San Quentin to Phoenix: Occupy4Prisoners - February 20, 2012

Hey all - we're doing this in Phoenix, too; AZ Prison Watch is an endorser of this national call-out from Occupy Oakland. Contact me (Peggy at 480-580-6807/ prisonabolitionist@gmail.com) if you want to throw in on it - I need help planning and organizing this...

------------from Occupy4Prisoners (Oakland)----------------

This a resolution of Occupy Oakland's General Assembly on January 9th, 2012.

For more information and/or to endorse, email occupy4prisoners [at] gmail [dot] com.


RESOLUTION

Summary

We are calling for February 20th, 2012 to be a "National Occupy Day in Support of Prisoners."

In the Bay Area we will "Occupy San Quentin," to stand in solidarity with the people confined within its walls and to demand the end of the incarceration as a means of containing those dispossessed by unjust social policies.

Reasons

Prisons have become a central institution in American society, integral to our politics, economy and our culture.

Between 1976 and 2000, the United States built on average a new prison each week and the number of imprisoned Americans increased tenfold.

Prison has made the threat of torture part of everyday life for millions of individuals in the United States, especially the 7.3 million people—who are disproportionately people of color—currently incarcerated or under correctional supervision.

Imprisonment itself is a form of torture. The typical American prison, juvenile hall and detainment camp is designed to maximize degradation, brutalization, and dehumanization.

Mass incarceration is the new Jim Crow. Between 1970 and 1995, the incarceration of African Americans increased 7 times. Currently African Americans make up 12 % of the population in the U.S. but 53% of the nation’s prison population. There are more African Americans under correctional control today—in prison or jail, on probation or parole—than were enslaved in 1850, a decade before the Civil War began.

The prison system is the most visible example of policies of punitive containment of the most marginalized and oppressed in our society. Prior to incarceration, 2/3 of all prisoners lived in conditions of economic hardship. While the perpetrators of white-collar crime largely go free.

In addition, the Center for Economic and Policy Research estimated that in 2008 alone there was a loss in economic input associated with people released from prison equal to $57 billion to $65 billion.

We call on Occupies across the country to support:

1. Abolishing unjust sentences, such as the Death Penalty, Life Without the Possibility of Parole, Three Strikes, Juvenile Life Without Parole, and the practice of trying children as adults.

2. Standing in solidarity with movements initiated by prisoners and taking action to support prisoner demands, including the Georgia Prison Strike and the Pelican Bay/California Prisoners Hunger Strikes.

3. Freeing political prisoners, such as Mumia Abu-Jamal, Leonard Peltier, Lynne Stewart, Bradley Manning and Romaine "Chip" Fitzgerald, a Black Panther Party member incarcerated since 1969.

4. Demanding an end to the repression of activists, specifically the targeting of African Americans and those with histories of incarceration, such as Khali in Occupy Oakland who could now face a life sentence, on trumped-up charges, and many others being falsely charged after only exercising their First Amendment rights.

5. Demanding an end to the brutality of the current system, including the torture of those who have lived for many years in Secured Housing Units (SHUs) or in solitary confinement.

6. Demanding that our tax money spent on isolating, harming and killing prisoners, instead be invested in improving the quality of life for all and be spent on education, housing, health care, mental health care and other human services which contribute to the public good.

Bay Area

On February 20th, 2012 we will organize in front of San Quentin, where male death-row prisoners are housed, where Stanley Tookie Williams was immorally executed by the State of California in 2005, and where Kevin Cooper, an innocent man on death row, is currently imprisoned.

At this demonstration, through prisoners' writings and other artistic and political expressions, we will express the voices of the people who have been inside the walls. The organizers of this action will reach out to the community for support and participation. We will contact social service organizations, faith institutions, labor organizations, schools, prisoners, former prisoners and their family members.

National and International Outreach

We will reach out to Occupies across the country to have similar demonstrations outside of prisons, jails, juvenile halls and detainment facilities or other actions as such groups deem appropriate. We will also reach out to Occupies outside of the United States and will seek to attract international attention and support.

