There were 13 people on the call, including people from Southern California, from the Oakland/Berkeley/San Francisco area, from Univ of Maryland, and from NYC. The agenda and discussion is below.
Carl opened the call by reviewing what we were setting out to do and what we had accomplished so far. We are setting out to, in response to the way the continuing slow genocide of mass incarceration and all its consequences is breaking the bodies and crushing the spirits of countless millions of people, take the resistance on this front to a much higher level. As part of that, we are focusing on building awareness of, and resistance to, the widespread torture that is being inflicted on 10,000’s of those locked down in prisons across the US. Our aim is to build resistance powerful enough to, together with other developments, force the authorities to agree to the demands of the prisoners in California’s Special Housing Units for humane treatment even before they are forced to begin their hunger strike on July 8th. And if we are unable to achieve that goal, to be in position to contribute powerfully to forcing the authorities to feel they have to give in and agree to the demands soon after the hunger strike is begun.
In the week since our initial conference call, we have issued a CALL TO END TORTURE IN US PRISONS and gathered an impressive beginning list of endorsers to it. This Call can be accessed at www.stopmassincarceration.org, and you can add your name to it there. But we have much more to do to even approach our aims of ending torture in the prisons.
Carl also announced that he was having a Dialogue with Cornel West in NYC on May 20th over the theme, “Mass Incarceration + Silence = Genocide; Act to Stop It Now!” He laid out that the aim of this Dialogue was to gather an audience of 100’s of people, expose them to the horrors mass incarceration inflicts on millions of people, with a focus on the torture in prisons, and challenge them to join the effort to stop it. This could have the effect of rocketing the effort to stop torture in the prison to a much higher level. He also laid out that the possibility of making this Dialogue available nationwide thru live streaming or some other way was being explored, so people could use it in other areas. (Clyde added that people outside NYC could aid in making this Dialogue a success by letting people in NYC they’re in contact with know about it thru Facebook and Twitter.)
1) In discussing the launching of the effort to end torture, and the issuing of the Call to End Torture, Belinda, Ever and Yvonne talked about their experience with this torture-being placed in the Special Housing Units (SHU’s) because another inmate lied about you and not being able to get out, being violently extracted from your cell, being kept in a sound proof cell so long that you can no longer stand to hear normal sounds, having your son dragged out of a visit from you and shackled on “potty watch” for 7 days because a guard thought he had swallowed contraband, seeing your son gradually lose his skin color because he’s denied exposure to sun light, and more. In short, being treated like they were less than human.
We discussed the need to make many others aware of these kinds of conditions. Mike from the Prisoners Revolutionary Literature Fund (PRLF) noted that they have letters from people imprisoned in Pelican Bay who were involved in the 2011 hunger strike describing the conditions there. This letter is accessible on the PRLF web site at www.prlf.org and on the Stop Mass Incarceration Network web site at www.stopmassincarceration.org. We felt it would be important to use this letter and other materials like that as tools to help make people aware. We also needed to produce flyers and brochures to help do that.
We also discussed the need to develop plans for the Days of Solidarity in June. Deandre laid out that people in the Oakland/Berkeley/SF area will be meeting on Saturday to develop such plans. People in other areas need to do the same. Ideas raised including reaching out to and involving student groups, including trying to connect with statewide or citywide student groups. Tim for the Univ of MD suggested contacting conscious hip hop artists to get them involved, developing wrist bands with slogans like, “End Mass Incarceration; Stop the Torture!” Mike spoke of plans to try to involve a spoken word group in Chicago. Clyde suggested we do an online petition to gather more signatories on the Call, as supporters of the Guantanamo hunger strike did to amass 65,000 signatories.
2) In relation to this effort and the opening of the trial of George Zimmerman, the vigilante who murdered Trayvon Martin, we discussed reaching out to and involving many more people thru social media. Tim said we could spread the effort thru Facebook, twitter and YouTube, and we could make and distribute short PSA’s that could be spread in all those mediums. He volunteered to work with people from other areas in further developing this campaign. Deandre suggested we put a QR code on all flyers that people with smart phones could use to go to a web site. Clyde suggested that we look at how the outpourings following Trayvon Martin’s murder spread to look for lessons in how to spread our efforts nationwide.
Specifically on the Zimmerman trial, we decided we should call for outpourings across the country on or just before June 10thwhen the trial opens. It took outpourings like this to even force them to put him on trial, and it will take renewed actions to have a shot at getting justice in this case. The activities we decided to issue calls for included, a hoodies day, protests and rallies in communities and walkouts in high schools. Tying all this together will be very wide promotion of the slogan, “We Are All Trayvon – The Whole Damned System Is Guilty!” Thru social media and in other ways we have to make this slogan, and the call to act around the opening of the Zimmerman trial accessible to people, especially young people, all across the country. These calls and the master of a sticker with the slogans need to be developed and put up on the SMIN site.
