This week on The Final Straw radio we are sharing a chat that Bursts had with New Afrikan, former Black Panther and political prisoner, Zolo Agona Azania. Zolo is from Gary, Indiana where he lives now, working a job and also doing re-entry work with the formerly incarcerated and community service to break cycles of trauma. After 7 and a half years in prison from ages 18-25 where Zolo engaged in political education with members of the Black Panther Party from Indianapolis, he was released. In 1981 he was re-arrested, picked up by the Gary police while walking around the city after a bank robbery took place, resulting in the death of a Gary police lieutenant. Because of his political views and circumstantially being on the street at that time, Zolo was convicted by an all white jury and sentenced to death.
Zolo beat that death penalty from within prison twice and blocked a third attempt by the state to impose it. For the hour, Zolo talks about his life, his parents, his art, his education, his time behind bars, his political development, the Republic of New Africa, and his legal struggle.
This week on the Final Straw, we’re featuring two main events, both themed around the Prison Strike ongoing across Turtle Island until at least September 9th.
First, an interview we conducted with Kevin “Rashid” Johnson. Rashid is a co-founder of the New Afrikan Black Panther Party and is the Minister of Defense from within it’s Prison Chapter. He is the author of two books available from Kersplebedeb, Defying the Tomb & Panther Vision, both collections of Rashid’s art and essays on capitalism, racism, imperialism and his view of a road towards liberation. Rashid is a Maoist and presents some interesting arguments in his writings. In this interview, Rashid talks briefly about his own case, his politicization behind bars, organizing the NABPP-PC, it’s split from the New Black Panther Party, cross-racial class organizing, the #PrisonStrike and more. We hope to be able to bring more of Rashid’s voice in the future. To check out his writing and and his quite literally iconic art, check out rashidmod.com. And at the moment you can write to Rashid at the following address:
Kevin Johnson #1007485 Sussex 1 State Prison 24414 Musselwhite Dr. Waverly, VA 23891
Next, we’ll hear an audio post-card that some friends put together, interspersing words of encouragement and audio from a noise demonstration outside Hyde prison in Eastern North Carolina on August 20th. Prisoners at Hyde CI met the outside supporters in the yard and from across lines of razor wire they unfurled three banners with simple statements: “parole”; “better food”; & “In Solidarity”. To read an article about the noise demo, see some pictures and hear about NC specific demands, check out the article, “Community Shows Support as NC Prisoners Rally With Banners“ on ItsGoingDown. Make some noise!
To close out the hour, we will hear some words of encouragement to striking prisoners in #Amerikkka from comrades incarcerated in #Klanada!
If you’re in Asheville today (Sunday September 9th), consider dropping by Firestorm at 610 Haywood Rd at 5pm to join #BlueRidgeABC for the monthly political prisoner letter writing night. Supplies will be free as well as info on writing prisoners, names and addresses, and comradery.
TFSR: Could you please introduce yourself for the listening audience?
Rashid: Alright, this is Kevin Rashid Johnson, I am a prisoner, incarcerated in Virginia at Sussex 1 State Prison.
TFSR: How has the prison tried to silence your organizing and writing over the years, and is this a consequence of the prison strike or other efforts?
R: I think I’ve gone through the entire range of reprisals. I’ve been subjected to physical attacks. I’ve been denied meals. I’ve been attempted to be subjected to dehydration, I’ve been subjected to destruction of property. Most recently I was transferred out of state, sent first to Oregon, then transferred from Oregon as a result of writing and exposing abuses in that prison system, to Texas. Same process resulted — I was transferred from Texas to Florida. Florida just got rid of me in June and sent me back to Virginia. I was then transferred — when I returned to Virginia, to Red Onion State Prison, and moved from Red Onion State prison and transferred on the 12th of July, and sent here to Sussex 1 State Prison, and I’m now being house on death row, although I have no death sentence, and that being with the obvious purpose of isolating me from other prisoners, as there are only three prisoners left on Virginia’s Death Row, and they’re spread out in a 44 cell pod, which I’m housed in separated and all the inmates have been instructed not to talk to me.
So, the major effort has been to isolate me and to remove me from areas and places where they felt I would be able to talk to prisoners, to be able to gain info about abusive conditions and to, I guess, influence prisoners to challenge abuses and to stand up to conditions that are pretty inhumane and abusive. As far as responses to the prison work strike, I have not as of yet seen any reprisals or any response that I could call reprisals. And they expect that there would be exposure of anything they did, which may be the only deterrent at this point for any type of retaliation. But I’ve been involved in a commissary strike, not spending any money, as my contribution to the strike, because I’m confined in solitary and don’t have the ability to work. I have never participated in prison work. I’ve refused through my incarceration because I have recognized it is slave labor, and I refuse to allow them to exploit me in that fashion.
TFSR: For the listeners in the wider public, can you talk about the purpose of prisons under white supremacist capitalism in the US, and why it’s in all of our interest to not only struggle against these institutions, but to support prisoners’’ organizing efforts?
R: Well, from the outset, I think it’s rather obvious that there is a racial component to who is targeted with mass imprisonment within America, from the New Afrikan, that is Black, prisoners, Black social population being 12 to 13% in mainstream society but being some 50% of the prison pop nationwide. In Virginia, where I’m incarcerated, they have been something like 13% of the state population but 58% of the prison population. So, race clearly is a determinative factor in who is targeted within imprisonment and who receives their sentences and the extent of incarceration and where they are housed. In that context, within the prison system, it’s usually at the low security, the low level institutions where predominately white prisoners are housed, and the most extreme and harsh prisons, in each prison system I’ve been to and I know of, this is where the predominately Black and Brown prisoners are housed at.