We have chosen Monday, February 20, 2012 at San Quentin, because it is a non-weekend day. Presidents' Day avoids the weekend conflict with prisoners' visitation, which would likely be shut down if we held a demonstration over the weekend.

ENDORSERS (list in formation)

Organizations

All of Us or None
ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War and Racism Coalition)
Arizona Prison Watch
California Coalition for Women Prisoners
Campaign to End the Death Penalty
Chicago PIC Teaching Collective
Committee to Free Romaine “Chip” Fitzgerald
Community Futures Collective
Critical Resistance
December 9th Georgia and International Prisoners’ Movement
Freedom Archives
Hope for Freedom Paralegal Services
International Coalition to Free the Angola 3
International Committee for the Freedom of the Cuban 5
International Socialist Organization
Justice Now
Kevin Cooper Defense Committee
Labor Action Committee to Free Mumia Abu Jamal
Labor for Palestine
Legal Services for Prisoners with Children
Life Support Alliance
Lynne Stewart Defense Committee
Michael Lewis Legal Defense Committee
Mobilization to Free Mumia Abu Jamal
National Committee to Free the Cuban Five
Nevada CURE
Nevada Prison Watch
NYC Labor Against the War
Occupied Oakland Tribune
Oscar Grant Committee Against Police Brutality and State Repression
Peoples’ Action for Rights and Community
Prison Activist Resource Center
Prison Radio
Prison Watch Network
Prisoners Are People Too, Inc. (Buffalo, NY)
Project NIA
Real Cost of Prisons
Redwood Curtain CopWatch
San Francisco Bay View Newspaper
Solitary Watch News
Stanley Tookie Williams Legacy Network

Individuals

Angela Davis
Anne Weills, National Lawyers Guild (NLG).
Barbara Becnel, founder, STW Legacy Network
Carole Seligman, Kevin Cooper Defense Committee
Elaine Brown
Diana Block, California Coalition for Women Prisoners
Jack Bryson
Jeff Mackler, Director, Mobilization to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal
Jeffrey Alan Masko, tutor and media coordinator, Second Chance Program at CCSF
Kevin Cooper
Kiilu Nyasha
Michael Letwin, Former President, Assn. of Legal Aid Attorneys/UAW Local 2325
Noelle Hanrahan, Project Director, Prison Radio
Sarah Shourd, Josh Fattal and Shane Bauer, former hostages in Iran and human rights activists
Stanley Tookie Williams IV
William Armaline, San Jose State University


OCCUPY4PRISONERS PHOENIX (facebook group)

Occupy Oakland: Solidarity with Indigenous Peoples

More food for thought on what it means to "Occupy Together" on occupied land. I haven't seen anyhting like this come to the Occupy Phoenix GA yet...

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The Memorandum of Solidarity with Indigenous Peoples

by Joanne Barker
Saturday Oct 29th, 2011 3:21 PM

Memorandum text that was passed as proposal to the General Assembly at "Occupy Oakland" on Friday, October 28, 2011.

RESOLUTION: Memorandum of Solidarity with Indigenous Peoples

WHEREAS, those participating in “Occupy Oakland” acknowledge that the United States of America is a colonial (and imperial) nation, and that non-indigenous people are guests upon stolen indigenous land; and

WHEREAS, those participating in “Occupy Oakland” acknowledge that Oakland is already occupied land; Oakland being the historical territory of the Chochenyo Ohlone people; and

WHEREAS, those participating in “Occupy Oakland” acknowledge that indigenous peoples here and around the world continue to resist the violent oppression and exploitation of colonizing nations like the United States, and as a result have a great amount of experience that could strengthen the “Occupy Wall Street” movement; and

WHEREAS, those participating in “Occupy Oakland” acknowledge that after centuries of disregard for the welfare of future generations, and the consistent disrespect and exploitation of the Earth, we all find ourselves on a polluted and disturbed planet, lacking the wisdom to live sustainably at peace with the community of Life; therefore be it

