Living proof of the Black Lives Matter struggle than and now
This is a story with no election agenda for, or, against any candidate for this presidential election cycle Hillary/Trump!….. The story image is very clear.
It is a story I find very disturbing in that it compels me to sit down and write, as it relates to the current Black Lives Matter movement, which after reading the narration of Lorraine Berry dated 05 sept. 2016 (link below) has me convinced that the movement has some of its roots deeply embedded within the horrors that go behind this country`s prison walls and our streets today.
I am neither a Black or White Daily Kos member. However, after reading this story, flashes of my own experiences come to mind, that behind these type of walls I have learned only too well, that `white guards against black` prisoner aggressions and punishment is greater than that of all other races. Constant fabrication of lies to justify not only punishment, but in this story you will find the lies that led to a killing massacre of black prisoners behind these walls at Attica and not to mention the racism for the killings, -- ghost racism then that is much alive today was ghastly…….
Warning: the depiction of white hate towards blacks at Attica is sickening. If you can stomach reading how blacks were slaughtered like caged animals you may want to prepare yourself for the shock. Nothing in the diary suggests that prisoners be cuddled, only that justice be afforded under law.
Forty-five years ago this month the morning of September 13, 1971, on the fourth day of a takeover by inmates at the Attica Correctional Facility in western New York state, hundreds of New York State patrolmen, sheriff’s deputies, correctional officers, and park police stormed the D-yard where 1300 prisoners — armed with makeshift weapons but no firearms — had been holding a number of correctional officers and prison civilians as hostages.
At Attica, as in all prisons, prisoners have always fashioned some type of weapon (shank) or other to protect themselves from harm inflicted by other prisoners. At Attica it was no different, but not one prisoner had a gun or rifle to defend against the assault that followed. The prisoners only redress of grievances was to be treated as humans.
In the shooting free-for-all that followed, reported by RawStory, 9 of the hostages and 28 prisoners were slaughtered; the eventual death toll from the Attica uprising would be 43 men. And the lying and fabrications for justificatons of the slaughter woud ensue, prompting other racist to proclaim that `the thugs” got what they deserved. The makeshift weapons the prisoners wielded were no match for what was to come.
In today`s Black Lives Matter movement we see daily killings of unarmed black men in our neighborhoods. The police justification assertions is always that the black man was armed and needed killing in defense. At Attica not one prisoner had a gun or rifle to defend against the assault that followed. The prisoners only weapon was a redress of grievances demand to be treated as humans, a ligitimate quest that was systematically ignored.
While the prisoners at Attica had many ligitimate requests for redress of grievances including adequate medical care; adequate food (many of the prisoners were perpetually hungry); a raise in prison wages (most prisoners earned only 6 cents per day — which made it impossible for them to buy commissary food to supplement a starvation diet); and an end to constant beatings by COs and arbitrary assignment to solitary confinement, which was used by guards as punishment for the slightest of rules infractions.
In addition, despite the fact that many prisoners were Puerto Rican, no guards spoke Spanish, and any mail that came to prisoners that was written in Spanish was automatically thrown away because it could not be censored. All of these issues had been brought to the attention of prison officials, which were systemically ignored.
The Attica riot began on September 9, after a tense summer and the fact that Attica was a “ bottleneck of prisoners” with no educational programs or any other program to occupy the mind at the gigantic prison complex. While Attica had a reputation for being the last home for hardened “thugs,” one of the revolt’s leaders, 21-year old L.D. Barkley, had been sent to Attica after violating his parole for driving without a license.
Such was the hatred mindset of the white prison officials that rumours went through the crowd that the prisoners had been torturing their hostages. The CO who had died in the original riot — William Quinn — had died of a head injury, but in the overtired, overhyped crowd of law enforcement officers, the story spread that Quinn had been castrated prior to his death. The story was embellished until it included the details that Quinn’s genitals had been stuffed into his mouth. The “rescuers” were being whipped up into a mob.
One can imagine that angry white men armed with unfamiliar weapons would not make the best force for hostage rescue, but in the disaster that Attica was to become, no one put the brakes on this situation.
Reading this story once again compelled me to write. I do not want to run afowl of the fair use rule, so I will pass this on to you for your reading. If indeed fair Use rule is violated, I will delete immediately. I assure you, that the read is deep and troubling. A video comes with the story where it shows the confusion and questionable and racist truth, that three prisoners were murdered by white guards and troops sent in by the Governor of New York and no one was ever convicted of those murders.