Within the prison structure, prisoners tend to polarize into racial groups, based on their shared cultural and social experiences, and guards and administration are typically inclined to try to manipulate prisoners against each other along racial grounds, racial lines, you know. The guards in my experience, especially where I just came from — Florida — are particularly orientated to acting out racist policies and politics. In fact, where I was confined, two of the institutions I was confined to, the Reception and Medical Center in Florida, in the Florida State Prison, those institutions have been exposed as employing card-carrying Ku Klux Klan members, in fact — three guards who were exposed as having plotted to kill an ex-prisoner who was Black, at the Reception and Medical Center, and revealed their plans to an FBI informant were recently prosecuted, and it came out during the prosecution that all three of them were card carrying Klansman, and that they work at the institution. And not long ago one of the legislatures on the Florida Congress had done a tour of the Reception and Medical Center, she being a Black woman, she pretty much expressed in the media that she feared for her life, the attitude of the white guards there were just openly racist. She acknowledged that she knew that the Klan played a prominent role in the staff and the administration of that institution and in that region, which is the same are the Florida State Prison is located. And she expressed her knowledge of a portion of the institution’s guards kicking Black prisoners’ teeth out who had gold teeth, and that in general, she knew that these institutions were run by the Ku Klux Klan. And this is from an elected member of the Congress of Florida, a Black woman who had done a tour and said that she literally was in fear of her life as she did this tour within the institution, because of the treatment and attitudes of white guards of the institution when she did her tour. So, the racial politics are pretty out in the open, and they’re able to exist in such at such a level because prisons not only hold people on the inside and keep us isolated from the general public, they also keep the general public locked out. So there is no scrutiny, there is no supervision, and there is generally no public accountability for and by those who work within the institution, so it’s just a closed culture, where all sorts of corruption and abuse is allowed to fester and just to be carried out with pretty much impunity. The support that is needed on the outside is tremendous. The support that the prisoners have been able to gain over the past several years in response to the work strikes and various attempts to publicize and challenge abusive conditions in the prisons have pretty much got word in to the institutions where prison officials had blocked prisoners from becoming aware of what was going on as far as protests going on and attempts to challenge and expose abuses. And it bolstered and motivated prisoners who otherwise were afraid to challenge abusive conditions and didn’t feel that there was anything that could be accomplished by trying to stand up and oppose conditions. It kind of motivated a lot of prisoners who weren’t otherwise involved to get involved. So the support that can be garnered on the outside and has been garnered is very important to this type of work and this type of struggle. It’s essential that those who are aware of these struggles and aware of these conditions give what support they can, not only as allies, but also as comrades.
TFSR: to anyone behind bars out there who might hear this interview, and is sitting on the fence about participation, what can you say about the nation-wide prison strike?
R: That they should not be deterred, they should not be discouraged, they should not just sit on their hands and refuse to get involved. The more of us who get involved, the stronger the outside support and awareness that we’re serious about the conditions that we’re challenging and the need for change — that they should not allow officials to continue to manipulate us against each other, whether along racial lines whether you’re talking about along the lines of street organizing. That’s what supporters… They should also not allow loved ones to discourage them from participating in the work strike. I know a lot of the loved ones who may hear about the strike, they may advise them to not get involved because of fear of them being transferred, a long way away from their loved ones, or they don’t want to see them subject to relation or being placed on lock down, but their loved ones should understand that this is a condition, that these are conditions that we live, that they’re not living them and that its important that we take a stand to change these abuses, and not play in to officials trying to isolate and play us one against the other, and cause people to refuse or fear coming involved, and keep us divided amongst ourselves. We need all possible participants; we need the greatest level of unity possible. And one of the things I always emphasize to my peers is, we outnumber the prison guards, the prison officers around us some 30 to one at very least. But they have total power and total control, because they always keep us divided, fearful, envious, and not trusting or believing in our own potential, where as they exercise complete and absolute unity in their actions. If they want to abuse you, the rest of them are gonna fall in line and support that abuse. If one them lies on us and mistreats us, the rest of them are going to conform to that lie and they’re gonna carry out that abuse. And that’s why they have the control and power that they have, because no matter what, no matter what the situation no matter the condition, they always work and stick together. And we need to take that same example and apply it to how we exercise our unity and our level of power amongst ourselves.
TFSR: Rashid, can you talk about your incarceration, political development, and a bit about the New Afrikan Black Panther Party that you helped to co-found? Also, how does it differ from the New Black Panther Party, formerly of the nation of Islam?
R: Ok, my imprisonment initially began in 1990. I was incarcerated for a murder that I had no involvement in, and large part, it was conspiratorial on the part of a police officer who I had a history of conflicts with. They subjected me to deliberate misidentification and a number of procedural violations during the prosecution of the case that was imputed against me, that went the actual jurisdiction, the actual power of the court to try to convict and sentence me for the charges that they were attempting to impute against me.
Ok, throughout my imprisonment, particularly the first decade and a half, I spent a large part of my time struggling directly against guard abuses. Their physical abuses, I responded to with physical responses. They would abuse physically myself or others around me, and I would respond with physical reactions to their abuses. I went through the struggle pretty much back and forth, one to one head up conflicts with guards and their teams, riot guards and cell extraction teams, for about the first decade and a half. I became exposed to political thought put, particularly the writings of George Jackson, around 2002, when I was housed in an area with another prisoner, another political prisoner, Hanif Shabazz Bey, from the Virgin Islands. He turned me on to a lot of different political writings, and different political organizations that were involved in the system in America, the various revolutionary nationalist struggles that had taken place through the world through the 40s and 50s.
I began to do extensive studies into various aspects and levels of progressive as well as revolutionary history and politics. Various theories, etc. And as I studied more, I came to understand the inherent dysfunctional nature of the capitalist, imperialist system that America is at the center of, and I understood or came to understand that the oppression that I was struggling against was much bigger than head to head clashes with individual guards, that it was largely an invalid system that pitted a small group of powerful wealthy people against the masses of working class people and poor people through out the world, and that they lived at the expense of these people. And to change conditions requires a struggle that mobilized the oppressed to bring about fundamental change at various levels of society. And I grew from a person inclined to react on a more individual level to one who recognized or saw the bigger picture and was more inclined to organize people and to contribute what I could with my resources, and the understanding that I was developed to build into something bigger, that was more, addressed more to the fundamental problems of the overall system. So in that, my clashes with individual guards lessened. I was also involved in mitigation and studying and understanding the political system and legal system. I became less inclined to, as I said, individualize my struggle against the system. Though, in doing that, I began to reach out more to people on the outside who were involved in political organizations, trying to pull people who were in positions of influence, politically people who were willing to mobilize groups of people in support of prisoners and conditions that we lived under, to challenge those conditions, to educate prisoners, and to try to consolidate a base of support on the outside to the inside. In doing this, I was able to understand some of the weaker points of the system.
