Monday, March 18, 2024
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Tag: Adrian McKinney

Solitary confinement tricknology at Menard Concentration Slave Camp

On the battlefield of psychological warfare, the Illinois Department of Corrections (IDOC) made moves that “appeared” to redress the unconstitutionally inhumane conditions in Menard isolation unit that gave rise to last year’s hunger strike. But the move is no more than tricknology aimed at curbing grassroots activism and damage control due to the negative publicity that the hunger strike generated.

Baridi Williamson at Pelican Bay: ‘I met with UN Special Rapporteur...

On Dec. 9, 2014, I visited with Mr. Juan Méndez, the U.N. special rapporteur on torture, who is now an expert on our class action lawsuit to end solitary confinement torture here in California. Hopefully, it will have a ripple effect across the U.S. I gave him a living experience witnessed from its opening in late December 1989 to the present under its “snitch, parole or die” mass validation and indeterminate SHU torture classification and enhanced coerced debriefing.

Free Speech Society: Forum for prison activists inside and out

The Free Speech Society (FSS) is primarily a movement to defend and preserve the rights of imprisoned activists to inform society of the social contradictions of the prison industrial slave complex in hopes of educating the people not only to the existence of these social ills but their impact on their daily lives. Join us in this historic effort and support the FSS with your time, talent and treasure.

If Black lives matter – A message to the youth from...

If Black lives matter, make it clear that your just outrage extends to and will not tolerate the “con game” being run on the public and California Legislature by the PISC, CDCR and PBSP, wherein men like Ricky Kaidi Matthews, Sondai Ellis and others continue to be held hostage in tortuous solitary confinement awaiting sham case-by-case reviews after having been lied to repeatedly by prison administrators.

A New Year’s call to action for the prisoner class: Support...

2015 is right around the corner. For those of us locked down behind enemy lines, what will our New Year’s resolution be this time around: Stop smoking? Eat healthier? Exercise more? Here’s an idea: for the entire month of January 2015 let’s donate money to the Bay View. At a time when print publications are quickly becoming obsolete, the print edition of the San Francisco National Black Newspaper is struggling to stay afloat.

Man up or perish: White America is showing its true face...

As of July 11, 2014, Georgia State Prison (GSP) has placed all inmates who were previously being illegally held on 24-hour administrative segregation for indefinite periods at a time with a cellmate on the new Tier II program. The new Standard Operating Procedures for Tier II state that this new program is designed for violent and dangerous offenders, escape-prone offenders or disruptive offenders.

Time to stop racially motivated killings

Every day on the news we see reports of young people being killed by police and other members of society, senseless murders that snuff out the lives of our youth before they have had the chance to truly live. So much potential lost, so many hopes and dreams gone down the grave, so many lives shattered. We get angry and organize protests and marches in the cities and towns where these murders occur but what are we doing to prevent them?

Bringing the truth to light: Sunlight deprivation at San Quentin

A recent study concluded that even a moderate deficiency of Vitamin D results in a 53 percent increased chance of developing dementia. The most abundant source of Vitamin D is a chemical reaction which occurs when our skin is exposed to direct sunlight. Sunny California’s torture units feature dog-run style, walk-in closet yards which consist of four solid walls and a plexiglas or metal grating for a roof, both of which obstruct direct sunlight.

On racism, resistance and state violence: a discussion on the politics...

Greetings, Brothers and Sisters. The events taking place in Ferguson, Missouri, present us with yet another opportunity to address the inhumanity of racism. But the country will again not take advantage of it because we will continue to treat this act of inhumanity as though it is an isolated incident and not an act that flows from the very structure of this nation.

California transfers Pelican Bay SHU prisoners to general population despite calling...

It has been a few months since my release from 20 years of solitary confinement at Pelican Bay State Prison (SHU) to Step 5 of the Step Down Program (SDP). I thought I should pen this communique with an update on my travels from one place to another – the new location, experience, encounters and situations – as everything has unfolded.

