This is a transcription of a scanned statement, originally published in the July 2011 issue of Prison Action News, about Texas prison authorities banning Defying the Tomb: Selected Prison Writings and Art of Kevin “Rashid” Johnson.
The only portion omitted is the call for action, as it is no longer active. You can access the original document as a PDF here. The book, published in 2010, was banned in numerous prisons, and the publisher, Kersplebedeb, wrote a response to authorities at Pelican Bay when it was banned at that “facility” in 2012.
Texas Prisoncrats Ban “Defying the Tomb”
Defying the Tomb, by Kevin “Rashid” Johnson, New Afrikan Black Panther Party Minster of Defense, sent to Chicano political prisoner Alvaro Luna Hernandez by Seattle’s Inside Out Books, was banned from Texas prisons. Alvaro protested this censorship and demonstrated not only the incompetence of the prison mailroom authorities, but also showed the exaggerated and discriminatory nature of the decision o ban. Because of Alvaro’s protests of the ban, and his criticisms of the flagrant violations of the human rights of all prisoners in the “control unit” where Alvaro is being caged, the unit mailroom supervisor G. Vandiver threatened to “put on a negative mail list” Alvaro’s mail correspondents and supporters, in retaliation for Alvaro protesting First Amendment violations and the ongoing brutal conditions and mistreatment of prisoners in this “control unit.” These brutal prison conditions had been previously declared unconstitutional by a federal judge in the case of Ruiz v. Johnson, 37 F. Supp. 2d 855 (S.D. Tex. Houston Division) on March 1, 1999, but nothing has changed since then. The only thing that has changed in the names of the victims added to a long list of prisoners who have been driven to suicide due to the psychologically repressive conditions of long term isolation in solitary confinement, described by experts as the most repressive in the nation, and described constituting “torture” by the federal judge in the case, especially of the great number of mentally ill prisoners held under these horrific conditions that violate all human rights standards and laws. See Ruiz, 37 F. Supp. 2d at 940.
Censorship of this publication is not an “isolated incident.” It is part of a larger fascist program of political repression orchestrated by the political police of Homeland Security that targets “radical prisoners” and the suppression of ideas in literature, hated by prisoncrats, that speaks truth to corrupt power. Prisoncrats fear slaves will re-educate themselves, create prisoner unity, discover their humanity and true class interests and make a united stand in defense of their human rights, much like the Attica prisoners did in September 1971 and the Georgia prisoners recently did, in the fascist juggernaut of the Amerikan Gulag Prison Industrial Complex, that imprisons over 2.3 million people and reaps super profits to the ruling corporate class state from mass incarceration, mostly of the poor and people of color. Political prisoners like Alvaro, who are at the forefront of the NEW PRISON MOVEMENT in this country, are being targeted for specialized repression, for he fears not the oppressors, and dares to struggle and seize the time. See www.freealvaro.net. These attacks on the basic rights of politically conscious freedom fighters like Alvaro is connected to the government policies of a new COINTELPRO program of repression in breeding a culture of fear, mistrust, and division of communities, with a. government informant and snitch mentality that is aimed at fostering mass hysteria with its Islamophobias in efforts to divide unity, monitor serious, militant grassroots leadership, isolate our freedom fighters from our communities, and cripple popular movement organizations, in the streets and in the prison cellblock.
WE ALL MUST RESPOND! If we fail to see the forest because of the trees, or bury our heads in the sand, we are only paving the way for more fascist repression in the streets and in prison. ALVARO, and all of our freedom fighters, POWs, political prisoners, deserve our support and solidarity. THEY FOUGHT FOR US. WE MUST FIGHT FOR THEM!