RESOLVED, that those participating in “Occupy Oakland” seek the genuine and respectful involvement of indigenous peoples in the rebuilding of a new society on their ancestral lands; and

As a signal to the national “Occupy Wall Street” movement and the indigenous peoples here and there who have felt excluded by the colonialist language of occupation used to name this movement, it shall be declared that “Occupy Oakland" aspires to “Decolonize Oakland" – to “Decolonize Wall Street” – with the guidance and participation of indigenous peoples; and

Extending an open hand of humility and friendship, those participating in “Occupy Oakland” respectfully invite indigenous peoples to join the uprising against corporate greed taking place across this continent. “Occupy Oakland” wishes to further the process of healing and reconciliation and implores indigenous peoples to share their wisdom and guidance, as they see fit, so as to help restore true freedom and democracy in this country, to initiate a new era of peace and cooperation that will work for everyone, including the Earth and the original inhabitants of this land.

In Solidarity,

Corrina Gould (Chochenyo Ohlone),
American Indian Child Resource Center of Oakland
Joanne Barker (Lenape [Delaware Tribe of Indians])¸ SFSU
Luz Calvo, CSU East Bay
Andreana Clay, SFSU
Andrew Jolivétte (Opelousa/Atakapa-Ishak), SFSU
Melissa Nelson (Anishinaabe [Turtle Mountain Chippewa]), SFSU
Kathy Wallace (Karuk, Yurok, and Hupa), SFSU
John-Carlos Perea (Mescalero Apache), SFSU

Lessons in Occupation and Solidarity: Decolonize Phoenix

From the blog Tequila Sovereign, written by San Francisco State University professor Joanne Barker: some food for thought about what solidarity with the indigenous really means for the Occupy movement...

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What Does “Decolonize Oakland” Mean? What Can “Decolonize Oakland” Mean?

October 30, 2011

When we presented the proposal for a Memorandum of Solidarity with Indigenous Peoples to the General Assembly of “Occupy Oakland” on October 28, several individuals came forward to pose deeply felt questions about what – exactly – we were asking of them.

Ultimately, what they were asking is whether or not we were asking them, as non-indigenous people, the impossible? Would their solidarity with us require them to give up their lands, their resources, their ways of life, so that we – who numbered so few, after all – could have more? Could have it all?

I have thought much about what a proposal of solidarity with indigenous peoples is asking of the citizens and immigrants of Oakland, California, and the United States. What does it mean to ask them to “aspire to “Decolonize Oakland” – not occupy it – in solidarity with the indigenous peoples of Oakland? Of California? Of the United States?

The History Question:

Oakland is Already Occupied Lands

Genuine solidarity assumes historical understanding. It assumes an understanding of the very basics of how indigenous peoples have been and continue to be: 1) denied their basic human rights to self-determination and self-definition; 2) defrauded of their lands; 3) targeted by military programs of genocide, enslavement, extraction, and pollution; 4) objectified through physical and sexual forms of violence and discrimination; 5) profiled in hate – sometimes in forms of romance and sometimes in forms of crime and police brutality.

The Chochenyo Ohlone people – the people indigenous to what is now Oakland – and several of their indigenous brothers and sisters throughout the State of California and the United States – have experienced such relentless colonial and imperial efforts that they now have no collective territory of their own. No recognized legal status or rights as indigenous. No means to self-government and self-sufficiency on the lands and in the waters that once sustained them.

The Chochenyo Ohlone people, like so many indigenous peoples in California and the United States, live with the historical and real consequences of a post-colonial, post-imperial stress disorder: displaced, defrauded, targeted, objectified, degraded, depressed.

Genuine solidarity with indigenous peoples assumes a basic understanding of how histories of colonization and imperialism have produced and still produce the legal and economic possibility for Oakland. For San Francisco. For San Jose. For all of the colonies-now-municipalities of the San Francisco bay area, northern California, and the west coast of the United States.

You are on occupied lands!