I understood where it was most effective to attack the power structure, and I understood, or came to understand that one of the most vulnerable places that you can direct your attack at the system is by exposing its corruption to the masses, because the masses are the sources of their power, that those people can’t be ruled over by an oppressor, or any power, unless they give their consent at some level to that ruling. And once they become aware of the illegitimacies and the corruption of the system, and they refuse to acknowledge or concede the legitimacy of the system, then they can typically overnight overthrow that system. And this is why the power structure expends such a massive amount of resources and propaganda to try to influence and keep the masses brainwashed and believing that they’re moralistic and they’re honest and they’re well-meaning and their intentions are oriented to the best interests of the masses, because they realize without some level of acknowledgment and consent, the masses of the people could not be ruled over and would not accept their authority, and as you observed during the Arab Spring in, what, 2011? — once the mass of the people refused to accept the power that rules over them, they can send that power into exile and flight over night, and the powers that be understand this. So I understood that by exposing the corruption and illegitimacy of those in power and the lies that the sustain themselves with, this is one means of undermining the false power and the false credibility and sense of legitimacy that these people try to portray themselves, as the basis of them exercising their authority over others. And it has proven most effective, particularly my writings about abuses going on inside of the prisons. My writings exposing the corruptions and illegitimacy of the power structure and the economic system to the extent that people have been receptive to my writings, I have seen a corresponding reaction by those in power, which, as I pointed out earlier, is a result of me facing a much higher level of reprisal and attempts to isolate me now, a very different response from when I was just in my head to head clashes with, you know, guards at a very low ranking lever. When I started to expose the system, they started tryna isolate me, to try and stop me from communicating with people on the outside, to shutting down my lines of communication, transferring me from state to state and deliberately sending me to states where conditions were known to be the most abusive in the country, particularly Texas and Florida, and trying to put me in positions where I would end up in violent clashes with other prisoners, and that sort of thing.
But anyway, as I became more politically I aware, I saw the need for political organizations to represent those who do not have political representations and to operate to educate and organizing the masses on a more revolutionary and fundamental level of understanding the political economic system on how to challenge and ultimately over throw that oppressive system in the interest of the working class and in support of the people. So, we co-founded the New Afrikan Black Panther Party Prison Chapter initially as an autonomous of the New Black Panther Party, being aware the New Black Panther Party started in 2000 was not practicing the politics and they were not living up to principles in the program of the original Black Panther Party, but had pretty much wrapped up these politics, the racial politics of the Nation of Islam, in an artificial garb of Black Pantherism. And our agenda was to try to take that organization in to the politics and the revolutionary ideology of the original Black Panther Party and to change their reverse racism, and to put them more on to the path of revolutionary politics of the original party. Ultimately, we realized that it was futile trying to do this, in that they were not interested in changing their political orientation, or to maintaining or carrying forward the agenda of the original Panther Party, so we ultimately split from the New Black Panther Party.
We changed our name to the National Black Panther Party Prison Chapter, and from there we have maintained the political line of the original Black Panther Party, but we have been very focused on not repeating the mistakes of the original party, but building on the correct contributions that the party made to the struggle of the 60s and 70s. And trying to carry forward what they were able to accomplish during their more revolutionary stages, which was from 1966 to 1971, and to, again, not repeat the errors that they made, and to learn from the mistakes that they made and from the what we understand now to be a very vicious campaign carried out against them by the US government, and the inclination of the government to attack any organization that seeks to open the eyes of the masses of the people. And we ourselves have been subjected to the same sort attacks and attempts to undermine. We’ve been stigmatized as Black Separatists and domestic terrorists, and all when we have done nothing and we have not been fighting for doing anything except publicizing the corruption of the law enforcement establishment and the abuses inside the US prisons, and they have identified this as being the behavior that they dislike, that they feel qualified us as threats to the security of the country. And I was personally profiled in a 2009 threat assessment report as a domestic terrorist because of my involvement in publicizing abuses in, you know, American prisons. And they’re saying that I prove to have exercised a good level of influence over people and society, in turning them against the law enforcement system because of my writings, which is pretty absurd. But this has been the thrust of what we are trying to organize, and some of the work that we’ve done, and the response has been, as I said, repression, isolation, attempts to attack us, subjecting the various members, leading members of our org to various levels of reprisal. Being placed in, thrown in solitary, subjected to all sorts of physical abuses, and you know, other attempts to try and dissuade and deter us from the work that we’re trying to do.
TFSR: The New Afrikan Black Panther Party has a focus of org with folks of African descent. In your view, how can folks in other groups, like white folks, act as comrades as you say in struggle against white supremacy?
R: Alright, within our party, we founded in 2006 in what’s called the White Panther Organization and subsequent to that, the Brown Panther Organizational Committee, as arms of our party. We are the first Panther organization that has actually brought white comrades and brown comrades in to our party. So we have brown and white Panthers in our party, and the function of them is to take the line of the New Afrikan Black Panther Party in to the white communities to struggle against the racism in the white communities, the Brown Panthers take the same line in to the brown communities, and the thing is to bring all these different sectors of society, both domestic and abroad, into a consolidated, united front that will unify us in the single struggle against the imperialist system, particularly focused on the marginalized people that are called criminalized or the Lumpen. Our work is specifically again to take the struggle to the power structure at the most fundamental level, and to build the sort of unity that has been probably the Achilles heel of revolutionary struggles, and undermining their effectiveness, and that has been polarizing factor of race. And as I see it, this is our approach in it has proven quite effective.
Initially when they sent me out of state, they sent me to Oregon, which is one of the few prison systems in America where there is a predominately white prisoner population — it’s probably like 5 or 10% Black. And they sent me there after they had profiled me as a Black Separatist, and when I got to Oregon, they spread amongst the large number of Aryan gangs up there that I was Black Panther, which they portrayed as some sort of Black variation of the Ku Klux Klan, portraying us as anti-white and wanted to make race war against white people and this sort of thing, and they were trying to create a violent conflict between me and the white groups up there, which was obviously the point of them sending me to that state. But in effect, because of the politics of our party, and the orientation of the line of our white panther organization, I was able to politicize the white groups up there to various — they had like 13 different Aryan gangs up there in the prison system. I ended up politicking with them. They immediately released me into the population, which was another indication what they intended to try to see happen. But instead of me ending up in a war with them, I ended up politicking with them, exposing them to the history of racism, how racism was manipulated and created in the late 1600’s, and how it had been used and has been used as the most effective polarizing factor in society to manipulate oppressed people against each other. And I won a large sector of them over, and when I started to prove effective as not engaging them in violence, but winning them over to more revolutionary political and understanding of racial politics, they immediately threw me into solitary, got me out of population, and started to impose a different regiment of abuse and oppression against me, and ultimately kicked me out of the state and sent me to Texas, and when I was able to influence white Aryan gangs there to get involved in the national prison hunger strike that was taking place in 2013, where 30,00 prisoners got involved in Oregon joined them in hunger strike, so the line of our party, with respect to racial politics is specifically to organize white comrades to take the politics of our party, unifying politics in to the white community to struggle against the polarizing culture in, you know, white culture and white society in America, and to try to bring us all together in a common, united front.
