Prison Culture Is A Naked Chicken!

PRISON CULTURE IS A NAKED CHICKEN!

12 July 1972

Year of Unity

Decade of Struggle

Q: How does the prison differ from the "free" community at large?

A: It does not.

At first glance, the answer given to the question above could appear as an oversimplification of the truth. I mean, you can hear this sister or that brother on top of the sidewalk everyday saying, "Dig, we're all in a prison. This society aint nothing but the best trick of all-time disguisable tricks." OK, that's true - we know it is. But if we invert the analogy and compare prison to the society rather than society to the prison, we'll discover a certain profound correlation between the two.

After we've arrived, for example, the first thing we see is that, contrary to our wildest most diabolical pre-prison fears and expectations, there are no evils on the outside, which we've already passed thru once on our way in here, don't you see. So what this means, then, is that prison culture is only an intensified reflection of the parent culture at large; that is, of the society from which it was born. Like an egg. What goes on inside the shell is basically just a concentrated form of what's happening on the outside of it. There's still a chicken in there, you understand, but it just doesn't have all those fancy feathers that hide its naked self.

Prison culture is a naked chicken. It is the purest expression of that culture which creates it. Let's examine that.

If we accept the postulate that any culture is reflective of and subordínate to its own system of economics, then it would obviously follow that cultural characteristics are brought about and regulated by specific economic conditions. We know from historical experience that in a capitalist society a wealthy ruling elite maintains its autocratic existence by its economic exploitation of the broad mass of workers below - a system of what's best for a few supported by all, and propagated by lies like "in a system of 'free enterprise' any MAN can work his way to the top; any BOY can grow up to become president" (women and girls, they just get to be all kinda mamas) - the quintessence of pure shit! And then all this pure shit is heaped in a pile, you dig, and circled by a fence they call democracy. With this flag stuck in the top like a cherry on a sundae, whew! And there you have it, ladies and gentlemen (from off-stage come trumpets: "ta-da") - AMERIKA!! And this pick-up truck of red, white, & blue drives off with it all in the back and goes right around the world singing about "see the U.S.A. etcetra, etcetra. . ."

Well, far out, right? But the point is, all this has an incredible effect on our culture. We see contradictions. We see the people are starving while the bourgeois mosquitos grow fat in the abdomen from the people's rich red blood. We see the people forced to fight and pay for wars they not only do not understand, but do not desire. We see the people frustrated by the work they need but cannot get, and then charged "luxury" taxes on top of their poverty. And finally, when the people are driven mad by this despicable system of competition, we see them turn against themselves - against one another. Thru diseases like sexism and racism they attempt to re-define and give value to their own existence at the expense of another's. And because their legitimate attempts at capitalist preoccupations have been frustrated they seek to reach, thru "illegitimate" preoecupations at the same game, the socially prescribed goals of success. They then bring amongst themselves the system of exploitation and greed. They sell their sisters' bodies; they kill their brothers when the dope tab gets too high. And some times they are caught by the agents (police) of "legitimate" capitalists - the legal pimps and pushers - and then subjected to the Master's derelict scenes of legal obscenity: the courtroom; the trial; the judge; the jury - most perverted of all, the jury. People tricked by the Master into supporting their own oppression, and then passing judgement upon one of their own kind. And they will send their brother or sister to prison because, more likely than not, he/she is poor too. No rich-folk in prison. No rich-folk on the jury.

And how does the prison differ from the society our sister/brother has just left? As was stated: it does not. Because the system within those walls is also a system of competition, greed, and exploitation - a simple matter of mirrorlike imagery; a reflection. But with one slight abberation, and that is "intensity." The whole trip is at a much higher level of intense purity. Let's examine that.

First, you got your warden (president) and he's got his own bunch of bureaucratie freaks (cabinet) - his assistant warden, chief of parole, caseworkers, etc. Then there's this gang of goons, the guards (police) - like Nixon's band of crypto-nazi thugs who recklessly roam the people's streets in waves of terror, deliriously trying to enforce "the rules" - perverted dictates from above interpreted arbitrarily at will below. Next, of course, we come to the legal acrobats and judicial jugglers. These chumps call themselves The Committee - The Adjustment Committee. Wow. Can you dig that??? THE ADJUSTMENT COMMITTEE!!! They perform the courtroom honors, you understand, and they are actually quite a gallant breed when you consider the fact that they can still stand up in the face of their own existence. OK - so much for the prison's power (political) structure.

