Mumia Abu-Jamal

Von: "MUMIA ABU-JAMAL" <>

Betreff: !*Bro. JR Interview w/

Angela Davis

on "Jailhouse Lawyers"

Datum: Freitag, 24. April 2009 16:25

 

via: Greg Ruggiero

===============

In Her Own Words: An interview wit' Angela Davis

Source: The Liberator Magazine

http://weblog.liberatormagazine.com/2009/04/in-her-own-words-interview-wit-angela.html

[2-day liberatormagazine.com featured story]

 

JR Valrey is the Minister of Information for the Prisoners Of

Conscience Committee, an Oakland based organization founded by Fred

Hampton, Jr. with the mission to liberate the minds and hearts of

African and colonized people. The POCC takes the stand that all

prisoners are political. JR is a regular contributor to The Liberator.

 

In Her Own Words. An interview wit' Angela Davis: Angela Davis is a

legendary political activist professor in the U.C. System who has a

history of resistance. She is a former political prisoner who has done

work with the Communist Party, and she is also author of 8 books

analyzing race, class, and gender. She also is a cofounder of the

prison abolitionist group, Critical Resistance. She recently wrote a

foreword to political prisoner Mumia Abu Jamal's new book "Jailhouse

Lawyers", in which the Block Report did an interview with her to help

promote.

 

I was first taught about Angela Davis being a political prisoner,

later on the first jailhouse lawyer that I met through the mail was

her codefendant who is still locked up, Ruchell Magee, whom I used to

write occasionally. So this book gave me a better insight into what

life as a jailhouse lawyer really is like. I dug the fact that Mumia

picked a subject that is rarely discussed on this side of the walls. I

learned a lot and it wet my appetite to wanting to learn more about

these legal warriors. Check out Angela Davis as she talks about her

foreword in Mumia's new book, in her own words...

 

M.O.I. JR: I want to talk to you today about your foreword in Mumia

Abu Jamal's new book, "Jailhouse Lawyers". Since I know a lot of

readers do not have the book, I want to start off with reading a few

quotes, and I will ask you questions in relation to the quotes. You

say in your foreword, "Mumia points to me what was for me a startling

revelation. Jailhouse lawyers comprised the group most likely to be

punished by the prison administration, more so than political

prisoners, Black people, gang members, and gay prisoners whereas

jailhouse layers are punished by what Mumia calls 'cover charges'.

Historically they could be charged with internal violations for no

other reason that they used the law to challenge prison guards, prison

regimes, and prison conditions. In your opinion what is the importance

of Mumia choosing jailhouse lawyers to be the subject for his new book?

 

Angela: Well first of all, this is an amazing book. Everyone should

read this book. And I was extremely excited to learn that he was

working on a book on jailhouse lawyers because the story of jailhouse

lawyers is a hidden story. Most people in this country are not aware

of the extent to which resistance to the regimes of prisons, state

prisons, federal prisons all over the country, has been shaped through

the work of jailhouse lawyers. There is a long tradition of

resistance. And Mumia, himself, is a jailhouse lawyer. And if one

thinks about how many men and women have used the law in order to

challenge the prison regimes, one gets a sense of what a powerful

legacy that resistance is.

 

M.O.I. JR: In another quote in your foreword you say, "Mumia argues

that the passage of the Prison Litigation Reform Act is a violation of

the Convention Against Torture for in ruling out psychological or

mental injury as a basis to recover damages such sexual coercion that

was represented in the Abu Ghraib photographs if perpetrated inside of

a U.S. prison, would not have constituted evidence for a lawsuit. Why

did you point this out in your foreword?

