[IMC-NYC-Print] CRE - 2nd Draft. Thanks Spencer.

[Aries de la Cruz]

around 2,100 words  Passages that can be omitted for space constraints
and that are   possibly  redundant are enclosed in brackets. I have several
comments in parentheses.

A CRITICAL PERSPECTIVE
by Aries de la Cruz

Activists from as far away as California and Texas meet at New York's
Columbia University last March
to participate in what organizers called   the  largest conference of Prison
issues attended by grassroots
activists, artists, former prisoners,  educators, prison employees and
journalists in the East Coast to date.

Day 1
The three-day conference kicked off with an opening  event, titled
(italicize) Attica  Rebellion: Roots of
Resistance (end italics), held in Miller  Theater. So many waited in line,
despite the chilly weather, that
volunteers had to turn people away.

The plenary began with the screening of a new film about the Attica
uprising, specially made for Critical
Resistance, produced by Ashley Hunt  and Brad Lichenstein. Utilizing footage
of the rebellion, news reports
and  interviews with prominent activists like Fred Hampton, the filmmakers
depicted  the events leading up
to Governor Rockefeller's decision to send State Troopers to the Attica
Correctional Facility near Buffalo,
NY on September 1971.
    The four-day Attica uprising left forty-two dead, both prisoners and
state employees. Although a
lawsuit was filed on behalf of the prisoners in 1974, they did not receive
settlements from the state  until
almost 30 years  later. In January of 2000, the state agreed to pay  $8
million to Attica inmates who were
in Prison Yard "D" when the Troopers attempted to quell the uprising.

    [The evening continued with a Jazz  presentation by   Fred Ho - a noted
composer and musical
innovator, - along with David Bindman and Salim Washington. They   performed
Charles  Mingus' (The
actual name is Charles Mingus. So is it still Mingus or Mingus'?) "Remember
Rockefeller at Attica,"
as well as Fred Ho's   own  "Underground Railroad to My Heart", which he
described as "an
anti-bourgeosy Boogie Woogie."]

    Kai Lumumba Barrow, an organizer with the Student Liberation Action
Movement (SLAM!), [which
was part of the large coalition in last year's  Republican National
Convention protests in Philadelphia,]
emceed the evening's celebration of the spirit of the Attica rebellion, and
the  unity and
self-determination of the Attica brothers.
    "We didn't build this conference by ourselves," Barrow told the   crowd.
"The people built this
conference." Barrow expressed the need to   examine the  Attica uprising,
and how it relates to the
movement today. "What kind   of  lessons can we learn from the Attica
brothers?" she asked.
    Also present was Emani Davis, daughter of Attica survivor Jomo  Davis -
who was shot 7 times during
the assault and later indicted for his  part  in the Rebellion. "For me,
growing up, Attica has symbolized
the   people's  ability to stand up and fight oppression and brutality under
the worst  conditions
imaginable," she said. Overwhelmed with  emotion,  she gave the crowd a
message from her father - "We
need you to recognize our  struggle, remember us and carry the struggle into
the communities.
Communities are more affected by the Prison-Industrial Complex today   than
they were in 1971. More
people are locked up, more people have   neighbors and  families locked up."
    "We look to you, especially the young people who are drawn to   Critical
Resistance to carry out this
struggle," Jomo Davis told the youth attending the Conference.
    Manny, a young father from Boston, who was formerly incarcerated,
addressed the crowd of thousands,
and spoke about the need to change  the  Prison system and how it unfairly
targets the youth and
minorities.   "How I  feel about prison systems is a feeling of confusion; I
know that people   are  sent to
prison for something they did or are accused of," he said.   "Prisons  are
supposed to rehabilitate the
inmate, but in reality, in a lot of   cases,  it makes them worse."
    George Che Nieves, a member of the Prison Black Panther party and
organizer of the Young Lords
Party at Greenhaven Prison in 1969, and other speakers   like  Danny Meyers,
the attorney for the Attica
brothers, and David Johnson   of the  San Quentin 6, cited startling
statistics about the Prison-  Industrial
Complex: Approximately 30 years   ago,  there were 12 prison facilities in
New York City. Today there
are 72.   They  accused the Department of Corrections of massive corruption
and blamed former New York
Governor Rockefeller for the  his attempt to squelch the Rebellion, which
resulted  in the deaths of not
only prisoners, but state employees as well.
    Highlights of the evening included a musical performance  by the
IMPACT  Repertory Group.
IMPACT sang songs about self-empowerment and the disenfranchisement of young
people.

