to the enduring power of revolutionary struggle, even behind prison walls.

Orisanmi takes us deep into the world of u$ state repression, focusing on the long tail of the 1971 Attica uprising—not as a standalone event, but as part of a much larger, living history of New Afrikan radical resistance within and beyond prisons. Drawing from deeply researched archives, firsthand accounts, and political theory, Orisanmi brilliantly maps out how carceral institutions have actively targeted and attempted to neutralize New Afrikan political consciousness. In doing so he also makes one thing clear: even in the most controlled, dehumanizing environments, resistance not only survives—it evolves .

What makes Tip of the Spear stand out is its unique blending of anthropology, radical political theory, and historical documentation. Orisanmi doesn't just tell a story, he disrupts the dominant narratives about crime, punishment, and political violence. He exposes how prisons are not just places of punishment but battlegrounds—where revolutionary ideas are forged, tested, and passed on.

This book is not just for academics or historians. It is for activists, organizers, students, and anyone who cares about justice. Orisanmi writes with clarity and conviction, making complex ideas accessible while never diluting their radical edge. He honors the voices and strategies of those often erased by mainstream history—incarcerated intellectuals, New Afrikan freedom fighters, and grassroots organizers— allowing them to speak through the pages with power and purpose.

In a time where the Prison Industrial Slave Complex continues to expand and attempts to crush dissent grow bolder, Tip of the Spear is not only timely—it is urgent. It challenges us to rethink what resistance looks like, consider the political significance of prison rebellions, and to remember that liberation movements are often led by those the system most fears.

In short: Orisanmi has delivered a masterwork. Tip of the Spear is a radical, revolutionary contribution that deserves a place on the shelf of anyone committed to REBUILDING and FREEING THE LAND!!!!

Komrade Shine White

I take this opportunity to greet you all with a spirit of revolutionary love and rage. Foremost, it's of paramount importance that all of you who answered my call for support know that I am truly grateful. As a practical person I’m able to recognize that today's dominant revolutionary paradigm offers selective justice, a fashionable outlet for personal biases of which struggle one deems most worthy of our time and support. Hence, there has been relatively little effort being made to support the struggle of prisoners being held kaptive here in NC. Thus I am truly grateful for the support not solely because I was the recipient of the support but also because it engendered a sign of hope moving forward. Hope that each one of you who answered my call for support makes the initiative to do M.O.R.E. (Mobilizing, Organizing, Revolutionizing, and Educating) knowing that prisoners will play a significant role in creating a revolutionary movement capable of liberating the colonized and oppressed. In the near future I intend to expound upon this at length, however, being that I have your attention now I feel the need to address the comments that were supposedly made following my call for support being posted.

Supposedly, it was questioned by some if I should be recognized as a Political Prisoner or not. Before continuing I want to make it clear that it doesn't matter to me if I am recognized as a political prisoner or not. The following is for the sake of EDUCATING. Major documents have been written on this subject and multiple definitions have been given to define what constitute a Political Prisoner, from Howard Moore's definition that was quoted by the Honorable komrade George Jackson in his book Blood In My Eye:

"All Black people, wherever they are, whatever their crimes, even crimes against other Blacks, are political prisoners because the system has dealt with them differently than whites. Whitey gets the benefit of every law, every loophole, and the benefit of being judged by his peers–other white people. Blacks don't get the benefit of any such jury trial by peers. Such a trial is almost a cinch to result in the conviction of a Black person, and it's a conscious political decision that Blacks don't have those benefits...."1

My personal favorite definition is provided to us by the komrade Owusu Yaki Yakubu (James “Yaki” Sayles), an erstwhile member of the coordinating committee of the Black Liberation Army, the New Afrikan Prisoners Organization, the Provisional Government of the Republic of New Afrika, and of the Spear & Shield Collective. Komrad Yaki was perhaps one of our keenest ideologues and theoreticians to serve the people. He taught us that a Political Prisoner is not recognized by their ethnicity or gender, and that the true and proper way to identify a political prisoner is by their praxis. "Political Prisoners are revolutionaries; they are conscious and active servants of the people. Political Prisoners direct their energies toward the enemies of the people–they do not commit ‘crimes’ against the people.”2 Political Prisoners are revolutionary cadre, they are “fighting men and women” from among the people. Political Prisoners are the most conscious element of the people. While they are a part of the people, distinctions must be made between them and the colonized masses as a whole.

