Anarchy Live!

The web has been abuzz with information about the recent riots here in Alabama at Holman prison – the stabbing of a warden and correctional officer, the fires that were set, the overcrowding, etc. – but what has been left out of this narrative is that the catalyst for the riots was a fight between two queer prisoners about queer relations. After quelling their beef, a pig and the warden attempted to intervene and was stabbed.

No one wants to mention that out of the six prisoners who were charged with the stabbings of the warden and correctional officer, four are queer. Historically, attempts have been made to write queer resistance out of history. But, despite all the attempts, queer folk have refused to allow these stories to go unknown.

What I think most people refuse to acknowledge is that prisons are extensions of patriarchal control. Male prisons are hyper-macho environments with very hierarchical structures and class divisions. In the prisons, queer prisoners have taken on a submissive and passive persona, because they themselves are not immune to all the psychological bullshit that society teaches about gender, sex, and class, and how that gender should be lived – you know, ‘females are weak and only to use, and control.’ The queer prisoner is on the bottom of the social ladder, just above snitches. The life of the queer prisoner is one of gross disrespect, violence, and oppression, from prisoners and pigs alike. Most prisoners look at being queer as an abomination, as something nasty and weak.

But on March 11, 2016, that narrative was shattered after queer prisoners went on the offensive against the pigs.

One queer prisoner went from dorm to dorm inviting, exhorting, and encouraging prisoners to come out of their cells and join in tearing the prison down. One dorm refused and placed a lock and chain on their dorm’s cell door, successfully locking themselves in and everyone else out. The queer prisoner started calling these guys on this and called them pigs, Uncle Tom, etc. all while brandishing a knife.

And this is not the only instance of queer resistance against the pigs:

– In 2012, a stabbing of a guard in the segregation unit at Holman was taking place while showers were being done, and Fredricka, a queer prisoner’s, cell door hadn’t closed and she ran out the cell, down the stairs and into the control unit. She kicked the pig down who was in the control unit, handcuffed him and opened some of the segregation cell doors, allowing other prisoners to come out their cell and attack the police.

– Also in 2012 at Holman prison, queer prisoners formed the “Gay Militia” as a prison gang for the protection of themselves against homophobes.

– At Donaldson prison in Alabama, queer prisoners form F.A.G. as a self-defense organization.

– In 2015 at Holman prison, a queer prisoner set fire to a guard in the segregation unit.

The history of queer resistance is long and beautiful. It didn’t start with Stonewall.

In Solidarity,
Queer Resistance

[French translation]

Every time you see some major action being planned by prisoners, they always state that it is a “peaceful” and “non-violent” action.

I think this is because a lot of Black prisoners who are basically behind a majority of these actions come from an Islamic/Black cultural nationalist background and it seems as if they look at the Civil Rights Movement as a model and frame of reference as opposed to the Black Liberation Movement, to which most claim to be heirs. They think it’s safer and can get more participation and good propaganda to induce those who adamantly oppose violence to get on board.

I bring this up because a few ‘rades on the outside has brought it up recently and it’s constantly being debated by prisoners at Holman. It’s a debate that will keep rearing its head.

Martin L. King, Jr. wasn’t assassinated because he promoted or practiced violence. Personally, as an insurrectionist, I don’t hold the notion that peaceful protest/non-violence should be used as a strategy and/or tactic at all times, in all places. This is not about a diversity in strategy and tactics. This is about some people, so-called anarchists and other anti-prison activists, and even some prisoner activists, not giving support or solidarity, and attempting to impose their views and practice on those of us on the inside who question the insistence on “non-violence.” Let’s call it what it is: pacifism, and it’s anathema to anarchy.

The prisoners who support F.A.M. are not all stuck on “peaceful protest,” “non-violence,” even though it’s prominently displayed on F.A.M.’s website masthead and in F.A.M. literature. These guys are far from being pacifist.

The point is that if your solidarity and support is predicated on prisoners being “non-violent,” we don’t want or need it, because you are trying to control us.

