Tag: retaliated against

The racist prison system flexes its power over helpless captives inside when the masses outside protest too much.

Celebrating the 10th anniversary of the first of three California Hunger Strikes, Bay View Editor Nube Brown interviews Paul Redd and Kubwa Jitu, captured and labeled the worst of the worst, sharing a combined 66 plus years total in solitary confinement, and revealing their humanity to be the Best of the Best.

In this year 2021 the ghosts of the “Old South” reside undeniably at Angola’s plantation of yesteryear, the plantation modernized to the efficient capabilities of control and brutality for the 20th century in the attempt at keeping slavery and capitalism alive and well-oiled.

It is clear that even though a person may have served their time in prison, release from prison to a halfway house does not provide freedom. One might be “allowed” to work, but may not be allowed the tools, or Constitutional Rights, necessary for the work allowed. The penal system prevails in unrelenting oppressor control and punishment against captive people, our Black and Brown community members.

We know her name – Ida B. Wells-Barnett – but do we know how her very essence laid the groundwork for, and is woven deeply into the fabric of, today’s struggles? Uhuru B. Rowe, with elegance and expertise draws a powerful picture for our enlightenment about this profound human icon.

People who are prisoners are fighting for their lives and dependent solely on the support and voices of families and organizers on the outside because California Department of Corrections and rehabilitation (CDCr), the Governor’s office and legislators are acting like they don’t care if they die, and by non-action appear to encourage death by COVID for prisoners.

Prisoners at California’s largest prison, Corcoran Substance Abuse Treatment Facility (SATF), cry out their fear of a re-enactment of the recent deaths at San Quentin from the imposed COVID-19 outbreak. Transfers into SATF are being made with egregious disregard for health and safety practices, coupled with continued historical institutional abuse and neglect.