DRIVE AND CONQUER
In Maryland, where slaves were about one third of the population in 1750, slavery had been written into law since the 1660s, and statues for controlling rebellious slaves were passed. There were cases where slave women killed their masters; sometimes by poisoning them, sometimes by burning tobacco houses and homes. Punishments ranged from whipping and branding, to execution, but the rebellion continued. In 1742, seven slaves were put to death for murdering their master in attempt to liberate themselves from slavery. Fear of slave revolt was a permanent fact of plantation life.
Slavery was/is an intricate and powerful system of control that the slave owners developed to maintain their labor supply and their way of life; a system both subtle and crude, involving every device that social orders employ for keeping power and wealth where it is. As Kenneth Stampp said: “A wise slave master did not take seriously the belief that Africans were natural born slaves. He knew better. He knew that Africans freshly imported from Africa had to be broken into bondage; that each succeeding generation had to be carefully trained. This was no easy task, for the bondsman rarely submitted willingly. Moreover, he rarely submitted completely. In most cases there was no end to the need for control – at least not until old age reduced the slave to a condition.”
The system was psychological and physical at the same time. The slaves were taught discipline, were impressed again and again with the idea of their own inferiority to “know their place”, to see blackness as a sign of subordination, to be awed by the power of the slave master, to merge their interests with the slave master’s, destroying their own individual needs. To accomplish this there was the discipline of hard labor, the breakup of the slave family, the lulling effects of religion, the creation of disunity among slaves by separating them into field slaves and more privileged house slaves, and finally, the power of law and the immediate power of the overseer to invoke whipping, burning, mutilation and death.
However, it is now almost 150 years after physical slavery ended in 1965, and in all actuality – slavery never ended. It simply changed form. Today’s slavery and lynching is prison and death row. The new brand is a prison/murder number instead of burning the skin. The new form of free labor is forced prisoner labor. The new form of lynching is the death penalty – death by legal injection or other methods. How do they justify this injustice by law? The 13th Amendment of the United States Constitution states:
“Section 1: Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been dully convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
Section 2: Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.”
Need I say more??? I find myself encaged on Texas Death Row, the most murderous of all death rows across the nation, subjected to inhuman conditions that have moved a group of us to take action against the attempted murder of our minds, bodies and souls…. We came together in protest against this rape of our human right to live and be treated like human beings.
However, this is a repressive system. Any attempt at standing up to preserve one’s humanity is met with repression and violence. For instance, on November 3rd, 2005, I began protesting the fact that showers are unsanitary to the point of causing disease and skin fungus, unsanitary recreation yards and day rooms, malnourished food trays where we’re not getting the full amount of rations on the food trays we’re supposed to get by policy - and certain things are not given at all – there’s filthy state clothes that are causing skin rashes/funguses, lack of adequate medical care resulting in deaths of some prisoners, sensory deprivation from being completely isolated and confined to solitary – resulting in some prisoners losing all sense of self and going insane, inflicting self-mutilation and committing suicide etc., and the list can go on. This madness is why I began protesting.
My attempt to stand up for my, and others, human rights to preserve my humanity was met with violence as I occupied a recreation dayroom and refused to come out. A 5-man extraction team of guards dressed in riot helmets, bullet proof vests, elbow, knee and shin-pads with a riot shield and riot control gas was dispatched. I was gassed twice with the riot gas which made me feel as though my face and body had been set on fire, and as if someone had gripped my throat and started choking me. Nonetheless I held on determined to not participate in my oppression. The 5-man team of guards ran into the dayroom to supposedly subdue me when in reality they ran in to brutally beat my ass hoping to break my spirit! I defended myself the best I could until they cuffed and shackled me. However, even after they had me subdued, guards kept beating me while one of them was choking me. I ask for decent conditions due to me being policy here, and because I ask them to follow their policy and refuse to follow rules until they rectify the problem they brutally beat me and then accuse me of being violent? Just like an oppressor; “do as I say, not as I do!” Not happening here! The violence was a conquer tactic. I remain undaunted!
After they stopped punching and choking me I refused to walk. They picked me up, laid me on a gurney and rolled me down the hallway, and stripped me of my boots and clothes. I refused to walk to my cage on the punishment pod they were taking me to. I was carried to my cage by my arms and shackles. They intentionally carried me by the shackles to cause them to cut into my skin and cause pain.
I was then laid on the floor of the filthy urine and feces smelling cage, uncuffed, unshackled, and left nude in a cold cage exposed to the elements – with no property whatsoever for 5 days, not even pen and paper to write my family, friends and attorney. That was a suppression tactic from the administration hoping it would repress my human – yet labeled rebellious – behavior and force me back into compliance with my oppression. Taking all my property, including my writing and legal material, was to suppress/repress my voice from exposing this injustice, hoping it breaks and conquers my hope and spirit. Undaunted I remain!
I’ve come to realize that the classification leveling system on Polunsky Unit is a divide and conquer tool as well. When prisoners who are conscious of the situation stand up to preserve their humanity, and attempt to open others eyes who may not be aware of what’s really going on here, the first thing the administration does is separate that individual they consider rebellious from the rest of the population, who are, whether consciously or unconsciously, in compliance with their oppression. This is a divide and conquer tactic to keep those aware and fighting away from those unaware and complacent. As the saying goes “strike the keeper and the sheep will scatter”. That’s always been this system’s tactic; kill or incarcerate the aware leaders so they can keep everybody else ignorant and conquered.
