Rev Left Radio - [BEST OF] All Power to the People: The Kevin Rashid Johnson Interview

Episode Date: April 26, 2022

[Originally released Apr 2021] Breht is joined by Kevin Rashid Johnson, the incarcerated Minister of Defense for the Revolutionary Intercommunalist Black Panther Party, and Comrade Garlic, the Minister of Justice of the RIBPP. They discuss Rashid's childhood and imprisonment, his and other inmates systematic torture and brutalization within the American prison system, the split from the New Afrikan Black Panther Party, Maoism and Revolutionary Intercommunalism, the revolutionary potential of the lumpenproletariat, the psychology of solitary confinement, racial prison gangs, and much more.  Support on Cashapp: $Solidarity2ribpp Rashid's website: http://rashidmod.com Contact Comrade Garlic: [e-mail] Contact the Chairperson: [e-mail] Contact the General Secretary: [e-mail] Sub to their YT: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2HNf9WwzzcOpQxS8Opg-0A/featured   Support Rev Left Radio: https://www.patreon.com/RevLeftRadio

Hello everybody and welcome back to Revolutionary Left Radio. On today's episode, we have an extended interview with Kevin Rashid Johnson, formerly of the New African Black Panther Party, now of the Revolutionary Intercommunal Black Panther Party, and we discuss how that change happened and the split that precipitated it. Rashid is a hero. He's one of the most principled voices on the left. He's also a victim of the white supremacist prison system. And we go quite into depth of the depravity, the human rights violations, the torture and the terrorism that prisoners undergo within the U.S. prison system. And it really inflex the importance of abolition being a core pillar of these struggles for black liberation, for liberation more broadly, for the fight against colonialism and capitalism.

When you hear the stories that Rashid tells of shit he went through in prison, it would turn any stomach, anybody with a pulse. You're going to feel viscerally the disgusting nature of the prison system and the overall system that it is an indictment of and a reflection of. You know, Rashid is also an autodidact. He is self-learned. He taught himself all of all of what he knows. and to hear his depth of understanding of political philosophy and history and to hear of the shit he has to go through on a daily basis from solitary confinement to having Rottweiler stuck on him in a jail cell

to being brutally beaten routinely. It is just a lot to take. It's incredibly revealing. And it says so much about the spirit and the heart and the fortitude and the humanity of him and his fellow. prisoners for having to go through that stuff and refusing to be broken in the way that the system wants them to be broken. So again, this is a privilege to be able to amplify Kevin Rashid Johnson and his struggle

to learn from him and to get the word out about his organization. And a special shout out to Comrade Garlich who facilitated this discussion, who hooked up the prison call to Rev Left and was able to. mediate that discussion and who is a member of the revolutionary intercommunal black panther party of course as well doing doing important essential work so throughout this conversation because the prison phone system only allows for 20 minute intervals there will be periods of time where it busts in and says you have one minute remaining and then wherever rachit is in his dialogue he'll have to stop call back restart so without further ado i'm going to get into this fascinating heartbreaking

and deeply informative discussion with Kevin Rashid Johnson of the Revolutionary Intercommunal Black Panther Party and Comrade Garlic of the Same. Enjoy. I'm Kevin Rashid Johnson, generally known about Rashid. I'm a prisoner confined within, at present, the Indiana Department of Corrections. I've been in prison since 1990. I began as a social

prisoner incarcerated originally in Virginia. Basically throughout my early imprisonment, I kind of distinguished myself for taking kind of a reactive stand or a resistant stand to a lot of the abuses that were going on inside the prisons, you know, at the hands of prison guards, especially abusing other prisoners. I would respond to their physical abuse. in kind and kind of came to be known pretty well for you know just fighting against prison abuses over a period of time I became involved with learning law and then litigating against a lot of prison abuses so I struggled both physically and with the pen and during um a period when I was incarcerated at the supermax that they built in Virginia beginning in 1998 and 1999 I came into

contact with a political prisoner named Hanishabaz Bay, and that was my first exposure to, you know, some revolutionary theory and ideology, which began with reading George Jackson's books. From there, I began, you know, based on the interest in what I had read with George Jackson and a lot of the readers and the theoreticians that he had mentioned studying, I began to find my way into accessing a lot of the theoretical material by a lot of the people that influenced them. So I studied a variety of different revolutionary theorists, history, articles on various political views and analyses and current events and, you know, warfare, just a wide range of different economic, political, social, cultural, historical material.

And from there, I began to develop, you know, theoretical. politically and politically, and I found my home with the Maui School of assault. I did a lot of study of the Panthers. I was able to engage with some original Panthers who were political prisoners and worked with various different activist groups and people who were interested in organized around prison abuse. I became involved in interacting with a number of organizations on the street, founding several organizations that struggled against abuses inside of the prisons.

I began to do a lot of writing articles and using my artistic inclination to, you know, draw a lot of art oriented to the political things that I was oriented towards. And from there, I developed, you know, a concept working with some people in Pennsylvania, primarily Tom Watts, who just kind of motivated me to just found a prison-based version of the Black Panther Party alongside another prisoner who was incarcerated in New Jersey, Shiafizu, also known as Zulu Sharad. And because we shared a lot of the same political and theoretical ideas myself and Tom Watts, We developed a lot of the theory underlying advancing some of the analyses that were developed by Huey P. Newton, primarily revolutionary intercommunalism, an entire strategy oriented toward developing a line to carry out revolutionary intercommunalism, you know, in modern times, trying to bring that theory up to speed with the changes in modern conditions.

