“What’s Mao’s little Red Book gonna mean to a mother who can’t put food in her children’s stomachs tonight?”

John ‘Mac’ Gaskins: Well, my story doesn’t differ much from most guys raised in urban settings. I’m from Richmond, Virginia, and born into a single-parent home. My mother is from the bottom of the working-class. As a kid, I would watch my mother go to work, working two jobs that were never enough to secure the basic necessities for me and my sister. So early on I decided that I had a distinct role to fulfill. At about the age of ten, I had this friend who taught me how to go into stores, open up the food products and eat and drink until we got full and exited the store. But eventually, I realized that this wasn’t doing anything to help my family. So I actually started stealing products, bringing them out of the store and to my family so we could prepare meals. As this went on, the activity just progressed until I got into robberies. But I had certain moral compunctions from the start though. I never robbed a common working-class person, old ladies, anything like that. It was drug dealers, commercial establishments, and people that I felt like they were criminals themselves, either pumping poison into the community or people who have these commercial establishments in the community but don’t live in our communities and are only extracting funds from us. Ultimately, over time though I would take on some traits of an illegitimate capitalist, and this would ultimately lead me to prison at the age of 17.

My incarceration would actually begin before this though. I started going to jail when I was about 14, I spent about 2 ½ years in “Juvie” (Juvenile Detention). So that was preppin’ me for what was coming in the future, these 14 years that I would spend in prison. So ultimately I went to prison and I would endure all the practices that take place there, everything from having my fingers broken to being bit by dogs, to being strapped to a bed for days and being forced to defecate and urinate on myself. I would go without meals for days at a time, my mail was being hindered. Not having access to a telephone. I was at these “Supermax” prisons out in the mountains and I didn’t get visits. My family couldn’t afford to come visit me. I was feeling every ounce of the weight of this system and this was for me where the political education began.

I met alot of my current comrades in prison, [Kevin 'Rashid' Johnson'] and Kaysie. These brothers introduced me to important figures like George Jackson, Mao, and Che Guevera.  This gave me a new way of viewing the struggles that I had been a part of thus far, whether that was trying to feed myself on the streets or battling the guards. Ultimately, I would go on an join the New Afrikan Black Panther Party, operating in my capacity as the Minister of Information. I would also co-found SPARC (Supporting Prisoners and Acting for Radical Change). SPARC created this inside-outside connection, to ensure that with every act on the inside there has to be a corresponding act on the outside. Since I got out of prison [three months ago], we’ve been trying to better coordinate the struggles inside and outside the prisons.

SD / BASICS: It seems to me that you’re a living example of the line of the NABPP – which is to transform the prisons into “Schools of Liberation”, so that when your cadre step out the prison gates they’re ready to be a positive force for revolutionary change in society. And that’s what you yourself are doing. Can you tell us a little bit about how you understand the need for a revolutionary Party that organizes the working class?

Mac: First of all, prisoners are an untapped reservoir of revolutionary potential. These guys have nothing vested in the current system, so these are our soldiers. It’s just like when I go into the poorest communities, these people who be living at the bottom of society, this is where we wanna build our base and headquarters. Among the core principles of the Panthers is going into communities, living amongst people, learning about their needs, and organizing people around those needs as a means of raising mass consciousness.

By the government’s inability or unwillingness to do so, they’ve shown that they’re not addressing the basic needs of people. People are in the predicament their in now out of decades of governmental neglect and indifference. So its the role of the Panthers to be that vanguard in the communities.

But what is long range politics to people who can’t put food in their stomachs tonight? To people whose very lives are not guaranteed for tomorrow? We’re living in communities that are over-policed, they’re ridden by crime and poverty. You have whole communities that are excluded from any economic and social participation. So it’s our role to go amongst these people, learn about their needs, and organize them around those needs.

BASICS: You were telling us earlier about the need for ‘Serve the People’ programs to organize and uplift the people, which revolutionaries from Huey Newton to Mao Tse-Tung stressed the importance of. What are these ‘STP’ programs and how are you building them where you’re at, in Washington D.C.?

Mac: I think that one of the most important programs are those that are feeding people. What is [Mao's] little Red Book gonna mean to a mother who can’t put food in her children’s stomachs tonight? So that’s at the top of the agenda, creating free food programs. Winter time is coming and its getting cold, so we wanna get some clothes out to people in the communities. We wanna get some condoms out there, talk about the dangers of unprotected sex, talk to the teenage girls about pregnancy. We are also trying to get some sort of visitation transportation out to the prisons so they can visit their loved ones. We also wanna build re-entry programs for prisoners. The Panther line is all about addressing any problems and needs that the people are having in the communities. If there’s a pot-hole in the road, we gonna get us a bag of gravel and cement and we gonna fix that.

The people learn through observation and participation, so the Panther is gonna be that example in the community.

BASICS: Any thoughts on the state of this continent, where things are going, and what we need to do?