To further this divide and conquer tactic, the administration has put those of us protesting on level 3 status, which is the most restrictive status on the unit; recreation only 3 times a week, visits only once a month (that is when they’re not turning family and friends away at the door telling them we can’t get visits because we’re protesting), no electrical appliances (except for a fan), no personal clothes or shoes, no food from the prison commissary, and only allowed to spend $10 on correspondence supplies (another repression tactic), and $10 on certain hygiene items every 2 weeks. 5 bars of 1.25 ounce soap (not an adequate amount to last for 14 days), 1 bottle of shampoo, 1 deodorant stick, and 1 tube of toothpaste. Can’t purchase grease or lotion for hair and skin, can’t purchase dental floss sticks to keep healthy oral hygiene, can’t purchase q-tips – simply cruel and unusual punishment.
Prisoners on level 2 are allowed recreation 4 times a week, 2 visits a month, personal clothes, fans (but the same commissary restrictions as level 3).
Level 1 prisoners are allowed 2-hour visits 4 times a month (including 1 special 8-hour visit monthly which level 3 and 2 inmates are not allowed), recreation 1 time a day for 1 hour, all approved electrical appliances (fan, typewriter, radio and hotpot), personal clothes and shoes, and are allowed to spend $75 every 2 weeks to buy food, postage, hygiene etc with no restrictions on hygiene products for the most part.
Here is how the administration tries to further their divide and conquer tactics through the leveling system. Aside from putting those of us protesting on level 3 away from those on level 1, hoping to keep us controlled and suppressed from spreading the word to cause a just insurrection, they further try to divide all of us prisoners who share the same struggle, by punishing those on level 1 and 2 not protesting for the acts of those of us on level 3 protesting, by; locking level 1 and 2 down, along with those of us on level 3 protesting, and not allowing them to go to recreation, shower, buy food from the prison store – which all look forward to.
The administration intentionally does this to make those prisoners on level 1 and 2 mad at those of us protesting. They do it hoping that those on level 1 will be discouraged to join the protest, and hoping that it causes those on level 1 to become enemies with those of us protesting. If they can make us enemies, keep us divided and conquered, distracted by being in conflict with each other instead of united to fight the sadistic, inhumane, and indifferent administration, then they win and we lose by allowing ourselves to be divided and conquered. I hope that those of you reading this won’t allow yourselves to fall into the games and traps that the administration likes to use to keep us divided, distracted and conquered. If you’re punished when you’ve done nothing to warrant it, file grievances on “unwarranted retaliatory punishment”. Have your families and friends call, email and bombard the administration with enquiries as to why you are unwarrantedly being punished!
The administration has also been using other things such as telling prisoners on level 1 that they would like to give them their phone calls, but that they can’t because some of us on level 3 are protesting. They’re lying. We all know this administration has not run any phone calls on most of these pods for about 6 months because they claim to be short staffed. Now all of a sudden they’re just eager to run phone calls for all of you on level 1 (level 3 and 2 are not allowed phone calls), but can’t because of the protest. Yeah right! Just another tactic from the administration to cause level 1 to get mad at the protestors on level 3 hoping it pushes us to become enemies and fighting among each other so we can’t fight them for oppressing us when it’s them we should be fighting. This keeps the “field slave/house slave syndrome” going. Level 1 prisoners gets mad at level 3 prisoners because level 1 prisoners are being unwarrantedly punished for level 3 prisoners actions. So level 1 looks at level 3 with contempt, blaming level 3 for his punishment, and level 3 looks at the level 1 prisoners with disdain feeling them to be passive and sellouts for not doing something against the injustice (like a house slave would be looked at by a field slave for allowing himself to be pacified by being able to live in the slave master’s house with a few extra privileges than the field slaves, thus perceived as a sellout for not being in the fields/trenches organizing for full autonomy).
Not all on level 3 look at level 1 like that and vice versa however, but it doesn’t have to exist at all. Those on level 1 can be in collusion with those of us protesting, they can still help by writing to the world about it, by filing grievances, asking outside supporters to call, email and bombard the administration with letters about mistreatment, writing; calling and emailing the TDCJ board about the mistreatment of the death row community in general, and how it can be changed for the better. Let’s not allow ourselves to fall victim to divide and conquer. They can only do to us what we allow them to do to us to keep us oppressed. All these things of slavery continue to affect a great many people, of all colors and genders, in a way which not even we fully comprehend.
When I look around myself and see how debilitated, devastated, humiliated, demeaned, debased and dehumanized many are here, and observe how much pride they assume while imposing their slave learned mentality upon each other, I ask myself; what is it that this state of oppression has which would cause us to prefer it to the change we could manifest?
Those of us protesting, both on level 1 and 3, our love for humanity is infinite and goes without saying. Yet we are only a few of the gate keepers….may many more unite with and aid and assist us.
Gabriel Gonzalez #999225
Polunsky Unit
3872 FM 350 South
Livingston, Tx. 77351
U.S.A.
D.R.I.V.E.
DEATH Row INNER-COMMUNALIST VANGUARD ENGAGEMENT