And that's when we founded the New African Black Panther Party. Initially, we were revolutionary internationalists. We didn't formally adopt a revolutionary intercommunalism until 2015. We founded the party in 2005, and from there, we ended up developing a number of mass organizations under the New African Black Panther Party, and then with the release of Shaka in 2019 and January, we started to transition the organizations into the outside and to try to develop, you know, the mass organization on the outside, which was the United Panthers movement, the UPM. From there, you know, various struggles took place within the organization and in the organization's

relationship with the UPM and people on the outside of the organization that generated a bit of scandal. I struggled against a lot of the tendencies inside of the organization that I found problems with particularly shocking behavior, also with the role that Tom was playing in the organization. So ultimately, we ended up splitting in December of, 2020 and reconstituted as a revolutionary intercommunal black panther party so uh and then just doing the process of my political activism in becoming involved in bringing a lot of attention to the abuses inside of virginia prison and struggling against those abuses and i began to write and published a lot of articles about the conditions they ended in shipping me out of state which began a process

of being bounced from state to state i went first to oregon oregon kicked me out out as a result of organizing there and bringing attention to abuse of conditions out of those prisons. I was sent to Texas. The same process repeated in Texas. From there, I was sent to Florida. Same process repeated in Florida. Florida ended up kicking me out and giving Virginia a five-day ultimatum to remove me from their custody. So I went back to Virginia and to isolate me from other prisoners. They put me first in an entire unit by myself. Then they put me on death row where they only had three prisoners house and, you know, their campaign to try to keep me isolated from everybody and then they sent me back out of state to where i am now which is indiana

so that's pretty much my story yeah well it's a it's an absolute honor to have you on the show and you're certainly an inspiration to lots of people on the left more broadly um so it's definitely a pleasure to have you here garlic would you like to just say a little bit about yourself and introduce yourself for the audience before we dive into more questions yeah definitely um i'm garlick i'm the I'm sorry, Minister of Justice of the Revolutionary Indian Black Panther Party. Reside in Virginia. I guess I feel like I had a pretty normal-esque upbringing, you know, kind of like liberal parents growing up, new things were wrong,

but didn't really have, like, the language for them. My introduction to, I guess, revolutionary politics was, And coincidentally, I had a manager at a job that I worked that was a communist. And they would always probe me asking me all these different questions, like, how do you feel about this? It's about that. Have you read linen? All the stuff like that. And, you know, that was actually, you know, my introduction to left politics, you know.

And, you know, he definitely helped give me a push, but I kind of took it upon my stuff. start reading other stuff, you know, like George Jackson and, you know, Kwame Nakrumah, French Fanon, and kind of, you know, build off of that. So I guess that's a little bit about me. Wonderful. And Rashid, going back to you, I was just wondering, because we don't often get to hear about this, people that are aware of you know that your political struggles, your struggles in prison, but what was your childhood like?

And when did you start to become politically conscious? I know you mentioned George Jackson, but do you have any other intellectual or political influences throughout your life? Well, it kind of reminds me, I guess, I guess the motivational factor in my life kind of reminds me of something I read in a comment that it had been made by Edgar Snow, who was the Canadian journalist, that wrote Miles' biography is only authorized biography. and he had said many revolutionaries and people who end up struggling against oppressive powers begin their childhood struggling against dominating an oppressive male authority figures and that's kind of how my life was throughout you know my young years I began in a you know a constant struggle against my father who was um and the home a pretty abusive individual but he was also louder in the community as something of a community hero and, you know, he was a breadwinner in my family. He was highly distinguished because of career pursuits and his achievements.

You know, when I was very young, my parents divorced when I was an infant. He put himself through medical school and college. He had won several scholarships because of his academic achievements. He ended up fresh out of medical school. He graduated, I guess, Magna Come Lod. And he became a professor in North Carolina at the School of Medicine at the ECU. He, from there, opened up his own private medical practice. But within the home, you know, there was a constant chain of abuses that went on physical abuse.

And I kind of rebelled against him, you know, throughout my young years in school. I would go to school and fight. I would fight the people that he tried to get me to befriend, you know, the children of his upper middle class peers and friends, and I kind of had an aversion, an instinctive inversion toward him and middle class and upper class pursuits because throughout my young years, he wasn't in the home because of his, you know,

career pursuits and aspiration. So I kind of rebelled against everything that I felt he stood for, which was material wealth. You have one minute remaining. Not being available in the home, you know, not having a father in the home during my youngest years because of his, you know, career aspirations. So I came to Loweck, you know, materialism, material wealth,

aspirations toward material wealth, and I rebelled against everything that I felt he stood for. So I would deliberately try to embarrass him in school. I would fight all the time and fight against the teachers. And he would end up moving me around from family members to family members, you know, into projects because pretty much I proved to be uncontainable and rebelled against his physical abuse and rebelling against, you know, his lifestyle. So I kind of found my inclination towards poor people.

But hold on, let me call right back because the phone is about to hang up. Okay. Hold on one second. Thank you for using GtL. Yeah, did you have anything else to say about your childhood and other influences that you want? wanted to finish up on before we go to the next question yeah all right um so yeah i ended up being bounced from relative to relative you know most of my family still resided in you know poor urban

conditions so i was bounced from family members in the projects and um before that you know i began leaving home when i was about nine years old when i was living the streets living the woods live in abandoned cars and abandon apartments and I pretty much learned to survive from a very young age. From my teen years, I ended up incarcerated a lot, in and out of detention homes and the so-called youth correctional system. And from there, you know, I was involved in the various, you know, lumping trades on the street while on the outside. and I ended up incarcerated at 18, from which I remain incarcerated now. My political influences, my principal political influence would be that of, you know, Maoism, Marxism, Leninism, Maoism, and, you know, the theoretical contributions of Huey P. Newton and his developments of the theory of revolutionary and communalism.

But I have probably studied all of the, I guess, you, called classical revolutionary theorists you know some of some mentioned by the comrade phaenone and cruma um i've studied the wide the range of probably marchist theorists i've studied a lot of the modern Marxist leninists and nowist theorists um various different uh schools of thought on the left anarchism various revolutionary nationalist lines i've studied the various right-wing nationalist theorist i've studied the pretty much the whole of, I guess, political theories from, you know, the far right to the left to the far left. And as I've said, my principal influence lies with Maoism and the primary influence and

comrade that I really drew a lot of inspiration from, both from his life. You know, his lived example, his commitment to the masses and his theoretical contributions and his actual practical contribution would be Mao Zedong. yeah absolutely and you've been in prison for for many years i was hoping before we get into discussions about the party and the ideology of revolutionary intercommunalism i was hoping you could talk more and you've written about this powerfully about the just the corruption the brutality the inhumanity of the prison system generally and specifically your experiences with correction officers and those who staffed the prison yes um here's been so much