In order for one to discern between a Political Prisoner and a social prisoner, one must overstand the criterion of a Political Prisoner and why s/he has a propensity of living up to this criterion. In order for us to get started, we must allow the voices from the past to whisper to us the pain of our future. to be the guiding compass of the vision that is watching history repeat itself today in our lives. So, close your eyes and envision this with me. Allow my story to paint a picture about a moment to change a ugly situation.

Here I am fighting against oppression, tasting the bitterness of powerless aspiration. But my hopes and dreams believe we can make it. But the oppressor wants me as a slave, it wants to murder and kill my chances to be brave. To face down attempts against my growth, my consciousness to stand on the principles of revolution will protect the future of our unborn children.

Now I ask you, how would you feel to surrender your "freedom" to corrupted circumstances? To be placed in a dark cell/tomb behind enemy lines? Where your desires are shackled to sorrows and your tears are reminiscing today and tomorrow. You have lost so much you can't describe it, your soul is in a hole of desolation. The salt in the wounds of your imagination destroy your mind. Prayer, that is what most do. They pray that they find the strength to make it through. However, prayer doesn't work for the Political Prisoner.

Wanting to educate our heart in the process of endearment, all that we can ever hope to be depends upon our concept of love and in the blood stains of our overstanding. We must denounce fear and hurdle the adjective acronym that once was in essence a myth—to Fear Everything And Run—, now to the subject matter pertaining to this metaphorical moment, to Face Everything And Respond. And now we must face a difficult moment of our life. We must face the picture of love and passion. A picture of love in revolution. A picture that is showcasing political prisoners with Blood in Their Eye. Where their words come out from the depth of truth. Where tireless striving stretches its arms toward the mountain of redemption. Where courage can climb to the top to get a closer look at the North Star that guided those of the Underground Railroad. But we are still on a journey. Old wounds are still scratched open. The story has a larger significance. So much depends on how we approach it. Daring to open the doors to the source of our beginning.

Little by little the truth has revealed itself, to maintain a spirit of open mindedness, that one day it will be up to us to spark the action in the moment in the context of liberation. Out West that passion of revolution thundered, and we woke up to see the South in unity with the North, in the Midwest are our komrades of the struggle, as we get ready to implement our plan.

Komrade George Jackson was our fallen general. The torch of freeing the consciousness of many people and leading them to freedom has passed to the following komrades who are just as equal, the dedicated resilient political prisoners, komrade Kevin “Rashid” Johnson, komrade Kwame Shakur, and many others.

Right here is an appropriate place to call attention to a real momentous occurrence, where an ideology I never knew had entered me, pertaining to a unique moment. A discovery of liberation wisdom inspired me to measure my experiences, to measure my purpose in life. This discovery will lead me, as it has led others, down a path with that source of power which surmounts obstacles and masters difficulties. Finding the seed of greater achievement will move on to help cultivate my strength to a path where the opportunity to step into that story life has written out for me. The experience of this wisdom passing through me was both new and strange to me. Blood In My Eye is a reflection of my thirst for revolution. But pardon my soul and allow me to express to you the purpose of all that has thus far been spoken upon and its connections.

Like the power of a storm and the glory of a rainbow, like the movement of our heart that comes to us through a moment of an act or demonstration, once established it's difficult to eradicate. Adversity can come through in many forms, including poverty and persecution. But when it takes the shape of this dark cell behind enemy lines it begins to build courage within you. Love is the very word that implies belief, for if we cannot see, we must believe. Our sense which is so marvelous apprises us of our surroundings, yet we are dealing with the unseen. Love, joy, and sorrow–just because they cannot be seen, heard, or touched, their effects are so tangible and we have no difficulty accepting them as reality.

So, furthermore my adversity began with my reality of hell on earth, this dark cell behind enemy lines. This is where my "crimes" placed my future under an oppressor's oppression. This is where I stumbled across the spirit of komrade George Jackson, studying the words and listening to the voices of the past, recognizing the hardship of many Political Prisoners who had/have Blood in Their Eye and who have seen things through the eyes of Political Prisoners of the past. So, imagine trying to live, breathe, and fight for revolution through my eyes, the eyes of a "white" political prisoner.