TFSR: Can you talk about your views on feminism in the revolutionary struggle for a new society?
R: Alright, I should make a distinction between our line on the gender issue and the question of the struggle against paternalism and male domination. We are not feminist. We are, we are about revolutionary women’s liberation. Feminism seems to be the equal opposite of chauvinism, no– male chauvinism. The line in feminism largely has been represented by the bourgeois sector of the women’s movement, the upper middle class to upper class has always dominated the voice of the feminist movement, so we find it to be largely not a movement that really is about advancing the cause of women, at all levels of oppression, but at the interest of bourgeois and upwardly middle class women to gain an equal foothold with the bourgeois males in dominating society in general. So our struggle is for gender equality, not to raise the interest of upper class women at the exclusion of the lower class and oppressed women. Our struggle is to see working class women, poor women have all their rights respected and to be given an equal stage of power and an equal stage of respect throughout society at all stages, though I would make the distinction between what is known or generally represented as feminism with what we call revolutionary women’s liberation. But we are allied, of course, to the women’s movement, those women who identify as and those other people who may reject the concept of gender etc, who identify with the feminist struggle, but from the standpoint of working class women and working class non gender people or working class lgbtq people, and we stand on an equal footing with them and seek to have all forms of repression of women or all forms of repression of non gendered people, all forms of repression of LGBTQ people overthrown, and all people to have an equal share in power, and an equal interest in having their rights, and their desires, so long as they aren’t opposing and oppressing other people.
TFSR: Are there any other final statements you’d like to make, before we get cut off
R: Well, I would like to state that I appreciate this opportunity to speak to the listen au of this program, and I really hope that much can be achieved through the struggles that are gaining ground and momentum now, and that there will be a growing link between those on the outside and the prison movement, and that this will help advance the cause of the oppressed against this oppressive system.
TFSR: Thank you so much for making this conversation happen, and solidarity
As of May 2019, Rashid has been transferred out of state yet again to Virginia. He can be written at:
Kevin Johnson # 264847
G-20-2C
Pendleton Correctional Facility
4490 W. Reformatory Road
Pendleton, IN 46064
You can read his essays and updates on his case, plus get ahold of his two books, learn about the NABPP-PC and see his revolutionary artwork up at: http://rashid.mod
This week on The Final Straw, we are super pleased to present a talk given at the most recent Asheville Anarchist Bookfair by William C. Anderson, who co authored the book As Black As Resistance with Zoe Samudzi. The talk he is giving here is based heavily on the first chapter of the book called Black in Anarchy, and in addition to laying the groundwork of how he and Samudzi wrote the book, he speaks about the truly conditional nature of so called “citizenship” that many people living in the US face, the continuing evolution of race and the reliance of white supremacy to Black subjugation, and he places Blackness in proximity to Anarchy, and much more.
From the back cover: “As Black As Resistance makes the case for a new program of self-defense and transformative politics for Black Americans, one rooted in an anarchistic framework that the authors liken to the Black experience itself. This is not a book of compromise, nor does it negotiate with intolerance. It is a manifesto for everyone who is ready to continue progressing towards liberation for all people.”
We hope you will enjoy this talk, and if you are curious about the book As Black As Resistance by Zoe Samudzi and William C. Anderson, you can head over to AK Press to learn more!
Announcements
Phone Zap for Prisoners at McCormick CI
IWOC announces that prisoners at McCormick CI in South Carolina are being forced to march around the square in only their boxer shorts, including in front of female staff. Among these prisoners are the Muslim prisoners whose religion demands that they cover their bodies.
Check out the above link for a number and call script.
Charlottesville Solidarity
There has been a request for legal support for an anti-racist comrade who was arrested on August 12th, the year anniversary of the resistance to the United The Right rally on A12 in Cville in 2017. This trans comrade was arrested with the help of active doxxing efforts of a far-right troll this month, he was “genital checked” (read fondled and assaulted) by police without any non-police witnesses, and arrested and could use funds to help in court-support. You can donate to the legal support via a friend at https://paypal.me/lara757 , request that the police and city remove the comrades dead name and photo from their website and follow @SolidCville for future court support in September for this person.
There is also a call up to support Toby & Veronica, two anti-racist organizers from Cville in court on August 23rd at 9:45 AM at the Charlottesville General District Court at 606 E. Market St, Charlottesville, VA.
If you want to see analysis on antifascist events that have occurred thusfar, in DC and Cville, you can head to crimethinc.com and read interviews done with folks who were on the ground there, as well as listen to the most recent Hotwire episode which deals with these topics.
Maya Little Solidarity in Chapel Hill
On Monday, August 20th at 7pm at Peace & Justice Plaza at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, there will be a demonstration in support of Maya Little, an anti-racist activist who faces charges for allegedly throwing paint and her own blood on a confederate statue on UNC campus known as “Silent Sam.”
#August21
AAAnd DO NOT FORGET that in just a few days will kick off the 2018 Prison Strike, scheduled for August 21st thru September 9th. Coming just two years after the largest prison strike in US history, this one has the potential to be even bigger. If you would like more resources and ideas on how to get engaged with this strike and to learn about the striker’s demands, go to prisonstrike.com, and additionally you can listen to the Rustbelt Abolition Radio episode entitled Prelude to the 2018 Prisoner Strike done with two members of IWOC Oakland.
#August21 meetup in Asheville
On Tuesday, August 21st from 5pm to 7 or so at Firestorm Books & Coffee, join Blue Ridge Anarchist Black Cross for a series of updates and discussions concerning the Nationwide Prison Strike from August 21 – September 9th, 2018. BRABC will talk about the repressions that have already occurred as prisons around the country ramp up in fear of prisoners flexing their collective muscles by putting down their tools, educating each other, organizing and refusing meals. They’ll provide you with some tools and knowledge to help you amplify the voices of those on the inside. For a list of events around the country to support #August21, check out igd or PrisonStrike.Com.
Hunger Strike at Sterling Correctional in Colorado
Denver ABC passed on information about a hunger strike that’s started at Sterling CI in Colorado. The demands of the prisoners and updates can be found at the DABC website.
NAABC Conference Fundraiser in AVL
Also, on August 29th at The Odditorium in Asheville, BRABC will be hosting a benefit concert to raise funds for travel costs for formerly incarcerated folks and former Political Prisoners attending the North American Anarchist Black Cross conference in Colorado this fall. The show will feature performances by Too Bad (from Florida) and the local talents of Autarch, Good Grief & Harsh Mike.