Yeah, typically, typically my experience has been that most people on the outside, you know, prison families, particularly those who have loved ones on the inside, find it hard to believe that, you know, government officials, government institutions, you know, engage in the just systematic abuses, the inherent abuses that they do and the conditions that exist inside the prison. So I found it important, you know, early on to try to be. bring attention to a lot of what goes on inside of here that people don't know. I mean, I've witnessed, oh, I, I endured, you know, from throughout my entire incarceration extreme abuse, abusive conditions. I have endured myself probably while I was incarcerated in Virginia, you know, I was, I came to be, distinguished as probably having been involved in more cell extractions than any other prisoner in the prison system within the time that I was incarcerated, cell extractions being when they send boon squads into your cell, you know, suited up in, you know, bulletproof

or stab-proof vest, you know, helmets with shields on them, the knee pads, elbow pads, with electric weapons and other types of weapons, you know, where they forcibly, they call it extraction, but typically their whole objective is to go in there to beat you. You know, they engage in eye-gouging, you know, grabbing your groin, trying to bend your finger back, fingers, fingers, trying to break your fingers, you know, this is just a typical thing when they want to compel something or they just want to act out means of abuse where they have a position of control and they have gear on that protects them from physical harm. They use this as a form of disenforcing their power, we're trying to break a lot of prisoners by exerting, you know,

the idea that you're helpless and they're invulnerable. So they use this not necessarily as a security measure or to deal with situations where there's a need for force, but they usually just typically as a method of trying to terrorize prisoners. You know, there's gashes, you know, there's where a lot of gas in the cell on you, then they'll open your cell door and forcibly rushing to the cell and beeching. And, you know, they came to me a lot of times consistently with that tactic, and I consistently fought them back. I became pretty skilled at fighting, you know, five, six, seven, eight guards at a time,

suited up in body armor. Many times they would physically abuse other prisoners, you know, I've witnessed them beat prisoners, unconscious, beat prisoners in the coma, break their bones, you know, rupture ear drums, gouge eyes out, knock teeth out, and a lot of times I would

respond by fighting them back on behalf of other prisoners who generally didn't have the just a wheel to fight back or they didn't have enough to lose where they were willing to take, you know, or respond to guards, abuses, and kind, and I would stand up, you know, for them. And a lot of times, because of, you know,

my developed will and, I guess, experience in fighting them in that way and being able to, in some cases, get the advantage over them, you know, a lot of times the guards got to the point they didn't want to fight me anymore. You know, they were sending dogs in the cells. They were, at one point, they were using rock wallers as, you know, cell extraction, part of the cell extraction. They were sent a rock waller in the cell. I had them do that to me numerous times. by some, I guess, turn of fate. You know, I never was injured or seriously injured by their dogs. I usually end up in repelling them from the cells or, you know, running the dogs off.

I have witnessed so many levels of abuse of others. I've watched guards kill prisoners. I've seen them gas prisons of death who they knew or who were under medical orders not to be subjected to, you know, chemical agents because they had asthma or bronchitis. they were gas prisons, leave them in the cell until they asphyxiated to death. I actually went through, you know, a couple of experiences very similar to what happened to George Floyd, where guards had cut off the circulation to my brain by kneeling on my neck or, you know, choking me to the point that I blacked out. At one point, I actually went into a mild coma.

This was back in, I think, 2013. And when I saw that, I witnessed that event with him. you know, it struck me that I knew exactly what he went through because I had went through the same thing, you know, and they did the exact same thing to me. And I was, well, I was in handcuffs after I had been involved in the sale extraction.

And I actually, they, I guess they actually got off my neck at just the point that I probably would have gone brain there for lack of oxygen to my brain, but I woke up and I couldn't talk, I couldn't see, all I could see was bright light. I was conscious, but I couldn't, none of my actual body functions, none of my sensory functions would operate

and it took probably like, I guess, 30 minutes to an hour for me to fully recover. I was able to roll off of the bed onto the floor. They left me on the bed in the cell, but I was able to roll off the bed onto the floor. I wasn't able to walk. I couldn't talk. I could only see bright, light. I could hear like sound, but it sounded like an echo in the far distance. And gradually, my senses came back to me and, you know, one of the prisons who were nearby me,

You know, he heard me howling like an animal when I was trying to talk. I guess my auditory sounds came out like I was howling, like some type of a wild animal or something. But he was telling me, you know, what he heard and, you know, how I was, you know, the sounds I was making because I was trying to talk. I was trying to get up and move. But like I said, gradually my body functions came back and, you know, I've recovered from there. But, yes, I've endured God starving me, turning off the water,

trying to dehydrate me. I've been strapped to bunks with steel for weeks at a time, sometimes with windows busted out of sales in the day of the winter, with air, you know, cold air and snow literally blowing in the cell on my body. Yeah, I've been literally tortured by God. You know, I've witnessed them do the same to others. I've witnessed and endured, you know, probably some of the most extreme abuses you could imagine. And I just never relented to it. I would fight back. I would litigate. I would stand up to them abusing other prisoners. Since 2004, or beginning in 2004, I began to write articles publicizing a lot of the abuses that go on inside of the prisons and the abuses I've witnessed them, commit against others,

in order to bring public attention to it and to kind of give people on the outside, family members, love one, supporters, a real inside view of the abuses that goes on and to actually give a personality to, humanity to the people who are only receiving in of a lot of those abuses that, you know, nobody knows about. Yeah, absolutely. It's beyond devastating and horrific to hear that. And on top of the human rights violations, the torture, the terrorism, there's obviously, just like on the outside, little to no accountability for the staff that engages in these actions. And on top of all of those physical torturous events you went through, there's also solitary confinement. So the broader question is sort of how do you survive psychologically and specifically what are the psychological challenges of solitary? confinement itself? That's a loaded question, I've been in solitary

literally since 2000, I mean, excuse me, 1994. The only breaks I've had from solitary was when I went to Oregon in 2013, I mean 2012 when they first sent me out of state. I stayed in population for about six months and then just six months I was able to be in general