Zapata and the Zapatistas: Today’s continuing struggle

Zapata’s legacy of integrity, dignity, self-determination and emancipation rang loud and clear to many, not as simply a worthy cost of freedom but a call to duty, to fight and challenge for a deserved justice. Zapata and the EZLN generalized their plight. Exposure itself can be a force when successfully framed: “Circumstances create man as much as man creates his circumstances.” As the vanguard, we must create ours.

Amy Buckley in Mississippi prison: I will not give up until...

Despite being prisoners of the state of Mississippi, we have the right to receive prompt medical treatment, clean clothes to wear, a clean and safe living environment and access to our families. The Mississippi Department of Corrections may not care about my health, but my health is important to me and my family. When I came into this system I was healthy and I plan to leave healthy! I will not give up until I receive the medical care I deserve.

Free Imam Jamil Al-Amin! His wife, attorney Karima Al-Amin, tells of...

The fiery H. Rap Brown, chairperson of SNCC, minister of justice for the Black Panther Party and one of the original four targets of the FBI’s infamous COINTELPRO to neutralize Black power, is presently entombed in the federal prison at Florence, Colorado, one of the world’s 10 worst prisons. Pursued relentlessly since the ‘60s, he was wrongfully convicted in 2002 – the prosecutor bragging that they finally got him after trying for 24 years. His wife, attorney Karima Al-Amin, tells his story on the Block Report.

Panther unleashed

Comrades, after nearly two years of 23-hour lockdown in Ad-Seg here in Texas, I have recently been released to general population. I spent close to one year on one of the most notoriously abusive high security units in Texas, the Estelle High Security Unit located in Huntsville. Unknown to the fascist oppressors who held me captive on Estelle, I kept meticulous records of the abuse and mistreatment I witnessed and fell victim to.

In memory of Cookie Suttle (January 1925-November 2013)

Elsie “Cookie” Suttle was born on Jan. 3, 1925, in Weatherford, Oklahoma, the last of four sisters. She was a beautician for over 30 years. For over 60 years, she was a devout member of First AME Zion Church in San Francisco and more recently a member of Kyles Temple AME Zion Church in Vallejo. Her beautiful white hair was her trademark.

Tavis Smiley spotlights Black suffering, Black hope

The house was packed for the San Francisco NAACP Freedom Fund Gala, “We Shall Not Be Moved Until Justice Rolls Down Like a Mighty Stream,” at the Union Square Hilton on Saturday, Nov. 9, when Tavis Smiley, named one of “The World’s 100 Most Influential People” by TIME magazine, broadcaster, author of 16 books, publisher, advocate and philanthropist, took the mic. Beginning with excerpts from his introduction by San Francisco NAACP President Dr. Amos C. Brown, here is Tavis’ provocative and profoundly moving address:

Rev. Dr. Frederick Douglas Haynes III: No. 1 for me is...

Martin King said as long as there is economic inequality, there will be racial inequality.The lack of economic empowerment in our community comes from economic dysfunction that is a result of – let’s be real – racism as it relates to how this country has been structured so that the classes, in a real sense, exploit the masses, and especially people of color and, without a doubt, African Americans.

Corcoran SHU hunger strike: The riot team was ready for full-scale...

Here at Corcoran State Prison, 4B1L Short Corridor on July 11, 2013, at approximately 11 a.m., Sgt. Vogel and two of his COs (correctional officers) entered the Short Corridor with a list of names of guys from all racial groups and went door to door informing them that they were moving immediately – no ifs, ands or buts – willingly or by force!

Secret torture unit at San Quentin

The Adjustment Center (AC) is the death row Security Housing Unit at San Quentin (SQ) which also serves as Administrative Segregation Unit overflow housing. But for all intents and purposes the AC is a secret torture unit at SQ and the fraternal twin of CDCR’s other torture units now partially exposed by media attention resulting from the 2011 peaceful hunger strikes at Corcoran, Pelican Bay and Tehachapi.

CDCR’s sham mental health interventions and evaluations

In spite of the AMA protocol on torture, the CDCR’s medical and mental health physicians have yet to offer California prisoners any qualitative medical or mental health treatment, intervention or service. And they have been present and dead silent on the issue of how we prisoners have been tortured in CDCR’s SHU and CMU, where social deprivation – torture – has been the norm for the past 10 to 40-plus years.