3) Keith presented where things were at in reference to the Tribunal about torture in prisons that we discussed in the last conference call. He said we were still in the stage of conceiving what its scope and character needed to be. Its charge would be making the case that this torture exists and in widespread. It should be something like a commission of inquiry with a Jury of Conscience made up of people who have prominence and respect. A prosecution team would have to be assembled to draw up preliminary indictments and to assemble witnesses from various backgrounds (people who have experienced the torture, legal experts, academics, journalists, psychologists, etc.) who can comprehensively and persuasively testify to this torture. The authorities responsible for this torture would be notified of this tribunal and given an opportunity to explain their actions. And then hearings would be held.
Keith felt that to do this on the level required to have society wide impact would mean our timeline should be to aim to publicly announce the preliminary indictment before July 8th, but to look to have the hearings begin after that. And that right now we needed to assemble a working group to spearhead this effort, which would develop a statement of purpose and work on involving the forces who could do the preliminary indictment. Joe added that there is an International Committee on Human Rights that held such hearings 10 years ago and that there were other groups that have done similar hearings. We should look into what those hearings have produced and explore involving people who did those hearings in this effort.
4) We ran low on time and didn’t get to discuss looking ahead to the upcoming 18th annual National Day of Protest to Stop Police Brutality, Repression and the Criminalization of a Generation on Oct 22, 2013. Deandre noted that there was a recent statewide conference of family members of police murder victims that mapped out ambitious plans for California this year on Oct 22nd. Carl mentioned the Stolen Lives Induction Ceremony being held on 5/18 in NYC. Oct 22nd will be discussed on the next conference call.
5) Steve volunteered to confer with someone from California on how to develop better ways to communicate in this effort. Right now every time something gets sent out it goes to a few people who then have to send it to others. We need to develop one list that can make things accessible to everyone. We also need to figure out how to keep the page on the hunger strike effort up to date as plans are developed for the Days of Solidarity and other things. And we need to develop ways that different areas could use the tax free status of SMIN where needed in this effort, since this is a project of SMIN. These and other organizational questions will be discussed before the next conference call.
The next conference call will be Tuesday, May 14th, at 7 PM. An agenda for the call will be sent out several days in advance. To get onto the call, dial (832) 551-5100 and enter the pass code (249283) when prompted.
Carl opened the call by reviewing what we were setting out to do and what we had accomplished so far. We are setting out to, in response to the way the continuing slow genocide of mass incarceration and all its consequences is breaking the bodies and crushing the spirits of countless millions of people, take the resistance on this front to a much higher level. As part of that, we are focusing on building awareness of, and resistance to, the widespread torture that is being inflicted on 10,000’s of those locked down in prisons across the US. Our aim is to build resistance powerful enough to, together with other developments, force the authorities to agree to the demands of the prisoners in California’s Special Housing Units for humane treatment even before they are forced to begin their hunger strike on July 8th. And if we are unable to achieve that goal, to be in position to contribute powerfully to forcing the authorities to feel they have to give in and agree to the demands soon after the hunger strike is begun.
In the week since our initial conference call, we have issued a CALL TO END TORTURE IN US PRISONS and gathered an impressive beginning list of endorsers to it. This Call can be accessed at www.stopmassincarceration.org, and you can add your name to it there. But we have much more to do to even approach our aims of ending torture in the prisons.
Carl also announced that he was having a Dialogue with Cornel West in NYC on May 20th over the theme, “Mass Incarceration + Silence = Genocide; Act to Stop It Now!” He laid out that the aim of this Dialogue was to gather an audience of 100’s of people, expose them to the horrors mass incarceration inflicts on millions of people, with a focus on the torture in prisons, and challenge them to join the effort to stop it. This could have the effect of rocketing the effort to stop torture in the prison to a much higher level. He also laid out that the possibility of making this Dialogue available nationwide thru live streaming or some other way was being explored, so people could use it in other areas. (Clyde added that people outside NYC could aid in making this Dialogue a success by letting people in NYC they’re in contact with know about it thru Facebook and Twitter.)
1) In discussing the launching of the effort to end torture, and the issuing of the Call to End Torture, Belinda, Ever and Yvonne talked about their experience with this torture-being placed in the Special Housing Units (SHU’s) because another inmate lied about you and not being able to get out, being violently extracted from your cell, being kept in a sound proof cell so long that you can no longer stand to hear normal sounds, having your son dragged out of a visit from you and shackled on “potty watch” for 7 days because a guard thought he had swallowed contraband, seeing your son gradually lose his skin color because he’s denied exposure to sun light, and more. In short, being treated like they were less than human.