population while I was here in Indiana during 2020. Other than that, I've been in Solitory since 1994. How to survive that, how to counter the effects of it. Actually, it took a conscious process of developing, first being aware of the effects of solitary, and then developing, I actually developed early on a system of exercises, or mental exercises that I would engage in that would counter the, just the organic effects of being in solitary, which is, you know, I've witnessed a lot of, I mean,

multitudes of people, some very strong people, some very good people, literally, you know, go insane because of solitary. And what generally happens, you know, from my experience and what I've witnessed and what I understand is when you cut off a person's external stimulation, you know, auditory, I mean, visual stimulation, auditory stimulation, just being able to engage with human beings directly, you know, the various basic things in human and social interaction, the mind tends to close in on itself. And your mind will try to find internally the stimulation that you've been cut off from externally. So that's why people then begin to hallucinate. They begin to develop all sorts

of hypersensitivities to sound that become extremely aggressive. They become emotionally unstable. And they generally just systematically deteriorate. And I've seen people lose their mind. know, from periods and very brief periods to extensive periods. Like I said, I developed, you know, a whole system of mental exercises. I would stimulate my creative imagination, my memory, because solitary does tend to erode your memory if you don't actively exercise and stimulate it. I would do, I had a four-stage exercise process, actually. One would deal with creative, stimulating my creative visualization, my memory, my concentration, and my attention span.

I would actively study broadly, write broadly, and, you know, engage my memory, my analytical processes, which is a lot of what came to bear in my developing, a lot of my theoretical ideas and, you know, analyses of things, and just a lot of what I became involved with politically and legally. You know, I actually used that as an outlet for keeping my mind active, keeping my memory active, those sorts of things. Then there's the social aspect to it. You know, I guess I've developed in a way where I really can go long periods without interacting with anybody.

And that's been an effect of solitaire. I just can pretty much isolate myself from socializing with people for months on in. You know, I can go extensive periods and just naturally, just not without talking at all. And that's kind of been an adaptive aspect of being in solitary. I would engage with people socially around me just to consciously keep my, I guess, social skills or ability to socialize and be amiable with people, you know, practical and functional I would consciously just I realize what solitary does to a person so I

develop ways of counting that are consciously and for those who don't do that and don't realize that you will deteriorate very quickly you know and I've witnessed the process and many other people so it actually it actually actually takes active conscious struggle against and understanding the effects of solitary to really counteract and prevent it from really taking an effect. And I won't say I've been unaffected by a solitary. But I think I've kept that bay a lot of the more damaging effects of it. And, you know, I've been able to survive it.

And a lot of, you know, a lot of people ask me, you know, all the time. You know, how have I kept my sanity over the years? You know, how has my mind still functioning as well as it does? How am I able to still socialize with people and empathize with people and still be receptive to, you know, a lot of the, the different social engagements with people that a lot of people just generally lose as a result of being solitary, and it was a conscious process. Yeah, the extreme sensory deprivation, social deprivation,

these are obvious forms of human torture, and it speaks to the deeply anti-human nature of the American prison system, and it takes, you know, hats off to you for the incredible fortitude and courage it takes to withstand those periods of death. deprivation to stand up for others in the midst of the hellhole that is American prison systems. It's just, it's absolutely flabbergasting to, to hear this stuff. Real quick, Brett. Yeah, go ahead. I just wanted to, like, really, like, highlight, too, that not just Rashid, but other political prisoners that, you know, prisoners that are involved

in the work and then moving to them, how, like, their courageousness and their spirit, because every political person I've ever talked to, like, even in the face of the, you know, extreme forms of torture, like, there are so much hope and determination, and, you know, like, there's still positivity there, and I just wanted to, you know, just, like, highlight that and salute the strength that a lot of the political prisoners have. Yeah, it's a testament to humanity, really. I want to shift and talk about the party and the ideology Many people are aware that you're a co-founder of the New African Black Panther Party

But as you mentioned in your intro several months ago You and other members basically split from the organization To found the revolutionary intercommunal Black Panther Party I was hoping you could talk a little bit about why this split occurred And importantly what the RIBPP hopes to accomplish and what makes it different Okay The struggle that took place within the New African Black Panther Party initially was against the individual who helped to facilitate its founding and development

who was Tom Watts, also known as Tom Big Warrior or Zingila. Tom Watts is, now he's an elderly white guy. He pretty much had done a lot of things that I, I took issue with, I felt that he had appropriated the culture of Native American peoples. You know, he calls him to identify himself as native, but he had taken on some pretty extreme, you know, ideas of himself as, you know, this savior of the Lenape people. He was going to be their historian and then ultimately the chief of the entire Lenape Nation. and he was going to revive the history of the linobees, and I took issue with this, you know, later on in our experience.

Initially, I really didn't pin a lot of the things that were problematic with him because, you know, I took him as he pretty much, you know, defined himself or described himself to me, which was, you know, a person who really was... You have one minute remaining. Oppressed people really being committed to help. helping to be oppressed to struggle against our oppressive conditions. And, you know, we shared a lot of the same political and, you know, ideological ideas and theories. You know, we had studied a lot of the same, you know, material.

We had a lot of similar political views and ideas about world conditions, you know, and various other things. Hold on one second. Let me call right back. Okay. The phone's going to hang out. All right. Thank you for using GTL. All right.

All power to the people. So, yeah, together, you, um, together, you, You know, we did a lot of back and forth correspondence. You know, he mentored me in a lot of areas politically, exposing me to a lot of, you know, analysis and theory that I didn't generally have access to. He helped to deepen my analysis of a lot of political, you know, theories and, you know, historical studies and much else. And together, you know, we developed the entire strategy for the New African Black Panther Party

through our correspondence but organizationally he didn't have the ability to develop the party or its mass organizations because he, by his own admission was good with developing ideas but not very good with implementing

or practicing or applying theories and ideas and, you know, he felt that you know, I was particularly developed where I was pretty good at developing both theory and devising, you know, strategic approaches and tactical approaches to implementing, you know, theories and ideas and developing, you know, just, I guess, different tactical methods of applying a lot of the theories that had been developed over the years, you know, within, you know,

communist political theories, as well as, you know, a lot of other, you know, organizational approaches to political, politically organizing the masses, you know, resistance to oppress. systems. We ended up, you know, pretty close, but ultimately, once I came to Indiana, where I was able to communicate with him by phone and to engage with a lot of the work that he was involved with doing related to the NABPP, I, you know, came to see a lot of the problems that he, that came along with him. You know, his interest to control the organization not allow any political, excuse me, any democratic practices to be applied. He wanted to dictate to the group.