This week on the show we feature two interviews. The first is with a volunteer at the Steady Collective, a group that self-describes as “ dedicated to promoting the wellness of people who use drugs through empowerment and respectful collaboration. Our goal is to improve overall community health by reducing the rate of drug overdose and the spread of infectious disease with education, advocacy, and direct services. “ Their ability to operate a harm reduction program around needle exchange and narcan distribution to stop overdoses in the midst of the #opiodCrisis in Appalachia is being threatened by the city of Asheville. Here’s the website for 12 Baskets, the food distribution program out of Kairos West.
Then I spoke with Mary Ratcliff, the editor of 27 years of the San Francisco Bay View National Black Newspaper, with a print distribution of 20,000 copies around the U.S., including thousands behind bars. For the hour, Mary talks about the history of the paper, it’s relationship with prisoners and prison struggles and the difficulties faced by the poor and populations of color in white supremacist capitalism in the so-called U.S.
Announcements
A12 in D.C., Cville & Boston
Last weekend witnessed far right, nazi-affiliated, sexist, homophobe rallies in Portland and Berkeley, which I’m sure folks are aware of. Patriot Prayer and Proud Boy goons schlepped their way out from under rocks in their goofy-ass larping costumes to spit their deranged and hateful screeds and threaten and attack counter-demonstrators where they could. And the police helped by holding back and assaulting the anti-racists at both events with pepper spray, batons, tear gas and rubber bullets, as well as legal charges. Big ups to the brave folks who came out to stem the tide of hate on the West coast, and also a big a thanks to the comrades who came out in Providence, R.I. where they were able to shut that crap down real fast.
This weekend the year anniversary of the August 11th Torch Rally and August 12th Unite The Right Rally in Charlottesville approaches. On Sunday, August 12th in Cville there’s a day of events of remembrance and mourning starting at 9am in Washington Park. The police presence has been shown to be huge in the runup to this weekend with Martial Law and States of Emergency declared by local and state officials, leave for police being suspended, and swaths of the city shut down and blockaded. Follow #AllOutCville for updates. In Washington, D.C., haters are trying to put on a second UTR to draw their morons in swastika and Pinochet shirts and confederate bafoons into the streets. Information about what’s happening and how to congregate against it can be found at https://shutitdowndc.org/ . And check out the ItsGoingDown’s “This Is America #24” for voices from the ground in DC & Cville.
On August 15th in Boston there is planned a Town Hall Meeting at the Arlington St Church in preparation for the counter-demonstration on August 18th at the MA State House to shut down the far-right hate front group, “Resist Marxism”. More info at http://bit.ly/fight-right-boston
Be safe out there, cops and klan go hand in hand. Bring water, watch out for your friends, don’t leave alone.
Worker’s Assembly Asheville
On Monday, August 20th at 6pm and every 3rd Monday of the month, the Asheville IWW is hosting a service industry workers assembly at Kairos West. If you work in food serice, retail, hospitality, breweries, or other service industries and don’t have the right to hire or fire, come by and join the discussion on issues facing your ilk including wages and hours, but also issues such as racism and gendered violence that workers face in and outside of their workplaces. The discussions are aimed at creating direct action solutions and creating class solidarity. To hear about their first Assembly, check out our interview on the topic.
Reminder on upcoming #August21
A few CZN member projects have been producing content specific to supporting and understanding the Nationwide Prison Strike. You can find great, related content to enjoy and share by ItsGoingDown podcast, Kiteline Radio & Rustbelt Abolition Radio. Links are in our notes to those recent episodes. Also, visit incarceratedworkers.org for the new and very shareable video breaking down IWOC’s role in the strike and reasons to support #August21.
If you appreciate this podcast and the voices that we bring to you each and every week (at least once), please consider a one-time or recurring donation via paypal or liberapay. You can also subscribe to recurring donations to us at patreon.com/tfsr and get some pretty sweet swag. If you want one of the shirts or mixtapes or sticker and button packs we offer to patreon supporters but can’t afford a monthly donation, drop us an email and we’ll work something out.
“You may be nonviolent, but I’m not gonna let these white people kill you”. A presentation with Charles Cobb on This Nonviolent Stuff’ll Get You Killed.
This week we are very pleased to present a presentation done some months ago at Firestorm Books with Charles E. Cobb, Jr. Charles Cobb is a journalist, writer, and current senior analyst at allAfrica.com, which is “is a voice of, by and about Africa – aggregating, producing and distributing news and information from over 140 African news organizations and our own reporters to an African and global public.” Cobb has had a long career full of landmark moments, for example being the first Africa correspondent for NPR and being the first Black staff writer for National Geographic Magazine, among many other achievements.
In this presentation, done on April 2nd 2018, Cobb talks about his 2014 book “This Nonviolent Stuff’ll Get You Killed”, which details his work from 1962 to 1967 for the SNCC (the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee), the most influential youth and student organization during the Civil Rights Movement. He also fills in a much overlooked gap in the understanding of the Civil Rights Movement, that is, the lived experiences of Black people living in the rural South at this time, gives his insights on embedding in communities for social justice purposes, and draws lessons from those insights as they pertain to the current Movement for Black Lives. In this talk he is being interviewed by Carol, who is a long time comrade and friend.
Announcements
Week of International Support in Lead Up to Nationwide Prison Strike
A call from a variety of groups to make some noise for the upcoming prison strike, kicking off on August 21st, 2018. This is a challenge to every anarchist, abolitionist, rebel and determined fighter against prison society and white supremacy in Amerikkka:
‘Between Monday, July 16 and Saturday, July 21, we’re calling on you to help unleash a concerted and spectacular array of solidarity actions before the upcoming prison strikes! Prepare now, bring mayhem everywhere! As you likely know, prisoners will strike from August 21st to September 9th. They anticipate guards and administrators to respond with violent reprisals, media distortions, and extended lockdowns. Defending the strikes from the outside is an essential component of its success. Don’t wait; retaliation has already started and as August 21st approaches we expect to see transfers, preemptive lockdowns, and more. Outside support efforts, in collaboration with imprisoned rebels, have already begun. Jailhouse Lawyers Speak, IWOC, and other organizations are building phone trees, publishing call-outs, and mounting pressure campaigns. Another thing outside supporters can do is promote and set a stage for the strike. From July 16-21, we want to make an opening act that warms up the public consciousness and media landscape.