 

Angela: Many people assume that the the P.L.R.A., the Prison

Litigation Reform Act, as I tried to point out in the foreword, simply

prevents prisoners from engaging in frivolous lawsuits. But as Mumia

points out, it is a pointed attack on the capacity of prisoners to use

the law itself. It is not about frivolity at all, it is about taking

away from prisoners one of the only instruments that they've been able

to develop to challenge the whole system. So we can't assume that

under the Clinton administration the P.L.R.A. was passed, and that put

prison lawsuits to rest. It's important for those of us on the outside

to support the rights of prisoners to use the law to resist the

violence of the state.

 

M.O.I. JR: Again to quote you, you say in the foreword of "Jailhouse

Lawyer", "The way he situates the P.L.R.A. historically as an

inheritance of the Black Codes, which were themselves descended from

the Slave Codes, allows to recognize the extent to which historical

memories of slavery and racism are prescribed in the very structures

of the prison system, and have helped to produce the Prison Industrial

Complex." Can you discuss the importance of Mumia making this

connection in "Jailhouse Lawyers"?

 

Angela: Well this is one of the things that I really loved about

Mumia, he knows how to make these historical connections. He makes

connections with what might appear to be very dispirit and different

kinds of phenomenon, for example he points out that the P.L.R.A. was

passed at the same time as the disestablishment of the welfare system,

and that there is a connection between preventing women primarily from

having access to safety nets for their families, and this assault on

prisoners being able to defend themselves. So I really like the way

that he makes those connections with slavery. I think of the prison

system today in this country, and especially the system of capital

punishment, I think of it as a historical memory of slavery, as a

palpable inheritance of slavery. And as a matter of fact, the

existence of those systems provide us with real evidence of the fact

that slavery was not fully abolished. So I like the way in which he

can show us the similarities between the Black Codes, that were

produced in the aftermath of slavery to basically replicate the system

of slavery after slavery was allegedly abolished. And the P.R.L.A.

serves a similar contemporary purpose.

 

M.O.I. JR: Again, you write in "Jailhouse Lawyers", in the last

sentence, "He (Mumia), allows us to reflect on the fact that

transformational possibilities often emerge where we least expect

them." Why did you end your foreword with that statement in this book?

 

Angela: Well you know because people don't usually think of prisoners

in general as defending democracy. They think of the prison as the

underside, the underbelly, of democracy; as the place where you send

people who no longer have the right to be citizens. But I think that

what Mumia does, he manages to portray jailhouse lawyers in such a

ways as to persuade us regardless of what our political persuasions

might be, the jailhouse lawyers have been, in a sense, on the front

line of the defense of democracy. I'm not talking about capitalists

democracy. I'm not talking about neo-liberal democracy. I'm talking

about the kind of democracy that would also tend to not only political

equality, but racial equality, economic equality, and sexual equality

as well.

 

M.O.I. JR: What is the importance of us recognizing that Mumia is

facing deathrow right at this second, right when he released such an

eloquent book on jailhouse lawyers? You also pointed out in this

foreword that he rarely speaks of himself, so in the midst of this

being a time of the first Black president of America, what does

Mumia's imprisonment, with all the flaws in his case, say about the

real political climate in America?

 

Angela: Well, first of all, Mumia's case is so important for us to get

involved in. We have to save his life. We have to free Mumia. And

yeah, as many people acknowledge he rarely uses his amazing talent and

capacities to advocate for himself. He's always advocating for others,

and that is all the more reason to be passionate advocates for him. I

have traveled in other parts of the world a great deal, and there are

movements to free Mumia all over the world. Sometimes I feel very

embarrassed that we have not managed to overcome the power of the

Fraternal Order of Police for example and the other conservative

forces that are determined to put Mumia to death. But this book is yet

another reason why we need to defend him, and why we need to use

whatever is available to us, whatever knowledge, whatever instruments

are available to us to guarantee that his life is saved and that he is

eventually set free.

 

##

 

Excerpts from Mumia's book Jailhouse Lawyer's, including Angela Y.

Davis's complete foreword can be downloaded as a PDF for free from

the City Lights Web site.

http://www.citylights.com/book/?GCOI=87286100448090&fa=complements

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