Thug Life Army

August 26-28, 2005 will find special guests from hip-hop and rap to political stars such as Dead Prez, Chairman Fred Hampton Jr., Pam Afrika, Romona Afrika, Nappy Tongues, The Black Panther F.U.G.I.T.I.V.E.S., F.T.P., WARCLUB, Cichuatonali, Rico Pabone and more at the Oakland California Black August Weekend.

For those who do not know Jamiel of the Black Panther F.U.G.I.T.I.V.E.S. lived for a number of years in Tupac Shakurs household growing up in New York. Both of his parents, just like Tupac’s, were members of the Black Panther Party and extremely active in the Movement.(see *footnote) These Black August Events are full of history as well as knowledge.

Also August 26, 27, 28, 2005 in Atlanta the Atlanta, Georgia Black August Weekend will be held with a full schedule coming soon.

Along with the many events that the Black August Organizing Committee provides they also do much work and provide needed information and social education. Here is a little background and please support and investigate the knowledge put forth by this group.

Persecuting the persecuted is the California department of corrections favorite pastime. It is the most lucrative money making venture in the state and quite possibly the country. So long as there are poor and disillusioned youth in our communities, the beast known as the prison industrial complex will have a never ending supply of soon to be warehoused and forgotten merchandise. Our sons and daughters continue to make up a one-way supply line into the gapping mouth of this beast. They are politically programmed from birth by social and economic barriers that maintain an ever tightening choke hold eliminating opportunities for the breath of choice. The majority of our youth these days feel they are walking a very real tightrope between death and prison with even the fantasy of the American dream a faint memory someone mentioned in passing. Most so-called inner city youth go through the paces of trying to figure out exactly what society wants from them with the tightrope, as a subconscious thing they try to believe does not apply to their lives. For too many, that tightrope is so real that everyday is a balancing act of circus high wire proportions. And the beast continues to feed!

Thirty-four adult prison camps that more closely resemble concentration camps; Webster dictionary definition of concentration camp: a prison camp in which political dissidents, members of minority ethnic groups, etc. are confined. A varied assortment of junior prisons called juvenile detention centers and rehabilitation programs that simply prepare youth for life behind bars or train them to be more persuasive criminals so they can go forth and bring more of their friends and family back with them when they return. For our youth, that return becomes the hand of destiny, but for the prison administration it is only the well planned and executed workings of a well oiled business that operates from generation to generation rather than year to year. At present there are more than 300,000 held captive in the gulags of California alone. Citizens pay well in excess of 5-billion dollars every year on needs dictated and propagandized by the California correctional peace officers association, (c.c.p.o.a.) which as it happens is the largest and most powerful union in the state. The general public is kept in a state of near hysteria by an eloquent and practiced team of fiction and horror storywriters who appeal to fears common to all and easily preyed upon. The assumption that everyone sent to prison is fair game for the original homegrown version of the prison scandals in Iraq is creatively reinforced in society without pause. The general public is encouraged to believe that anything done in behalf of prisoners is subversive at worst and the actions of confused bleeding hearts at best. The power of the c.c.p.o.a. is such that all factual reports and findings of medical, physical, legal and mental abuse perpetrated by them is either completely ignored or if judgment is won in court by inmate plaintiffs, nullified behind the autonomy of prison walls.

Black August yearly focuses on the tradition of running rough shod over the lives and rights of prisoners by a prison administration concerning itself only with making money while torturing and tormenting those unfortunate enough to be subject to their grip both inside and out. 300 hundred inmates bunked three high in a gym that has only one entrance and exit at Solano state prison costs the tax paying public 3-million dollars a year mainly in guards wages. When sick, twisted guards orchestrate racial tensions at the behest of those pulling their chains, those wages go through the roof and 3-million becomes a base estimate. It is for this reason a brand new 700 million dollar concentration camp was just recently opened called Delano II which can hold an additional 5 thousand money making units that require little more than water as far as the system is concerned. For those conscious individuals trapped in the confines of these slave pens who see beyond the administrative set-ups, there is literally hell to pay. Pointing out abuses and rampant injustice from behind the walls gets you labeled a troublemaker because it threatens the money making machine. If you are African and keenly aware of your environment while actively engaged in spreading that awareness both inside and out, you are labeled a gang member. All of your involvements no matter how openly progressive are categorized illegal gang activity and you are locked away indefinitely in sensory deprivation units called security housing programs. To date there are men who have been warehoused in these torture chambers for 10, 20 and 30 years without any disciplinary infractions. Their only pretense of a charge is, someone told us you were a gang member at some point in time. No accuser is ever produced or named, but if this unknown accuses you, your lockdown is potentially forever.

