"Another World Is Possible"

Free Mumia: Notes from the panel discussion on Mass Incarceration, the Prison Industrial Complex, Closing Attica, & Political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal

Juan Mendez - UN Special Rapporteur on Torture (via video):

• Solitary confinement is considered torture under international law but the U.S. still upholds the practice [What role do the international community, UN, ICC, NGOs and other civil society actors play in holding the U.S. Accountable? How does the status/soft and hard power of a country influence if/how it responds to international pressure?]

Mumia Abu-Jumal (via phone):

• The truth is that reform does not work
• Time for revolutionary transformation: Build a movement!
• Abolish the ingrained ideas, do not rebuild or reform the different facets of prisons
• “Power concedes nothing without demand”
• “Politics is the cruel art of betrayal”

Angela Davis:

• Prison industrial complex [PIC] has a great deal to do with global capitalism which is fueled by racism
• [asked about connection of movements for political prisoners and mass incarcerations]: Movements around political prisoners personalize the issue but it is a mass incarceration issue
• PIC is a manifestation of the struggle against capitalism and how it assimilates itself into our lives
• If punishment is not based on retributive justice, what would it look like?
• How do we reimagine this world?
• We need a movement for penal/prison abolition
• Think in more complex terms! Encourage people to think. “I am less concerned with what people think as I am with how they think, specifically seeing the interconnectedness of the issues that we face"
  • Think about how incarceration of women sheds light on this system: what can feminism offer? What is the role of prison as a gender apparatus?
• Respect those who have gone through the system and what has become a model for the global prison industrial complex. Learn to build egalitarian relationships with those who are in prison instead of working through a missionary perspective and vision. [To those in prison and those branded as felons:] “we love you, we respect you and we appreciate your leadership"

Michelle Alexander:

• PIC is the social justice issue of our time
• Progress gained during the Civil Rights and Black Power Movement has been counteracted by the PIC
• PIC is a result of the fundamental question of how we deal with winners and losers as a society and who are these winners/losers and why?
• “No path to racial justice includes mass incarceration. It starts with closing prisons”
• There is also the question of who is doing prison on the outside and not just on the inside, ie. parole. Who has been “branded” a felon? [ physical allusion to the branded slave] How is this to be undone?
• We have created a caste-like system
• Short term gains within the system creates the illusion of progress
• You need to choose the issue which sets you ablaze and fight for that
• Get creative about forming networks without infrastructure or money [addressing mobilization issues during this current economic climate ie. recession]
• "My dream is that within the next couple of years, everyone can get involved in this movement in a meaningful way with the aspiration that we want to create a more perfect union."
• This is a unique moment where people of both political parties want to talk about the PIC so seize this moment!

Marc Lamont-Hill:

• The gap is widening between the haves and have nots
• Connection between first class jails and second class classrooms
• PIC plays into 3 issues:
  • Education: school conditions kids for prisons: ex. Use of dogs, parole and police officers and screening in schools
  • Mental Health: connection to mass incarceration, and incarceration and transcarceration
  • Housing: prison is the only form of housing left for certain constituents
• The key is to understand the connections. Connect the dots.
• If we keep talking about/working on prison reform, we will convince the world that prisons can be reformed.
• We need to change the root idea of this issue – the idea that we need prisons!
• It's a struggle/ larger idealogical question of what you concede in the short term for a better now and what you hold out on for revolutionary reform [in response to Jazz's statement below that prisoners just want to get out]. You have to work on both ends
• “It is easy for people to conceive of the end of the world than the end of capitalism”. The same for prisons. 
• “Another world is possible”
• For students: Never loose sight of your ideas. The autobiographies of Malcom X and Assata Shakur changed how I view the world
• Use social media to organize but then figure out the revolutionary content of your movement.
• “When we fought, we won”

Joseph Jazz Hayden:

• All the people in power speak in one voice, why don't we?
• Do not focus on the separations such as women in prison, children in prison, etc but rather as Human Beings in prison
• Take control of the language and the narrative!
• The difference between academia and lived experience is that while academics focus the different facets of injustice occurring in prisons, prisoners just want to get out!
• "They wanted to reform slavery too and we rejected that in favor of abolition. Do not reform, tear it down!"
• Raise consciousness!
• Man created this capatalist system and we can change it. We cannot allow this system to criminalize our youth. Our communities have been turned into open prisons

Cornel West:

• PIC is the new form which white supremacy has taken
• Not about hatred or revenge but about love and justice
• U.S. denies that it has political prisoners
• It was not just about what Mumia said but how he said it
• It's about “revolutionary love”, “militant tenderness”, “subversive sweetness”
• I speak here of spirit and culture...
• [Question to ask oneself] What does it mean to be great in human form?

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*Bolded statements are points which were especially salient for me or brought to mind a perspective I had not formerly considered. I have condensed the panelists' statements at different points during the event into bullet points under their name. As a caveat, I wrote things down as they were being said but the wording is not exact. Some things are written in my understanding/interpretation of what was being said. Lastly, [ ] = My thoughts/clarifications.

You can learn more about the movement and the event here: http://www.freemumia.com/

Lastly, 
"Ask not what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive... then go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive." - Howard Thurman

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