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Introduction by Nube Brown
I never cease to be both humbled and ignited by the indomitable quest for the best in humanity from our most embattled freedom fighters – our wise, Elder, California political prisoners who are modern-day enslaved, yet continue to act in Ubuntu (shared humanity) and revolutionary love to keep us connected to the best in ourselves together with them. This is the 11-year anniversary of the first of three historic California Hunger Strikes that ended the torture of indefinite solitary confinement meant to break the men and women it was designed for. Yafeu Adisa Iyapo-I and his wife Makini Iyapo remind us our “Undead Heroes” must never, ever be forgotten; instead revered and uplifted. After 30, 40, even 50 years, these Elder freedom fighters are still not free! “Never forget, never again, never alone!” is the loving sentiment of Makini Iyapo, founder of her organization of the same name.
The rest of us includes the best of us: An ode to our Undead Heroes
by Yafeu Adisa Iyapo-I (in the spirit of Exodus 1:1-22 and Matthew 4:1-10, and 11)
Greetings, my sisters and brothers,
My name is Minister Baba Yafeu Adisa Iyapo-I. The self-liberating unity of purpose of this ongoing series of new, improved and 21st century-based Underground Railroad movements and Black Freedom Star-style messages is to help refocus a burning beacon of gospel truth on the reality-based human survival stories of the Bible-based working title: “The class of 1985 through 2016 revisited: An ode to our Undead Heroes.”
Some screamed. Some cried. Some went crazy. Some died by suicide. And yes, some of these morally rotten snitches, debriefers and a most despised caste of state-created neo-slaves were threatened, coerced and even made to agree to sell their very human souls in exchange to so-called “earn” their own individual and self-serving release back out of the CDCr and IGIs once secret networks of Orwellian-style human torture chambers, i.e. the PBSP’s original SHU units from 1989 through 2005 and the PBSP’s new and far worse models of domestic Communication-Management Units (CMU) from 2006 through 2015.
Note: For historical clarity, please locate and review: A) “1984” by George Orwell and B) “Blueprint for Control Units,” 30 years old, found below.
But thank you to one and all of our four or more captive leadership bodies, comrades in struggle and our present generation of Undead Heroes. As of December 2010, there stood a captive Legion of Blacks, Whites, Browns and other proud bands of California-based men who were all greatly learned and morally courageous enough to remember the many historical lessons and ancestral messages of “Never again!”
And as of January 2011, an indomitable message of universal truths, freedom, justice and solidarity began to spread throughout our still captive numbers, which soon gave birth to both our very simple anthem of Universal Manhood and as well to a whole new brand, style and still emerging multimedia database of unity-based visual artwork, tattoos and body art and other living legacies on behalf of our collective human dignity as men, which was specifically designed to help teach and show the entire world at large that, The Rest of Us Includes the Best of Us!
For historical clarity, please locate, read and then mutually discuss the long neglected histories of both the Stanford Prison Experiment and the Lucifer Effect.
And together we shall all agree to help educate, organize, raise funds, hunger strike, lead peaceful protests, read, write, draw, speak and teach the greatly covered-up histories of our own internal California-based prisons and prisoners’ struggles until these modern-day walls of Jericho, i.e. the CDCr and IGI-controlled SHU units and CMU units, have all come tumbling down and all of our present generations of Undead Heroes and many wrongfully confined numbers of indeterminate SHU domestic exile cases are finally and justly released back out to these general population units!
And behold, my name is Minister Baba Yafeu Adisa Iyapo-I. I am the founder of The Art of Resistance Movement, and I speak as just one of the many Undead Heroes and still captive human survivors of over 46+ years of state-sponsored racism, hatred, discrimination, false imprisonment, prolonged solitary confinement and many other clearly identifiable examples of mental and physical torture, as well as the still untold human horror stories of a mass number of involuntary human research experiments.
Note: For historical clarity, please locate, read and then mutually discuss the long neglected histories of both the Stanford Prison Experiment and the Lucifer Effect. The Stanford Prison Experiment is summarized as a social psychology study in which college students became prisoners or guards in a simulated prison environment. The experiment, funded by the U.S. Office of Naval Research, took place at Stanford University in August 1971. It was intended to measure the effect of role-playing, labeling and social expectations on behavior over a period of two weeks. However, mistreatment of prisoners escalated so alarmingly that principal investigator Philip G. Zimbardo terminated the experiment after only six days.
The Lucifer Effect, as described in an overview, raises a fundamental question about the nature of human nature: How is it possible for ordinary, average, even good people to become perpetrators of evil? In trying to understand unusual or aberrant behavior, we often err in focusing exclusively on the inner determinants of genes, personality and character, as we also tend to ignore what may be the critical catalyst for behavior change in the external situation or in the system that creates and maintains such situations.
