Transcript
Prisoner 0427985 3/30/19 The system is obviously broken. Generations of street kids, the neglected, the bullied, abused outcasts, the poor deprived of compassion and love have become or will become inducted into the prison system. Will any of us ever see any meaningful reform in the criminal justice system? Can these institutions that promote and create sub-class slaves, negative schools of thought, hatred, death, suicide, racism and despair be transformed into more educational or rehabilitation monasteries for the misguided? Will prisoners always be portrayed as evil sadistic villains capable of only murder, rape, theft and immorality? Despite the ill informed public belief resulting from government reporting journalism such as a recent article published by the New York Times entitled "Hazing, Humiliation, Terror: Working in Prison While Female", Nov. 17, 2018, there are brilliant men, women and children behind bars. Philosophers, artists, musicians, inventors, attorneys, doctors, spiritual guru's, scholars, anthropological and sociological geniuses. Yet these talents are wasted and go unrecognized as more and more prisoners are made invisible by prison administrators and harsh censorship policies created to keep us silenced and isolated from social movements of the times. Most ideas of what to do with mass incarceration are far from realistic or beneficial to crime victims and are geared to promote profit to the municipal corporations. So why do the majority of non-violent offenders keep coming back in what appears to be a revolving door syndrome? Well the juvenile and court system paves the way for young people to acclimate and adopt an apathetic attitude by locking up their parents for decades as the result of tough on crime laws. The streets are full of disgruntled and disturbed youth. I myself can attest that growing up a poor, lonely, cynical country kid instills a powerful hatred for the preppy perfect life rich high class family portrayal of what American society has spotlighted and pushed on us to be. The streets as we move into the 20th century are scary, but the public school system is a nightmare from Elm Street when you think of all the mass school shootings going on around the country. The television and social media screams "get money, spend money, step on your neighbor, screw the world, be a rap star or die trying, take all you can give nothing back". Children are preprogrammed for crime, self-hatred, greed and false power by aggressive neo-American capitalism and destructive pop culture and video games created by the government. Then when they get into trouble, what do we do with them? We build razor wire plantations and freezing concrete tombs called jails to warehouse them and re-elect tough on crime politicians who create laws that provide longer sentences so they can milk the tax payers for more money, and this is their dark solutions and ideas of politicians and the federal government to line their own greedy pockets and to cure the mess they have created for the rest of the working class. Shocking enough, and over a century ago, law scholars employed by our federal government fooled all of us by drafting the 13th Amendment that purportedly ended the slavery of black persons under the guise of creating equal opportunity. However, the conniving law scholars of that time realized future economics, and that ending "all" forms of slavery would end the very repression it needed to control and govern its naive people so it inserted a clause that extended slavery to any person convicted of crime, and more specifically to all races and genders. Never forget though, that our towns, cities, prisons and our childrens bedrooms are built upon history's bloody crime scenes where whips and chains were used to perpetuate the rape of women, murder and an attempted extermination of an entire race has been committed. But you wanna know who the real criminal is that is endorsed by our federal government? Then pull out your wallets and your purses and pull out a twenty dollar bill. The man you see on this bill has been worshipped for decades and even a century. In fact, he's responsible for the slaughter of more innocent human beings than any 3rd world leader or even Adolf Hitler. From the history taught in our public school system, and outside these modern classrooms, our kids see and absorb everything like loud sticky little sponges, like little computers receiving input. What do you think they see in today's modernized American society? What do they absorb from this New-Age culture on a day to day basis? Multimillion dollar drug dealers glamorized like El Chappo, movies like Scarface and Blow. Stars like R-Kelly or Michael Jackson preying on young kids. Rap lyrics glorifying drug use, and premarital sex, violence, racism and immoral women becoming filthy rich from big butts, twerking and porn. Professional athletes are made out to be heroes by mainstream media, and worshipped by the public. They are all illogically and unreasonably overpaid and tremendously rich for tossing a piece of rubber around whereas the average school teacher, EMT worker, steel worker, cotton mill worker, rest home attendant, and industrial workers of the world struggle to make ends meet without the slightest recognition. I'm 52 years old, and I am in solitary confinement for simply asking for more rehabilitation opportunities for prisoners, and as I sit in the shadows of my cold isolated cell listening to NPR on my ragged radio behind the limelight of reality, staring at an unforgiving world with hungry eyes, I wonder how long justice will remain deaf and blind. Its 2019 and for me, the only thing Donald Trump has said that makes any sense is when he said "this is troubling times for all young men in this country", and that statement was made in the wake of a false allegation against a nominee, now Supreme Court justice some 35 years ago when he was in high school. But can we really trust what anyone says in and outside of politics in this day and age when you have public icons like Jussie Smolette from the popular TV series "Empire" falsely staging a racial attack upon himself to promote racism or to boost his ratings and purse by attempting to garner public sympathy, and then there's me, the agent of tragedy, from a false accusation some 25 years ago locked up in a cage for the rest of my life like some social outcasted extremist modern day white version of Malcolm X for turning in corrupt police in Cherryville, N.C. Its time for folks to pay attention politically and to the social movements as we evolve, and its time to rethink our laws, sentencing and incarceration and how we treat the men, women, and children behind bars. Its time to forever abolish or amend the 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution to end all forms of slavery, and recognize prisoners as "persons" under the disability of incarceration because all of our emotionally erratic, hormonally unpredictable teens are only one beer, one bad break up, one silly school yard fight, one false accusation or one curious and isolated mistake from being torn from your arms and thrown into the indiscriminate bowels of prison as a slave and being brutalized by gangs, tortured by being locked up in a cell the size of a closet on long term solitary confinement for years, fed horrible and unhealthy reprocessed food, poor health care, and completely isolated from society through unreasonable censorship, and psychologically damaged from the constant sexual exploitation of their innocent young bodies through unwanted, intrusive humiliating and forced strip searches on the whim of a guard regardless of their gender. And this is it! This is where we are today and what we as humans have become. In fact, the prisons in North Carolina have become so intolerable through unreasonable rules such as restrictions on incoming mail regarding social movements through censorship, and who can send prisoners money, and laws that engender excessively long sentences to the point violence in this Bible Belt state has escalated. For instance, in 2016 a sergeant at Bertie C.I. was murdered by a prisoner tired of oppression. On Oct 12, 2017 4 prison guards at Pasqotank C.I. were brutally stabbed, strangled, and beaten to death by prisoners tired of being bullied, mistreated, and while trying to escape. One of the prisoners involved had only 7 months remaining on his sentence but participated as the result of enduring years of repression. Then on Aug 20, 2018 North Carolina prisoners Randy Watterson, Todd Martin, Jace Buras and Joseph Stewart organized the "POW Movement" (Prisoners of the World) alongside prisoners from South Carolina which was followed by thousands of prisoners facing similar repression across 17 states including prisoners in Pakistan on Aug 21, 2018. As a result, these prisoners were subjected to a myriad of harsh treatment and long term solitary confinement for simply staging a peaceful protest of their conditions of confinement with outside public supporters from Durham, N.C. who also did a noise demonstration in the prison parking lot calling for an end to long term solitary confinement, better food and wages, rehabilitation, parole opportunities, and the release of Randy Watterson, Todd Martin, Jason Buras, and Joseph Stewart for organizing N.C. POW Movement. In general, and in the majority of prisons, the smallest incident results in being sprayed with tear gas, beaten black and blue with sticks, shock shield, tasers, suppression of information or communication with family, legal counsel, supporters, and news media. Brutal six on one beatings from 250 lb. racists in full riot gear, strip searches designed as sexually inhuman humiliation tactics, and exposure to hepatitis, T.B., HIV, and the list is infinite. Every day our dignity is withheld as privilege rather than a basic human right. You wanna know what its like to be a prisoner? Then open the doors in your home in the winter and turn down your heat. Go inside your bathroom and piss on the floor and just sit there for 20 minutes. You think thats easy? Now