Kite Line

Kevin Steel speaks to us about being sentenced to twelve years in prison at the age of 17.  Speaking to us from the 4th annual Fight Toxic Prisons conference- which you can hear at points in the background- Kevin touches on a lot of different topics, including the Influence of the Black Panthers and other groups on his youth, hunger strikes, the current fight against prisons in New York, and updates on other aspects of his current organizing.

Housed in both Rikers and Attica, Kevin talks about what it was like to organize with the National Prison Strike of 2016 while in prison, and then to help support the National Prison Strike in 2018. Kevin was named as a ringleader in the shutdowns and organizing, so as a consequence, other prisoners who participated were targeted and shipped out of their facilities after the prison strike.

This week, we have several kites, or messages, from people inside and outside of the prison walls. First, we have a statement that was recorded for us on behalf of Keith Malik Washington, who is housed in a Texas prison. In his statement, he talks about the negative health impacts of prison, along with other human rights issues. We also hear a message from a member of the Vaughn 17, a group of prisoners in Delaware that we have covered before. Then, we return to speaking Branden Ackerson. Branden is a thirty-six year old survivor of an eighteen-year sentence. Newly released, we spoke with Branden last month, who told us about his story and read us some of the poetry he wrote while inside. Now, Branden reads excerpts from two more poems and also speaks to us about his transition to the outside, and moving on after prison.

This week, we speak to two long-term supporters of Marius Mason, a long-term anarchist prisoner. He is currently held in a federal women’s facility in Danbury, Connecticut, despite years of struggle inside for recognition of his identity as a transman, and his advocacy for other trans prisoners to be able to access support and medical care.  He was sentenced a decade ago to 22 years in prison for his role in a campaign of eco-sabotage, in which he damaged genetic engineering facilities, logging equipment, and condo developments encroaching on wild areas.

Given the dignity with which he has faced his long sentence, Marius has become an important reference point for June 11th, an annual day of solidarity for long-term anarchist prisoners, beginning with Jeffrey Luers, who was sentenced to two decades behind bars for another act of ecological sabotage with the Earth Liberation Front.  Luers successfully fought to have his sentence reduced, leading to his release, but many other prisoners around the world suffer long sentences for their participation in environmental, anti-fascist, and anti-capitalist struggles.  June 11th is a reminder to the rest of us that these prisoners are holding strong inside, year after year, even as the movements outside evolve and change shape.  In this episode, we also share Marius’ statement for June 11th, 2019, in which he urges us to “learn to be like water,” flowing with these movements, learning from our mistakes and continuing to “push forward towards freedom.”

This week, we cover some sensitive topics on the show. We speak with Fable, who tells her story of incarceration when she was barely 18 years old. Fable shares her complicated experiences with mental health, sexuality and gender, consent, and violence in prison. In a prison system where many young people spend formative periods of time on the inside, Fable’s experiences help us to see the many ways that incarceration can impact youth and a sense of self.  This episode contains stories that may not be suitable for younger audiences.

On May 20th, Carlos Gregorio Hernandez Vasquez became the fifth child to die in border patrol custody since December. He was 16, and had been held for a week in a border patrol outpost that lacked proper provisioning. He had fled Guatemala, currently wracked with drought and violence, and reached the U.S. on May 13- at which point he turned himself in and claimed asylum.

Along this same theme, this week we hear a talk entitled, “Dying in Isolation: Migrant Bodies, Uncaring Medicine, and the Lethal Politics of Detention”. Our speaker, Jonathon Inda, is a professor of Latinx Studies at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. In his talk, he paints a clear picture of the detention conditions for migrants around the country, citing one particular example where poor medical conditions led to the death of a man who was being held in detention.