Dr. Cornel West & Carl Dix at the University of Chicago May 7

In the Age of Obama…
Police Terror, Incarceration, No Jobs, Mis-education:
What Future for Our Youth?
A Dialogue between Cornel West and Carl Dix

Contact: uofcwestdixdialogue@gmail.com

CORNEL WEST is one of America’s most provocative public intellectuals and has beena champion for racial justice since childhood. His writing, speaking, and teaching weave together the traditions of the black Baptist Church, progressive politics, and jazz. The New York Times has praised his “ferocious moral vision.” Dr. West currently teaches at Princeton University.

CARL DIX is a longtime revolutionary and a founding member of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA. In 1970 Carl was one of the Fort Lewis 6, six GIs who refused orders to go to Vietnam. He served 2 years in Leavenworth Military Penitentiary for his stand. In 1985 Carl initiated the Draw The Line statement, a powerful condemnation of the bombing of the MOVE house in Philadelphia. In 1996, Carl was a founder of the October 22nd Coalition to Stop Police Brutality. Carl coordinated the Katrina hearings of the 2006 Bush Crimes Commission.

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Student Organizations: Platypus Affiliated Society • ACLU of U of Chicago • Black Law Students Association (BLSA) • Students Promoting Interracial Networks (SPIN) • Students for Correctional Reform Now (SCORN) • Chicago Justice Initiative (CJI) • Minority Graduate Students Association • African Americans at Social Services Administration (AASSA) • Southside Solidarity Network (SSN)
Departments: Political Science • History • OMSA • Race and Religion Workshop
Community: Chicago Theological Seminary • Critical Inquiry

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Directions to get to West-Dix dialogue at the University of Chicago:

CTA: Take Red line to 55th Street/Garfield Blvd.. Get off and take 55 bus East to University Avenue. Walk 2 blocks South to 57th St. Enter Reynolds Club on Southwest corner of 57th & University to find Mandel Hall.

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Chicago October 22nd National Day of Protest to Stop Police Brutality, Repression & the Criminalization of a Generation

January 1, 2011: Police shoot and kill Tory Davis…

January 7, 2011: Police shoot Darius Penix, 27-years old. Shot at 16 times, killing him at a traffic stop…

June 7, 2011: Police shoot Flint Farmer numerous times, killing him while he holds a cellphone…

July 25, 2011: Police shoot 13-year-old Jimmell Cannon four times…

October 5, 2011: Amit A. Patel is chased into Lake Michigan by police. He died a few hours later. Age 31…

Names and stories from the list of 57 people shot and/or killed by the Chicago police this year ring out in a striking indictment of these crimes of the system, reverberating off City Hall and the State of Illinois building.

The front page of the Chicago Tribune on the morning of October 22nd carried an expose of the cover-up of the police murder of Flint Farmer, including police video showing the cop shooting him three times in the back while he lay face down in the grass and killing him.

As people streamed into the plaza and the stage was being set up, the electricity of the day began to course through the air. Revolutionary music from Outernational and conscious hip-hop thundered off the skyscrapers overlooking the plaza. Curious bystanders and tourist were drawn into the growing scene of resistance, as protesters unfurled Stolen Lives banners and posters condemning police brutality and murder, and passing out flyers with the faces of victims of police murder.

October 22 Chicago organizer reads a statement from Flint Farmer's father.

Once the rally started, a statement from Flint Farmer’s father was read to the crowd of 100 people of all different backgrounds gathered to demand an end to police brutality, repression and the criminalization of a generation. Family members of victims of police brutality and murder, young folks from Occupy Chicago and Occupy the Hood, people who were outraged by the execution of Troy Davis, as well as college and high school students stood shoulder-to-shoulder to demand that this must stop.

Gregory Koger, a former prisoner who spent many years in solitary confinement and who has been involved in the movement for revolution since his release from prison, condemned the historically unprecedented explosion of racist mass incarceration in the U.S. and the spoke about the courageous example of the prisoners on hunger strike in California (see below).

Gregory Koger, revolutionary former prisoner who spent many years in solitary confinement, speaks at October 22 Chicago.

An uncle of Jimmell Cannon, a 13-year-old shot by Chicago police 4 times (see Revolution #242, Chicago Police on a Murderous Rampage: 42 people shot – We Say NO MORE!), spoke passionately about the outrage of these police shootings and murders.

