Kite Line

This week, we share Isaiah Willoughby’s story. He’s been on the show before, talking about his incarceration due to actions on behalf on the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020. Today, he walks us through the events leading up to and after his arrest, including the police murder of his neighbor in Seattle and his participation in the Capitol Hill Occupied Protest. Willoughby details hazing by guards, being placed in isolation, and other discrimination he has faced while inside, which he feels is directly related to his arrest as a BLM protester.

Our previous episode with Isaiah is here.

This week, we speak with Dan from Michigan Abolition and Prisoner Solidarity. MAPS is an exemplary grassroots abolitionist group, which arose out of the 2016 National Prison Strike and, specifically, the Kinross uprising in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.

Dan lays out this history, and gives us an inventory of COVID-19 in Michigan prisons, based on a zine of prisoner reflections and reports which MAPS recently released. The pandemic was inflamed inside Michigan prisons by both negligence and repression, but prisoners have organized in response both on an everyday level for the sake of survival as well as carrying out major protests and revolts.

You can check out MAPS here.

You can read about the Kinross Uprising on Perilous Chronicle.

This week, we share a conversation with Brian Dolinar. He has been on the show before, speaking about Parole Illinois. In this episode, he talks about Guardian RFID, a company that produces handheld devices that allow jail guards to do headcounts for inmates electronically via scanning. As he explains, various technologies are being used to expand the carceral net. He go on to talk about the use of government funds, including the CARES Act to expand the various forms of e-carceration.

Dolinar believes this is not a coincidence, but an intentional effort to refund the police in the wake of the George Floyd protests. He offers important insights into covert ways of shoring up police budgets using federal money.

You can read his article in Truthout here.

We begin this episode with our monthly round up of prison disturbances, generously compiled by Perilous Chronicle. Afterwards, we share a piece by IU graduate student Kayan Tara about the death of Malik Ali Malik, who died during a police chase in Bloomington last spring.

Then, we return to the topic of long-term prisoner Leonard Peltier. Leonard Peltier is an American Indian organizer who has been imprisoned for 46 years.  Now 77, he is suffering from a variety of illnesses exacerbated by his long imprisonment, including diabetes, partial blindness, and an aortic aneurysm.  He recently was infected with COVID.  A member of the American Indian Movement, Peltier participated in the communal defense of the Pine Ridge reservation in 1975, which had been overrun with police and FBI agents, along with government-backed paramilitaries.  He participated in a shootout that led to the deaths of two FBI agents and another Native militant, but denies firing on the feds.  He was found in Canada in 1976 and extradited based on false testimony.  Today, he is the focus of a renewed effort to secure his release, with nine members of congress signing onto a letter requesting clemency.  The question of whether Peltier will die in prison currently hangs in the balance so we are sharing this overview piece from the International Leonard Peltier Defense Committee.

You can find out more at: https://www.whoisleonardpeltier.info

and at Perilouschronicle.com

Thank you to Perilous, Kayan, and everyone who contributed to this show. Kite Line is comprised entirely of volunteer efforts, so if you want to help us- please reach out via our email address or social media.

In this week’s episode, we air the final part of a conversation between Jok from Focus Initiatives and Rodney Jones, known as Big R. Big R was a witness to the beating that sparked the 1985 Pendleton prison uprising here in Indiana. In previous episodes, they discussed the circumstances that led up to the beating, including a gang of white supremacist guards, called the Sons of Light, who perpetrated abuses throughout the facility. This week, Jok starts out by reading part of a former prison guard’s statement- giving insight into this racist secret society that was at the root of the beating that was the catalyst for the riot.

John Cole Jr. (known as Balagoon) has been on the show before:

Episode 245: Harsh Debts

Episode 246: Even When You’re Right, You’re Wrong

This conversation is part of a series put on by IDOC Watch and other organizations, including Focus Initiatives, LTD. We encourage you to check out their projects, which focus on inside/outside prisoner and re-entry support.

IDOC Watch has written several articles about the prisoners involved in this uprising and its aftermath:

https://www.idocwatch.org/blog-1/2021/9/27/2018-court-order-for-resentencing-of-indiana-political-prisoner-christopher-naeem-trotter

https://www.idocwatch.org/blog-1/2022/1/28/long-term-indiana-political-prisoner-balagoon-speaks-on-the-1985-uprising-at-pendleton-cf-and-his-pending-sentence-modification

You can read about the 1985 uprising in DOWN: Reflections on Prison Resistance in Indiana.

In this week’s episode, we air the second part of a conversation between Jok Huerta from Focus Initiatives and Rodney Jones, known as Big R. Big R was a witness to the beating that sparked the the 1985 Pendleton prison uprising here in Indiana.

This conversation is part of a series put on by IDOC Watch and other organizations, including Focus Initiatives, LTD. We encourage you to check out their projects, which focus on inside/outside prisoner and re-entry support.

