#prison is slavery

[metalheadsforblacklivesmatter]

Using food as punishment is cruel, unusual, and inhumane. Especially when said punishment has caused vomiting and intestinal bleeding. But prisons continue to get away with it because despite the fact that it was made to be as unappetizing as possible, it was also made to be as nutrient dense as possible so that inmates couldn't say that they're lacking nutrition in their punishment food.

These are human fucking beings, and they don't deserve subhuman treatment.

Add onto that a large portion of inmates are mentally ill and several neurological differences result in the body reacting negatively to gross food (vomiting on bad food taste and texture).

-fae

[itsbansheebitch]

How are there not riots in the streets?

Looking back on 2023:

We know our education system is bunk and that NASA was started with help from a literal 1940s Nazi. We know this country was built on genocide, bigotry, and the backs of immigrants & slaves.

We know we're colonizers, we know our first President's teeth were made of a combination of his slaves' teeth and wood. We know the last President ran his campaign off sexual assault jokes.

We know the first time the Confederate flag was ever in the US Capital was on January 6th, 2021. We know approximately 50% of white medical trainees think black people have higher pain tolerance (especially black women).

We know black people are more likely to get bitten by police dogs and are more likely to get death sentences instead of life in prison like their white counterparts committing the same crime. We know you can predict if you'll be a victims of police brutality based on where past lynchings have happened & the amount of money a you make in a year.

We know that America helped cover up Unit 731 and gave the "scientists" immunity. We know that America has been at war for more time than not and we know school shootings are so "old news" that the news doesn't even cover most of them anymore.

We know the United States has an unusually high homeless population and that 40% to 60% of homeless people in the United States have jobs. We know the United States isn't opposed to human experimentation and we know that slavery is illegal unless you're in prison.

We know prisoners are used to fight fires for free, we know some prisons have cotton farms for the prisoners to work on for free. We know 1 in 5 people on death row are innocent and that police are known to fake/plant evidence and to assault witnesses & suspects that don't give them what they want to hear.

We know judges are more likely to give death sentences than life in prison when they're hangry (I'm NOT joking) and police were originally militias paid for by rich people to get their runaway slaves black. We know we are one of the most, if not the most, dangerous "developed" countries in the world.

Why do we perform non consensual surgeries on (intersex) babies right out of the womb without the parents' permission, but we make consensual surgeries (gender affirming care) illegal? Why is gender affirming care (plastic surgery, masculine voice classes) only legal and normal for cis people?

Why do we let people who are one foot in the grave sign our death certificates? Why do we let people who clearly have dementia run one of the globe's superpowers? Why are we letting the oldest bigots in the country decide our future?

So why are there not riots in the streets? When did we become so complacent to our own demise? Why do we deny the ship is sinking when we are up to our knees in water? What is wrong with us? Are we pathetic or broken or wrong in a way that is incomprehensible to us? Why are we pretending everything is normal?

Why are there not riots in the streets?

[theconcealedweapon]

And who enforces this? Is it just a few bad apples, or is it all cops?

How hard is it for them to find cops willing to enforce this? Do they have to sift through hundreds of heroic cops who refuse until they find the one cop who's monstrous enough to enforce this, or do they easily find cops willing to enforce this because monstrous cops are everywhere and being a monster is part of the job?

"All cops are bad" is not a stereotype. It's literally a requirement for the job that every single one knew about.

[sayruq]

Here's his GoFundMe. It has passed its initial goal but keep sharing and donate if you can to help Hamza.

[politijohn]

Source

Source

[alwaysbewoke]

In 1865, enslaved people in Texas were notified by Union Civil War soldiers about the abolition of slavery. This was 2.5 years after the final Emancipation Proclamation which freed all enslaved Black Americans. But Slavery Continued… In 1866, a year after the amendment was ratified, Alabama, Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, Georgia, Mississippi, Florida, Tennessee, and South Carolina began to lease out convicts for labor. This made the business of arresting black people very lucrative, thus hundreds of white men were hired by these states as police officers. Their primary responsibility being to search out and arrest black peoples who were in violation of ‘Black Codes’ Basically, black codes were a series of laws criminalizing legal activity for black people. Through the enforcement of these laws, they could be imprisoned. Once arrested, these men, women & children would be leased to plantations or they would be leased to work at coal mines, or railroad companies. The owners of these businesses would pay the state for every prisoner who worked for them; prison labor. It’s believed that after the passing of the 13th Amendment, more than 800,000 Black people were part of that system of re-enslavement through the prison system. The 13th Amendment declared that "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction." Lawmakers used this phrase to make petty offenses crimes. When Blacks were found guilty of committing these crimes, they were imprisoned and then leased out to the same businesses that lost slaves after the passing of the 13th Amendment. The majority of White Southern farmers and business owners hated the 13th Amendment because it took away slave labor. As a way to appease them, the federal government turned a blind eye when southern states used this clause in the 13th Amendment to establish the Black Codes.

[doomhope]

UPDATE: turning off reblogs since voting is over for this cycle

this is absolutely not a "go vote or you're evil!" post BUT you should know that if you're registered to vote in Oregon, Alabama, Louisiana, Tennessee, or Vermont you have the opportunity to vote to abolish prison slavery this year, and i think you should strongly consider it.

from the washington post:

"The 13th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution bans slavery or involuntary servitude, except when it is used as punishment for a crime.

If passed, the proposals would wholly abolish slavery in those states, though they would not automatically change protocols on prison labor or inmate pay.

