Lorenzo Kom'boa wrote:

"For all ABC groups: let's try for more unity, more serious internal critcisms
of
past practices, and an attempt to bring more people of color into the movement,
and
really give them a voice, not just for window dressing."
Lorenzo Kom'boa wrote:
"Three things I liked about the international ABC groups: the support of migrant
s,
combat against fascists, and their willingness to support USA prisoners when tho
se
in N. America would not do so. They are by no means perfect, but they certainly
have always been more advance than those of us on this side of "the pond.""
Lorenzo Kom'boa wrote:
"In no way should the ABC be content to just making a critique of prisons, and n
ot
build a mass community-based tendency. It has to be in communities of color,
heightening contradictions, exposing the crimes of the state, and training new
organizers of color. It has to be willing to change its focus on how and who sho
uld
be the backbone of the movement, esp. in North America."
We cannot be content to send cookies or small amounts of money to prisoners, in
lieu of a struggle to dismantle prisons as an institution, and destroy the
socio-economic base which allow so many youth to commit crimes of survival, and
end
up in prison."
Lorenzo Kom'boa wrote:
"ABC has to become more than a cult or group of collectives, but a genuine mass
community-based movement. It has to become a United Front for the support of
prisoners human rights, fighting for immigrant freedom, an amnesty movment to
release pow/pp's and others, the dismantling of the prison regime, and diversion
of
money from imprisonment to the creation of jobs, housing and food co-ops in
communities of color."
Lorenzo Kom'boa wrote:
"it is clear that if we are not doing organizing around issues of mass imprisonm
ent,
then we are not building a revolutionary prison movement at all. We are in a cou
ntry
with a history of African enslavement, the creation of the penitentiary, and pol
ice
state terrorism of the poor and POC. We cannot fail to understand the lessons of
what is happening now, or we will be totally ineffective in our approach."
Lorenzo Kom'boa wrote:

"it has never failed to amaxe that Anarchism and the Black Revolution, something
I
first originally wrote in 1979 in the Marion Control Unit has been read by so ma
ny
prisoners, and moved so many over to Anarchism. Now,"Let's Organize the Hood:
Version 3" is coming out this year, and I hope that ABC and other prison activi
sts,
and prisoners can get something out of that as well. It is long overdue. more a
bout
that later."
Lorenzo Kom'boa wrote:
"i realize that many in the Anarchist and Black Liberation movment do not agree
with
me. I am not deterred. I believe that the Anarchist Black Cross, even with all i
ts
weaknesses and sectarian splits, has more potential than any other tendency to
create a mass tendency that involves working class POC communities, and become a
genuine anti-racist liberation support movement. Prisons are where the youth of
color are located, and where Anarchism can spread deeper."
Lorenzo Kom'boa wrote:
"Another reason that a PLA/Black Partisan Militia is still on the agenda, is b/c
of
mass imprisonment. The state has used years of chemical warfare and created a dr
ug
mass market in communities of color, and destroyed whole areas of cities. This i
s
genocide, and yet very few voices are raised among radicals against it. We must
fight, not retreat into pacifism or bourgeois scholasticism."
Lorenzo Kom'boa wrote:
"The ideas around building a Prisoners Liberation Army are still on the agenda.
some
tried to do that in spurts in the 1960's-70's: BLA, SLA, Earth Lib. Front, Geo.
Jackson Brigade. I have always believed that neighborhood militias are more
effective than 'vanguard military formations", simply b/c masses can be educated
,
organized and mobilized, and there is more accountability."
"I have always said that ABC has to become an anti-racist tendency, as well as a
n
anti-prison tendency. We know that Blacks/POC are the majority of prison in this
period, and a majority white prison support tendency is unacceptable. This does
not
mean that white activists are not valued, but that we need to unite with communi
ties
of color in a battle against the state, and not just other Anarchists. White
Supremacy is gov't oppression."
One of the most distinguishing feature of the new American fascism is the mass i
mprisonment of Black & POC. One in every three Blacks bet. 16-35 are in prison,
similar number of Latinos. ABC and all prison activist groups must understand th
is is structural racism, and take up the call to build a mass community based mo
vement.