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This is Lisa Strawn. I'm a trans woman. And I recently was paroled after 25 years from San Quentin. I was one of fourteen, fifteen hundred people who tested positive. I can't even begin to- I can't even begin to tell you. This fear that not just myself but everyone else, that every day, when the COVID-19 began there were only suspected cases. People keep talking about this, but it came from another prison from Chino. There's more- there's more to that. There were actually staff members that had COVID-19. They got better and they returned to work. Most of the staff members, they had access to every inmate who was going to the inmate canteen.  Inmates- it was a mandatory- we had to wear a mask, staff it wasn't. I could tell you that I tested twice, the first time it was negative, it was on June 16th. The second time, June 22nd. I never got resolved, but I had lost my sense of taste and smell. And every day they were reading names, calling out names, but people had to move and people were going man down. We were

I'm Uptown Serg, and this is a message to the leadership of Black Lives Matter. For years now, you have courageously taken on the burden of being representatives of the black community and our struggle for self-determination and freedom. You have an awesome platform at your disposal and even more cumbersome responsibility of maintaining your ideological integrity so that all of mankind can one day be free from the brutal inhumane clutches of capitalism and patriarchy.With recent episodes of unarmed black men being murdered by racist police, you have consistently supported the call to defund the police and end the terroristic occupation of black and brown communities. And the fact that you placed a focus on defunding means that you understand how economics is the driving force of our oppression.With that said, I want to use this opportunity to implore the leadership of Black Lives Matter to make the deeper economic connection between capitalism, slavery, police, and prisons. As you know, the police were a crea

Joadanus Olivas, My Ghetto Thesis On The Word Nigga.There's much controversy over the word "nigga." As a black youth myself, I'm more than familiar with this word. Those from black conscious groups argue that the work should be done away with completely not only because of its derogatory meaning but because this was the last word many of our ancestors heard before getting killed by lynching.So many have adopted this word and now it sounds normal even coming from the mouth of someone who was far from black. Rap music refuses to remove this word from its vocabulary. Some such- some such as Tupac Amaru Shakur even reversed the denigration by turning it into an acronym: Never Ignorant Getting Goals Accomplished.I've come to understand that there are many different variations of this word meaning-wise. Some emphasis on the word and you automatically know it's a danger like, nigga? Others show that it's peace like, my nigga! Some shows ignorance, race in a good way. And everyone knows if you pronounce the -er on th

When we think of politicians, we too often see them as great, even mighty figures, seemingly larger than life.That’s because of how the media projects them -and far too often, protects them.But in times like these, times of plague, crises, massive failures of institutions, and yes, of death, we begin to see them differently. For some, the spell is broken.We see them as they are, flawed beings, driven by ambition and hungers for power. It ain’t a pretty picture. US president Trump’s recent so-called order (it sounds like more of a threat) to re-open schools has fallen like a lead balloon.It’s like ordering parents to send their children into a burning building - with no masks! And although the coronavirus is invisible, it is burning, bringing the nation to its knees with its effect of bone-wracking sickness - and tens of thousand of deaths.For these aren’t the children of the wealthy; they’re the children of the poor and working classes - the children of the common people. And does anyone believe this dude car

I'm Uptown Serg and this is how the prison administration is exploiting the COVID-19 pandemic. While the COVID-19 pandemic is forcing all of us to adapt to a new normal, things on the inside of prisons continue to get worse. Understanding the severity of this moment in time, there are some prison staff who have been trying to show prisoners humanity, but the vast majority of prison guards have chosen to use this opportunity to exhibit some of the worst forms of inhumanity.When this crisis began, Secretary of Corrections John Wessel placed many measures in place with the alleged intent to mitigate the virus' spread throughout the prison system. However, not one of these measures have had anything other than a punitive impact on prisoners and our families and communities. For example, all visits have been suspended until further notice and replaced with one 45 minute Zoom virtual visit per week. Ou access to telephone and emails have been severely restricted. Prison guards have used this opportunity to act as r

Shaka Response to Hospital After COVID

Several days ago, the European Union announced that Americans were not welcome to visit any of the 28 - member countries of the EU. Why? Because of the explosive expansion of the coronavirus among American states, which surpasses many foreign nations.At last count, over 3 million people in the US are infected, resulting in at least some 130 - thousand deaths. Americans, long regarded as disputatious, quarrelsome and argumentative, are now regarded as a threat to the public health of European states. It now joins Brazil, as a nation banned from European soil. Europeans must also regard Americans as foolish and undisciplined, for failure to abide by simple health rules, which threatens to surge throughout European society. In the US meanwhile, southern and southwestern states regarded masking as an assault on American rights, and an affront to freedom. What is most unnerving, however, is the elevation of politics over science, for the US proves that he who substitutes a politician’s  decision over that of a doc