I struggle within F.A.M. not because I believe in the system, but because it causes pain to the state, but in no way do I think F.A.M. or any of the Freedom movements are going to topple the state.

“Violence is only justifiable when it’s necessary to defend oneself and others against violence […] The slave is always in a state of legitimate self-defense and so his violence against the boss, against the oppressor, is always morally justifiable and should only be adjusted by the criterion of utility and economy of human effort and human suffering.” – Errico Malatesta

[Greek translation]

(A statement for the June 11th International Day of Solidarity with Long-Term Anarchist Prisoners)

First, I’d like to give warm revolutionary greetings to all those who have shown solidarity and supported me. Without that solidarity and support, I don’t know how I would have survived for so long.

As one who has spent 30 years in U.S. prisons, I’ve become intimately acquainted with control units, whether we call them Security Management Units, Special Housing Units, or Administrative Segregation – all euphemisms of penological sophistication in an attempt to disguise the true purpose and intent of such sinister tools of control and torture. Let’s be clear: they are torture chambers.

Former director of the Bureau of Prisons and now shareholder in the private prison firm GEO, Norman A. Carlson, stated that Marion’s control unit’s purpose is to “control revolutionary attitudes in prison and society” as well. Marion Federal Penitentiary is considered to be the first control unit in the U.S.

Now, across the globe, from Alabama to Colorado to Greece and beyond, control units are being established for those who refuse to conform to the regimen in prison and the normalcy of every life outside of prison, and most definitely for those who carry out revolutionary activities. Like the C-type prisons in Greece, designed explicitly for anarchist guerrillas. The design and intent is to minimize human contact through isolation and to exact an immense cost in human suffering.

In most control units, prisoners live in almost total isolation, far away from family and friends. It means restrictions on communications; censorship of incoming and outgoing mail and visits; constant harassment; and sadistic brutality from prison guards.

A few years ago it was reported that almost 36,000 human beings were housed in solitary confinement prisons in the U.S.

A study by the National Immigrant Justice Center and Physicians for Human Rights stated in their report that conditions of immigrant detainees placed in isolation not only endangered their health and safety, but also pressured them “to abandon their options for legal relief, their families, their communities, and often the only country they have ever known.” The study cites multiple examples of immigrant detainees who were placed in isolation solely because they belonged to “vulnerable populations,” such as being gay, bisexual, transgender, or mentally ill. Here in Alabama’s Holman prison segregation unit, three prisoners have committed suicide in the last eight months, and there have been numerous other attempts to commit suicide that were unsuccessful.

Most control units consist of cells without windows, to cause sensory deprivation and reduce visual stimulation, and those with windows are not able to be opened, causing stifling heat in the cells during the summer months.

On February 19, 2016, Albert “Shaka” Woodfox was released from prison after 44 years in solitary confinement. Woodfox was a prisoner who joined and co-established a chapter of the Black Panther Party at the notorious Angola prison in Louisiana in the 1970s and was charged with the murder of a prison guard. Woodfox is now 69 years old.

Hugo “Yogi Bear” Pinell was confined in California’s inhumane solitary confinement units for 43 years. He was recently murdered by white supremacists in collusion with prison guards after being released to general population on August 12, 2015. He had been a leader and prison rebel and a prime organizer of the Prison Movement in the 1960s and 1970s.

Whatever name they are called, control units’ primary purpose is control, to break the will and sanity of those who rebel and refuse to conform to an oppressive social order in or out of prison.

What we have to do is get angry and bring ourselves into direct confrontation with this most sinister aspect of the Prison Industrial Slave Komplex that is destroying human beings and suppressing revolutionary movements. We have to continue to do the million things we already do to attack the state, but we also have to be creative and create new ways of attacking the state and its institutions. Again, these institutions of the state are torture chambers designed to break and destroy the human will to rebel against that which oppresses them.

Shoutouts to all prison rebels and anarchists of action. Keep up the good fight!
Special shout to the Plateau Crew!

Fire to the prisons!

Michael Kimble
Dragon Cell
(Watch My Smoke)

[Turkish translation]

French translation: Continue reading →