If we’re successful, it will also be a loudspeaker for the prisoners’ call, blaring it past the censors, the mailroom pigs, and the dense walls of isolation and silence that prevent prisoners from knowing what’s cooking in other states or facilities until it’s already served up cold. The challenge before us is to do things so spectacular, creative, and unexpected that the mainstream media cannot neglect them. Hashtag: #prisonstrike2018. Use any means necessary to break that media blockade: take the streets, paint the town, disrupt the status quo, hack a site, get things lit, or go ahead and chuck your anarchist purity, resort to wooing celebrity endorsements, buying clever ads, or schmoozing your way into the news. Remember, the radical and independent outlets most likely to cover our activities exist mainly online.
We need to leverage that coverage to force the big old media (the kind that gets into prisons: TV, radio, print editions of newspapers) to report this news due to fear-of-missing-out. The goal: get the phrase “Nationwide Prison Strike: 8/21-9/9” printed or spoken on the largest platform so prisoners can see it and no one outside can ignore it. So get out there and surprise us! Overwhelm amerikkka’s hostile media environment and get the word into prisons large and small across the nation. ‘
Groups endorsing the 2018 Nationwide Prison Strike:
Jailhouse Lawyers Speak
Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee
The Fire Inside Collective
Millions for Prisoners
The People’s Consortium
Asheville Prison Strike Info Session
If you’re in the asheville area, Tuesday the 17th from 5-7:30pm at Firestorm, Blue Ridge ABC is holding an info session about the prison strike. There’ll be an introduction workshop to writing to prisoners followed by news about the strike, propaganda to take home and brainstorming on outreach methods we can take to get word flowing on the outside and support those rumblings on the inside. This event is open to anyone who’s interested in uplifting prisoner voices.
Intl Week of Solidarity with Anarchist Prisoners
In other prison-related news, here’s an announcement about the August 23- 30th 6th Annual Week of Solidarity with Anarchist Prisoners. From https://solidarity.intenational/ :
We are coming back with global week of solidarity with anarchist prisoners. Since last year, a lot has changed in our countries, but the general tendency is going in the worse direction with more repressions applied against anarchists not only in Europe but worldwide. With this in mind, we are calling for sixth annual week of solidarity!
Last year lots of people sent us their reports from different parts of the world and we hope that this year the tradition will grow even bigger. We need to support our comrades! Use this week to spread the information about anarchists behind bars. Don’t have prisoners in your country? No worry, support prisoners from other countries in your region or use those days to raise awareness of repression mechanisms and how anarchist communities can fight against them!
Build up security culture, support your local anarchist prisoners and fight back.
In other anarchist prisoner related topics, the partner of Eric King has just suffered some major tragedies in her life and could use some help. She was recently in a car accident from which she’s recovering but now lacks a vehicle for her day to day work life, the childcare of Eric and her two kids, and her weekly visitations of him in prison. On top of that and her partner serving a sentence on which he has 5 more years, Eric’s partner was also just diagnosed with thyroid cancer. If you have any extra dough you can toss to her, there’s a go fund me page where she’s soliciting donations. This can be found at gofundme.com.
The Texas prison system is trying terrorist-jacket politicized prisoner Malik Washington!
Politicized prisoner Malik Washington was cleared for removal from Ad-Seg by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice’s state classification committee last month. He has spent the past two years in solitary confinement on a bogus riot charge, which TDCJ has since admitted was not for actual rioting, but for organizing fellow prisoners to engage in work stoppages during the 2016 nationwide prison strike.
But as soon as Malik got to his new unit, he was informed that his clearance had been revoked, and that he was heading back to Ad-Seg. He was given no explanation of why, but his support network did some digging, and found out that the classification committee is claiming to have “received additional information” from the Fusion Center in Texas, causing a determination that “it was in the best interest of the department that he not be released from Ad-Seg.”
Fusion Centersbad news; they are based in the Department of Homeland Security and deal with anti-terrorism intelligence gathering, which, as we know, means manufacturing evidence to label people associated with the anti-authoritarian left, and others, as terrorists.
Fusion Centers are shadowy, unaccountable arms of the repressive state apparatus, and are quickly becoming one of state’s new favorite tools. What just happened to Malik is a signal that TDCJ is upping its repression of anarchist-identified prisoners, Muslims, and those engaged in black liberation struggle.
Please share this info with any media contacts you have; urge them to investigate Fusion Centers, and to ask questions about what kind of information they collect, how it is fact-checked, and how this data collection contributes to political repression–and urge them to dig into Malik’s situation!
Write to Malik at:
Keith H. Washington
#1487958
McConnell Unit
3001 South Emily Drive
Beeville, TX 78102
Sean Swain update
To check in about last week’s ask about Sean Swain’s condition, we have yet to hear anything back from Sean, the prisoner who has for the last 4 years been doing a weekly segment on our radio show. Sean had been missing from the ODRC database of prisoners and not showing up as a transfer to another prison but the day after last week’s episode of our show it was brought to our attention that Sean was now back in the Ohio database’s website. Anyone with clues about Sean’s condition and state of being, please drop us a line at thefinalstrawradio@riseup.net.
In May, Michael “Little Feather” Giron was sentenced to 36 months in federal prison for actions taken to defend pipeline resistance camps from police assault. Several other water protectors still face federal charges, with potential sentences of decades in prison, stemming from their participation in the resistance to the Dakota Access Pipeline.Indigenous Water Protector Red Fawn Fallis, a political prisoner arrested during the movement to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline, was sentenced today in federal court by Judge Daniel Hovland. Fallis was sentenced to 57 months (4.75 years) in federal prison. She will receive a credit of 18 months ‘time served’ taken off of her sentence, from time spent in North Dakota jails before trial proceedings began. Fallis is expected to serve a total of 39 months in prison followed by 3 years probation.
In January 2018, Fallis entered a non-cooperating plea agreement in which prosecutors agreed to seek a sentence of less than seven years. In exchange, she pleaded guilty to charges of ‘Civil Disorder’ and ‘Possession of a Firearm and Ammunition by a Convicted Felon.’
Red Fawn and her supporters had previously maintained her innocence, and had stated that Fallis accepted the plea deal under the assumption that she would not receive a fair trial due to prosecutors withholding evidence.
Judge Hovland had forbidden Fallis’ defense team from mentioning treaty rights or other issues related to her arrest at anti-pipeline protests near the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s reservation border.