We discussed the need to make many others aware of these kinds of conditions. Mike from the Prisoners Revolutionary Literature Fund (PRLF) noted that they have letters from people imprisoned in Pelican Bay who were involved in the 2011 hunger strike describing the conditions there. This letter is accessible on the PRLF web site at www.prlf.org and on the Stop Mass Incarceration Network web site at www.stopmassincarceration.org. We felt it would be important to use this letter and other materials like that as tools to help make people aware. We also needed to produce flyers and brochures to help do that.
We also discussed the need to develop plans for the Days of Solidarity in June. Deandre laid out that people in the Oakland/Berkeley/SF area will be meeting on Saturday to develop such plans. People in other areas need to do the same. Ideas raised including reaching out to and involving student groups, including trying to connect with statewide or citywide student groups. Tim for the Univ of MD suggested contacting conscious hip hop artists to get them involved, developing wrist bands with slogans like, “End Mass Incarceration; Stop the Torture!” Mike spoke of plans to try to involve a spoken word group in Chicago. Clyde suggested we do an online petition to gather more signatories on the Call, as supporters of the Guantanamo hunger strike did to amass 65,000 signatories.
2) In relation to this effort and the opening of the trial of George Zimmerman, the vigilante who murdered Trayvon Martin, we discussed reaching out to and involving many more people thru social media. Tim said we could spread the effort thru Facebook, twitter and YouTube, and we could make and distribute short PSA’s that could be spread in all those mediums. He volunteered to work with people from other areas in further developing this campaign. Deandre suggested we put a QR code on all flyers that people with smart phones could use to go to a web site. Clyde suggested that we look at how the outpourings following Trayvon Martin’s murder spread to look for lessons in how to spread our efforts nationwide.
Specifically on the Zimmerman trial, we decided we should call for outpourings across the country on or just before June 10thwhen the trial opens. It took outpourings like this to even force them to put him on trial, and it will take renewed actions to have a shot at getting justice in this case. The activities we decided to issue calls for included, a hoodies day, protests and rallies in communities and walkouts in high schools. Tying all this together will be very wide promotion of the slogan, “We Are All Trayvon – The Whole Damned System Is Guilty!” Thru social media and in other ways we have to make this slogan, and the call to act around the opening of the Zimmerman trial accessible to people, especially young people, all across the country. These calls and the master of a sticker with the slogans need to be developed and put up on the SMIN site.
3) Keith presented where things were at in reference to the Tribunal about torture in prisons that we discussed in the last conference call. He said we were still in the stage of conceiving what its scope and character needed to be. Its charge would be making the case that this torture exists and in widespread. It should be something like a commission of inquiry with a Jury of Conscience made up of people who have prominence and respect. A prosecution team would have to be assembled to draw up preliminary indictments and to assemble witnesses from various backgrounds (people who have experienced the torture, legal experts, academics, journalists, psychologists, etc.) who can comprehensively and persuasively testify to this torture. The authorities responsible for this torture would be notified of this tribunal and given an opportunity to explain their actions. And then hearings would be held.
Keith felt that to do this on the level required to have society wide impact would mean our timeline should be to aim to publicly announce the preliminary indictment before July 8th, but to look to have the hearings begin after that. And that right now we needed to assemble a working group to spearhead this effort, which would develop a statement of purpose and work on involving the forces who could do the preliminary indictment. Joe added that there is an International Committee on Human Rights that held such hearings 10 years ago and that there were other groups that have done similar hearings. We should look into what those hearings have produced and explore involving people who did those hearings in this effort.
4) We ran low on time and didn’t get to discuss looking ahead to the upcoming 18th annual National Day of Protest to Stop Police Brutality, Repression and the Criminalization of a Generation on Oct 22, 2013. Deandre noted that there was a recent statewide conference of family members of police murder victims that mapped out ambitious plans for California this year on Oct 22nd. Carl mentioned the Stolen Lives Induction Ceremony being held on 5/18 in NYC. Oct 22nd will be discussed on the next conference call.
5) Steve volunteered to confer with someone from California on how to develop better ways to communicate in this effort. Right now every time something gets sent out it goes to a few people who then have to send it to others. We need to develop one list that can make things accessible to everyone. We also need to figure out how to keep the page on the hunger strike effort up to date as plans are developed for the Days of Solidarity and other things. And we need to develop ways that different areas could use the tax free status of SMIN where needed in this effort, since this is a project of SMIN. These and other organizational questions will be discussed before the next conference call.
The next conference call will be Tuesday, May 14th, at 7 PM. An agenda for the call will be sent out several days in advance. To get onto the call, dial (832) 551-5100 and enter the pass code (249283) when prompted.
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