He didn't want anybody to challenge him. He wanted people to relate to him as if he wanted a paternalistic way that he were their father. You know, he had a lot of deeply ingrained racist tendencies that he apparently didn't want to come to terms with. There was a lot of dishonesty, a lot of just blatant manipulative. I had watched him, you know, kick a lot of people out of organizational work, demoralize a lot of people because they didn't agree with him or because they wouldn't submit to him, you know, as a great leader or accept him as, you know, a role of controlling them in their politics. And I challenged him, you know, I challenged him as, you know, being an obstacle to developing the party, being able to actually, develop programs where the party's strategy and tactics could be applied to carrying it to the community because the work never really reached the community under, you know, his direction.

You know, he had pretty much control over communications and newsletters and everything dealing with the party throughout the time that Shaka and I were in prison, which was literally almost 15 years and the party never really developed on the ground. You know, there were a few people who had leadership positions who, you know, who wrote articles and did a lot of talking, but it really never fleshed out on the ground. There was never really any involvement in developing anything to change the conditions of the people who we were supposed to be struggling to benefit, and that was the whole objective. You know, in my orientation and being involved in the party work was to change the conditions

of the oppressed masses, not to just glorify a few individuals or, you know, sound mysterious or intellectual, but to really develop, you know, sound theory for changing. in this oppressive system and overthrowing, you know, those who control it and to empower the masses to take control of their own, you know, their own lives and livelihood. So in struggling against him, you know, upon realizing a lot of the problems with him, we ended up in, you know, sharp contradiction. And, you know, I challenged him, you know, a lot of his liberal tendencies, his racist tendencies, his, you know, attempts to dominate and control things and to manipulate people the way he wanted to, you know, have them do what he wanted

him to do. Then there were problems with Shaka. Shaka when he got out, you know, there were a number of instances where he was, you know, charged with abusing women, misusing funds that were being raised and donated for the party's work, complaints that were coming out of the United Transit movement from people who were involved in the organization. Can I speak on that a little bit? Yeah, definitely.

Yeah, not to interrupt. Since I was involved in a lot of the mass organization side of the things on the Shaka side, essentially, you know, a lot of commanding them, definitely a lot of complaints from different women about how, you know, shock was speaking to them and you know as a you know I was a part of the first two secretariat of the UPM and you know kind of turned into a thing where you know people would leave and you know mostly women and we were kind of wondering like why you know why it's happening and then you know slowly but surely the people that have like you know that spoke up about it well you know come to me or come to other members like

Schojourner and be like, hey, I just want to let you know this is the reason why, you know, why I step back, why didn't want to come. And, you know, more and more, it turned out that it had to do with Shaka. So, like, you know, other than the money thing, the, you know, the women question and, you know, dealing with, dealing with women and non-bodying and comrade was a huge contradiction. And so, you know, our first, the first two secretariat, of the UPM, you know, many people trying to bring these criticisms to Shaka. And, you know, we've pretty much tried everything we could. We gave every chance in the world.

We came up with a whole accountability process, had a whole, you know, whole organization-wide meetings to try to bring these to light. And, you know, eventually, you know, it takes both parties willing to accept the criticisms to move forward from it. And, you know, it just, you know, it kind of got to the point where it was like, even in the MADS organization, they're like, we don't want to organize if it involves Shaka and Tom. Like, you know, that's pretty much what the bulk of the organizational thing. And, you know, when it came down to it, I think at one point Shaka and Tom, even in the party, when the party was trying to do like a re-organization. meeting to kind of, you know, talk about who has what position and, you know, hold out, you know, elections to kind of re, to redo leadership.

Sharpe has actually liquidated the party. And so, you know, they said that they were the only outside New Africa Black Panther Party after that. And so, you know, like at that point, where do we go? you know so no one likes this no one likes to split but I think that the split actually you know made us stronger because most of the mass organization uh reconstituted at the panther solidarity organization from the upm and you know the other members of the party joined the RIPP do I mention anything Rishi uh not at all that was you know pretty good outline of everything that transpired. So yeah, so yeah, we ended up reconstituted as the

Revolutionary Criminal Black Panther Party after, you know, the comrades in the UPM tried to struggle against Shaka's behavior, you know, hold into account. And he refused. He literally, he literally maneuvered his way out of meetings and hearings for over a year, you know, multiple complaints about abuses of women and, you know, a number of other things, you know, He just systematically would not appear for meetings. He refused to listen to the criticisms at one point, you know, and I was involved in struggling against him within the party on the Central Committee over these same issues. You know, his need to be held accountable, his need to allow the UPM to hold its meetings

and his hearing to address the criticisms. You know, one minute we would agree that he would do it, and him and Tom would then turn around and say, no, he wasn't going to, you know, appear for the criticism. And, you know, being like the comrade said, when the struggle was made within the Central Committee, which was initiated by me to elect a new leadership, I had resigned from the Central Committee actually in protest over their behavior and shockers refusal to accept accountability for his behavior. And I tried to lead, you know, a meeting in an election to reelect the party leadership. because him and Tom were the only remaining leading members in the party. Everyone else had resigned across the year. You know, five members had resigned specifically because of problems with, you know, shock and Tom.

I resigned, you know, similar reasons. And ended up, you know, siding with the comrades who they expelled because they didn't want to allow for a new election process. They didn't want to allow for, you know, a diplomatic or democratic process, excuse me, within the party to air the contradictions that were coming out because of shock and Tom's behaviors. So, you know, ultimately, I sided with all the comrades that they expelled. You know, they claimed that there were no outside members as the comrade just said. They, you know, essentially just eliminated the entire party, outside party, you know.