The case against Red Fawn had centered around allegations she fired a gun during her arrest on October 27, 2016, when a massive police and military raid seized indigenous treaty lands on behalf of the Dakota Access Pipeline. The gun allegedly fired by Fallis was later revealed to have belonged to Heath Harmon, an undercover FBI informant who was romantically involved with Red Fawn at the time of her arrest.
Before she was sentenced by Judge Hovland, Red Fawn Fallis told the court,
“No matter where I go from here I am going to continue going forward…I wanted to move forward in a positive way away from Heath Harmon and the things he tried to put on me while I was trying to push him away.” – Red Fawn Fallis
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This week Bursts had two conversations, both focusing on the upcoming Prisoner Strike from August 21st to September 9th, 2018, one with a member of IWOC and one with a Amani Sawari, a media liaison for some of the prisoners who called for the strike.
The viewpoints expressed by the two guests are at time contradictory and at others redundant but it felt better to keep their voices mostly intact rather than weave them to create a streamlined narrative.
Amani Sawari
In part one, Amani Sawari will speak about the prison strike, the need to increase opportunities for release and civic engagement by prisoners and former prisoners in the face of historical disenfranchisement and she’ll also read some statements and demands from the prisoner-organizers. Her info on the upcoming strike and resources can be found at sawarimi.org.
Brooke, Oakland IWOC
Then we’ll hear from Brooke, an organizer with the Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee of the IWW. Brooke is based in Oakland, CA. He’ll talk about IWOC and their role and views of prison organizing, labor organizing, and the upcoming strike. More from IWOC can be found at inarceratedworkers.org.
announcements
J20 Update
As many listeners have no doubt heard, the remaining 38 j20 defendants got their charges dropped the other day without prejudice! This means that the cases could theoretically be opened again at any time, thought this is thought to be pretty unlikely. This is a historical moment, not only for the courts who were staggeringly unable to rise to this occasion – humiliating themselves at pretty much every possible turn – but also for anarchists everywhere. This whole long, difficult year and a half forged bonds that are all the more strong for having gone through the fire together, which can and no doubt will experience similar oppressions, difficulties, and tough breaks with the same finesse and resilience which was demonstrated here. To anyone listening who was personally affected by this, you are an inspiration. Now we get to celebrate, and now we get to feel the extent of our power.
Sean Swain?
If you’re missing the voice of Sean Swain like we are, Here’s a little plug with his voice to get those juices flowing.
Now, please consider giving a call to Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction Director Gary Mohr at 614-387-0588 or calling Warren Correctional Warden Chae Harris at 513-932-3388 (Fax: 513-933-0150) and asking about Sean’s whereabouts and restrictions to his communication. If you find out anything interesting, maybe that we haven’t learned yet about his silence, drop us an email at thefinalstrawradio@riseup.net or at his support email, seanswain@riseup.net.Thanks a lot!
This week, we are airing a conversation that William had a few weeks ago with Wriply Bennet and Ashley Braxton, two members of the Black Pride 4. The Black Pride 4 are four black queer and trans people with accomplices who were arrested during a Pride parade on June 17, 2017.
The four were arrested after leading a silent protest that obstructed the Stonewall Columbus Pride parade in downtown Columbus Ohio. With tape over their mouths and with linked hands, the BP4 were hoping for seven minutes of silence, one for each of the times a Minnesota cop shot Philando Castile during a routine traffic stop in 2016. The cop was found not guilty of second-degree manslaughter on June 16, 2017, a day before the Columbus parade in question. This action was furthermore calling attention to the then count of 14 murders that year of black trans women.
Their arrest made national headlines and was heavily spectacularized in the media. Subsequent to their arrest they were forced to face trial and were each charged with various things, all on very shaky legal grounds. At this time are not being made to be incarcerated, though the lengthy probations and other legal hoops are severely disrupting their lives.
In this conversation, we got to talk about the problems with Pride as being apace which heavily favors white elites and police officers to thedetriment of the community it claims to support, the impossible situation of protesting while Black, the racial and socio-economic situation of Columbus’ LGBTQIA scene, and much much more!
To support Wriply in her work and to see her art, you can hit her up on Facebook bysearching her name, Wriply Marie Bennet, or by searching her artist’ spage on FB by its name, Art and Short Stories by Wriply Marie Bennet.
You can donate to Community Pride here, the same one which our guests spoke about. There you can read a bunch about its mission and background, as well as keep up on updates about this event.
You can also follow @blackqueercolumbus on Instagram to learn more and for further updates, and many thanks to them and to our guests for helping make this interview possible!
For another really great interview by our guests, you can listen to the episode by the radio show On Resistance entitled “In Their Own Words”, which you can find on SoundCloud.
. … . ..
To close out the hour, we will hear two tracks, the first by Angel Haze entitled A Tribe Called Red and the last by Mhysa entitled Spectrum. Thanks to all the people who gave me music recommendations for this episode!
First, there’s the interview that Bursts held with Michael Davis Africa Jr., a member of the MOVE organization. MOVE is a Philadelphia-based black liberation group founded by John Africa in 1972. The group lives communally. During the conversation, Michael Jr. talks about the case of the MOVE9, who were 9 members of that group who were arrested and accused of the killing of a police officer in 1978 in Philadelphia, a charge they each deny. Officer James Ramp was killed following a year of the Philly PD blockading the house for a year under an eviction order and the police besieged the house on August 8th, 1978. The MOVE 9 have been incarcerated for almost 40 years now, with Merle & Phil dying behind bars. Police and white supremacist affiliated groups have successfully gotten parole denied for Eddie, Michael and Delbert Africa over the last 9 months as they do for many Political Prisoners from the 1960’s through 80’s in the U.S. There are upcoming are parole hearings for Janet, Janine and Debbie Africa and more info on who to petition for their release can be found at http://onamove.com/move-9/. The name of the D.A. who prosecuted the MOVE9 in 1978 and who is still on the paperwork and has a say on the parole of the MOVE9 40 years later is named John Straub.
Coming up this Saturday, February 24th starting at 4pm there’ll be an event called “Framed In America: The Making of Political Prisoners”. This will take place at The National Black Theater, 2031 5th Ave in Harlem, New York and will include presentations by Ramona Africa, Fred Hampton Jr, Pam Africa, Roger Wareham, Betty Davis, Ralph Poynter and Johanna Fernandez. More info can be found on the Justice for the Move 9 fedbook group.
