The W.L. Nolen Mentorship Program

This was published on the SF Bay View site and in its April issue


by Kíjana Tashiri Askari, Baridi Yero and Yafeu Iyapo

“To enable the people of the community to have an intelligent or informed opinion about matters of importance, the principal role of leaders is to study and to institute studies upon the basis of which plans are developed.” – from “The Destruction of Black Civilization,” Page 357, by Chancellor Williams

Mission Statement

The W.L. Nolen Mentorship Program (WLNMP) is a community-based pen pal service that has been constructed in order to provide the people of our communities with an opportunity to connect with and engage the current class and generation of New Afrikan Black Revolutionaries on several fronts. There are many within our communities who have unfortunately succumbed to an incorrect level of understanding, that the New Afrikan Black Liberation Movement, as it once was constructed under the tutelage and guidance of such beautiful and courageous New Afrikan Black brothas as W.L. Nolen, William Christmas, James McClain, Cleveland Edwards, Alvin “Sweet Jugs” Miller, Jeffrey “Khatari” Gaulden, Comrade George Jackson and countless others was somehow ended when these brothas were murdered by the fascist goons of this police state!

There is an urgent need for this level of false consciousness to be corrected to accurately reflect the New Afrikan Black Liberation movement as it existed in the ‘60s and ‘70s. It is still being propagated by today’s class of New Afrikan Black Revolutionaries, as predicated upon the continuum of the same ideological struggle of New Afrikan Revolutionary Nationalism (NARN). That struggle entails resisting the litany of human rights abuses, such as genocide, that are based upon systemic cultural deprivation and social isolation; torture by way of indefinite solitary confinement; institutional racism; police brutality; arbitrary parole board denials; inadequate food and nutrition; inadequate medical and mental health care; being deprived of our First Amendment freedoms of speech, expression and association; and falsely labeling prisoners as gang members.

Objectives

The W.L. Nolan Mentorship Program will serve as a medium to negate the level of false consciousness amongst the people by providing the people with a correct understanding of the New Afrikan Black Liberation Movement via the social principles of “Each One Teach One,” which is our communal, cooperative work, where the people will have the opportunity to educate themselves on various issues by corresponding with New Afrikan Black Revolutionaries.

For those individuals who are not familiar with the social concept of “Each One Teach One,” it essentially entails replacing “individualism” with “collectivism,” where the problems of the individual become the problems of the community. By speaking with one voice via our collective struggles of unified activity that is geared towards finding and developing community-based solutions, we will protect the health of our communities.

“Each One Teach One” essentially entails replacing “individualism” with “collectivism,” where the problems of the individual become the problems of the community.

Hence, participants of the WLNMP are encouraged to discuss and write about any personal issue that they may need mentorship with, as we New Afrikan Black Revolutionaries can provide tutelage and guidance in the following areas:

1) violence prevention and intervention;
2) developing critical thinking skills;
3) cultural tolerance and sensitivity;
4) alternatives to joining gangs;
5) support for single mothas;
6) economic empowerment;
7) how to overcome alcohol and drug addiction;
8) domestic violence conflict resolution;
9) avoiding negative peer pressure; and 
10) providing tools to help develop community responsibility and awareness.

A study guide will be provided to the people as a part of the WLNMP so the people will have the opportunity to raise their level of understanding of the New Afrikan Black Liberation movement as it is presently constructed in today’s slave kamps (prisons) to thus uproot the materialism of false consciousness amongst the people. The issue of being right or wrong, as it pertains to the material in the study guide, is of no real significance, as freedom is a constant struggle!


But, my people, it is imperative to understand, that the WLNMP can only be sustained by each correspondent being willing to donate and contribute stamps and writing paper as a part of their participation and correspondence, as this is the only way that communication can be maintained. We’re only allowed to have up to 40 stamps or embossed envelopes and a total of 500 sheets of writing paper sent to us per each mailing. However, any amount – e.g., 5 to 10 stamps or embossed envelopes and 50 sheets of writing paper – that is sent will be definitely appreciated, as it will go a long way towards achieving the objectives herein.
Participants will be required to fill out the WLNMP application so that your progress and completion of the program can be properly documented with a certificate of achievement and extra credits if you’re a person in school.