Numerous members who they had just days before acknowledged and the day, identified as party members. They suddenly claimed they were not party members anymore. So we ended up reconstituting, you know, leaving those two behind and reconstituting as a revolutionary intercommunal Black Panther Party. Yeah, well, it's, you know, it's unfortunate that that had to happen, but it seems like all of you had genuine principled critiques and a principled approach to redress those critiques, and they just weren't met with the same integrity on the other side. So sometimes these things have to happen, and it seems like you guys went about it in

the most principled way possible. So let's talk a little bit about the theory associated with the Revolutionary Intercommunal Black Panther Party, which is, as you've mentioned a few times, revolutionary intercommunalism. I'm interested if you could talk a little bit about what that is, and I'm really interested in how it relates overall to Marxism, Leninism, Maoism, because these things are not mutually exclusive as far as I understand. No, they're not. Okay.

Revolutionary Communalism was first publicized as a theory by Huey Newton in 1970 with his analysis of the development of conditions of imperialism as they existed and were developing at the time, or actually they were in the very early stages at the time, where he came to realize that contrary to conditions as they had existed in prior air parks, The system of imperialism had evolved to a point where it was pretty much systematically pushing a lot of the traditional proletariat out of work. And as a result, it was producing massive numbers of marginalized people who could not find security in wage labor and were being forced to survive by any means necessary. And all of this was coming about as a result of the consolidation of the various aspects of the existing, you know, world economic system where things were being linked up to the point technologically, even politically, where there were no longer nations. There was not an ability to break away from a system or a world that was dominated more and more by the American empire that. controlled the economies of the world by interlinking, you know, most all of the technological

systems, the industries, et cetera, on a global scale where nations were no longer able to break away from and establishing their own sovereignty, you know, as opposed to the empire that was controlled by American interests. So, and we can look and see, you know, during the era following the national independence struggles, you know, after World War II up to the 70s, nobody had been able to since break away from and establish national sovereignty, you know, as previously oppressed nations because of being so linked to the economic system of the world that was, you know, dominated by the dollar and, you know, more and more through fossil fuel, et cetera. So the struggles or the aspirations to struggle for national independence by, you know, trying to develop a sovereign nation, socialism, et cetera, you know, through breaking all parts of the empire, it was no longer a viable approach to liberation of oppressed people against the system. And because of the development

and the interlinking of the world economically, the advances of industry, automation, et cetera, and with the pushing out of the traditional working class from traditional wage labor, also the massive consumption of the rural areas to advance, you know, automation as far as advanced agriculture to, you know, the advanced technological agricultural systems, you know, massive numbers of peasants were being pushed off, you know, the land. So traditional peasantry was also being purged on a global scale. And all of these people, the traditional peasants, the traditional working class were being pushed into urbanized settings where they were no longer able to find, you know, wage labor or

to be able to find work where they could survive. So you had a, you have a growing class of people that, you know, Hughie predicted we're going to ultimately end up outnumbering the traditional proletariat who were unable to find work and unable to survive, you know, at the point of production. And this, in his idea was the, was going to be a new class of revolutionary people who were the lumpin. And we advanced, well, actually, let me clarify what his analysis was. He felt that the lump in water were going to be the new revolutionary class because of their desperation and because of the contradictions with the capitalist system

and the ruling class and their inclination to rebel and to, you know, instinctively oppose, you know, the ruling class and the domination of the state and the police, military systems, he felt that the lumping, or he idealized the lumping as the new class that we should organize, you know, to become the new revolutionary force, as opposed to what Marx, Lenin, Mao, et cetera, recognized as, you know, the traditional proletariat's role. Okay. We, in our advancing the analysis of revolutionary and communalism, find that some aspects of Huey's theory were off the mark.

generally he was on point as far as his prediction of how the global economy was developing under the american empire especially with the dissolution of the soviet union the dissolution of china as a socialist society and is now becoming a sub-imperialist society and world power he pretty much called it exactly you know the way the world was going to be uh hooked up under you know reactionary, what he called reactionary intercommunalism or what's more generally recognized today as neoliberalism, where there's a war against poor people, there's a war against the marginalized people. There has been a revocation of what were liberal democratic concessions that were made to the people who were fighting for liberation within the, you know, the capitalist centers and those who were fighting for national independence. There was no longer, because of the

competition against the influence of the Soviet Union in China throughout the third world, that competition no longer exists with the collapse of the Soviet Union and China have been going down the capitalist road since the 70s. So now America has the dominant position, so there's no longer, or there has been no longer a need to try to placate the masses, you know, within the imperialist countries or to compete with the Soviet Union and China's influence with third world people. So America now has just taken a totally repressive. posture against, you know, the marginalized people who live in these urbanized centers

who've been pushed out of work and pushed out of the urban, I mean, the rural areas as farmers, and there's no longer any real attempt to provide them with basic, you know, a basic social safety net. So the masses in the urbanized communities have now to devise a way to survive, you know, by any means necessary. Many of them are lumping. Without any real political support, there have been, you know, the traditional approach of the Marxist party, which is focused on the proletariat, the Maoist parties traditionally focused on the peasantry. There has been no real party that has been oriented toward... You have one minute remaining. Meeting the needs of the marginalized people in urbanized settings, except the model that he developed, which was, as he,

you know, he theorized was oriented toward the lumping. So he actually developed a whole political approach toward communalizing or socializing, particularly reactionary layer of society that is growing because of being pushed out of traditional employment and farming and being able to politicize them so that they become contributed to revolutionary struggle. So hold on one second. Let me call right back. all right all part to the people all part to the people all right so just basically there was there was a there was the understanding that um through applying a party

organization approach to developing programs that could meet the needs of people who were not um functioning at the point of production which was a proletary but in marginalized communities where they actually had little access to a control over productive resources. How could they develop means of meeting social needs and becoming communalized

whereas they had been conditioned to just sharp competition with each other just to survive? And here we came up with a whole organizational approach to this, a programmatic approach which was through developing Served People programs where the resources in the community were able to be collected

and through collectivized cooperation, the needs of the communities could be met, and it conditioned people who had been, you know, socialized to being competitive and praying on each other, et cetera, to working together, to meet social needs and to provide a stable base of re-socializing the youth and basing its work on, you know, primarily developing programs to meet the needs of the youth, which their primary service people program, was, you know, the free breakfast program for school children. So he actually came up with approach and a strategy and a party organization that was able to meet the needs of the growing masses of people in the urbanized settings in a way

that had not been developed before and to meet the needs of a people who had been basically abandoned by traditional Marxist organizational approaches. And that there was really no account for politicizing, you know, as a mass base that to be or become, you know, a revolutionary force. And we recognize that, contrary to what, you know, Huey theorized that the proletariat was still and still is the revolutionary force that has to lead the revolutionary struggle to seize control of the productive system and to implement socialism.