Before getting into what we mean by the "intense purity" mentioned earlier above we'll have to first check out the economic system that employs these fascistic political tactics. Namely, it's free (?) enterprise again, folks. In prison there's your usual industrial jobs, building trades, and construction labor task forces: a factory that produces such things as fiberglass chairs and sheetmetal cabinets; a textile plant; welding shops; a carpentry shop; a road gang. Then you got your unskilled laborers - cooks, dishwashers, janitors, clerks, and all this kinda shit. There's foremen and bosses of all kinds, of course, and just like on the street a lot of convicts don't even pay any attention to this business of work and wages but, instead, due for the most part to competitive frustration and greed, resort to various "hussles" in order to survive. People gamble, push dope, steal, sell or pawn - off shit, get into racist conflicts and sexually exploitive affairs, sometimes kill each other, get busted, and end up in court again - The Adjustment Commlttee.

But that's where the similarities between prison and the street abruptly come to an end. And Why? Because on the street there's this democratic ruse the reactionary Honk leaders need to uphold in order to pass off their counterfeit system; the fancy feathers that conceal the naked truth. The chicken. And here's where we get into what we mean by the intense purity of Honk Culture. You see, in a "free" society people aint obviously gonna believe they're free unless you give them some petty amount of bullshit say-so. Are you hip to it? Like you gotta let them think they got something to say about what's coming down. So you create jive elections to keep them preoccupied with "change", jive unions to assure them of "fair" wages, jive systems of "legal rights" to assure them of justice. Now if you're a leader like this - like Richard The Pig-Hearted, say - naturally it's a drag to get into all these jive changes just for the sake of the jive masses - but you know you got to, or your system aint gonna work a lick. You aint gonna fool a soul. In prison you don't have to fool a soul, so in prison you don't. You don't even try - no jive changes. You just shove it at them the way it is - your system in its natural state. Needless to say, that's some dose of intense purity! And if he could get away with it, if the people would let him, this is exactly what Nixon would do out there; like the warden does in here: he passes down some imposition of false ideals in the form of a rule to his sniveling assistants, who embrace it. They then pass it on down to the robot agents who enforce it. In turn, it all inevitably winds up along with a "violator" in front of The Adjustment Committee, which presides in lawless adjudication over the matter in bringing the entire farcicial comedy to a close. In the meantime, the prisoner who "violates" never sees any jive bill of rights. There isn't any. There isn't an attorney present and there's no jive jury either. I mean there's just nobody to fool, so why bother. And economically, in the face of vast industrial prison profits, there's no unionization of the labor force - convicts get paid seven, maybe 15¢ an hour. No, aint no one's around to kid, to trick into believing in the system. A prisoner doesn't have to believe in it. Fuck fooling around - just push it right up tight against his face. Anyway, anybody knows that prisoners - because they are prisoners - don't have any rights. Too many prisoners believe in this shit themselves. Yeah, so in reality this is Nixon's attitude towards the broad masses, too, "pure and simple". But he's so hung up by that "checks and balances" comedy (not to mention by "the few" protesting "malcontents") that he's got to conceal his real schemes and dreams - to some degree. With feathers.

Prison culture is a naked chicken. It is the purest expression of that society which creates it.

And, more seriously, there is one final correlation between prison and society: the walls. The walls of prison are made of stone and prevent us, with the help of the prison's agents, from escaping. The walls of society are composed of a network of economic and political myths which, by the help of society's agents, also prevent us from escaping. It should be clear, then, that there can be no FREEDOM for ANYONE until all these walls are brought tumbling down - both capitalist society's walls and the walls of its prisons!

LONG BURN IN OUR HEARTS, MINDS, & EYES

THE SISTERHOOD OF ANGELA DAVIS;

THE BROTHERHOOD OF GEORGE JACKSON!

All Power to Rainbow People - The People of the Future!

CLAYTON, 24053-145

Federal Prisoner

Terre Haute, Indiana