My name is Joandus Olivas, currently incarcerated.The question is whether you receive a better education in college or in prison. Which of the two ensures that for sure success later in life? Which of the two enhances your will to survive in any location: post-completion of your academic term or completion of your prison term?According to the Latin definition of education, which is the origination of the word, it means to draw out or bring out of a place and to lead. I found this definition out the hard way when I received a life sentence at 16 years of age. So as Malcolm X said, prison is the black man's university. No lie. This is the fact for me.In college, you may take a class pertaining to race relations; you may study the history of bigotry, racism, and prejudice. How ironic. This was my first lesson in prison at 17 years old when two officers refused to provide me shoes. My response was: give me my respect. The officers responded: blacks aren't born with respect. My eyes threatened to shed tears, but m

I'm Uptown Serg, and this is “Police, Prisons, and Community Policing.” I'm grateful that society is beginning to acknowledge some of the consequences of overpolicing, but there needs to be a focus on the most direct consequences of overpolicing, which is mass incarceration. I want us all to be able to put the pieces of this puzzle together, one section at a time, so we can understand the process in its entirety. Policing and incarceration are inherently bonded through the ideology of control and suppression, and neither one is any good for our community. People laugh when they hear others claim that we don't need to police. How will we prevent crime? they ask. But police and prison has never been about preventing crime. Let me be clear about this. Despite what you may think, police and prisons haven't always existed. But crime has. So how was crime dealt with before policing and prisons came into play? Crime is a public health issue. In fact, show me any crime and I show you how police and prisons aren't the

The perils of Reform. For years, indeed for decades, we have seen the mirage of reform being presented by neoliberal leaders and their media tools only to awake too late to ghoulish nightmares of shattered promises and hopes betrayed. So reform is betrayal. A devil's bargain of better days to come.That only brings worse days. Today, the nation shocked by the savagery of George Floyd's curbside execution for all the world to see. Just five years ago, politicians claiming themselves progressive, sold illusions of police body cameras as some kind of solution. But George Floyd, not to mention, Rayshard Brooks, put the nail in that coffin for it meant nothing when it came to changing cop behavior. Today's reformers in Congress promise much, but they can and will deliver little but new illusions. Reforms are, but reformulations of old promises, of old wine in new bottles, of things to come that never make it. For that is the nature of capitalist society. New items to sell that ended up producing new problems.New da

Message to the youth in rebellion.The time is now: fight back against the war on black people and use any means necessary in doing so. There are no rules in fighting back. The tactics of violent and nonviolent resistance are both valid civil actions, so use them both according to their circumstances.The time is now: ain't nothing wrong with throwing rocks at militarized, racist police and forces of oppression during protests. Throwing rocks is an act of civil resistance to the powers that be; just ask the Palestinians in the Middle East.The time is now: don't be misled by the bought and paid-for cowardly broken Uncle Tom sellout black establishment misleadership of black Christian preachers, black democratic politicians, and black civil rights people who are going to come and to get in front of the rebellion as its leaders. Calls for calm and nonviolent protest, calls to reject violent protest, calls for a march, calls for investigations, and calls to join the Democratic Party and vote as the solution; histor

Shakaboona: in a revolutionary state of mind. Follow and join me in my revolutionary state of mind before y'all go out to protest and struggle in the street at day and in the night against the police and forces of white supremacy, oppression, and racial discrimination of African-American people and other oppressed people in America.Listen to the black rebellious song "F*** Tha Police" by NWA.Listen to the revolutionary song "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" by Gil Scott-Heron.Listen to the revolutionary spoken word song "When The Revolution Comes" by The Last Poets.Listen to the audio great speech of "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" by Reverend Otis Moss the Third.And then cap it off by listening to the audio speech of Minister Malcolm X, "The Ballot Or The Bullet."Once complete, then go out into the streets and resist, resist, and resist by any means necessary. All power to the oppressed people. Seize the time the revolution will not be televised; it will be live.From the belly of the beast at pri

Finally the shows Cops and Live PD have been canceled. For too long, these shows have been instrumental in perpetuating dangerous stereotypes against the black and brown communities. Cops and Live PD are modern-day renditions of The Birth Of A Nation, and Donald Trump is today's Woodrow Wilson. Or better yet, these programs are like new-age minstrel shows, and since visual mediums are most impressing upon the human psyche, shows like these have played a significant role in fortifying the racist ideology that permeates legislation and results in mass incarceration, police brutality, and the over-policing of black communities.Sometimes I'm dumbfounded by the question: why would you run if you're innocent? (laughs) My response is simple. We run because we're free. The badge and the gun give police a license to kill us. We know that there's two kinds of justice in America: one for blacks and one for whites. So the badge and gun are a symbol of safety and protection for the rich; it's a symbol of death and destruc

The Other Women's Movement. In the frenzied aftermath of the police killing asphyxiation of George Floyd, we have seen the emergence of a remarkable and sustained movement against racism and the state terror of police. As I watch it in wonder and really awe, it occurred to me that the organizers of this new movement are women.This movement, this mass, multi-racial not to mention multi-gender and many-aged movement is led by people who occupied the lowest rungs of America's ladder of race and class. Black women, mostly very young black women. They have seized the hour and brought forth people from almost every segment of society.They are the nucleus of the Black Lives Matter Movement, and they are ringing the bells in the night, warning America, and the world, that the American house is on fire. They are to quote the iconic scholar-activist up there, Angela Davis "smarter and better than their elders of the sixties." They are students of history, and they've proven that they are masters of organizing. The issu