But the lumping and the unemployed masses in the marginalized communities, they have to be politicized and won over to decide of the genuine revolutionary movement or as has occurred, you know, throughout history and all of the revolutionary situations, they will be manipulated and they will be won over to the side of the reactionary and become agents of violent repression of the revolutionary forces used by the bourgeoisie, the ruling class, the capitalists in general. So our whole approach is to organize this marginalized sectors of the world on a world scale community by community implementing the whole concept of revolutionary intercommunalism, which is to take these resources that have been linked

together on a global scale under neoliberalism or reactionary intercommunalism, allowing the masses to take control over them of these resources, link them together, linking them together in a intercommunal struggle, and ultimately seizing control of the communities on an intercommunal level alongside the proletariat being led to seize control of the system, you know, at the point of production in order to implement socialism, both in the marginalized communities as well as, you know, in the productive system. Yeah, I mean, I think that's essential analysis.

It's hyper-relevant to the modern context, and it's definitely the way forward without a doubt. So I think that's incredibly interesting. And definitely the past, the way to go. So salute to your organization for pursuing it. So one more question before we zoom in toward the conclusion here, Rashid. Given the fact that there's this focus on organizing the lump and proletariat and given the fact that, you know, you're based, your organizing bases out of prisons, what are some of the unique challenges that come with attempting to reach out

and organize members of the lump and proletariat in your experience? Oh, they are many Because the lumping Because of their social conditioning As well as just the marginalized layers Of the masses Who in urbanized settings They are individualized on a high level

You know, they've been conditioned to competition To seeking to meet basic needs And to aspire in many ways Toward the achievements of the bourgeoisie Which is immediate wealth, power, domination control of other people, praying on other people so we have to totally re-mode, re-socialize these values

and that is a protracted and it's a difficult process and especially organizing within the prison setting it's a struggle because the pigs take advantage of like France Anon, you know, he explained you know, the pigs will always take advantage

of the apolitical stance of the lumping who are, you know, easily appealed to and manipulated by you know both their reactionary tendencies, playing them against other in tribal ways, you know, the tribalistic inclinations or the individualistic inclinations, the inclinations toward using force, violence, threats as a means of gaining respect, power, dominance.

They're, you know, being able to be manipulated or appeal to or bought off with, you know, promises of wealth or, you know, little material concessions or tokens. So these are tendencies that we have to develop. know, means of countering, which is primarily through developing programs that collectivize the work of the masses, prisoners, and winning them over to a community-oriented way of doing things and re-socializing them on a level of communication as opposed to individual competition. And that in and of itself is, you know, a hard road to hoe. And, you know, I deal with it, a lot of comrades have dealt with in the prison context, political prisoners, you know,

where we have been met with a lot of the reactionary tendencies that are, you know, systematically and consciously played through and manipulated by the pigs, particularly with, you know, the prison gangs, those inside the prisons that, you know, are inclined to illegitimate capitalist pursuits such as, you know, hustling in various ways. They are easily manipulated by the pigs allowing them to get away with some things and then using them as forces of reaction against comrades. You had comrades physically attacked, you know, in Texas by these, you know, racist, you know, prison gangs. Others have been manipulating the various ways against comrades.

I've dealt with some of that where I am now, you know, their comrades in other states who are, you know, dealt with similar things. So it's a challenge and a struggle on every level, but it's a strong. struggle that has to be engaged and it has to be won in order to bring the masses into, you know, political life and to counter the tactics of the pigs to play us against each other, to, you know, play on social divisions and manipulate people based on, you know, holding out little material incentives that they withhold all together, but little tokens, incentives they give a little favor of this. They show the certain elements within our

communities in the prison to you know use them against us so yeah it's it's a it's a challenge on every level but through organizing you know programmatic cooperative work amongst prisoners and within our community and proletarianizing prisoners vote and you know the community consciously as well as in our social work and our economic struggles is definitely doable and we have been able to succeed in many areas, you know, in this work. Absolutely, and as you were talking, it made me think of one last question before we go into the conclusion, which is, you know, the racial divisions in a white supremacist, settler colonial society are obvious and everywhere on the outside of prison.

People that have never been in prison often get a sort of pop culture version of racial divisions within prison. What has your experience been as far as, like, white supremacists or racial divisions that can impede on organizing attempts or raising class consciousness and solidarity, et cetera. What's the reality of racial divisions inside the prison system? It's about as real as you can get anywhere. Okay, originally in Virginia, I hadn't really been exposed to a lot of the racial, I guess, prison gangs, or racialized prison games, white supremacist's prison games,

because gangs had never taken a route in Virginia prisons until like 2004. So people were generally respected and accepted for how you carried yourself. And more so the polarization inside or the competition between groups inside of Virginia prisons for decades was based on where you were from, you know, the city you were from. It wasn't really based on, you know, gang orientation or racial orientation or that sort of thing. When I went to Oregon, that was my first taste. of being around racial gangs. And Oregon is like probably the prison system is like 75% white,

probably 5% to 10% black. And I had never been exposed to an environment in prison where it was majority white. So most of the organizations in Oregon are Aryan gangs and, you know, some Mexican organizations. But that was my first exposure to racialized gangs and the culture of racial separatism. and the pigs sent me there for that very purpose.