After the Statement from the Revolutionary Communist Party on the Occasion of October 22, 2011 was read, others spoke out. Relatives of Jose Diaz, killed by Berwyn police, spoke; one relative said that “even though it was 11 years ago, it feels like yesterday.” Jamia Smith, the teenage sister of Devon Lee Pitts—who was killed by a police officer driving drunk—brought the crowd to tears as she read a poem with the lines, “even as I write this, I still feel you around, my big brother, my guardian angel,” with tears of sadness running down her face. Mark Clements, a survivor of police torture and activist with the Campaign to End the Death Penalty who spent 28 years in prison on a wrongful conviction, condemned the legal lynching of Troy Davis and led the chant, “Remember Troy Davis!” Occupy Chicago voted at their General Assembly to attend and send a representative speaker to stand in solidarity with O22, who said, “We have to end the suffering. It has to stop now!”

Jamia Smith, the teenage sister of Devon Lee Pitts who was killed by a police officer driving drunk, speaks with Mark Clements and other family members who lost loved ones to police murder.

The rally concluded with a member of the People’s Neighborhood Patrol reading their founding Proclamation and calling on people to join the patrols. Several people signed up.

The crowd defiantly marched out of the plaza, chanting “Egypt, Wall Street, Pelican Bay –We refuse to live this way!” This spirit was heightened musically by a raucous anarchist brass band. The march grew as it snaked through the Saturday afternoon crowds on State Street. A banner with pictures of people killed by Chicago police stretched across the sidewalk side by side with a banner of Troy Davis brought to the rally by students from Columbia College. People stepped aside to let the protesters through, with many smiling widely that this question was being addressed and some even joining chants including “Indict, convict, send the killer cops to jail—The whole damn system is guilty as hell!” After moving through the crowded streets of the Chicago Loop, they marched into the occupation surrounding the Federal Reserve Bank building, mingling in with the chanting, drumming scene at Occupy Chicago.

The raucous anarchist brass band energizes the crowd as they march.

Marching Against Police Chiefs

The Chicago Ad Hoc Committee for Oct 22nd, joining with World Can’t Wait and the Midwest Anti-War Mobilization, called for protesters to reconvene at the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) Gala taking place at the Chicago Hilton later that evening. This was part of the IACP convention, a convention of police commanders who order murder, torture and rape. Their members include 20,000 commanders of police forces that rain brutality and terror down on civilians from Saudi Arabia to London, England, where police brutality helped spark major uprisings this spring.

As the time to reconvene approached, a “mic check” was called at the HQ of Occupy Chicago and the crowd was challenged to join a march down to the Hilton. About 30 people marched out of the HQ bound for the IACP gala, chanting “Cairo, London, Chicago—Police brutality has got to go!” to the accompaniment of the anarchist brass band.

Once the march arrived at the Hilton, the march had grown in numbers and it was greeted by police lines and barriers. Protestors responded creatively to the police repression by positioning themselves on the other three corners and a determined and defiant protest ensued, denouncing the IACP in English and Spanish.

The October 22nd action concluded with the IACP protesters marching up Michigan Avenue to Grant Park, where they greeted thousands of people marching in to occupy the park; later that night 130 Occupy Chicago protesters were arrested while attempting to establish a permanent occupation at the park.

A banner of Stolen Lives held by family members who lost loved ones to Chicago police murder stand shoulder-to-shoulder with protesters condemning police brutality around the world outside the International Association of Chiefs of Police gala.

Former Prisoner Gregory Koger Speaks at October 22nd Rally

The following is the text of Gregory Koger’s speech at the Chicago O22 rally:

I’m here to speak about the criminalization of a generation: there’s been an explosion of mass incarceration since the early 1970s, historically unprecedented in the history of the world.

The U.S. has 5% of world population – 25% of worlds prisoners. More women are incarcerated here than anywhere else in the world.

Nearly 2.5 million men, women & children in are prison and close to 8 million are ensnared within the inhuman clutches of the so called “criminal justice system” today.

The rate of incarceration for Black males is over five times higher than apartheid South Africa, where a white supremacist colonial regime subjugated the indigenous Black population for decades and is universally considered one of the most racist regimes in the history of the world.

As Michelle Alexander documented in her book The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, more Black folks are in prison, jail, on parole & probation in the U.S. than there were slaves 10 years before the Civil War.