Day 2

    Day-long conferences, workshops and caucuses such as "Corporate
Campaigns  and Prison Activism",
which was facilitated by  Kevin Pranis of the Prison Moratorium Project and
Pari Zutshi from Hampshire
College marked the second day of Critical Resistance.
    The Corporate Campaign workshop discussed factors of  (this is how they
termed it ->)Corporate
campaigning, such as coalition building and union  solidarity, in the
context of a hypothetical campaign
against companies   such  as Victoria's Secret, notorious for its use of
prison labor, Telecom companies
such as MCI and Sprint, which charge prisoners  and their families an excess
of almost $3.99 for the first
minute of a call.
    A crowded room in Uris Hall was the setting for a round-table about
Prison Writing, which featured
Bell Gale  Chevigny, editor of Doing   Time: 25  Years of Prison, a
compilation of literary works by
prisoners and   former  prisoner writers such as Judee Norton, Eric Waters
and Jarin Warren.
    On the weekend of International Working Women's Day, the
mid-conference  Plenary, "Women,
Prison and Globalization," was held in Riverside   Church in  Harlem, [where
just a few months ago,
Cuban President Fidel Castro   spoke  during the Millennium Summit, ]
    It featured Angela Davis, radical black activist and writer,   Chrystos,
a  Native-American activist and
poet, who was instrumental in the movement   to  change racist sports team
names and slogans, and
Suheir Hammad, a poet   of  Palestinian descent. Chrystos criticized
environmentalists in  her area for
protesting against the recent lifting of the whale-hunting   ban.  She
argued that Natives did not destroy
Turtle Island, a term used by Native Americans to describe North America.
The ban on whale-hunting
continues to be a controversial issue among First-Nations and
environmentalists. While some members of
the left support hunting as traditional land use, others have denounced it.
    A strong percussion beat, which set the mood of intensity and   urgency,
resonated through the church,
thanks to the drummers Ase. A  poignant mural to the left of the   stage,
which evolved and transformed
from an image of prison bars, to what   appeared  to be an Asian woman,
dressed in white, embracing an
older woman,   apparently  black, who in turn was embracing a younger woman,
also  black, cradling a
white baby, was painted by Christine Wong, an  activist/artist whose works
adorn not just the South
Bronx, but in the San Francisco Bay Area as well.
    The rest of the evening was highlighted with messages of solidarity
from  Assata Shakur in Cuba, and
from Marilyn Buck, who has been serving a total of 80 years on several
charges since 1985, which include
conspiracy  for Assata Shakur's escape from a New Jersey prison, and
conspiracy  to commit "armed bank
robbery" for the New African independence struggle.  Buck was also later
charged with "conspiracy to
protest and alter   government  policies through use of violence."
    The stage, colorful and eclectic, was in sharp contrast to the   gothic
architecture and ornate sculpted
altar of the almost 80-year-old   church,  which depicted religious, as well
as secular figures of history, not
usually found in a  place of worship, such as [Johann Sebastian Bach,
Florence  Nightingale,] Booker T.
Washington, Abraham Lincoln, [Joseph  Lister,] Erasmus and Socrates.