Stare Into The Light My Pretties
The second conversation you’ll hear today is an interview by Dissident Island Radio from London from their February 2nd episode. In this, a collective member interviews Filmmaker Jordan Brown, director of ‘Stare Into the Lights My Pretties’, discussing their documentary about screen culture and its implications. The film is available for free on archive.org, youtubeand at truthstreammedia.com. DI is a member of the Channel Zero Network of anarchist podcasts available at channelzeronetwork.com.
Anarcho-Syndicalist Organizing in Kosovo
Finally, we’ll be airing an interview conducted by our friends at Črna Luknja on Radio Student in Lubjlana, Slovenia, that they conducted with members of an anarcho-syndicalist collective from Pristina, the capital of Kosovo. This segment was released as a part of the February 2018 edition of B(A)DNews: Angry Voices From Around The World, from the A-Radio Network of which The Final Straw, Črna Luknja and Dissident Island are members.
Mere days before FDC’s repression effort began scattering active prisoners into new facilities, and into solitary confinement for the weeks surrounding January 15, an Operation PUSH prisoner’s anonymous voice reached the world and called on outside supporters to “shine a light from the outside in on the system.”
In essence, this prisoner saw what was coming and passed the torch to us on the outside. With three clear demands and a simple strategy, this invisible group of prisoners gave a glimpse of what could be, if the networks of outside solidarity and inside communication could coalesce.
While we have heard from many prisoners since January 15, we know that the vast majority of FL prisoners still do not know how much support they garnered on the outside. And many who made plans to struggle together have not seen or heard from each other in weeks. In many ways, the next steps towards victory for them are in our hands.
It is with this understanding that a group of us on the outside are developing an additional list of demands, based primarily on communication from prisoners we’ve gotten in recent weeks, that aims to honor the countless who have suffered major sacrifices to develop or report on Operation PUSH as well as those who had no idea what it was, but were punished preemptively simply because they were viewed as potential organizers or participants.
We will do all we can to bring these demands to FDC, the Governor and State Legislature, in an effort to carry the prisoners’ vision for Operation PUSH forward.
In addition to the Operation PUSH demands of payment, parole and pricing, we, supporters of all Florida prisoners struggling for dignity, demand:
An end to censorship of publications that give voice to prisoners and/or critique prisons;
An end to repression of prisoners for communication with outside advocates;
An end to the use of Security Threat Group status as a means for political repression;
An end to strip cells and extreme temperatures to torture prisoners;
An explanation of the cause for a major spike in 2017 prisoner deaths;
Protection of prisoners health from nearby industrial activity, including phosphate mining and landfills;
An end to black mold-infested facilities, spoiled food and dilapidated buildings;
Removal of all KKK members, and other recognized racist hate groups, from FDC staff;
An end to the medical co-pay that results in financial debt and untreated illness;
An immediate reduction in prison population using existing guidelines for clemency; and
A face-to-face meeting with FDC officials to further discuss these matters.
This week, Bursts had a change to speak with two participants in the L’eu Est La Vie camp (Water is Life in French) organizing against the Bayou Bridge pipeline that Energy Transfer Partners is trying to push through the swamps of Louisiana at the tail end of the Dakota Access Pipeline. For the hour, they speak about the pipeline, the lifeways of people living in the bayou, potential impacts on the environment and the impact on our guests of increased indigenous forefronting to struggles to defend the environment in recent years around Turtle Island. More on their work can be found at http://nobbp.org/
Resist the TWP in Knoxville! January 21st at 12 Noon
The Traditionalist Worker Party is a neo-Nazi, white nationalist group which is headquartered right here in North Carolina. This group promotes white separatism and a white supremacists view of Christianity. Begun in 2013 by the now infamous Matthew Heimbach as the official face of the similarly neo-Nazi group the Traditionalist Youth Network, the TWP’s main focus seems to be promoting their agenda by making attempts on public office in local elections while maintaining something that could be called a street presence.
There is much more to be said about this group, from its formal designation by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a hate group to its yearning to establish Turtle Island as something called a “white ethnostate”, seemingly a mythological and highly revisionist creation of the alt right and its philosophical forebears.
What is more relevant right now is that this group is seeking to descend on Knoxville, TN on January 21st at 12 noon to protest the second annual Women’s March and support the anti-choice group Right to Life. The exact TWP rallying point is still unknown but may coincide with the Women’s March rallying point in Market Square at 12pm and then join the Right to Life rallying point at World’s Fair Park at 2pm. Details will be shared as they get received, so keep eyes on your favorite news sources for updates.
From the Holler Network and Nashville ARA:
“The TWP and other white supremacist groups view Southeast Appalachia as an ideal region for a white separatist movement, and they prey upon rural and semi-rural areas to build their base. But their claims to Appalachia fly in the face of centuries of resistance to white supremacy and settler colonialism that are woven into these hills and rivers. From indigenous resistance to militant maroon communities, to multiracial labor strikes and prisoner uprisings, to the very existence of tight-knit black and brown communities across these hills, we know Appalachia has never been and will never be their all-white vision- as long as we continue to resist.”
For questions and additional info you can contact the email address ETresist@protonmail.com , and you can see the full call with some more contextual information by going to the It’s Going Down article here.
This week we are presenting two anarchist voices regarding DACA, among many other things. DACA stands for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, and has been in the news recently because of a stay on this program by the current administration.
I should say that these two interviews were conducted separately, and I am trying something different regarding their presentation, namely weaving the two of them together in the way that seemed to make the most sense to me so as to present all the information in the most succinct way, all in the same place, while still trying to preserve the arcs of both interviews. I’m still not really sure how I feel about this radio tactic, and I’m seeking opinions from listeners if you feel moved to shoot me an email via thefinalstrawradio@riseup.net.
The two interviews were very different, and from slightly different
perspectives though the two interviewees were both anarchists and both living in North Carolina. We talk about DACA and its histories, some psychological and logistical impacts of this stay on affected communities, and the mental calisthenics involved in being an anarchist while living in a world so saturated by the state and all it entails.
If you enjoyed this presentation, both of the interviews in their entirety including my replies and questions are on The Final Straw
Radio’s archive.org collection for anyone to listen to. Just visit
archive.org and search The Final Straw Radio Collection and navigate to the post entitled “DACA interviews, full versions”.
The interviewers recommend getting in touch with regional
organizations for solidarity and resources where possible. CIMA operates out of Asheville, and stands for Compañeros Inmigrantes de las Montañas en Acción, which is “a regional network connecting and strengthening organizations that empower Latino communities in Western North Carolina. At one point about 25 organizations actively participate in the coalition.” You can follow them on the web at http://cimawnc.org/ and email them at info@cimawnc.org.