Joining in with the upsurge of resistance sweeping the globe, in July thousands of prisoners in California—led by prisoners in Pelican Bay SHU—went on hunger strike to demand an end to the torture & inhumane treatment they face.

Within days, over 6,500 prisoners in one-third of California prisons joined the hunger strike.

After three weeks they temporarily came off hunger strike, and then resumed the hunger strike on September 26. Within days, nearly 12,000 prisoners were on hunger strike.

The CDC retaliated: they banned prisoner’s lawyers, withheld mail and visits, and threatened to place prisoners on hunger strike in administrative seg.

At the end of last week, they temporarily came off again. Prisoners have stated that though they are willing to die rather than face these conditions of torture, they do not want to die. They know that it will take people on outside to force the government to meet their demands, and that will not happen in the time they can remain on hunger strike and live to see those changes.

Despite the demonization and dehumanizing portrayal, the majority of prisoners are locked up for non-violent drug offenses as part of “war on drugs,” which began in the early 1970s but expanded exponentially in the 1980s. And the “war on drugs” was a strategy for the ruling class to impose a “counterinsurgency before insurgency” because they fear the power of the people rising up to challenge the crimes and injustices of this system.

They saw the power of the people in the 1960s, but because people didn’t make a revolution out of the upsurge of the 1960s, the ruling class was determined to crush any potential liberating movement of the people from developing again.

Despite their attempts, even in the depths of the most horrendous conditions of oppression such as the hellholes of America’s prisons, people have a vast potential to transform themselves as they transform the world and join in becoming emancipators of humanity.

Like millions of others, I was one of those youth that this system has cast off. My family lost our home when I was a teenager, I got involved with a street organization to survive on the streets, and by the time I was 17 years old I was serving a 20 year sentence in an adult maximum security prison. Like too many other youth, this system offered me no better purpose and no greater fate than crime and punishment, a future of living and dying for nothing.

Once I got to prison, I soon started to question what brought me—and all the other people there with me—to prison, and soon began to develop an understanding of the historical and social forces that led all of us to the hellholes of America’s prison system.

Within a short period of time, I was given an indeterminate period of segregation—solitary confinement—and it was in the midst of those brutally isolating conditions of torture that I became politically conscious.

And since my release from prison a few years ago, my life has been firmly dedicated to the movement for revolution and the struggle against the crimes of this system and for a liberated future for all humanity.

O22 is a day for people of all different backgrounds to get in the streets and stand together shoulder-to-shoulder with those who live under the boot and the gun of police brutality and repression—and those languishing in the hellholes of Americas prisons—and demand that all of this must stop! People of conscience everywhere should take inspiration from the courageous example of the prisoners on hunger strike and recognize the moral responsibility to join together to rise up to take action to stop these horrendous injustices.

Check out revcom.us for more reports from around the country: Initial Reports on October 22 National Day of Protest to Stop Police Brutality

Support the Hunger Strike at Pelican Bay!

A broad coalition of prisoners at California’s notorious Pelican Bay SHU (Security Housing Unit) supermax prison today began an indefinite hunger strike to protest against and demand an end to the inhumane conditions of isolation and sensory deprivation that violate international human rights standards against torture that they endure on a daily basis.

Joining the Pelican Bay prisoners in their hunger strike are prisoners at Corcoran SHU, another hellhole known for the brutal and degrading conditions that the “greatest and freest country in the world” imposes on those ensnared within its inhuman clutches, including prison guards forcing prisoners to fight against each other in “gladiator fights” that the guards would bet on.

As the recent article The Living Hell in Pelican Bay Prison by Li Onesto in Revolution newspaper documented, “Mass incarceration in this country is about locking up a whole section of society—especially poor Black and Latino men—to whom this system offers no future. Prisons in the U.S. are aimed at punishment—degrading, dehumanizing, and breaking people. And the SHU at Pelican Bay is a model in doing exactly that.”

The United States has the largest prison population in the world – with only 5% of the world’s population, it holds one-fourth of all prisoners in the world within its unrivaled and historically unparalleled racist dungeons. As Michelle Alexander has documented in her vital recent book, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, there are more Black folks in jail, on probation or parole than were  enslaved in this country just before the Civil War (listen to audio of her discussing the key points from her book here). And the United States has a higher rate of incarceration for Black men than apartheid South Africa, a regime universally considered one of the most racist in the history of the world.