[...] the bills could give lawyers more license to pursue greater rights and higher pay for U.S. prisoners; Dolovich said that paying inmates below the minimum-wage protections set by each state is arguably 'a species of slavery.'

'It’ll be a fight in court. This question will be manifested by lawyers bringing cases on behalf of incarcerated workers,' she said. 'It’s a hopeful sign for me.'"

(Source; warning for more detailed discussion of prison slavery and related cruelty in the article)

so again, if you're able to vote and live in Oregon, Alabama, Louisiana, Tennessee, or Vermont, please consider it. prison abolition will not happen solely via voting it away but if these pass it will certainly be a victory and hopefully a stepping stone for other victories.

[soberscientistlife]

I thought the day of slave labor was over

[kemetic-dreams]

Anti-literacy laws in many slave states before and during the American Civil War affected slaves, freedmen, and in some cases all people of color. Some laws arose from concerns that literate slaves could forge the documents required to escape to a free state. According to William M. Banks, "Many slaves who learned to write did indeed achieve freedom by this method. The wanted posters for runaways often mentioned whether the escapee could write." Anti-literacy laws also arose from fears of slave insurrection, particularly around the time of abolitionist David Walker's 1829 publication of Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World, which openly advocated rebellion, and Nat Turner's Rebellion of 1831.

The United States is the only country known to have had anti-literacy laws.

Significant anti-African laws include:

1829, Georgia: Prohibited teaching Africans to read, punished by fine and imprisonment

1830, Louisiana, North Carolina: passes law punishing anyone teaching Africans to read with fines, imprisonment or floggings 

1832, Alabama and Virginia: Prohibited Europeans from teaching Africans to read or write, punished by fines and floggings

1833, Georgia: Prohibited Africans from working in reading or writing jobs (via an employment law), and prohibited teaching Africans, punished by fines and whippings (via an anti-literacy law)

1847, Missouri: Prohibited assembling or teaching slaves to read or write

Mississippi state law required a white person to serve up to a year in prison as "penalty for teaching a slave to read."

A 19th-century Virginia law specified: "[E]very assemblage of negroes for the purpose of instruction in reading or writing, or in the night time for any purpose, shall be an unlawful assembly. Any justice may issue his warrant to any office or other person, requiring him to enter any place where such assemblage may be, and seize any negro therein; and he, or any other justice, may order such negro to be punished with stripes."

In North Carolina, African people who disobeyed the law were sentenced to whipping while whites received a fine, jail time, or both.

AME Bishop William Henry Heard remembered from his enslaved childhood in Georgia that any slave caught writing "suffered the penalty of having his forefinger cut from his right hand." Other formerly enslaved people had similar memories of disfigurement and severe punishments for reading and writing.

Arkansas, Kentucky, and Tennessee were the only three slave states that did not enact a legal prohibition on educating slaves.

It is estimated that only 5% to 10% of enslaved African Americans became literate, to some degree, before the American Civil War

[g1deonthefirst]

speaking of john caring less about being a savior than meting out punishment, we really don't talk enough about the fact that there's a prison above the ninth

[cinemaocd]

Fun fact: Amazon, UPS and Fedex have donated heavily to Trump and MAGA campaigns, despite taking a public pledge not to do so after J6...

Support the USPS a delivery service which treats its workers much better and DOES not support MAGA election denier bullshit.

[hold-him-down]

10) At which points are you most scared of your whumper? For leo!

25) Which punishment method do you hate the most? For derek!

from this ask game

At which points are you most scared of your whumper(s)?

"That's a loaded question," Leo says, shrugging. He closes the book that sits on his lap and considers it. "I think Ivan was probably the 'scariest' of my past buyers, because he genuinely did not care if he killed me, or any of the other workers on his roster. It was really hard to nail down what to expect with him, and as soon as he worked out anything of value to me, he would capitalize on it. Simultaneously, he had an unlimited budget for medical support, so even though he brought me to very edge of death several times, and even though he made me wish it would end, there was this innate knowledge that he would be able to pull me back and start over with me. It was horrifying."

He takes a sip of water and stares out the window for a moment, before continuing. "With Parker, he was his scariest when he was stone sober and clearly disappointed in me. Second to that was any time he said he had invited friends over. With Kylie, any time she brought me into her basement, but even then, I don't think Kylie was too bad, especially taking the others into consideration. With West, it was after he brought Will into the home, because there was this underlying worry that we both had, that one of us would upset him and he would use the other to teach some kind of lesson. Any time his son was around was horrifying."

He shrugs again, offering a tight-lipped smile. "With the handlers, everything was uniformly terrifying."

Which punishment method do you hate the most?

"The inmates themselves usually doled out punishment to the other inmates, and so it could get really, really bad if you were on someone's bad side, which I usually was. There was this kind of make-shift cell in the middle of the courtyard, and sometimes they would leave me in it for days. In the storms, in the heat of summer, whenever... feeding me when they remembered, beating me or... assaulting me, when they were bored, no clean clothes, no showers, nothing. Eventually the warden would intervene, and a couple inmates or guards would come drag me back inside and throw me in a cold shower... Those are among my worst memories."

[theconcealedweapon]

"But capitalism is the system that gives you the most freedom."

How? Slavery happened because capitalists found it profitable. The prison system today happens because capitalists find it profitable. So how the fuck does capitalism promote freedom?

[thoughtportal]

undefined

Cop city in Atlanta

https://www.transitionus.org

https://defendtheatlantaforest.org/

http://www.savetheoldatlantaprisonfarm.org/

[teachanarchy]

Alabama Is Generating Billions by Trapping People in Prison