J. Baridi Williamson has spent 20 years in SHU. Williamson sent Truthout contributor Victoria Law “Why We Strike” in 2012 after she sent him the one-year hunger strike anniversary Truthout article. He wanted to make sure that she knew why prisoners were striking.
We strike for freedom, justice and humyn rights against prolonged isolation and torture in US/California solitary confinement prisons/facilities/units/cell dungeons across this nation’s mass imprisonment complex. We strike for freedom of mind-spirit and humyn social being, to be able to think naturally without being subject to thought crime repression, political persecution and communication suppression, thought control. Freedom to feel natural without being subjected to sensory deprivation/disorientation; to taste natural, wholesome and sufficient foods; to feel natural sunlight; to listen to diverse multicultural music – jazz, R&B, soul, hip hop, Native, etcetera, and to be able to speak-express our natural humyn selves with our families, communities and the outside world at large, as the late/great New Afrikan civil rights attorney and Chief Justice Thurgood Marshall so eloquently articulated:
“When the prison gates slam behind an inmate, he does not lose his human quality; his mind does not become closed to ideas; his intellect does not cease to feed on a free and open interchange of opinions; his yearning for self-respect does not end, nor is his quest for self-realization concluded. If anything, the need for identity and self-respect are more compelling in the dehumanizing prison environment.” (U.S. Supreme Court case Procunier v. Martinez, 416 U.S. 396 (1974)).
We strike for the freedom of being physically able to get out of the cramped SHU cell, walk around in a large space and to naturally move our bodies’ arms, legs, heads, etcetera, in daily exercise activities, equipment. Freedom from being unjustly kept buried alive inside these modern-day solitary confinement dungeons. We strike in solidarity with and for other oppressed and poor people’s struggles and against manmade backward laws-systems-policies-institutions of rule, social population control and repression, mis-education, corruption, exploitation, mass imprisonment, etcetera. We strike against torture!
We’re not backing down in the face of Trump’s threats.
As Donald Trump is inaugurated a second time, independent media organizations are faced with urgent mandates: Tell the truth more loudly than ever before. Do that work even as our standard modes of distribution (such as social media platforms) are being manipulated and curtailed by forces of fascist repression and ruthless capitalism. Do that work even as journalism and journalists face targeted attacks, including from the government itself. And do that work in community, never forgetting that we’re not shouting into a faceless void – we’re reaching out to real people amid a life-threatening political climate.
Our task is formidable, and it requires us to ground ourselves in our principles, remind ourselves of our utility, dig in and commit.
As a dizzying number of corporate news organizations – either through need or greed – rush to implement new ways to further monetize their content, and others acquiesce to Trump’s wishes, now is a time for movement media-makers to double down on community-first models.
At Truthout, we are reaffirming our commitments on this front: We won’t run ads or have a paywall because we believe that everyone should have access to information, and that access should exist without barriers and free of distractions from craven corporate interests. We recognize the implications for democracy when information-seekers click a link only to find the article trapped behind a paywall or buried on a page with dozens of invasive ads. The laws of capitalism dictate an unending increase in monetization, and much of the media simply follows those laws. Truthout and many of our peers are dedicating ourselves to following other paths – a commitment which feels vital in a moment when corporations are evermore overtly embedded in government.
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