Rustbelt Abolition Radio

This episode grapples with the relation between incarceration and settler colonialism. Kelly Lytle Hernández, abolitionist writer and professor of History and African American studies at the University of California-Los Angeles, discusses her latest book, City of Inmates: Conquest, Rebellion, and the Rise of Human Caging in Los Angeles.

Hernández reveals the underlying logic of elimination and conquest that is foundational to our settler colonial society by interrogating the construction of the settler-carceral state over two centuries. In this historical analysis, Hernández draws from what she calls “The Rebel Archive,” a constellation of historical materials that emerged from struggles against conquest and elimination.

This episode turns to questions of political repression, movement defense, and solidarity with political prisoners - questions which have been accentuated in the wake of the massive legal attacks visited upon protesters who participated in the #J20 demonstration in Washington D.C. on the day of Donald Trump's presidential inauguration.

Ashanti Alston, a former Black Panther and member of the Black Liberation Army who spent 14 years incarcerated due to his activity in the revolutionary movement, discusses the uses and pitfalls of distinguishing between political and social prisoners, and argues that defending political prisoners is essential to the struggle for abolition.

Jude Ortiz of The Tilted Scales Collective speaks on the importance of situating legal defense campaigns within a movement-centered strategy for liberation, and the ongoing campaign to defend the #J20 resistance. Payton, a current #J20 co-defendant, closes with his experience of the #J20 repression and this Fall’s courtroom struggles.

In this bonus episode, we speak with Dr. George Ciccariello-Maher, Associate Professor of Politics and Global Studies at Drexel University. Placed on forced leave by Drexel, he is among a growing number of academics subjected to retaliation for their critiques of white supremacy and openly fascist organizing. Ciccariello-Maher shows us how this university-centered backlash must be situated within the broader resurgence of fascism and white nationalism, which, in turn, cannot be understood apart from the deep structures of white supremacy, colonialism, and heteropatriarchy from which fascism emerges. He also sheds light on the false hope of educational reform within prisons, and how we ought to look instead to the forms of insurgent intellectuality abolitionists are creating both inside and outside prison walls. Our conversation gestures to the possibility for a renewed anti-racist, anti-fascist resistance, both on university campuses and beyond them.

In this episode we take a critical look at the liberal discourse of police reform, which has increasingly gained prominence amidst the ever-recurring specter of racist police violence, and especially in the wake of black rebellions in Ferguson and Baltimore, and the intensification of North American Black liberation struggles these rebellions galvanized.

Alex Vitale, Professor of Sociology at Brooklyn College and author of The End of Policing, speaks about the ways liberalism works to shore up the violence of policing through cosmetic, technocratic reforms, while ultimately failing to interrogate the origins and nature of police as a coercive instrument of state power, wielded to reproduce the social inequalities inherent to racial capitalism. We also speak with Charlene Carruthers, national director of Black Youth Project 100 and board member for the women of color reproductive justice collective SisterSong, on organizing through a Black queer feminist lens and pushing towards a society that’s organized around community, rather than punishment.

'Michigan's Kinross Prison Strike: Reflections from Inside' is an exclusive archive of audio interviews with people currently incarcerated in Michigan who witnessed and lived through the historic September 2016 prison strike. In this segment we hear the voice of Fred Williams.

Fred Williams is a poet, emancipatory educator and abolitionist correspondent imprisoned at Michigan's Kinross Correctional Facility. His dispatch covers the poor systemic conditions that those inside face at the hands of the Michigan Department of Corrections, and particularly in the newly re-opened and renamed Kinross prison. Last September, increasing frustration led to a work stoppage and then a spontaneous march, when the facility declined to provide full meals in the face of the stoppage. Fred describes how the administrative staff told strikers that "some of your demands can only be granted by suits in Lansing," before housing unit officers fled their posts for the control center and the emergency response team entered the grounds with live ammunition.

You can hear more voices from this report on our feed or by visiting www.michiganabolition.org. This collection of interviews was produced by Rustbelt Abolition Radio with the help of MAPS: Michigan Abolition & Prisoner Solidarity. Original music by Bad Infinity.

'Michigan's Kinross Prison Strike: Reflections from Inside' is an exclusive archive of audio interviews with people currently incarcerated in Michigan who witnessed and lived through the historic September 2016 prison strike. In this segment we hear the voice of Harold Gonzales.

Abolitionist intellectual Harold Gonzales is currently imprisoned at Baraga Maximum Security Correctional Facility. Like several hundred others, he was hit with an “incite to riot or strike” ticket in the aftermath of events of September 2016 at Kinross Correctional Facility. We spoke with Harold after he spent nearly eight months in solitary confinement (which the Michigan Department of Corrections euphemistically calls “administrative segregation”). As you will hear, Harold was released from the hole thanks to a call-in campaign by outside supporters. He begins by telling us what sparked the work stoppage and protest at Kinross.