And on that note, all power to the people who do not fear real freedom!
Educate to Liberate!

For more information, contact us at:

• Kijana Tashiri Askari, s/n M. Harrison, H-54077, D3-122, P.O. Box 7500, Crescent City, CA 95532
• Yafeu Iyapo, s/n L. Alexander, B-72288, D3-118, P.O. Box 7500, Crescent City, CA 95532
• Baridi Yero, s/n J. Williamson, D-34288, D4-107, P.O. Box 7500, Crescent City, CA 95532

Alarming: Corcoran SHU administrators are directing staff to dispense with California law and state procedures/policy regarding mass hunger strikes

On Monday April 8^th they ran no yard on 4B facility in Corcoran-SHU. We of course investigated as to why we were, yet again, denied yard access without explanation and discovered staff had all gone to some sort of “training.”

By chance, or design, one of the N.C.T.T.-Cor-SHU coordinators was under escort by 2 officers who, by happenstance or design, began discussing the nature of this training that would take another 2 days of additional training to complete:

In preparation for the July 8^th peaceful protest action (hunger strike, work stoppage, etc.) Corcoran SHU administrators are directing staff to dispense with California law and state procedures/policy regarding mass hunger strikes and instead will institute a policy designed to raise the potential for maximum casualties (deaths) amongst prisoner participants, while negating the existence of input data or any health care services monitoring information.

CDCR staff at Corcoran have been directed that there will be no weigh ins, blood pressure checks, or other medical monitoring of hunger strike participants for the duration of the July 8^th peaceful protest. Instead, a single officer will be given a video camera to “monitor” participants every few days or so. The facility will be locked down, a state of emergency enacted and all yard, visits, and medical ducats will be suspended. No one will leave the cells. No medical intervention of any kind, including health care services daily nursing observations and weekly pcp evaluations as mandated by California CorrectionalHealth Care Services Policy Manual 1.m.s.p.&p., vol. 4, chapter 22.2, will be allowed.

Once a participant loses consciousness, if he is discovered by staff before he expires (dies), he will then receive medical intervention in the form of force feeding (physicians order for life sustaining treatment). Once this occurs the participant will be considered no longer on “hunger strike.”

Many of you may see the obvious contradiction in prison staff being trained by warden Gilespie to intentionally violate the law and health care policy, with the complicity of prison doctors, nurses and technicians, to intentionally jeopardize the lives of peaceful protestors – but what’s not obvious, and in our opinion most insidious, by willfully preventing input data to even be collected, eliminating visits, and confining any proof of the hunger strike to correctional officer videography – CDCR can control the narrative completely.

With plausible deniability pre-structured, this approach allows CDCR to under-report actual hunger strike participant numbers, claim those on hunger strike are actually eating by recording on video non-participants who are eating, releasing the video’s to the press characterizing them as hunger strikers who are not actually striking, and do all of this while denying protestors access to mandated health care evaluation and clinical monitoring, ensuring serious injury or death befalls at least some protestors. When it does, just like with Christian Gomez, they can claim the victim was only hunger striking a day or so and instead died of a “pre-existing medical condition unrelated to the hunger strike.”

That this premeditated violation of their own policy is both illegal and immoral is a given, and in fact of secondary concern. That they are doing so to maintain this domestic torture program, with all its inhumane and arbitrary components intact, at the expense of your tax dollars, our minds, bodies, and very souls is what should outrage us all.

Our cause is a righteous cause, our peaceful protest to realize the 5 Core Demands just and fair. We can not allow the state to undermine the purpose and impact of these sacrifices. We are prepared to die to end great injustice, should we not be allowed the dignity of these sacrifices being accorded the state’s policy and our opposition acting within the guidelines of their own law? A criminal is defined not by what he/she is called, but by what they do. Who are the criminals in this case? The answer is as obvious as the question, all that’s left to be decided is if you will stand idly by as this crime is committed.