That this system offers millions upon millions of youth no better future and no greater fate than crime and punishment, a future of living and dying being shoved through the revolving racist doors of the “justice” system, just one of the many crimes that the rulers of this system perpetrate upon the people of the world, is reason enough to sweep this system from the face of the earth and struggle together to bring into being a radically different and far more liberatory world for not just the people of the United States, but the whole world.

Mass incarceration is one of the key concentrations of social contradiction that not only affects millions of those cast off at the bottom of society but outrages many people from other strata and backgrounds that can serve to awaken and strengthen the political consciousness of the people, bring them forward in resistance to the crimes of this system, and exposing this cruelly oppressive and exploitative system as the outmoded fetter holding back the advancement and liberation of all humanity that capitalism-imperialism is – as part of building a movement for revolution, as Bob Avakian, Chairman of the Revolutionary Communist Party, concentrated in Some Principles for Building A Movement for Revolution.

And as the recent Supreme Court ruling that conditions in California’s prisons violate Constitutional provisions against cruel and unusual punishment portends, mass incarceration is becoming a faultline that divides the ruling class, and can potentially serve to further break open the possibility of a revolutionary situation developing (see A Statement from the Revolutionary Communist Party On The Strategy For Revolution for more on the development of a revolutionary situation and the strategy for making revolution).

The courageous example of these prisoners coming together, across racial and other dividing lines inculcated and fostered by those in power to keep people divided, from within the bowels of the most dehumanizing and degrading conditions, and stepping forward to demand an end to the torture and inhumane conditions being forced upon them by the United States government, risking death and retaliation in the process, should inspire and challenge us to support their struggle and step forward to join them – as part of getting rid of this whole damn capitalist system and bringing forward a liberated world for all people.

The brothers in Pelican Bay have agreed on the following five core demands, reprinted in their entirety below:

1. End Group Punishment & Administrative Abuse – This is in response to PBSP’s application of “group punishment” as a means to address individual inmates rule violations. This includes the administration’s abusive, pretextual use of “safety and concern” to justify what are unnecessary punitive acts. This policy has been applied in the context of justifying indefinite SHU status, and progressively restricting our programming and privileges.

2. Abolish the Debriefing Policy, and Modify Active/Inactive Gang Status Criteria -

• Perceived gang membership is one of the leading reasons for placement in solitary confinement.
• The practice of “debriefing,” or offering up information about fellow prisoners particularly regarding gang status, is often demanded in return for better food or release from the SHU. Debriefing puts the safety of prisoners and their families at risk, because they are then viewed as “snitches.”
• The validation procedure used by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) employs such criteria as tattoos, readings materials, and associations with other prisoners (which can amount to as little as greeting) to identify gang members.
• Many prisoners report that they are validated as gang members with evidence that is clearly false or using procedures that do not follow the Castillo v. Alameida settlement which restricted the use of photographs to prove association.

3. Comply with the US Commission on Safety and Abuse in America’s Prisons 2006 Recommendations Regarding an End to Long-Term Solitary Confinement – CDCR shall implement the findings and recommendations of the US commission on safety and abuse in America’s prisons final 2006 report regarding CDCR SHU facilities as follows:

• End Conditions of Isolation (p. 14) Ensure that prisoners in SHU and Ad-Seg (Administrative Segregation) have regular meaningful contact and freedom from extreme physical deprivations that are known to cause lasting harm. (pp. 52-57)
• Make Segregation a Last Resort (p. 14). Create a more productive form of confinement in the areas of allowing inmates in SHU and Ad-Seg [Administrative Segregation] the opportunity to engage in meaningful self-help treatment, work, education, religious, and other productive activities relating to having a sense of being a part of the community.
• End Long-Term Solitary Confinement. Release inmates to general prison population who have been warehoused indefinitely in SHU for the last 10 to 40 years (and counting).
• Provide SHU Inmates Immediate Meaningful Access to: i) adequate natural sunlight ii) quality health care and treatment, including the mandate of transferring all PBSP- SHU inmates with chronic health care problems to the New Folsom Medical SHU facility.

4. Provide Adequate and Nutritious Food – cease the practice of denying adequate food, and provide a wholesome nutritional meals including special diet meals, and allow inmates to purchase additional vitamin supplements.

• PBSP staff must cease their use of food as a tool to punish SHU inmates.
• Provide a sergeant/lieutenant to independently observe the serving of each meal, and ensure each tray has the complete issue of food on it.
• Feed the inmates whose job it is to serve SHU meals with meals that are separate from the pans of food sent from kitchen for SHU meals.