Black August has always been a peaceful and educational way of letting the public know of the atrocities going on in the darkness behind the walls. In recent years the c.c.p.o.a. has thrown their considerable wealth and power into criminalizing both the observance or participation in and even the discussion of Black August. In pelican bay state prison S.H.U. program, men are given disciplinary write-ups which translate to more time in lockdown for corresponding with people on the streets with regard to Black August. Writing poems or drawing pictures for Black August activities is considered by the administration as illegal gang business activity. For men in their 50's and 60's who have been locked away from society for unconscious crimes committed when they were teenagers, consciousness is now a burden. Decades of study and discipline to purge those things that made one a threat to the community is now considered an undesirable aspect of your character by a program designed to hold you forever. Respect for all people, responsible attitude and behavior and the daily effort to be giving, nurturing elements of your surroundings is what forms the basis of any progressive society and the basic nature of Black August. This effort by the slave breakers, who hold our friends, family and loved ones in captivity, to criminalize Black August and thereby destroy a major support system cannot be allowed to achieve it's ends. By sowing dissention and mistrust out here in the minimum-security prison, the prison industrial complex's capitalist infrastructure is gaining serious ground in that effort. Black August is a time for unity of purpose. A time for unity of mind, body and spirit. A time for petty and real differences that mean nothing to those who continue to suffer, to be discarded as so much useless baggage. As in any quest for victory, Black August needs the energy and resources of all concerned desperately. We cannot afford any one of our conscious individuals or organizations standing on the sidelines while all goes down in flames. The beast is wounded by unity and defeated by the consistent push pull of like minds. As our brothers and sisters continue to languish and die in the darkness behind the walls and disappear from the streets on remanufactured 30and forty year old cases that had no validity to begin with, Black August is that conscious call for community awareness and unity of purpose. As our youth continue to be driven like cattle into the oblivion of the prison industrial complex, Black August is an opportunity to build a platform of new direction that stems that tide and gives us all new hope and plans for a better future for our generations to come. The clock on the wall says five minutes to midnight. If not now, when? Let Black August be that when. For those in jeopardy both inside and out.

Shaka At-thinnin

Chairman

Black August Organizing Committee

For more information about Black August and Black August Events in Oakland, CA and Atlanta, GA: http://www.BlackAugust.net

Also visit the Dragon Speaks http://dragonspeaks.org/

Black August 2005 - http://www.BlackAugust.net  

Assata Shakur Forum - http://www.assatashakur.org/forum  

FTP Dollar A Month Club - http://www.ftpmovement.com/dollar.html

Pan African TV - http://www.PanAfrican.TV  

The Talking Drum - http://www.thetalkingdrum.com

*Also an interview with Jamiel of the Black Panther F.U.G.I.T.I.V.E.S. can be read at http://www.sfbayview.com/091102/youngtupac091102.shtml . It is a very great insight to the early years of Tupac Shakur in Manhattan. Here is just a snippet – This is Jamiel speaking:

“We stayed in Manhattan. When Afeni (Tupac’s mother) was at work, we would go to Aunt Gene’s (Afeni’s sister) house in the Bronx or Yazmyne Fula’s (the mother of Khadafi from the Outlawz) house in Brooklyn. Gene’s sons Billy and them used to torment us. They would be putting hot sauce in our noses when we were ‘sleep. Once they made Pac jump out of a 12-foot window into a 6-foot pool. Everybody was in the projects in the late ‘70s, early ‘80s.”

Be powerful in knowledge. Please check out the above sites and gain knowledge and support those who support and help all of the real community. And do not for get the upcoming Black August events in Atlanta and Oakland.