SUPPORT ACTION TO ABOLISH LEGAL SLAVERY, 

PROTECT HUMAN RIGHTS, 

AND STOP THE HISTORIC OPPRESSION OF AFRICAN AMERICANS AND OTHER MARGINALIZED PEOPLE!

Although it portended to abolish slavery in the United States, the writers of the 13th Amendment created an exception clause to allow slavery as punishment for committing a crime. This nationalized slavery so that all the states in the Union could now own slaves, and so that slaves could now be owned by state governments instead of individuals as was the case before.

Since the passage of the 13th Amendment, U.S. policy makers in the areas of banking, trade, commerce, government, land-use planning, the environment, media, housing, health care, public health and safety, law-enforcement and, more recently, telecommunications, have supported the creation and enforcement of laws that have the effect of systematically marginalizing Black people, beginning with the newly released slaves and continuing to this day!

With the abandonment of Reconstruction, many Blacks soon began to be persecuted by angry white mobs. Blacks that had acquired some land title soon lost the property rights to that land to white business men.

The persecution continue with Black Codes that criminalized and imprisoned blacks and denied them voting and civil rights. This effectively segregated and excluded them from equal participation in the rule of law as well as in the making and creation of wealth for their own prosperity.

Although civil and voting rights were passed in the 1960s, Blacks still suffered persecution and marginalization and complained of discrimination in their rights to equal employment opportunities, equal pay, living wages, affordable homes, affordable housing, land ownership and many other civil and human rights violations!

While Blacks and sympathetic white supporters were still clamoring for jobs and justice amid the violence and chaos that was erupting in the streets, LBJ's administration was tapped to investigate the crime and conditions in the inner cities. Tasked with this investigation were the Katzbach Commission and the Kerner Commission which both issued reports that found much of the mayhem occurring in the streets was due to inequality and poverty created by the political and economic system.

To solve the problem, LBJ created an anti-poverty program within his administration that became known as the Great Society! States were encouraged to adopt or implement social welfare programs supported by the federal government.

The prospects for a better future seemed to be great, but with so much resources and attention being given to the War in Vietnam, LBJ's administration dropped the ball on his domestic programs. Extreme right-wingers stole the national spotlight and with the election of Richard Nixon, changed the focus of poverty and crime from being understood as inequality in society to being seen as laziness and something genetically or culturally wrong with African Americans.

Despite there being persuasive evidence that the government was involved in the Iran and Nicaraguan Contras drugs-for-weapons-program that led to U.S. borders being flooded with dope, language like "welfare queens", "gangsters", " criminals", "thugs", and the need for "law-enforcement" was used by the Nixon, Reagan, Bush, and Clinton administrations to grapple with the domestic problems; albeit shoddy government and shortcomings in the system had truly created the conditions for massive upheavals in society.

However, official Wars on Drugs and Poverty were declared by the United States government! As funds for social welfare programs were cut and redirected to law-enforcement, jail and prison construction, conditions on the streets grew worst and became extremely violent! Being systematically locked out of education and economic opportunities, masses of black people across the country were forced to go at it alone using drugs, committing robbery, theft, and other offenses to meet daily human needs and wants. These strategies that people use to cope and survive on a day to day basis are considered crimes that really in truth are products of social engineering and are manufactured by a biased political and economic system!

The point to be made is that 150 years after the United States supposedly abolished slavery, U.S. policy makers created a system that in turn created conditions of poverty, crime, and violence that caused millions of American citizens to be arrested and put back in slavery for conviction of offenses! And when powerful social change organizations stepped in and begin to move to clean up the problem, the FBI organized a counter-intelligence program that would undermine, vilify and weaken these leadership efforts put forward by the People!

So it begs the question: did the writers of the 13th Amendment really intend to abolish slavery in Amerikkka? No! What did they intend to do? Criminalize African Americans and other marginalized people and put them back in slavery!

Therefore, to call people criminals, gangsters, thugs, welfare queens, the 47% with their hands out and other foul names is actually a play of power-politics and a cover up of the abuse of power and historic oppression of African Americans and other people in this country! Now we are exposing this and bringing this out for public scrutiny.

To free our people from the bonds of white supremacy and finally liberate them from the ghettos, impoverished environments, and prison cages in this nation, we are asking students, workers, tenants rights groups, disabled rights groups, prisoners, the LGBTQ community and all fellow humans to join us in rallies, marches, demonstrations, and peaceful protest and to call, write, and lobby your local, state, and federal public officials to support and pass laws in favor of (1) Reconstruction: i.e., higher education, community reinvestment, and fundamental fairness as alternatives to incarceration; and (2) Reparations: i.e., land, opportunity, and space to heal, forgive, redeem and empower ourselves to build our ideal community!

In Solidarity,
Ishkaten, Angola Prison

A CALL TO SUPPORT ACTION FOR JUSTICE NOW 

FOR ALL OF US, 

NOT JUST SOME OF US!

In the year 1865, a great deception was sold to the American people: that the slavery of Africans and their descendants was abolished in the United States. However, the writers of the 13th Amendment allegedly abolishing slavery included a loophole known as the exception clause which states “except as a punishment for crime.” The exception clause was crafted for the express purpose of appeasing those who fought for the Confederacy, and more generally to ensure the elite white land-owning class would not lose access to the surplus free labor upon which American capitalism was and continues to be founded.

After the passage of the 13th Amendment, U.S. policymakers began to create and enforce laws that systematically marginalized, criminalized, and imprisoned newly released slaves and other marginalized people for trivial offenses.

Since many blacks and poor whites were effectively segregated and excluded from mainstream society and stereotyped as being misfits and not ready to handle the responsibilities of freedom, they became prime suspects for wrongdoing and even mistreatment and persecution by the police—just like in antebellum times when the slaves were patrolled by slave-catchers. We saw this play out over the next 150 years with the abandonment of Reconstruction, Black Codes, Peonage, The Wars on Drugs and Poverty, The FBI'S Counterintelligence programs to vilify and destroy Black Leadership and the 1960-70s social change movements, and a nation-wide mass construction of jails and prisons to hold what would fast grow from a small number of people to 2.3 million Americans incarcerated in the American Penal System—an enterprise that retained the profit-making scheme of the old institution and holds more slaves today than were held in antebellum slavery!

To call Black, Brown, and poor people criminals, thugs, gangsters, and other foul names is actually a play of power-politics and a cover up of the abuse of power and ongoing oppression of African Americans and other persons similarly situated. And we are exposing this and bringing this out for public scrutiny!

Higher education, community reinvestment, and fundamental fairness is our idea of Reconstruction, righting the wrongs of slavery and finally ending involuntary servitude now and forever!

To free our people from the bonds of white supremacy and liberate them from the ghettos, impoverished environments, and prison cages in this nation, we are asking students, workers, tenants rights groups, disabled rights groups, prisoners, LGBTQ people and all fellow humans to join us in a mass movement of rallies, marches, demonstrations, and protests and to call, write, and lobby your local, state, and federal public officials to write policy and laws in support of (1) Reconstruction: i.e., higher education, community reinvestment, and fundamental fairness as alternatives to incarceration; (2) Reparations: i.e., land, opportunity, and space to heal, forgive, redeem and empower ourselves to build our ideal community!

Thanking you all for your time, consideration, cooperation, understanding and support in this pressing matter!

In Solidarity,
Ishkaten