“Decolonize Oakland”

We can still alter our course. It is NOT too late. We still have options. We need the courage to change our values to the regeneration of our families, the life that surrounds us. Given this opportunity, we can raise ourselves. We must join hands with the rest of Creation and speak of Common Sense, Responsibility, Brotherhood, and PEACE. We must understand that The Law is the Seed and only as True Partners can we survive.

Oren Lyons, Chief, Onondaga Nation

The “Occupy Wall Street” movement is a movement mobilized by the exploitations, degradations, indignities, and incestuousness of U.S. capitalism, corporate greed, and political corruption.

“We are the 99%” because – as so many others – indigenous peoples have lost their homes, their jobs, their dignity in a legal-economic system that indentures them to it in perpetuity. 25% of indigenous peoples in the United States live below the poverty line. They have lost their lands, their jobs, their opportunities. And, as a kind of joke only capitalism can laugh at, the only viable economic options indigenous peoples have been presented in this system is to either open casinos or lease their lands to corporations and government agencies for resource extraction and toxic waste storage.

The “Occupy Wall Street” movement is a great beacon light of hope – a hope in the possibility – for a revolution that will usher in for all of us the peaceful enjoyment of our basic human rights to equality and dignity. This hope, this possibility, is the light of accountability and responsibility, not handouts. Not bail outs. But genuine account to and for the spiritual laws of relationship and responsibility to the earth, to one another, to the future.

In that light of hope and possibility, indigenous peoples ask not for a free hand, for an unfettered return of their stolen land, but for a stand in solidarity for justice. For a stand in solidarity against a capitalist system that has long since foreclosed on their land rights, their economic rights, their humanity.

There will be no reform of capitalism without redress to the history of U.S. fraud, genocide, and discrimination against indigenous peoples.

There will be no reform of capitalism without redress to the others who have been historically colonized and imperialized by its greed – including non-heterosexuals, the racialized and sexually exploited, migrant workers, the unemployed, the closed out and closed in.

The liberation of indigenous peoples cannot happen while queers, people of color, women, migrants, the poor continue to be oppressed by colonial-imperial capitalism.

“I Have A Dream…”

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Being asked to aspire to decolonization in solidarity with indigenous peoples is being asked to dream differently of what has been, what is, and what can be from the perspective of those whose stolen lands and exploited bodies capitalism has been based.

The promise of the U.S. Constitution, the U.N. Charter, the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples is the promise of justice for indigenous peoples. The U.S. government has willfully defrauded and debased that promise in the name of capitalism. In its unfettered greed and deregulation. In its distortion of democracy and freedom for market and profit.

Solidarity with indigenous peoples in reforming this bankrupt system requires everyone to compromise. To give to one another. To restore, to return, to rematriate. To liberate.

I have a dream of reform. I have a dream rooted not in the American dream, but in a dream of the decolonization of America. Of the decolonization of what Americans dream of.

I have a dream that one day this nation will hold itself accountable to its constitution, to its treaties, to its accords on the human rights of indigenous peoples: that it will genuinely affirm “that indigenous peoples are equal to all other peoples,” “that indigenous peoples, in the exercise of their rights, should be free from discrimination of any kind,” and that there is an “urgent need to respect and promote the inherent rights of indigenous peoples which derive from their political, economic, and social structures and from their cultures, spiritual traditions, histories and philosophies, especially their rights to their lands, territories and resources.”

I have a dream that the people of “Occupy Oakland” will not see the affirmation of indigenous peoples’ rights to self-government, territorial restoration, and cultural autonomy as a threat to their own; that they will see solidarity with indigenous peoples as an affirmation of their humanity and justice. Of their possibilities for transformation and empowerment.

I have a dream that the liberation of indigenous peoples from capitalism’s greed, corruption, and fraud will transform the “Occupy Wall Street” vision of what a just and equitable society looks like. I have a dream of a society that is sustainable, restorative, peaceful.

I have a dream.

Posted by Tequila Sovereign at 11:43 AM