Mac: Conditions have never been more ripe for revolutionary change. People all over the world are participating in revolutionary struggles. We’re talking about the empowerment of the masses. We want the unconditional freeing of the people. That entails the liberation of the means of production and distribution. At this point, we’re gonna start with basic STPs, and these ain’t gonna change basic social conditions in and of themselves. But if people are gonna make revolution, they first have to survive. We are an internationalist organization, and we uniting with all working class people around the world. Now is the time for people to take their own destiny into their hands. All power to the people man, and thanks again Steve.

BASICS: Thanks again for being with BASICS.

‡Note‡ The New Afrikan Black Panther Party should not be confused with the ‘New Black Panther Party’  The NABPP that is the subject of this interview is a revolutionary communist prison-based organization (though building on the outside) that advocates for internationalism and organizing amongst all poor, oppressed and working class people in America.   The ‘New Black Panther Party’, by contrast and in complete opposition to the original BPP –  is a cultural nationalist organization that is not internationalist or communist, and does not uphold the leadership of the working class.

On our October 3, 2011 show of Radio Basics, we talk with former inmate John Gaskins, Minister of Information of the New Afrikan Black Panther Party – Prison Chapter, about the “finger-bending technique” torture being practiced at Red Onion State Supermax Facility, the same facility housing Kevin ‘Rashid’ Johnson, Minister of Defense, NABPP-PC.

Listen to this show here, or click the bottom of your BASICSnews.ca browser to listen to the show streaming directly from our website.

Also in this show, short audio segment on solitary confinement, headline news and music from Filipino-American hip-hop group, Power Struggle.
DONATE TO CHRY DURING THE 2011 FUNDRAISING DRIVE – CHECK THIS OUT

Breaking Prisoners’ Fingers at Red Onion State Prison: Restraint Technique or Plain Old Torture?

Due to permanent ligament damage caused by the FBT, my right thumb now spontaneously dislocates under moderate pressure and impacts. A mild tug pulls it right out the knuckle socket. It’s also lost about 25% range of motion at the middle joint.

Breaking Prisoners’ Fingers at Red Onion State Prison: Restraint Technique or Plain Old Torture?

By: Kevin “Rashid” Johnson, 12 September 2011

Some things are just so obvious you don’t need rocket science to figure them out.  But those in power will still try and convince you your eyes are lying, your basic sense is failing, and the suffering is just imagination.  Routine torture by U.S. officials of poor people of color is a case in point.

I’m going to use the prison setting as an example.  Virginia’s Red Onion State Prison in particular.

In her new book, The New Jim Crow,¹ civil rights attorney and legal scholar Michelle Alexander exposes modern U.S. mass imprisonment, and the so-called Drug War as the latest phase of ongoing political and racial oppression and containment of New Afrikan (Black) people.  She doesn’t, however, talk about the institutionalized sadism, brutality and torture we prisoners suffer under the guise of prison officials maintaining “security,” which is what I want to touch on here.

Breaking Prisoners’ Fingers – A Control Technique?

I want the reader to look at the illustration attached as Exhibit A.  Now ask yourself, under what circumstances could bending a human being’s fingers back against the natural band of the joints and knuckles be considered ‘reasonable’ preventive force.  And usually it is applied against a person already restrained in handcuffs and shackles.

Imagine this finger-bending technique (FBT) being used against you.  It’s terrifying, painful and almost guaranteed to cause permanent injury.

Here at Red Onion the FBT is frequently used, and not merely to subdue a struggling prisoners, but whenever a guard even speculates that a prisoners may be about to become disruptive.  And “disruptive’ can mean anything or nothing.  The guards have absolute discretion to make the call.  All the provocation they need is a sarcastic remark, or being in a foul mood, or resentment against a given prisoner.  Often, racial resentment is enough in a prison that pits a 98% rural white staff against an 85% non-white prisoner body.

And how can such a technique be applied with limited or restrained force under the stress and excitement of subduing a struggling person? Especially one who suffers mental health problems.  Try it, matter of fact, if you can find a willing partner—preferably someone you can trust not to get too carried away—try it while you’re completely at ease.  Your first reflex, like a reaction to having your eyes gouged at, will be to become combative, to resist and pull away.  These are instinctive and intelligent responses to the pain, and the protect fragile, sensitive and previous parts of the body.  Self preservation.

Ever jammed a finder playing sports?  That’s the least amount of pain you’ll fell.  And what’s worse, it’s not a brief experience, like jamming a finger.  When guards apply the FBT, they don’t let up! The initial grab for your  fingers is done suddenly, without warning, and with force, so you don’t have the chance to ball your hands up.  The finger bending then continues for minutes at a time.  Typically no less than 5 minutes.

And when—not if—you resist in response to the shock and pain, they apply more force often until your fingers touch your wrist.  It’s a lose-lost situation.  Your options: cry out or suffer silently (both of which eggs them on more), or try and twist away (which increases the risk and extent of injury), or try to fight them off (a highly dubious option, where the victim is typically cuffed behind his back leg-shackled, and contending with multiple guards—all grabbing at and being your fingers and worse).

Often, abusive guards initiate the FBT solely to make a prisoner react.  To make him appear belligerent or combative, so greater force is then ‘justified’ to ‘control’ him.