A Luta Continua

N.C.T.T.-Cor-SHU  - Ncttcorshu.org  - Twitter.com/ncttcorshu

April 10, 2013

Contemplations in a Holding Tank

How much can a brother take, as I’m sitting in this holding tank.
On my way from New Folsom State, it’s pitiful to think how low we’ve sank.
I look out of the 2x4 cage, at the merciless faces of these devils
CDC’s finest are paid, to reduce men to a sub-human level.
The information age in a micro-chip, as I race this post-industrial apocalypse.
The new world order propaganda perpetrated by the same old world fascists.
Our brothers are being locked up for life, and forced to submit to D.N.A. coding.
Prisoners are free sources of labor without rights, and you wonder why the county jails are
Overflowing.

Wake the hell up ‘cause they killin’ us and they don’t wait or hesitate.
Letting the media scare you, the more genocidal laws they can legislate.
House bill 15090 paid for the creation of A.I.D.S. to further their depopulation program.
A biological weapon bought and paid, and you bought that line about a monkey in the
Motherland.

My people obviously don’t see what I see, the thought slowly dawns on me
Those folks are lying on t.v., that smiling bitch on the news is phony
Quit biting for that bullshit, capitalists are incapable of morality,
They don’t care that your child’s illiterate, they’re too concerned with urban casualties.
They talk of family values, but criminalize young New Afrikan fathers every day of the week.
The child with no male patterning often dies, seeking his examples in the street.
They talk of being tuff on crime while giving us drugs and Tek-9’s,
They don’t care about lives-not yours or mine – just ensure ‘Amerika’s Most Wanted’ gets your
Dropped dimes.

It costs over $50,000 dollars to keep you locked up a year, and that ain’t no doubt.
But it only costs $15,000 dollars a year to send you to college, now you figure it out.
Now the Secretary of Defense is stating and making economic, foreign and domestic policy.
When the Nazi’s did it in Germany it was called fascism, now how fuckin’ blind can you be?

I’m getting on the bus now I gotta go, but the solution to society’s woes is as simple as
Putting bread in a basket.

The system of capitalist exploitation is evil and everyone knows, so we must fight oppression
Until it’s buried like a skeleton in a casket.

H.

Defiance

Artwork: cop. Heshima Denham

Defiance

Defiantly I stand in the midst of adversity and persecution, like a stone golem of old I am, impervious to the storm of conviction allayed against my very soul.

Defiantly I face those whose power is greater than my own. Like a warrior who is faced with unbeatable odds I fight on without pause.

Defiantly I look evil in its deceitful face though masked by false justice and spit in the eye of the oppressor.

Defiantly I march against my enemy, its allies and all who would advocate my destruction.

I am rebellion unbound.

Defiantly I face death and stand in prison like a standard that rallies all those who will no longer tolerate unjust imprisonment and who dare not falter in their battle for true democracy.

Defiantly I speak, defiantly I stand, defiantly I fight on, and will never surrender, never submit, never give in.

I am the unimprisonable, the unkillable, the unstoppable, the unenslavable; I am he who is spurned the world over yet who holds his head hight in the light of day.

I am the seed of ham. I am the Blackman. The Afrikan.

I am defiance.

H.

Please help stop pre-emptive retaliation against hunger strikers!

Word just came in from one of the leaders and hunger strikers at Corcoran Prison, J. Heshima Denham, that he, his cellmate Michael Zaharibu Dorrough, and others in their unit, have been subjected to a destructive raid against their living quarters, where prison personnel destroyed and ransacked personal property. All materials related to their human rights work was taken.

See below for Heshima's description of what happened to them and others on their unit March 12, 2013. He believes this is pre-emptive retaliation for their plans to participate in the upcoming hunger strike this summer.

Please take a few minutes and either call the warden or send an email to let them know we are watching and ready to back them up in their struggle. If they are already doing this kind of pre-emptive retaliation three months before the hunger strike even starts, it is extremely important that we act now to try to put some restraints on it. And forward this email widely; let's blast it!

TO CALL:

Please call Connie Gipson, the warden at Corcoran Prison, to demand the items be returned and that they cease from doing any further such raids! Phone calls into the prison letting them know that outside people are watching and are aware of what's going on can make a huge difference. The number to reach the warden is (559) 992-8800.

