Gang Validation - The New Inquisition - Black Unity

17.2.11

Gang Validation - The New Inquisition - Black Unity
Gang Validation
By STEVE CHAMPION

On July 23, 2010, my cell was searched and three boxes of my property (legal material, books, notes, and personal writings) were confiscated and turned over to Institutional Gang Investigations (I.G. I.) for possible gang validation. The reason for the action, I was told, was my possession of a Kiswahili dictionary and the book Soledad Brother by George Jackson. This is not the first time I have been targeted for a gang validation wherein George Jackson was the cause. In May 2007, I co-wrote an article in which we referred to Jackson as "Comrade George Jackson." It was determined by I.G.I. that the word "Comrade" constituted gang association or sympathy; therefore, I needed to be investigated (the investigation yielded nothing).

I have been in San Quentin (and on death row) for almost 28 years, and for most of this time I have had George Jackson's books in my cell. I ordered them through the prison Special Purchase Order (SPO). My cell has been searched hundreds if not thousands of times and never, not once, were George Jackson's books taken. Why now? And why the link to gang activity when it is well known that George Jackson was a member of the Black Panther Party and a political revolutionary? It is only by exposing the insidious and inscrutable use of politically charged books to label prisoners gang members, thereby criminalizing critical literacy, that we can arrive at answers. Both prisoners and prison activists need to understand how the Prison Industrial Complex (PIC) is using political and historical texts to repress prisoners.

Labels: African American, African diaspora, American colonialism