"Your Nonviolent Protest is Not My Civil Resistance" by Shakaboona.The Minneapolis policeman's intentional murder of George Floyd was the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back, which sparked the greatest African-American rebellion that the U.S. Government has ever encountered. But let's not get this matter confused.With all due respect to the Floyd family, this national black people's rebellion is not about the victim, George Floyd, as there has been perhaps hundreds of thousands of black victims like him over the last century. This current national black rebellion and similar past rebellions against police murder of black people before are about unaddressed centuries-deep systemic institutionalized rights, white supremacy and racial oppression against African-American people that have designated black people as less than human for having black skin.George Floyd may have been the spark that ignited the fire, but his murder or his family seeking justice should not be considered as the fire or the strugg

This is Dennis Solo McKeithan, DB2253, at SCI Phoenix, and this is called "The Reality of Coronavirus in Prison." I've spoken about the reality and the fear of COVID-19 in state prisons and here at SCI Phoenix, but it wasn't until this past week that I really felt personal tragedy and pain of COVID-19, when I lost two friends here at SCI Phoenix whom I had known over 30 years: Anthony Murray, whom we call Tone, and Johnny Mattox, whom we call Baldy.Ironically, the morning that the prison was out of lockdown, the next morning in March, I had breakfast with these two brothers and we spoke about Baldy going home next year and how he was sent some photos up from the 8th & Diamond reunion at Philadelphia, and the Valley reunion. We used to see each other every morning at medication time. Tone was a loner type, which is why I was surprised when I saw his name on the death list. I could not understand how he contracted the virus. We were not on the same block, so I don't know if he had a cellmate. Today, COVID-19 is

Nancy Pelosi calls on CBC for racial justice bill. In the midst of a black-led multi-ethnic national rebellion against racist police murders and oppression, U.S. Representative Nancy Pelosi has recently called on the Congressional Black Caucus to formulate a legislative bill to submit to Congress that will prevent racial injustice within police departments. Representative Pelosi has asked the CBC to create a bill that they may quickly pass it in Congress.However, Nancy Polosi and the CBC together are the Democratic Party establishment and are wholly bossed and owned by Wall Street's financial institutions and corporations, which has been part of the problems of African-American people for decades. Pelosi, the CBC, nor the Democratic Party, has never had the interests of the working class or the working poor class of African-American people at heart. They gave us the shaft at every turn for the interest of the rich and middle classes of America, while giving we the people racial equality and justice pipe dream

As somebody who has grown up under the fiercely one-sided application of law, I think I'm speaking for most people in poor black communities when I say that our demands for equality are limited to equal punishment. Political leaders often meet our demands with promises of reform, but so-called criminal justice reform is only one part of the problem. Yes, accountability is necessary, but retribution is dangerous because it solves nothing. It brings no closure, nor does it end anybody's suffering.It also distracts the whole of society from our true mission, which is to live amongst each other peacefully, and with the true sense of brotherhood and sisterhood. Progress is slowed when society is forced to focus on punishment, and since punishment is synonymous with retribution in America, I think it's safe to say that retribution functions as an effective check on progress and potential.The U.S. Constitution guarantees every citizen the unalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Though the

"I can't breathe." Most of America was first introduced to those three words after footage surfaced of the police murdering Eric Garner in New York City. But those words became a part of my life much earlier. I spent five straight years in solitary confinement while housed at SCI Greene in Western Pennsylvania. At the time, it was Pennsylvania's only supermax prison. For 61 months straight, I was confined to a small cell alone, 23 hours per day, not allowed to interact with any other human being except for prison guards who hated me as if I were responsible for every hardship that they'd ever suffered.Solitary confinement is designed to break the hearts and minds and spirits of those forced to endure it. The silence back there is deafening, and even the strong don't always survive. The hole, as most of us know it, is exactly that: a living graveyard. It's where prison administrators send prisoners like myself to die, and the only way for many prisoners to survive is to constantly resist."I can't breathe." The

Delbert Africa Revolutionary!By Mumia Abu-Jamal (c) 06/19/20 He was born under the name Delbert Orr, but is known in the world as Delbert Africa, a prominent member of the MOVE Organization.In the 70s in Philadelphia he was perhaps its best known and most frequently cited member. With more years than most, he was adept at using the media to spread information and promote MOVE purposes.His country accent around Chicago and his ingenious puns made his remarks interesting and gave them journalistic value.I regret to inform you that Delbert Africa, who won his freedom in January 2020 after 41 years imprisoned, lost his life a few days ago to the ravages of cancer.But this is not the whole story. Late last year, Delbert was urgently taken to a nearby hospital due to an undisclosed disorder.On leaving prison, Delbert consulted with some doctors who were horrified to learn of the drugs he was given while in Dallas prison in Pennsylvania State. A doctor said, ′′ The drugs they used in that prison were poison."Still,