(Seattle, USA) – August 18, 2018 – Prisoners within various institutions nationwide will be on coordinated work stoppages, sit-in strikes, commissary boycotts, and hunger strikes from August 21 – September 9, 2018, demanding “humane living conditions, access to rehabilitation, sentencing reform, and the end of modern day slavery.” Jailhouse Lawyers Speak (JLS) is a network […]
We’re less than a week away from the beginning of the strike and the more interviews I do with the media the more that I realize that the audience that I’m speaking to is growing wider and wider. This is why it’s important for me to me to address those that fit under one of […]
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If we strike for no other reason, then we strike in response to prisoner retaliation especially. Because we will not be silent until all of our prisoners feel safe and, dare I say, comfortable. Maybe not luxuriously comfortable but I also do not live in luxuriously comfortable conditions. However, the men and women who are […]
Recently outrage over the treatment of immigrant children in detention centers are heading the conversation about the inhumane practices that we enforce in facilities across the country. It is clear there is an undeniable connection between detention facilities, prisons (state and federal), as well as county and city jails. All of these institutions were created to […]
Now There are NO Mistakes at this Genocidal Rate Chance Gittens was 17 years old, one of his last Facebook posts read, “An entire sea of water can’t sink a ship unless it gets inside the ship. Similarly, the negativity of the world can’t put you down unless you allow it to get inside of […]
It’s August 19th and I’m very pleased with the turnout of the Millions for Prisoners march as I write this on my flight back to Seattle from Washington D.C. It was October of last year when I got an unexpected direct message on twitter from an incarcerated individual who told me to get in touch […]
Are you celebrating June 19th or July 4th? It completely depends on your definition of “free” July 4, 1776 not only was I not considered a citizen, I wasn’t considered human. My people were property to be bought and sold while those who were considered citizens celebrated their independence from their captive in England. Their […]
When I first saw the listing for a poetry mentor in the King County Juvenile Detention Center it was on my university’s career newsletter. I was working on campus as a Conference Assistant at the time and while sitting at the community center’s front desk I thought the volunteer opportunity was a dream come true. […]
This past weekend, Saturday March 4, 2017, the Black Liberation Front hosted a Black Lives Matter March for Freedom through Seattle. Protesters chanted, “Keep the CD Black” and “Hey Hey Ho Ho, Gentrifying has got to go”. There was a strong police presence at the demonstration, officers biked along side and blocked off streets in […]