Sample Script
"I am calling to protest the actions taken on March 12th in Unit 4B, when a raid took place for 7 hours on cells of people who were involved with the peaceful hunger strikes of 2011.

According to CDCR’s own Department Operations Manual, officers need to leave things as they are found, not destroy property, and give receipts listing in detail the property taken, and this protocol was not followed.

I expect to hear from my correspondents that their possessions have been returned in good condition and that no more raids are taking place.”

TO SEND AN EMAIL:
Send the following (or summarize in your own words) to Warden Connie Gipson, and be sure to copy Kathleen Dickinson, who is the current Deputy Director of Facility Support in Sacramento, an office which is over the wardens.
Send email to:

Connie.gipson@cdcr.ca.gov

Copy:

Kathleen.dickinson@cdcr.ca.gov

I am writing to protest the actions taken on March 12th in Unit 4B, when a raid took place for 7 hours on cells of people who were involved with the peaceful hunger strikes of 2011. The officers involved behaved in a destructive manner, destroying personal property and damaging a toilet in the cell of Shannon Denham J-38283 and Michael Dorrough D-83611.

According to CDCR’s own Department Operations Manuel, the officers involved broke CDCR policy in Section 52050.16, which stipulates officers need to avoid damage while searching a cell.  Section 54030.10.11 clearly says they must be given receipts listing in detail the personal and state-issued property taken, and the disposition of such property, and your officers need to immediately comply with this policy, if they haven’t already.  

I expect to hear from my correspondents that their possessions have been returned in good condition and that no more raids are taking place.

******************************************************************************
Here is what Heshima wrote in a postcard and 3 letters received by a supporter on March 26:

We've been working for the past 2 days to put our cell back together after they came in here and just tore it up. It really looked like a bomb went off in our cell. Hopefully you received my postcard that I sent on the 12th, which is the day the raid occurred.
If not, here's a quick recap:

They pulled us all out of the cells after strip-searching us - then walked us through metal detection wands - they then spent 7 hours tossing up our cells - in me and Zah's case, they threw away all our canteen, my deodorant, all my Bayview newspapers and most anything they could find having to do with our Human Rights struggle.

They then walked us all up to visiting in plastic flex cuffs and walked us through another metal detector. There were boot prints on my bunk where they stood on it to tear down our antenna wire and clothes lines - tossed out most of our laundry and so much more that it's really pointless to catalogue it all.

Someone took the extraordinary step of breaking our toilet so it won't flush. By sheer luck, a brother officer who came on the next shift went into the pipe chases upstairs and downstairs and found what was done and fixed it. Only our toilet was done this way.

It's clear that this entire thing was an act of pre-emptive retaliation leading up to the July 8th protests, they cut off our hot water then, and haven't cut it back on yet. Please, if you haven't, notify Ms Zohrabi and the coalition, as well as my family of what has/is transpiring here."

And in a letter dated 3/18/13 Heshima writes:
..."It appears the family crest [which Heshima designed] is gone, it was in an envelope with some of my patterns from previous art pieces and some magazine pages of models from indigenous tribal cultures in Africa and South America. "They must have tossed it out along with the rest of the stuff they trashed. We'll only know the extent of which they've disrespected our property as days go by and things that were in the cell looking for continue to come up missing."
   

Being on the outside, writing in

Solitary confinement in California prisons, resistance and prisoner correspondence

by Dendron Utter

SF Bay View, March 10th, 2013

This semester in the Anthropology and Social Change program at the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS), we focused our energy on prisoner rights and abolition movements, particularly the organizing going on within California’s supermax facilities against solitary confinement. We each linked up with a pen pal incarcerated in isolation at Pelican Bay, Corcoran, Calipatria, CCI Tehachapi or Centinela state prisons. We were able to do this through the help of Mary Ratcliff and Kendra Castenda, both active prisoner advocates. We wrote to our pen pals about their experiences inside, about the recent Agreement to End Hostilities, and about multiracial movements for prisoner rights, social justice and prison abolition.