“I challenge readers to reflect on how well they really know themselves and how much confidence they have in what they would or would not ever do when put into new behavioral settings,” observes Stanford University psychologist Philip G. Zimbardo.
Respectfully yours,
Minister Baba Yafeu Adisa Iyapo-I
Send our brother some love and light: Yafeu Iyapo-I, s/n Leonard Alexander, B-72288, Soledad State Prison, C-BW-3 328-L, Fac. C, P.O. Box 689, Soledad, CA 93960.
Blueprint for control units – 30 years old
Reprinted from “Breaking Men’s Minds: Behavior Control and Human Experimentation at the Federal Prison in Marion, Illinois,” Prison News Service, Nov.-Dec. 1992, submitted by Tommy Silverstein, P.O. Box 1000, Leavenworth, KS 66048-1000.
Special Handling Unit. Behavior Modification Unit. Different names, but the same things. These are units that have been specially designed to control behavior; it is where human experimentation on prisoners is legal. The purpose of [the] Marion control unit is to control revolutionary attitudes in the prison men and in the society at large.” This, according to former Marion Warden Ralph Aron. Federal Judge James Foreman has stated, “In several instances [the control unit] has been used to silence prison critics. It has been used to silence religious leaders. It has been used to silence economic and philosophical dissidents.”
In 1962, at a meeting in Washington, D.C., between social scientists and prison wardens, Dr. Edward Schein presented his ideas on brainwashing.
“In several instances [the control unit] has been used to silence prison critics. It has been used to silence religious leaders. It has been used to silence economic and philosophical dissidents.”
Addressing the topic of “Man Against Man: Brainwashing,” he said: “In order to produce marked changes of behavior and/or attitude, it is necessary to weaken, undermine or remove the supports of old patterns of behavior and the old attitudes. Because most of these supports are the face-to-face confirmation of present behavior and attitudes, which are provided by those with whom close emotional ties exist, it is often necessary to break those emotional ties. This can be done either by removing the individual physically and preventing any communication with those whom he cares about or by proving to him that those whom he respects aren’t worthy of it and, indeed, should be actively mistrusted.” Dr. Schein then provided the group with a list of examples:
1. Physical removal of prisoners from those they respect to positively break or seriously weaken close emotional ties.
2. Segregation of all natural leaders.
3. Use of cooperative prisoners as leaders.
4. Prohibition of group activities not in line with brainwashing objectives.
5. Spying on prisoners and reporting back private material.
6. Tricking men into written statements which are then shown to others.
7. Exploitation of informers and opportunists.
8. Convincing prisoners that they can trust no one.
9. Treating those who are willing to collaborate in far more lenient ways than those who are not.
10. Punishing those who show uncooperative attitudes.
11. Systemic withholding of mail.
12. Preventing contact with anyone non-sympathetic to the method of treatment and regimen of the captive populace.
13. Building a group conviction among the prisoners that they have been abandoned by and totally isolated from their social order.
14. Undermining all emotional supports.
15. Preventing prisoners from writing regarding the conditions of their confinement.
16. Making available and permitting access to only those publications which are neutral to or supportive of the desired new attitudes.
17. Placing individuals into new and ambiguous situations for which the standards are kept deliberately unclear and then pressuring them to conform to what is desired in order to win favor and a reprieve from the pressure.
18. Placing individuals whose emotional support has been severely weakened or eroded into a living situation with several others who are more advanced in their thought-reform whose job it is to further undermine the individual’s emotional support.
19. Using techniques of character invalidation, i.e. humiliations, revilements and shouting to induce feelings of guilt, fear and suggestibility coupled with sleeplessness, an exacting prison regimen and periodic interrogation interviews.
20. Meeting with renewed hostility all insincere attempts to comply with cellmates’ pressures.
21. Repeatedly pointing out to the prisoner by cellmates of where he has in the past, or in the present, not even lived up to his own standards or values.
22. Rewarding submission and subservience to the attitudes encompassing the brainwashing objective with a lifting of pressure and acceptance as a human being.
23. Providing social and emotional support that reinforce new attitudes.
Following Dr. Schein’s address, then director of the U.S. Bureau of Prisons James V. Bennett commented, “(O)ne of the things we must do is more research. It was indicated that we have a large organization with some 24,000 men in it now and that we have a tremendous opportunity here to carry on some of the experimenting to which various panelists have alluded.
We can manipulate our environment and culture. We can perhaps undertake some of the techniques Dr. Schein discussed. Do things on your own. Undertake a little experiment with what you can do with the Muslims. There’s a lot of research to do. Do it as individuals. Do it as groups and let us know the results.”
Send our brother some love and light: Leonard Alexander (Yafeu Adisa Iyapo-I), B72288, C-BW-328L, P.O. Box 689, Soledad CA 93960.
Honoring a most beloved New Afrikan Hero:
