The Relationship Between Master/Slave

[original essay from a prisoner incarcerated in Susanville]

Salutes and respects to all the members of this society working for a better world. I read your ad at the prison focus newsletter. (Summer 2016)

It seems to me that the prisoner movement in California for real reform is stagnated. We have become dangerously pacified, comfortable, and content.

A few trinkets and privileges were thrown our way and we believed that to be a victory. However; what about real changes?; the California Parole Board (PBH) is still up to its old tricks of denying parole; under false pretenses with no hope of a change.

Something that we need to realize is that the “PBH” WILL NEVER REALLY CHANGE: because its whole existence depends in the perpetual slavery of tens of thousands of society’s most marginalized segments of the population. And that is why it keeps denying parole to thousands of eligible slaves. There are plenty of cases where 70 year old men are denied parole; because they represent a danger to society. The irony of the situation doesn’t doesn’t escape my mind; that these same hypocrites turn a blind eye to the killings of brown and black men at the hands of corrupt police.

As long as we the slaves keep showing up to work for free or for an extra lunch bag, we will always be doomed and die as slaves; easily replaced by future lumpen generations. We need to wake up and realize that we are slaves. And second, that we have the keys to our freedom; without our cooperation to willingly provide our free labor the beast will starve to death. Truly speaking, no matter what we did, we don’t deserve a lifetime of slavery, decades of isolation (CDC’s segregation units); and the occasional execution in the killing fields. (At prison yards and the ghettos)

They can twist it any way that they want and sing the same old song: that we are the worst of the worst. But that is the propaganda specifically designed to feed the ignorant masses. At no point in history has this country and racist ruling class had such an obedient, peaceful, ignorant and comfortable slave population where they willingly get up every day to work the fields and sweat shops for free, or for a ridiculous $0.15 cents an hour. Where is our pride, honor, power of reasoning and right to live and die as free men?

What are we waiting for, to be 70, 80, or 90 years old? No fascist regime in the world has ever conceded nothing without a struggle. When every single slave says in one voice “Enough!” I won’t work for free anymore as our ancestors did. “Let the crops rot in the field.” That will get their attention, and they will come to the negotiating table; because the plantation can’t afford to be in lock down and lose money.

The U$A’s ~slave~ has been so brainwashed and manipulated that he looks forward to get out of his cage to go to his “work.” And when the master doesn’t open his cage’s door, the slave gets upset and yells. Because he doesn’t care any longer, his warrior spirit has been broken. And if someone comes along and tells him that it doesn’t have to be this way and that he can be “free” of perpetual slavery, the slave would consider this to be dangerous talk. And he will be scared to lose his electronics, jobs, visits, commissary and telephone calls. He has become officially and comfortably institutionalized as a slave.

The slave has been dependent for most of his life; that sometimes, it doesn’t register that he has been treated and spoken to as if he were a child. This is why real history books and TV documentaries with some intellectual value are banned at all these plantations. This information may give the slave the wrong ideas about equality, freedom and justice. The state can’t afford to educate the enslaved population.

So garbage is played 24/7 in our TV sets and the purchase of tablets with unlimited children’s games is encouraged. Those who try to wake up the masses are eliminated or isolated. It all depends on the individual’s capacity to lead and inform about his understanding of the predicament in which we have become entangled. One thing is for sure: he knows that his enemy is not the slave in the cage next door.

– “Lucio Cabañas”