I started correspondence with a prisoner named Michael Dorrough, also known as Zaharibu, who is incarcerated in Corcoran State Prison in Corcoran, Calif. He is one of the many men of color confined in isolation for 22-24 hours a day for over 20 years due to his political affiliations, lack of subservience and racial profiling. He has been in solitary confinement for 25 years.

I have learned profound lessons from him in the short three months I have known him. In hearing more about his story and the horrendous conditions he lives under, I have been driven to learn more about solitary confinement, why it must be abolished and the resistance against it. I have also been moved to become a part of that resistance in any way I can.

Michael Reed Dorrough with his family before he was incarcerated

Solitary confinement in the United States is entrenched in the history and contemporary reality of mass incarceration of poor folks and people of color. Mass incarceration based on race is not a new phenomenon. In fact, the penitentiary system was created as an extension of chattel slavery through the Black Codes, in that freed Black folks and often Indigenous people could be detained and imprisoned for ambiguous reasons in order to maintain a slave class and a capitalist system built on exploited labor.

This history is evident when looking at the huge numbers of people of color inside prisons today. It is within this racist context that solitary confinement has become a standard among politicians, wardens and administrators in the U.S. prison system.

According to Amnesty International, “More than 3,000 prisoners in California are held in high security isolation units known as Security Housing Units (SHUs), where they are confined for at least 22 and a half hours a day in single or double cells, with no work or meaningful rehabilitation programs or group activities of any kind.” Many of those locked in long-term isolation have been put there because of alleged gang affiliation. The criteria used by the California Department for Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) to establish gang membership are unsound. They use “evidence” such as what prisoners are reading, connection – as simple as a greeting – to other prisoners, tattoos and the contents of their mail.

Michael Zaharibu Dorrough with his father, mother and son during a prison visit long ago

Once inmates get “validated” as gang members or associates, it is incredibly difficult to be returned to general population – especially if the inmate has any politically radical, leftist or revolutionary views or affiliations. As stated by Zaharibu, Heshima Denham and Kambui Robinson, three New Afrikan Revolutionary men in solitary at the Corcoran SHU, “Gang is a term that encompasses leftist ideologies, political and politicized prisoners, jailhouse lawyers and most anyone who in the opinion of Institutional Gang Investigations (IGI) is not passively accepting his role as a commodity in the prison industrial complex.”

The combination of total isolation for extended periods of time, coerced snitching, the hostilities between racial groups inside, mental abuse and physical violence by guards can thoroughly crush prisoners. There is nothing left to do but unite and act.

In fact, once labeled, the only way to be released is through a process of snitching on other inmates regarding gang affiliation. This is called “debriefing.” To force inmates to debrief is not only entirely divisive, breaking unity between prisoners, but it is dangerous due to the retaliation one might receive for acting as an informant.

Solitary confinement is akin to torture as it includes inhumane levels of sensory deprivation, extremely limited interaction with the outside world, and poor food and access to healthcare. The torture of isolation not only stems from the conditions of sensory deprivation – no human touch, no fresh air, no natural light, no windows, no sound, often no communication, no exercise, no activities, no warmth in winter – but from the strategically prolonged lengths of stay.

The combination of total isolation for extended periods of time, coerced snitching, the hostilities between racial groups inside, mental abuse and physical violence by guards can thoroughly crush prisoners. There is nothing left to do but unite and act.

Prisoners have been fighting back against inhumane treatment and abuse in the prison system since the conception of it. Two recent racial unity movements started by prisoners inside long-term solitary confinement units in California have been the hunger strike started in the Pelican Bay SHU and the agreement to end hostilities. In writing back and forth with Zaharibu, I focused my questions on these struggles and more generally on multiracial movements outside and inside prison walls.

Michael Zaharibu Dorrough in 2012 after 25 years in solitary confinement – prisoners in isolation are rarely allowed to have their pictures taken.

In the second letter I received from him, I fixated on a particular statement. He said: “The housing of citizens in isolation for any length – 10 days or 30 years – and depriving them of any and all meaningful programs for absolutely no legitimate reason should provoke a sense of outrage. That it is being done … to break human beings should provoke outrage amongst all of those who love democracy.”