In any case, the result is dislocated and/or broken fingers.  I’ve had mine dislocated six times no less.  Once for committing the grave offense of questioning guards about racially discriminatory practices against us.

Due to permanent ligament damage caused by the FBT, my right thumb now spontaneously dislocates under moderate pressure and impacts.  A mild tug pulls it right out the knuckle socket.  It’s also lost about 25% range of motion at the middle joint.

Official Denials, Cover-ups and Denied Care

Red Onion medical staff generally deny and cover up the injuries their colleagues inflict.  Hundreds of prisoners have suffered them.  Attendant nerve damage is the norm.  In many cases, this results in total loss of sensation in parts of the hand.

A few examples are in order.

On October 27, 2005 Nathaniel Wright had the middle bone of his lift middle finger broken completely in half—courtesy of the FBT.  For weeks medical staff told him he was fine, to just apply cold compresses to the grotesque swelling.  Only after filing numerous complaints and involving outside prisoner advocates, did he finally receive x-rays revealing his injury.

To repair it, the bone had to be rebroken (because it had begun mending with the severed ends misaligned), surgically reset, held bolted together with screws, and a cast applied to immobilize his finger and hand.  To cover up their initial cover-up, Red Onion medical staff claimed Wright broke his own finger sometime after the October 27^th incident.

On November 10, 2007 guards beat a restrained prisoner in presence of an entire unit of outraged prisoners, eleven of whom covered their cell door windows in protest.  Teams of riot-armored guards were then assembled to forcibly extract all eleven from their cells.  Each prisoner, after being tear-gassed, electrocuted, physically subdued and then manacled, had their fingers bent back and dislocated by the guards.  Several lost feeling in their hands and suffered permanent damage.

One prisoner, John Gaskins, whose fingers were broken, endured months of writing complaints for x-rays and treatment.  When he finally received x-rays, it was too late to be treated, leaving him with permanent deformities and fingers that now chronically dislocate.  This is a typical scenario.

Gaskins was recently released from prison in Virginia, and is willing to attest to and show evidence (i.e., his deformed hand) of the brutal FBT.  He can be emailed at: johngaskins[at]hotmail[dot]com.

On November 11, 2010 I wrote Red Onion’s warden Tracy S. Ray, asking how the FBT could be deemed anything but sadistic torture and calculated to cause pain and injury.  He avoided my request, and passed it on to his notoriously corrupt and deceitful investigator Tony R. Adams.  On November 29, 2011 Adams lyingly replied that, “No offenders have suffered dislocation or broken fingers or knuckles as a result of this hold.” (See attached).

Again, it doesn’t take rocket science to recognize that it’s virtually impossible to use such a technique on delicate joins like those of the fingers, and not dislocate or break them.  Fingers aren’t pliant like pipecleaners.  They bend in only one direction.  And it’s impossible to measure or limit the pressure applied when bending fingers backward, especially when one instinctively resists.

And again, try it yourself.  Don’t take my word for it.  Despite what those in power might say, I assure you, your eyes, senses and agony won’t deceive you.

Plain Old Torture

I can’t imagine that a victim’s panic and pain under waterboarding, genital electro-shock, or thumbscrews could be much worse than the FBT.  In more openly barbaric and honest times, (Europe’s Middle—especially Dark—Ages perhaps), the FBT would’ve been called exactly what it is: plain old torture.

So let’s have done with the hypocrisy of U.S. democracy.  If prisons are a microcosm of the larger society that births them, what sort of society is it that needs to mass incarcerate millions of its residents, uses mass imprisonment to press and persecute minority nationalities and races of people, and in turn needs to torture them?  I’ll tell you what kind…one that still needs to be fundamentally changes.

Dare to struggle Dare to win!

All Power to the People!

BASICS Issue #22 (Sep/Oct 2010)

by M. Lau

As a source of cheap labour, prisons are a blessing for corporations. Under the Welfare to Work legislation in the U.S., BP has been earning a tax credit of $2,400 for every prisoner they have hired to help clean up the ecological disaster it created in the Gulf. Without being required to supply health benefits or workers’ compensation, BP has been able to put prisoners to work in a most toxic setting for up to twelve hours a day, six days a week. BP has also been able to force prisoners to sign documents that prohibit them from discussing work conditions. Read more…

BASICS Issue #22 (Sep/Oct 2010)

by Mike Brito

The Commissioner of Correctional Service of Canada (CSC), Don Head, recently stated that there will be “major construction initiatives” in the Canadian prison system.
Although the Harper cabinet has refused to publicize the cost of their plans to imprison more people, government spending estimates confirm that capital costs for penitentiaries are scheduled to increase by 43% next year.

Estimates released earlier this year show that the prison system’s capital expenditures would increase from $230.8 million for 2009-10 to $329.4 million in 2010-11. It is not clear whether the money will be used to build new prisons or renovate the old.

Public Safety Minister, Vic Toews, asserted that the money would be spent only on “updating and improving” existing facilities. Research conducted at Carleton University has confirmed that there is also a “building spree” at the provincial level, with plans to spend more than $2.8 billion on new facilities and expanding older institutions. Read more…