Before continuing, I want to make it clear, in no way am I comparing my struggle to my Black counterparts. I would never do such a thing. Moreover, I want to point out, like komrade Yaki has done, that thinking of ourselves as "white" or " Black" testifies to the success the colonizers have had in undermining our consciousness as human beings. I don't know who this way of thinking dehumanizes more, "Blacks" or "whites." The truth is, hundreds of years of racist oppression have ingrained this way of thinking in many people's minds–both "white" and "Black."3 I do so here for the sake of context, but I digress.

Anyhow, I meditate on this inception of wonderfulness, hoping what I am doing is not in vain. I am striving to the point of life where I hope someone will believe in me, to believe that I am fighting for change, to believe that when I rise, we rise together. So before concluding, I want to paint you a clear picture of what I am ensuring. I am a Political Prisoner, I make absolutely no apology for being a Political Prisoner. I am a komrade of the struggle because these conditions have created me to be such.

Perhaps you have never thought about it, but hell on earth does exist. It is in the form of reality I live through. I want you to imagine this:

Imagine a Political Prisoner being persecuted for his beliefs and for fighting for the people. The overseers who patrol the concrete fields of these razor wire plantations take the Political Prisoner and bind him, leading him away to question him on the actions he made in the name of liberation, the principles of his progression in the work for a call to action.

The overseers question him, asking, “Are you the prisoner they say is fighting to bring about change through persistence?”

The prisoner answers, “You are asking me the wrong question. The question that should be asked is if there are prisoners being subjected to inhumane living conditions.”

But the overseers continue with their questions, “But isn't it true that you are what they call a Political Prisoner and that you are trying to organize other prisoners to rebellion?”

Again the prisoner answers, “You are asking the wrong question. The question that you should be asking is if you are allowing the rights of prisoners to stand on its merits.”

Then the overseers say to the prisoner, “Is it not true that you will fight for the people, including prisoners?”

And I answer, “NO, I WILL DIE FOR THEM!!!!!”

Komrade Shine White

The roots of Black August stretch back to the life and tragic death of the honorable komrade George Jackson, a revolutionary thinker and founder of the Black Guerrilla Family (BGF), who was killed by prison guards on August 21, 1971. His death, along with the earlier loss of his younger brother Jonathan Jackson on August 7,1970, inspired a group of prisoners incarcerated at San Quentin to dedicate the month of August to remembering Black political prisoners and the fight for Black liberation. It is no coincidence that many significant uprisings and events tied to the Black freedom movement have occurred in August, including the Haitian Revolution (1791), the Nat Turner Rebellion (1831), and the March on Washington D.C. (1963).

What makes Black August distinct from other commemorations is its inward and outward focus. It calls for discipline, self-reflection, and personal transformation through fasting, reading, physical training, and study. But it also fuels a broader social awareness, emphasizing community, building mutual-aid, and political education. It invites people of all backgrounds to learn about the social development and history often excluded from textbooks, and to celebrate the courage of those who have resisted injustice, not just with speeches but with their lives.

Black August is a reminder that the fight for freedom is not confined to the past. From the streets to the halls of academia, from grassroots organizers to artists, educators and everyday people—the spirit of resistance endures. It is seen in the refusal to accept the status quo, in the creation of alternative systems of care and solidarity, and in the relentless pursuit of equity and dignity. In celebrating Black August we also celebrate the beauty and strength of New Afrikan culture. The art, music, literature, and the traditions passed down through generations are all part of this ongoing story. It is a time to uplift New Afrikan voices, affirm New Afrikan identities, and remember that liberation is not just a political goal but a deeply personal journey toward wholeness.

Ultimately, Black August is a call to action—to read more, learn more, support more, and do more. It is about honoring the past not just with words but with purposeful living. It teaches us that change begins with knowledge, grows through discipline, and flourishes through unity. In this way Black August is not just about remembering what was—its about creating what can be.

REBUILD

Komrade Shine White

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