Kite Line

In this week’s episode, we start off with a call for action from Jailhouse Lawyers Speak. JLS is calling for a new set of actions from August 21- September 9, 2020. After we hear from them, we share the story of Nick, a long-time Bloomingtonian who passed through both private prisons and those run by the Indiana Department of Corrections. He provides much needed reflections on how prison conflicts are produced by the administrators, the role of harm reduction and medication assisted treatment, and the wasted human potential confined inside the prison walls. His sense of humor is an armor while he helps us confront the reality of the system’s violence.

This week focuses on call-ins from two prisoners: Khalfani Malik Khaldun in Indiana, and Muti Ajamu-Osagboro in Pennsylvania.

First, we hear from Muti. Muti Ajamu-Osagboro is a prisoner currently incarcerated in Pennsylvania. Muti was sentenced to life without parole as a teenager. Despite the fact that the US Supreme Court has decided that it is unconstitutional to sentence teenagers to life without parole, Muti, who is now in his fifties, remains incarcerated. The two pieces he shares today were written in fall 2019.

After that, we have Khalfani Malik Khaldun calling in from Wabash Valley Correctional Facility. He was recently placed back on the secure housing unit, or SHU. In this call, he explains how this process works – where he is able to be held for up to 45 days on mere suspicion – without being actually charged with a policy violation. He describes what being in the SHU has done to him, including causing depression and delusions, leading him to be medicated.

He filed a lawsuit regarding his conditions, after which followed a wrecking of his cell. He also received the discovery on his case and found an unsettling set of internal emails from prison administration and other correspondence about the ways in which he was being targeted, and their attempts to silence him.

This week’s episode ends our series of conversations with Valrice “Whop” Cooper. Whop is the legendary cornerman who learned his craft training prisoners in the Louisiana DOC’s boxing program. For this episode, they discuss how he was punished inside the prison system for standing up for his trainees, how these athletes stay fit behind prison walls, the network of prison boxing inside and outside, and what Whop has been up to since his release a few years ago.

This conversation took place in December 2019 at Uppercutz, a Boxing Gym and Barbershop in Harvey, Louisiana.

The interviewer is Trey Sterling, whose recent article “Combat and Incarceration” in Commune Magazine focuses on the history of prison boxing. You can read it here, and listen to the previous episodes with Trey and Whop here and here.

We end this episode with another piece, recorded on the inside, from Muti Ajamu-Osagboro. He is currently serving life without parole in a Pennsylvania state prison. He was sentenced as a teenager and maintains his innocence. This is another piece recorded by him, called “White supremacy coded into America’s court system”.

This week continues our set of conversations with Valrice “Whop” Cooper, the legendary cornerman who learned his craft training prisoners in the Louisiana DOC’s boxing program. For this episode, we discuss how he got into the game, the politics behind such programs as the PAL, or Police Athletic League, and what it takes to succeed as a trainer, and as a fighter – both inside and outside of prison. This conversation took place in December 2019 at Uppercutz, a Boxing Gym and Barbershop in Harvey, Louisiana.

The interviewer is Trey Sterling, whose recent article “Combat and Incarceration” in Commune Magazine focuses on the history of prison boxing. You can read it here, and listen to the previous episode with Trey and Whop here.

This week starts our series of conversations with Valrice “Whop” Cooper, the legendary cornerman who learned his craft training prisoners in the Louisiana DOC’s boxing program. For this episode, we discuss his thirty-five-year prison term that began in 1976 at the age of 17, and how coming into contact with the Black Power movement- one of the first recognized prison chapters of the Black Panther Party- during that time helped him become one of the best coaches in the game. The first of several interviews with Whop, we lay the groundwork for exploring the world of prison boxing. The interviewer is Trey Sterling, whose recent article “Combat and Incarceration” focuses on the history of prison boxing. You can read that article here.