Day 3
    A windy Sunday afternoon outside the steps of the Low Memorial   Library
overlooking the College
Walk at Columbia  University provided the dramatic backdrop of the closing
plenary of   Critical
Resistance, "Visualizing a World Without Walls".
    The plenary, attended by thousands, marked the end of the   Conference,
and what organizers hoped
would provide the  spark of a new movement. "Everybody here may have a
different    understanding  of
what it would mean to see a world without  prisons," Sherrie Wilson of
Critical Resistance told the
audience. "We   are  living in a culture of repression and punishment. A
culture that relies   on  not only
on prisons, but policing, media, coverage of crime and the way   that
people are framed, especially people
of color, poor people and young   people.  A culture that is completely
shaped by fear and driven by
power."
    Wilson offered her vision; "If you can begin to  imagine a world without
prisons, if we can work to
create that language   and  that vision, and articulate that, we'll be
moving forward in our   struggle.  And
we need to think about what that means; About what that means   beyond  just
the thing that everyone
calls idealistic," she said. "We need to   make a  commitment to finding
that language, finding a way to
talk to each   other  about it, finding a way to remind ourselves on a daily
basis that thing   we  are
working towards is possible."
    After the event, activists, artists, and former prisoners gathered
outside Columbia University Gates to
perform subway outreach while   traveling  to an action outside the Horizon
Juvenile Center, the name for
a NYC  Department of Corrections-run youth prison in South Bronx. [Apparent
miscommunication
inadvertedly caused a group of Radical Anarchist  Cheerleaders to lead a sma
ll crowd (which included
this Indymedia   reporter)  into the subway station earlier than expected.
    The problem, however, was sorted out] and the entire Critical
Resistance  contingent entered the train
and began handing out flyers, and affixing  stickers, some of which said
"This Corporation Proudly
Supports the  Prison-Industrial Complex" to  subway advertisements. One
woman placed the sticker on an
advertisement   for  CourtTV, long criticized for profiting off the
Prison-Industrial   Complex  through
entertainment.
    Others chanted "Elected officials: Drop the Rock. Mandatory   minimums
have got to stop," in
reference to the need for [New York State]   legislators  to pass
Assemblyman [Jeffrion] Aubry's [A02823]
Bill which would   "de-scalate" the war on drugs, which opponents say is
really a war on  people.
"Everyone in the stations and on the trains took notice,"   according  to
IMC's Joshua Breitbart. "One
woman sitting next to us hadn't heard   of  Drop The Rock, but had seven
brothers who had all been
imprisoned   through  the Rockefeller Drug Laws."
    Once at their destination the [contingent of about one hundred   arrived
at the eastern side of the block
where the facility was located.   Apparently,  organizers decided to turn
around, and take an alternate
route around  several blocks and] the activists ended up on the left side of
the   Detention  facility, where
an entire stretch of police barricades was provided by   the  New York City
Police Department. Everyone
refused to enter the   barricades,  citing their rights to protest freely.
    Members of the National Lawyers Guild attempted to negotiate with   the
authorities and requested
that the barricades be removed, but the   police  were firm in their
insistence. Eventually word circulated
through the   crowd  that organizers requested that the marchers enter the
designated   protest  zone. The
activists did so, but not without Resistance. Once the crowd  inside the
protest zone got tighter, several
people knocked down the  barricades. One by one, as police rushed to restore
the barrier,   another
barricade would fall. It  reached the point where authorities issued an
ultimatum that if the barricades
were knocked down, arrests would be   issued  against anyone caught.
    ["Everyone look to your left," a speaker said. "What do you see?"
    "Horizon Juvenile Center. Must be another school," someone joked.]
    "Yo, amazin' grace how sweet the sound, saving slaves from another
body  found," rapped Soulstice,
an artist from New Jersey, as police and   protesters  looked on.  Other
musical performances at the rally
included Warclub   from  Philadelphia and Stewey Nuke `Em. As the evening
wore on, it seemed   that the
rest of night would be uneventful; protesters and the authorities   clashed
once again, however, when
someone from the Horizons Detention facility   began  taking pictures of the
protesters. Some ducked and
covered their faces   with  bandannas. Others threw a middle finger.
     "What the fuck are you taking picture of us for?" asked one of the
organizers. [She seemed surprised
by the picture-taking, and that they sent a black woman to discreetly survey
the militant  activists. "And
who do they have? Who do they have taking the picture?   A  sister.] That's
the system we live under."
Almost immediately, the woman[,  dressed in a crisp white uniform] retreated
to the protection of the
"Detention" Center's thick, razor-topped walls.
    The evening, and the weekend, ended with a sense of hope among the
activists. This weekend allowed
people from different   backgrounds  and ideologies to meet, and share their
experiences and a vision for a
world without walls.