5. Expand and Provide Constructive Programming and Privileges for Indefinite SHU Status Inmates.

Examples include:

• Expand visiting regarding amount of time and adding one day per week.
• Allow one photo per year.
• Allow a weekly phone call.
• Allow Two (2) annual packages per year. A 30 lb. package based on “item” weight and not packaging and box weight.
• Expand canteen and package items allowed. Allow us to have the items in their original packaging [the cost for cosmetics, stationary, envelopes, should not count towards the max draw limit]
• More TV channels.
• Allow TV/Radio combinations, or TV and small battery operated radio
• Allow Hobby Craft Items – art paper, colored pens, small pieces of colored pencils, watercolors, chalk, etc.
• Allow sweat suits and watch caps.
• Allow wall calendars.
• Install pull-up/dip bars on SHU yards.
• Allow correspondence courses that require proctored exams.

NOTE: The above examples of programs/privileges are all similar to what is allowed in other Supermax prisons (eg, Federal Florence, Colorado, and Ohio), which supports our position that CDCR-PBSP staff claims that such are a threat to safety and security are exaggerations.

Stop Thinking Like An American, Start Thinking About Humanity

As Barack Obama was being sworn in as the new leader of American imperialism, some comrades and I were in Chicago challenging people to consider what it is that Obama really represents, and to stop thinking like Americans and start thinking about humanity.

We started the day hanging a banner over the Eisenhower Expressway, catching people’s attention on their drive into the city. A number of people honked their horns and waved and gave the thumbs-up, and a few people on the overpass even stopped in the middle of the street to ask about the sign and what it meant. One woman who stopped her car in the middle of the street and talked to me agreed that Obama’s silent complicity in the weeks-long Israeli massacre in Gaza and his plan to send tens of thousands of more troops into Afghanistan were serious concerns of hers, and she took a copy of Revolution newspaper to dig more deeply into exactly what this system is that Obama is now leading (See The Promise of Change, The Rules of The System… And the Real Revolution We Need).

Then we headed downtown to Michigan Ave., where huge JumboTrons had been set up for people to watch the inauguration. Again we had the huge banner, and quite a number of people came up to consider just what it meant, and many took pictures of it – though with the exception of a few videographers, photographers, and reporters (including one from a Spanish-language network) all of the corporate media made sure to avoid the sign and the statement it made that was unavoidable to the crowd gathered there. Many people came up to consider the Uncle Bam poster on the back page of Revolution newspaper as well:

Later in the day we went to DePaul University, and put the banner up at the corner of State and Jackson in downtown Chicago. Many people got copies of Revolution newspaper, and there was a lot of struggle and debate with people over Obama and this system.

Especially in this time of crisis for the American imperialist system, a time so dire that Obama had to be brought in by the ruling class as a trump card to suck people into supporting this system and all of its horrors, it is critically necessary that people oppose this system and get down with Revolution. A new face on American imperialism is not going to bring about any change for the better for the people of this world. Barack Obama stood by in silent criminal complicity as the Israeli army massacred over 1,200 Palestinians – the majority of which were civilians – in Gaza. He stood silent as Oscar Grant was executed by a cop on a subway platform on New Year’s Day in Oakland. On the very day of his inauguration 9 Iraqis died, including a mother and child and an elderly man and his daughter in Baghdad; and the day after 34 Iraqis were killed, and 18 bodies were found in a mass grave (See Iraq Body Count).  Afghan villagers reported that 25 civilians, including 5 women, were killed in a U.S. military raid on Obama’s inauguration day as well. And Obama wants to send 30,000 more troops into Afghanistan.

This is not the “change” that humanity needs. What we need is a communist revolution to get rid of the exploitation and oppression inherent in this capitalist system – a revolution that will bring real change and hope to humanity. As Bob Avakian, Chairman of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA put it:

“To those who say we should ‘give Obama a chance’—the question is: a chance to do what?

Obama has no problem with this system that causes so much misery and oppression, death and destruction, for so many people throughout the world—he is anxious to take over as head of this system. His problem is that this system is in serious crisis and faces all kinds of heavy challenges.

For those who really want an end to oppression, injustice and unjust war, our problem is this system. Our challenge is to make revolution to get rid of this system and emancipate all of humanity from its horrors.“