imagine spending 10 years or more living like that in your bathroom, I have and still am. Millions and millions of men, women, and children are living that way worldwide right now! An "inmate", a human being, just like yourself who has made a mistake and who inquires too much about a financial error in his trust fund, or complains about mail censorship, a toothache, or of bad food can be subjected to cruelties so horrendous, so unspeakable, that most of you would not believe these atrocities are happening in our American state and federal prisons right in the shadows of your own communities. And you wanna know why? Because politicians like North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper, bureaucrats and corrections-czars like Kenneth Lassiter and Theodis Beck toil night and day to make sure the news media is highly restricted from the ongoing crime scenes behind our prison walls and in our hidden cellblocks. Like a well oiled machine, they have it all down to a science. The trick is to keep prisoners and their voices hidden from social platforms, the public frightened, politicians paid, and the criminal justice system unjust. You think our court systems are honest? Then take a close look and pay attention to the court reporters in our courtrooms who transcribes a defendants trial. You'll find by contrast that underneath that poker face speaking into a cup shaped microphone while typing, lies the quick witted skill of the governments most powerful racist ally, who silently and discreetly with impunity, erases and rewords improper comments and errors intentionally committed by prosecutors in every courtroom during a criminal trial to deprive an unsuspecting defendant of appellate review of those errors to ensure slam dunk undisturbed convictions. The truth is, that when a human being commits a crime, he/she deserves some form of correction, treatment, rehabilitation, or education. But that person should not be subjected to a punishment, that leaves the person, our community, and humanity worse off than before any crime was committed. As for me, I am weary and finally broken and my pen is my only weapon. I outta know about punishment and torture after spending years in and out of solitary confinement isolated from my family, bad food, tasers, suffering, enduring brutal beatings, bad health care, humiliation from countless and ongoing sexual exploitations of my body and invasive cavity searches, and years of stark loneliness. And this is what it means to be a true American and this is the new normal for those of us convicted of crime and inducted into our jails and prisons. The only solution to correct repression is to call upon the oppressed inside and outside of prison walls to organize internationally, even globally in unity to overthrow repression. The only way to win against all forms of tyranny is to stand together in diversity and bring all of our collective struggles to the public arena for battle and today we stand united and in solidarity with prisoners and their families and demand that slavery and involuntary servitude be forever abolished in the United States and abroad and that prisoners be recognized as disingenuous "persons" opposed to "slaves" under the disability of incarceration. By eradicating the 13th Amendment, this outdated and inhumane amendment, we will be shutting the doors to torture, long term solitary confinement, unnecessary strip searches and unreasonable censorship that blocks our political and social views. Then, and only then will prisoners be permitted meaningful access to new innovative evolutionary rehabilitation programs that promote and teach criminals empathy for others, honesty, honor, and work ethics he/she needs to develop and sustain a law abiding lifestyle while promoting victim rights and maintaining a better system of public safety. Then collectively tomorrow we again stand in unity and solidarity with our individual struggles and demand change beginning with equal rights for feminists, LGBT communities, minorities, the Dreamers from Honduras, Mexico and abroad, environmentalists concerns with our ecological future, student rights, free speech, respect for animal rights, industrial workers rights to unionize, the right to be free from sexual harassment, to end bullying in our schools and on social media and a myriad of other forms of oppression faced by humans by the government. Then, and only then can we each begin to heal and build a world where we can all be free from oppression, bigotry, capitalism, racism, totalitarian control and where we can culturally create a place of solidarity, equality, peace, love, beauty and work where we may individually grow and find true meaning. As for me, I will continue to send out an S.O.S until justice or mercy shines its' bright light into the cold dark world where I am exiled and only known as prisoner 0427985, a slave... sentenced to death by incarceration. By: Randy A. Watterson 0427985 527 Commerce Dr. Elizabeth City, N. C. 27909 itsgoingdown.org justiceforrandywatterson.wordpress.org