I realized at that moment that I have limited knowledge about solitary confinement. I sought to find out everything I could about the history, application, conditions and resistance to these atrocious control units. What I read, listened to and saw is torture under the guise of rehabilitation and safety. It is helpful to re-read Zaharibu’s letters with this research fresh in my mind. I am even more filled with outrage!

Although halting racial driven violence and uniting across race is an immense achievement and central to prisoner resistance, there is more to it than singing “We Are the World” by Michael Jackson and calling it a day. By no means am I saying that this is what incarcerated men, women and transgendered folks are doing inside, but that those of us on the outside need to do our homework and learn this history that shapes the current situation.

Zaharibu wrote in response to my questions: “A lot of us have always believed that ending the [state-created] violence and hostilities is crucial to having any kind of chance of changing the realities that we are confronted with daily. And it’s important to put this in a correct historical context. This specific effort by the state has been ongoing for the past 30 years or more.”

“The housing of citizens in isolation for any length – 10 days or 30 years – and depriving them of any and all meaningful programs for absolutely no legitimate reason should provoke a sense of outrage. That it is being done … to break human beings should provoke outrage amongst all of those who love democracy.”

As I mentioned before, Zaharibu has been in solitary lockdown for 25 full years. What I did not mention is that he is incarcerated for a crime he did not commit. Like so many other African American men and women locked inside prison walls, he has a completely sound case of innocence that the courts refuse to hear.
He is guilty until proven innocent and, although his attorneys have done so, the color of his skin and his radical political views overshadow his innocence. He is currently struggling, with the help of his family, to get a new trial for his case.

“It not only connects me to life outside of prison but when I am blessed enough to meet someone like you, it connects me to the larger activist community. I consider the prisoner rights movement to be inclusive of the broader abolition movement … It is simply not possible for meaningful lasting change to occur without coalition building … I consider my being able to connect with you and the class there to be part of that coalition building.”

That statement is one of the first things Zaharibu wrote to me in November. The warmth and care that rests in these words is not uncommon in his writing. With each letter I feel more and more seen, cared for and connected to something larger than our correspondence. I am connected to the movement of a people unified to gain humanity back.

“This struggle had to happen. It was inevitable. There is simply no way that people are going to continue to allow themselves to be subjected to the constant assault on their humanity. The disrespectful, degrading, dehumanizing get down that is directed at us at some point has to be responded to. It honestly does not matter what one’s political ideology might be.” – Zaharibu Dorrough

“The time for us to get off our knees is long overdue” – Zaharibu Dorrough

What does it look like for those of us on the other side of these walls to “get off our knees” and support prisoners fighting for dignity, humanity and freedom? Some call it accompaniment or solidarity and, while I respect their praxis and can see where they are coming from, I do not agree with the notion that I am supporting someone else in their struggle. There lies a harmful distancing within that framework that is important to unpack.

With each letter I feel more and more seen, cared for and connected to something larger than our correspondence. I am connected to the movement of a people unified to gain humanity back.

I view my participation as stepping up to a struggle that is all of ours to fight. Although we all have differing placements, privileges and entry points into it, that doesn’t mean we aren’t all affected by it. Some examples of how I see my role in the abolition and prisoner rights movements are being in dialogue with prisoners about needs and ideas, working with organizations such as the California Coalition for Women Prisoners and funneling resources that I have access to through the academy into these movements.

I certainly am outraged and will continue to be. I am blessed to continue learning from and sharing outrage with Zaharibu. Like a great man once said, “None of us are free until all of us are free.”

To read more about Zaharibu’s case, go to: http://nctt-shu.blogspot.com/p/zaharibu-dorroughs-case-for-innocence.html and http://zaharibuisinnocent.weebly.com/index.html.

Dendron Utter, a graduate student at the California Institute of Integral Studies studying prison activism with Anthropology Department Chair Andrej Grubacic, can be reached at desertinwinter@gmail.com

Viva Hugo!

Tweeted on behalf of NCTT-Cor-SHU:

A GIANT has passed. Hugo Chávez has raged on into immortality. We mourn and continue the cause. Viva Hugo! - NCTT-Cor-SHU 3/5/2013