Noelle Hanrahan: What does the victory, this one step in the long path of freedom, this little victory, mean about the potential and the importance of collective power?
Mumia Abu-Jamal: Well, it shows that if you struggle, you can prevail. And when we struggle together, we change reality. And when we challenge power, it sometimes bends.
Noelle Hanrahan: You know, why is it different when you can actually see and hear people, versus 30 years without being behind plexiglas?
Mumia Abu-Jamal: I was very surprised by the impact personally, [facility announcement] of touching, I was very [facility announcement] — They on a mission! — I was very surprised at the power of simply touching people. I had forgotten what that was. I almost got dizzy just touching my wife, feeling her hand, not to mention kissing her, smelling her. Those sensations have been buried so deep that when you touch someone, it moved you in ways that you had forgotten, that I had forgotten and that’s true for friends, for comrades and family. So, that is a difference, and it’s a profound difference.
Noelle Hanrahan: You know how they take all of our family members away and put them out of touch and out of mind and out of sight? What’s the analogy with that 2.3 million many African Americans out of our community?
Mumia Abu-Jamal: Well, it has, of course, the initial impact is personal, familial, psychological, emotional, sexual, yes, but by doing so, they try to disappear millions of people. You know, most African Americans, of course, live in the big cities of America; New York, Philadelphia, Boston, Pittsburgh, Detroit, Chicago, San Francisco, you name it. But where are most of these prisons situated? Far, far in the rural districts away from the cities, further and further away. What does that mean? Well, it means that for many, many people, it’s virtually impossible to visit your loved ones, and even when you do, you know the rules, the repression are so grave.
You know, think about all the people in these long, lifelong solitary confinement cells, you know. When they come out for a visit, they’re shackled like Hannibal Lecter, or they clad in orange jumpsuits, or you know, you can’t hug your mother or kiss your child or your wife or your lover, and you know that happens for years on end, on end.
And then think about the money factor. We can never ignore this is America, a capitalist country. All of these people who are living in prisons in rural districts are counted on the census as part of the population of that district, so that all of the monies from transportation funds and federal education funds and federal infrastructure monies, they no longer go to the cities where people come from. They come to these districts where people are counted, but not allowed to express their political view. That is insane, because all of that lost money that could have been helping the community where we came from, the cities where we came from, is now being suctioned off into these rural districts that are essentially those places who only have prisons to sustain their fractured economies. So, you know, it has a human cost, but it also has very real economic costs.
Noelle Hanrahan: They get an extra Congress person.
Mumia Abu-Jamal: That’s why so many very, very conservative districts have very large Black populations. But guess what? Just like during the Antebellum period, before the war, those populations…
Automated Voice: This call is from the State Correctional Institution at Mahanoy and is subject to monitoring and recording.
Mumia Abu-Jamal: …those populations are silenced, right? Because they cannot vote, you know. In South Africa, if you were in prison, you can vote. In Israel, you’re in prison you can vote. Many countries In fact, there’s several states in the United States, where if you’re in prison, you can vote, but they happen to be in the Northern tier, not the middle of the Southern tier. So all of that is lost, both personally and economically and financially, to families, but also communities. It’s a cycle of oppression.
Noelle Hanrahan: Sorry to keep you on the phone so long.
Mumia Abu-Jamal: I understand, you know, I do. They’re about to call yard. Bye.
These commentaries are recorded by Noel Hanrahan of Prison Radio.