You can hear more voices from this report on our feed or by visiting www.michiganabolition.org. This collection of interviews was produced by Rustbelt Abolition Radio with the help of MAPS: Michigan Abolition & Prisoner Solidarity. Original music by Bad Infinity.

'Michigan's Kinross Prison Strike: Reflections from Inside' is an exclusive archive of audio interviews with people currently incarcerated in Michigan who witnessed and lived through the historic September 2016 prison strike. In this segment we hear the voice of Ahjamu Baruti.

Ahjamu Baruti is a political prisoner currently incarcerated at St. Louis Correctional Facility. He values study, analysis, and writing. His article “Psychological warfare in prison: Segregation is the soul breaker” was published in The San Francisco Bay View while he spent nine months in solitary confinement--including two months in an observation cell--in the wake of the events at Kinross Correctional Facility in September 2016. He was transferred out of Kinross after being hit with an “incite to riot or strike” ticket.

You can hear more voices from this report on our feed or by visiting www.michiganabolition.org. This collection of interviews was produced by Rustbelt Abolition Radio with the help of MAPS: Michigan Abolition & Prisoner Solidarity. Original music by Bad Infinity.

'Michigan's Kinross Prison Strike: Reflections from Inside' is an exclusive archive of audio interviews with people currently incarcerated in Michigan who witnessed and lived through the historic September 2016 prison strike. In this segment we hear the voice of Jake Klemp.

Jake Klemp is a vegan who went on hunger strike to bring public attention to the lack of nutritious food behind bars, particularly for those with spiritual and cultural practices outside the prerogatives of privatized food service providers. His dispatch comes from inside the Baraga Maximum Correctional Facility, where he spent nearly eight months in solitary confinement. Along with several hundred others, he was swept up in the aftermath of the events at Kinross Correctional Facility in September 2016 and hit with an “incite to riot or strike” ticket. In this segment, he begins by describing some of the retaliation he and others faced, such as denial of his required medication.

You can hear more voices from this report on our feed or by visiting www.michiganabolition.org. This collection of interviews was produced by Rustbelt Abolition Radio with the help of MAPS: Michigan Abolition & Prisoner Solidarity. Original music by Bad Infinity.

'Michigan's Kinross Prison Strike: Reflections from Inside' is an exclusive archive of audio interviews with people currently incarcerated in Michigan who witnessed and lived through the historic September 2016 prison strike. In this segment we hear the voice of Baba X Guy.

Baba X-Guy was formerly a leader of the Battle Creek Coalition Against Police Brutality, a liberatory community self-defense formation. A jail rebellion took place after he received conspicuous threats from the KKK in the 1980s, which marred his record within the Michigan Department of Corrections and contributed to harsher retaliation against him after last year's uprising. Baba is currently imprisoned in St. Louis Correctional Facility, where he was transferred after being hit with an “incite to riot or strike” ticket in the wake of the events of September 2016 at Kinross. We spoke with Baba shortly after he was released from the harsh restriction of administrative segregation -- that is, solitary confinement--for nearly one year. Our first interview with him was abruptly cut short by a prison guard, without explanation.

You can hear more voices from this report on our feed or by visiting www.michiganabolition.org. This collection of interviews was produced by Rustbelt Abolition Radio with the help of MAPS: Michigan Abolition & Prisoner Solidarity. Original music by Bad Infinity.

In Reports from the Prisoner Resistance Movement, released on the anniversary of the 1971 Attica prison rebellion, we reflect on the intensifying political struggles behind bars by examining two extraordinary flashpoints: Amerika’s nationwide September 9, 2016, prisoner strike, and the August 19, 2017, Millions for Prisoners march.

Ben Turk of the Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee of the Industrial Workers of the World and Firehawk of Unstoppable discuss strategies developing within the contemporary prisoner resistance movement, while Krystal Rountree of the iamWe Prison Advocacy Network explains the organizing efforts inside and outside that made the August 19 Millions for Prisoners March possible. We close the episode with D, an incarcerated organizer with Jailhouse Lawyers Speak who tells us about what went down inside in the wake of August 19 -- and what’s next.

For more reporting on the prisoner resistance movement, check out Michigan's Kinross Prison Strike: Reflections from Inside, an exclusive audio archive we’ve created with the help of correspondents behind bars and MAPS: Michigan Abolition and Prisoner Solidarity. You can find links to the archive on our website.