IDOC Watch has written several articles about the prisoners involved in this uprising and its aftermath, which we will share on our website:

https://www.idocwatch.org/blog-1/2021/9/27/2018-court-order-for-resentencing-of-indiana-political-prisoner-christopher-naeem-trotter

https://www.idocwatch.org/blog-1/2022/1/28/long-term-indiana-political-prisoner-balagoon-speaks-on-the-1985-uprising-at-pendleton-cf-and-his-pending-sentence-modification

We will are more of the conversation next week. In the meantime, you can read about the 1985 uprising in DOWN: Reflections on Prison Resistance in Indiana.

In this week’s episode, we air the first part of a conversation between Jok Huerta from Focus Initiatives and Rodney Jones, known as Big R. Both men share stories of their own incarceration, and describe life in a Maximum Restraint Unit. As Big R puts it, when you leave general population for the MRU, “you’re in a whole different place now.”

Big R talks about growing up in Indiana, contrasting it with the daily life of Indiana prisons. Later, in talking about the “tight grip of the MRU,” he lays the groundwork for understanding the the 1985 Pendleton prison uprising, as he was a witness to the beating the sparked the revolt.  We will air Big R’s recollections of the ’85 uprising next week.

This conversation is part of a series put on by IDOC Watch and other organizations, including Focus Initiatives, LTD. We encourage you to check out their projects, which focus on inside/outside prisoner and re-entry support.

IDOC Watch has written several articles about the prisoners involved in this uprising and its aftermath:

https://www.idocwatch.org/blog-1/2021/9/27/2018-court-order-for-resentencing-of-indiana-political-prisoner-christopher-naeem-trotter

https://www.idocwatch.org/blog-1/2022/1/28/long-term-indiana-political-prisoner-balagoon-speaks-on-the-1985-uprising-at-pendleton-cf-and-his-pending-sentence-modification

We will are more of the conversation next week. In the meantime, you can read about the 1985 uprising in DOWN: Reflections on Prison Resistance in Indiana.

We open this episode with our monthly collection of prison disturbances, generously compiled by Perilous Chronicle.

Afterwards, we share a conversation between Daniel McGowan and Brian Whitener about the Certain Days calendar. The Certain Days: Freedom for Political Prisoners Calendar is a joint fundraising and educational project coordinated between outside and inside organizers in the US and Canada. Its founding members Herman Bell, Robert Seth Hayes and David Gilbert were welcomed home from prison in 2018 and 2021. Today, McGowan talks about the history of the project, his own experiences with prisoner support, how the calendar supports folks on the inside, and some of the challenges to long-term organizing.  McGowan reflects on his time inside following his arrest for Earth Liberation Front actions and emphasizes the importance of supporting grassroots movement organizations.

Find out about Certain Days, including how to order, its history and information on how to write to political prisoners here.

You can find out more about Perilous Chronicle here.

This week, we continue to air selections from a presentation moderated by Ruth Wilson Gilmore and featuring James Kilgore speaking on his new book Understanding E-Carceration.  Speaking from his own experience, he emphasizes that electronic monitoring is another euphemism for the expansion of the carceral net across the globe, enriching corporations and shackling prisoners — often at their own expense — from the US to Palestine to South Africa.  He talks about the gender disparities that arise because of the toll that electronic monitoring often takes on family members: people- often mothers, daughters, partners, and sisters- who are tasked against their will with becoming, as Gilmore puts it, unsworn deputies. Gilmore and Kilgore talk about their prison abolition work in both California and Illinois., and Kilgore argues that we must expose the reality of e-carceration and include the struggles of the monitored in the broader horizon of abolition.

Our previous episode with Gilmore and Kilgore can be found here.

Thank you to everyone who helped with the show. Kite Line could always use more help! Our show is run entirely by volunteers, and we are looking for folks to join our team. If you would like to help with prisoner correspondence, interviews, news, or social media- please send us an email at [email protected].

This week, we share two features dealing with the cunning ways that the carceral system conceals itself and the harm it causes.  The first is an account from Adrien Espinoza, who has been on the show before, speaking about conditions in the Maricopa County Jail. As a child, Adrien survived the Adobe Mountain School in Arizona.  As he demonstrates, this “school” is actually a euphemism for juvenile prison.  This prison inflicted severe punishment, sexual abuse, an absence of mental health support, and lack of education on its young inmates.  Content warning for sexual abuse and suicide.

Next, we air selections from a presentation moderated by Ruth Wilson Gilmore and featuring James Kilgore speaking on his new book Understanding E-Carceration.  Speaking from his own experience emphasizes that electronic monitoring is another euphemism for the expansion of the carceral net across the globe, enriching corporations and shackling prisoners — often at their own expense — from the US to Palestine to South Africa.  Kilgore argues that we must expose the reality of e-carceration and include the struggles of the monitored in the broader horizon of abolition.

Thank you to everyone who helped with the show. Kite Line could always use more help! Our show is run entirely by volunteers, and we are looking for folks to join our team. If you would like to help with prisoner correspondence, interviews, news, or social media- please send us an email at [email protected].