Why we feature a call for justice for Mumia Abu-Jamal |
This August Uda Bartholomew, a Philadelphia activist seeking to gather support for the initiative to shift to a land value tax there, wrote to Mumia Abu-Jamal asking for a statement of support. She received this reply:
LLJA! 8/29/01 Dear Ms. Bartholomew, Thanx for your most recent letter. Initially, I think it only fair to tell you that my endorsement of your/HGI's efforts in Phila. may prove counterproductive to your objectives. You should know this and act accordingly. This is not something that I take personally, but an observation. Assuming you find it helpful, I'll add the following. 1. Brief description of exp.:
After years of teaching students from across the US, from Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Saudi Arabia and beyond, I had to suspend my correspondence instruction so that I could continue my own studies. 2. Reasons for Supporting LVT:
Georgist economic theory is particularly opposed to land speculation, where land is held out for the profit it may bring in the future. This is a strategy for holding on to land that is unproductive, and as such, an underlying force in shaping urban ghettoes. Essentially, George argues that every system of taxation must meet the test of fundamental fairness. LVT amounts to a system that taxes the least, and thus, most approximates fairness.... I hope this is helpful to your project -- M. A. Jamal |
I believe that the facts incontrovertably show that Mumia Abu-Jamal's original murder trial in Philadelphia was an outrageous violation of his constitutional rights in numerous areas, and justice unmistakeably requires a new trial.
The most authoritative and complete updates on the progress of his case can be found here.
Mumia Abu-Jamal's writings are important for two huge reasons. He provides a unique look into the reality of life behind bars in the US today, a life that most people try their best to know nothing about. And his writings come not from raw emotion, but a finely honed literary talent and sensibility. Jamal's books are an indispensable part of an honest vision of US society today.
-- Lindy Davies
The following essay appeared in the Georgist Journal #90, Winter 1999.
by Mumia Abu-Jamal
They endeavor to make you as much like Brutes as possible. When they have blinded the eyes of your mind - when they have embittered the sweet waters of life - when they have shut out the light which shines from the word of God, then and not till then, has American slavery done its perfect work. -- Henry Highland Garnet, "An Address to the Slaves of the United States of America", (1843)
American prisons are the linear descendants of American slave pens, socially constructed institutions designed to dehumanize, exploit, and profit from the shackled. In both cases powerful social forces converge to protect the institution, to insure its continued existence.
Prisons as metaphor for slavery are especially crystallized in the disproportionate percentage of African Americans who are cast into American Gulags, a reflection of social policies following media and political projections.
Another factor that mirrors the slave experience is the antebellum (or pre-Civil War) Black codes that outlawed education for slaves, under pain of death.
In March 1998, the Pennsylvania Dept. of Corrections (DOC) announced that it would phase out all of its four and two-year college programs. That means roughly 400 of the state's 35,075 prisoners, men and women taking courses for a bachelor's or associate degrees in arts and sciences, will have to quit by June, 1998. The department, which already made it so difficult that it generally took approximately 10 years for a prisoner to complete courses for a degree, now offers GED (high school diploma) courses, and training in vocational fields like cooking or plumbing.
While some may question the usefulness of college for prisoners, one long-term corrections expert found education to be the "most powerful" preventer of violence, both in and out of prison.
Massachusetts prison psychologist, Dr. James Gilligan, notes:
While several programs had worked, the most successful of all, and the only one that had been 100% effective in preventing recidivism was: receiving a college degree while in prison. Several hundred prisoners in Massachusetts had completed at least a bachelor's degree while in prison over a 25-year period, and not one of them had been returned to prison for a new crime. (Later I discovered that the state of Indiana, and Folsom prison in California, have also found that college degrees provided 100% immunity against recidivism among their "alumni.") Immediately after I announced this finding in a public lecture at Harvard and it made its way into the newspapers, out new governor, William Weld, who had not previously been aware that prison inmates could take college courses, gave a press conference on television in which he declared that Massachusetts would rescind that "privilege", or else the poor would start committing crimes in order to be sent to prison so they could get a free college education!*
Clearly, then, what motivates prison administrators isn't what works, but the political imperatives of a system that seeks to continue the deadly cycle of recidivism. The more bodies they can capture, the more they can keep. Anything that can break the chains of mental slavery is justified.
Knowledge is the beginning, so let us begin.
*(Gilligan, James, "Pictures of Pain", Fr. Behind the Razor Wire: Portrait of a Contemporary American Prison System, (NY, New York University Press, 1998) p. 34 (by M. Jacobson-Hardy).
