Joseph “Shine White” Stewart

All Power to the People,

There is not one square inch of the United States that was not stolen from the indigenous nations by force or fraud. Every treaty made by the European colonial powers or the government of the United States was broken. Every solemn promise was a lie. The most lethal genocide in history took place here, and it continues. Of all the ethnic groups in Amerika, the Native Amerikans are the most disproportionately represented in the imprisoned population. In every measure of the symptoms of oppression, they are scored the highest.

Rivaling the great crime committed against the indigenous people was the crime perpetrated upon the millions of Afrikans kidnapped from their homeland and forced into slavery in the “New World”. Nearly half perished at sea during the crossing and many more worked to death or killed or maimed for resisting or attempting to flee to freedom. Stripped of their nationalities, their languages and and cultures, Black people were forged into a new nation under conditions of slavery and segregation in Amerika. The New Afrikan Nation bears the scars of centuries of oppression that is ongoing.

These two great crimes are the pillars upon which the United States was founded. The stolen lands and unpaid labor which was the source of Amerika’s wealth also created the legacy of white racism and the myth of “white supremacy” which is an integral part of Amerikan culture and U.S. imperialism.

There are various levels of white racism, each with its own material base, psychological motives, and ideological and material manifestations. One of its most prominent manifestations is the U.S. prison system. The U.S. prison system remains a continuation of the slave plantation system, now intensified as the “prison-industrial complex”. Lynching is legalized as “capital punishment” and torture is institutionalized as “behavior modification and control”.

Nearly two and a half million people in this country are imprisoned. Many times this number are on probation, in juvenile correctional facilities, on bail awaiting trial on disposition, or are under surveillance by the police or other government agencies. Amerika is a fascist police state, and it has been so for a long time. Two thirds of the prisoners in Amerika are people of color; Blacks, Chicanos, Mexicans, Pureto Ricans, Asians, Native Amerikans etc. The other third are poor whites. A majority are imprisoned for drug-related offenses or property crimes. Even most of the “violent offenders” are in one way or another convicted of reacting to conditions imposed by class oppression and exploitation.

Amerika is a nation of war, it is a war of the rich class upon the poor. The history of Black people in this country has been one of passionate resistance to this war. All too often, they have had to wage that fight alone. Black and Brown people inside these razor-wire plantations (prisons) are doing all they can - must they fight alone even now?

The liberal democratic revolution of 1776, with its promise of “liberty and justice for all” and respect for the “inalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” has sputtered along and is still incomplete. The interests of the rich class keeps sidetracking it. The Civil War was a continuation of this rebellion, but the very amendment to the constitution that was supposed to end slavery (13th Amendment) contains a trick clause that continues slavery for those convicted of a crime.

As the bourgeoisie will not complete the liberal democratic revolution, we must assume this task, use it to expose the increasingly fascistic character of the monopoly capitalist ruling class, we must mount an all-out campaign to amend the 13th Amendment and strike the clause that perpetuates slavery. This would force the defenders of the status quo to openly defend slavery and oppose liberal democracy.

We must demand the extension of universal suffrage to include prisoners and ex-felons, exposing that millions are denied the right to vote. We must demand that prisoners be paid the minimum wage and protected by occupational health and safety laws. We must demand an end to the racist death penalty and campaign in defense of the human rights of prisoners. In short, we must attack the main prop of class rule - the “criminal justice system”. This is the logical and necessary continuation of the Civil Rights Movement.

Amerika has some of the world’s longest-held political prisoners, including some that have been incarcerated for thirty years or more. We must expose the use of the “criminal justice system” as an instrument of political repression which commits many illegal acts. Many prisoners of war have suffered the cruelest treatment for standing up to the government’s campaign of terror. Defending imprisoned revolutionaries is an essential part of building revolution.

Under conditions of maximum repression, Komrade Kwame Shakur and other like-minded Komrades have built a united front to carry out the aforementioned tasks. Prison Lives Matter (PLM) is a united front for political prisoners, prisoners of war, politicized individuals behind enemy lines and their organizations, as well as any outside formation in unison to abolish

legalized slavery.

