Reader writes on Shining Light of Revolution into Prisons
December 24, 2013 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
Dear Revolution,
I've been thinking—at this time of year—about how important it is that the work of the Prisoners Revolutionary Literature Fund (PRLF) be supported. PRLF gets BAsics from the talks and writings of Bob Avakian—which I consider to be the handbook for revolution, and Revolution newspaper into prisons, and connects people locked up in America's hellish prisons with an understanding of how to bring about a whole different world—one free of exploitation and oppression of any kind.
As a poem printed in this issue of Revolution puts it: these prisoners "turn to you—to give them a light. DONATE TO PRLF".
For millions in America's inner cities, a big part of the holiday season means piling onto busses or trains, or driving—even hundreds of miles to desolate places—to visit incarcerated loved ones. Over two million people are packed into U.S. prisons, almost half of them Black or Latino, in conditions that evoke the holds of the ships in which kidnapped Africans were originally brought to these shores as slaves. Conditions in solitary confinement units meet every objective definition of torture. Thousands serve "life without parole"—a slow death sentence—for committing nonviolent crimes, or no crime at all.
Along with so many others, I've gone through the degradation and dehumanization they put you through just to visit a family member in jail. It's all set up to make a statement that "people locked up here are worse than nothing, and you are too." Think about what it means in this nation of prisons for a child's connection with a father or mother to be holding up a hand to a thick glass plate.
The searing impact of this slow genocide extends far beyond the prison walls. In great expanses of abandoned and locked-down inner cities—from Oakland to the Bronx, from Detroit to New Orleans—going to prison is the expectation and rite of passage for youth. And the desperate culture produced and enforced in the prisons casts a deadly shadow over the lives of millions and millions.
But, as BA says in BAsics 3:16, "those the system has counted as nothing can count for a great deal." They can become part of the backbone of actual emancipators of humanity. But that requires real revolutionary sustenance!
Through sending revolutionary literature to prisoners in 41 states, PRLF connects prisoners with that revolutionary sustenance. The literature PRLF sends to prisoners gives them the means to engage with the method and approach, and the vision and plan to really change the world that is Bob Avakian's new synthesis of communism.
Over the past year, we've seen a truly heroic hunger strike in the California prisons against solitary confinement, and an inspiring movement for peace among the different races in the prison system. Readers of Revolution—especially at revcom.us—can connect with correspondence from prisoners who receive PRLF materials, and are engaged in broad and deep discussion and transformation around a wide range of questions about the world, especially those connected with building a movement for revolution and a whole new world. You do get a feel in all this for "fight the power, and transform the people, for revolution" coming to life. Check out the links to several of those that I'm including with this letter.
But right now, PRLF can't even fill the requests it gets from prisoners for literature! This holiday season we have to change that.
PRLF is an educational literature fund that fills requests from U.S. prisoners for revolutionary literature. It is a sponsored project of Global Exchange, a 501 c3 nonprofit international human rights organization. At this time of year, when people reflect on the world and their responsibility to change it, (and when some people decide where to make tax-deductible contributions), this is a time to make a donation that will contribute to something REAL. Not band-aids on the cancer of exploitation and oppression, but enabling a section of people cast off by society to transform themselves and the world—to rise to the challenge posed in BAsics 3:16 to "Become a part of the human saviors of humanity: the gravediggers of this system and the bearers of the future communist society."
According to their website, the main requests received by PRLF from those behind bars are for subsidized subscriptions in Spanish and English to the weekly newspaper Revolution, and for BAsics, from the talks and writings of Bob Avakian—a book of quotations and short essays that speaks powerfully to questions of revolution and human emancipation. PRLF has sent 2,000 copies of BAsics to readers in prison.
But there is so much more PRLF must do in its work to shine the light of revolution behind prison walls. Let's step up ourselves, and challenge everyone to help meet this great need. Think about what you can do, or what people you know can do. A donation of $10—raised by a couple of homeless people from what they get for turning in cans and bottles at a recycling center—can pay for a copy of BAsics that is probably going to be studied late into the night, discussed in the prison yard, and maybe spread outside the walls—something positive coming out of prison. College students who raise $350 selling brownies at the midnight movies can pay for ten recent unfilled Revolution subscription requests from prisoners in North Carolina. Envision the impact of each of those copies shared from cell to cell. A contribution from a professor of $500 can cover the cost of 50 copies of BAsics for prisoners in California. A donation of $1,015 will renew subscriptions for 29 subscribers in Florida, and one of $1,400 will pay for 40 recent unfilled Revolution subscription requests from prisoners in California.
BA needs to be everywhere, including in the hands of those locked down in America's prisons!
You can find out more at prlf.org, where you can make regular or tax-deductible donations. Or make checks payable to "PRLF". Make tax-deductible checks payable to "Global Exchange/PRLF" and send checks and correspondence to: PRLF, 1321 N. Milwaukee Ave, #407, Chicago, IL 60622.
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