PLM provides an infrastructure that enables prisoners to transform these razor-wire plantations into “schools of liberation” and our communities into base areas of cultural, social, and political revolution.

The work conducted by PLM is a protracted struggle, a struggle that will ultimately benefit us all. Thus, this is not a struggle that New Afrikans and other people of color can go at alone. White people, particularly the white prisoners, have a deep responsibility to enter this struggle at every level.

The enemy has the capability of locking up millions of people, but we as the prisoners have the capability of transforming these razor-wire plantations into “schools of liberation”. Those who learn can teach, and when “each one teaches one”, and then another and another, the prisons are transformed from within and become the training camps of revolutionary warriors.

As Komrade Kwame has emphasized, “rather than organizing and mobilizing, the most important work of PLM both inside and out is to Educate. The political education of those held captive, as well as Komrades and the masses is the tool needed to build resistance and sustain a movement for liberation.”

For us whites, it is not enough to be simply “anti-racist” and to be “white allies”. There has to be deep societal changes amongst ourselves, despite the undeniable benefits we as whites gain from our “whiteness”.

Not only do we need to challenge the racist power structure but we must combat the racism within ourselves and our communities. Fleeing the racism of our communities, we’re simultaneously feeling the responsibility of transforming the consciousness and action in white communities which are the seed beds of racism.

To commence to taking active responsibility for white racism and to ending the white supremacist system, we must understand why both exist and who it benefits. We must educate ourselves in the suppressed history of white people’s opposition to racial oppression and genocide in Amerika, which will enable us to re-educate other whites who have been deluded by racist, white supremacist propaganda and ideology into opposing their own class interests.

Transforming these razor-wire plantations into “schools of liberation” is not a “Black thing”. For whites enrolled in these “schools of liberation”, synthesizing antiracist education and organizing by linking teaching with community mobilization is imperative. With these “schools of liberation” becoming an arm of the overall liberation movement, education becomes a vehicle for movement-building. The mode of education is to be used as an organizing strategy among whites, helping to recognize that white supremacy and its offspring, racism, not only fails to empower poor white people, it is a psychological trap that white people fall into that renders us politically impotent, and prevents us from mobilizing white communities in an effort to demand justice and equality for all.

The work of PLM, as I pointed out, is simply not a “Black thing”, espousing such a belief prevents us from coalescing around the common goals of revolutionary justice, and an overthrow of white supremacist capitalism. We must become more progressive in our thinking. This work is a human duty, the duty of a human being who believes that all people have an equal right to be treated with respect and human dignity, that all people have a right to live free from oppression and exploitation.

I, as a white person, cannot be free so long as New Afrikans and other people of color are subjected to the violence of racism and violation of their human rights. On what objective basis do I arrive at these beliefs? Is it some idealist or religious doctrine I was raised with? Do I, as Malcolm X once said about certain whites, seek to join the struggle for Black liberation to appease my conscience for all the horrible things that whites have done to the New Afrikan peoples and other non-whites in this country?

If the answer to these questions were “yes”, then I would have a subjective and unscientific reason for committing myself to the struggle, and thus my thinking would be clouded by idealism and subjectivity. But as I consider myself a revolutionary, I seek to be scientific in my thinking. The reason us white must be a part of this struggle is because any common liberation depends upon it. To overthrow the capitalist-imperialist system and all its functions, we must be our own and each other’s liberators and stand tall in the fight against oppression.

Dare to struggle, dare to win,

Joseph “Shine White” Stewart

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To receive the Prison Lives Matter journal/zines, or to contribute to the work of PLM, write to: PLM, PO Box 9383, Chicago, IL, 60609

To receive zines authored by myself on the topics of anti-racist education, anti-racist organizing and other progressive works, write to: Black Bird Publishing, PO Box 11142, Durham, NC, 27703.

Shine White is a white politicized prisoner that’s being held at North Carolina’s only supermax facility, due to his relentless activism and political views. Send our brother some love and light: Joseph Stewart #0802041, Granville Correctional, PO Box 247, Phoenix, MD, 21311.