You know, they, when I got there, they were spreading rumors that I was a Black Panther, and, you know, they were telling the white gangs, Black Panthers don't like white people, and we wanted to engage in the war to kill white babies and all the type of psychotic foolishness. And, you know, the prisoners were, you know, they were more than happy to believe this. So I was being confronted by black prisoners who were telling me what the white prisoners were telling them, and that they wanted some clearance from the black prisoners to come after me. So when I was confronted with this,

they were also telling them I was in prison for rape and all sorts of other foolishness that, you know, I'd never had any type of charges or convictions for just because that's something that is extremely unpopular in prison and you can end up on the receiving end of all sorts of violence when you have, you know, rape charges or charges for sexual abuse for children, that pedophilia, that sort of thing. So they tried to spread rumors, you know, amongst these white prisoners.

Everything that they felt would incite them violently against me, racially and culturally. And it ended in some conflicts, but because they didn't get the reaction they expected, which was, one, passivity or two, me responded in kind with some racialized politics. I actually ended up in a couple of conflicts. with some of them. And when they saw that I wasn't going to relent, then that in large part suppressed some of that inclination. And then I started to actually politicize the white prisoners. I started sharing literature with them on, you know, the history of racism, how race had been invented in the 1600s and manipulated to replace the working class. At that time, the invention

service enslaved against each other, how race has pretty much been divided, excuse me, designed and defined by the ruling class and their intellectuals and their, you know, their propagandists to play the oppressed against each other. And it actually took a root amongst them. You know, I ended up in winning them over to the politics that we were promoting the party. You know, we have a white component to the organization, both the NAVPP and the RIBPP. You know, we have the White Panther. So I was exposing them to White Panther literature.

the history of racism, you know, how race had been manipulated, the bogus history that they learned about Arianism and all of this, and, you know, how culturally prisoners are supposed to, or if we are to achieve any level of power, control, or change of balance of power in our environment, we have to work together, whether we like each other or not. So I kind of struggled against what was actually segregation inside the prison where the black prisoners were made to sit in the back of the child hall. I refused, I bucked that trend. I went and sat in the front with the whites and ended up in a class with the pigs over it. And because of some of the stands that I were taken, I ended up winning a lot of the whites over to, you know, what I stood for. And, you know, just basically interesting the politics that I was promoting. And they ended up turning what was then going on in California. You had the massive California prison strikes that were going into the time against solitary confinement.

and I ended up winning a lot of them into taking up, you know, with the hunger strike that was going on, that was to take place in California. They ended up, you know, becoming politicized in a lot of the material that I was sharing amongst them. A lot of the prisoners who were neutral, you know, or were forced to pretend like they were white supremacists or didn't want to socialize with other races because of, you know, the dominant culture. They came over to our side. I ended up, when I first got there, you know, prisons didn't work out together with people who were other races. They didn't sit together. They didn't socialize. I ended up with a huge group of prisons I worked out with every day on the rec yard, a multiracial group, whites, Mexicans, Native Americans, Asians, blacks.

All of us would go out and work out together on the big wreckyard and population. So the pigs saw that. They ended up setting me up and locking me up. So when I was trying to set up inside a riot, then they set me up while I was in segregation on a bogus, you know, assault. charge that had nothing to do with me. So then the ages ended up kicking me out of Oregon. And it takes that type of politicizing, organizing amongst prisoners to change the racial polarization.

As I said, I had never really been exposed to those types of politics inside of the prisons until I was moved out of state. But I confronted them in Oregon. Then when I went to Texas, I saw much of the same thing, a similar thing in Florida and similar here in Indiana. but I was kind of naive to it because I had never been exposed to, you know, prison environments where there were racialized games. And it's very effectively manipulated by the pigs. They play these racial politics and as it had been in society, but a lot of people don't realize the pigs are the primary factor.

The ruling class is the primary fact of racialized politics. And the polarizations of race, they invented it, they manipulated, and they use it, and they appeal to it, just like you should. see, you know, overt racism has become, you know, a popular thing now with Donald Trump making it okay. You know, it's usually the elites who manipulate people to take up racialized politics and brace them and, you know, openly espouse them and to use them to repress other people, especially those amongst the poor and the working class. So, you know, our politics is to develop intercommunal support for the oppressed people of all races and to develop programmatic unity between us,

you know, all oppressed people to bring us together in a common struggle against a common class enemy. Yeah, oh, Comrade. Yeah. I heard you brought up, since you brought up like Congress and the RIWPO, I just want to bring the light that we actually had a recent win in one of the correctional facilities in elementary in North Carolina

are a national spokesperson for the RWPO. Shine White went on hunger strike around Monday because of the conditions and them not locking up Shire and other prisoners and not allowing them outside time and access to the day room. So they all about 40 prisoners went on hunger strike Monday. And by Wednesday, the prison actually gave them, gave them up the day room back up to them. And it gave them all four, I was like outside type back. Nice. So. So, you know, that type of struggle, that type of active struggles was really, you know, politicizes people.

And, you know, after that when, you know, who's to say what, with all the prisoners that, you know, participated in that, what they've learned from that and how they, you know, notice how collective action works. Yeah. Beautiful. Absolutely. All right. over an hour here, so I'm going to zoom in for the final question or two. Before we let you go, Rashid, is there any main message that you'd like to get out to people? We have tens of thousands of people tuning in, anything you want to say to them,

or any lessons that we on the outside should draw from you and your life? I would call on the people to join the PSO, the Solidary Organization, to develop collectives amongst yourself based in the communities. and for those who are part of organizations already to join the PSM, which is the Panther Solidarity Movement, to unify yourself under the umbrella of, you know, the pantherism, you know, I'm in a communal struggle, to bring us together in a common move against this oppressive system.

And the masses are more than awakening to the oppressions of the system at this time with the systematic abuse and murders of oppressed people by the pigs, more and more coming to light about the abuse. You have one minute remaining. We need to consolidate our work. We need to stop being manipulated by organizations who just want to co-opt us and bring us back under the control of the historically racist, imperialist, democratic coalition and party.

We need revolutionary leadership. We need revolutionary organizing. We need to bring the masses into revolutionary consciousness and work. And this is what we need to move. forward and to change this system and to stop the oppressions and abuses that are going on because the system is not going to stop it and those who identify with co-opting this into you know a democratic party-led movement are not going to change this system the democrats have had centuries or over a century of opportunity to change you know what's going on and it began

as a party of the clan and it still is it's just clandestinely so and nothing is going to change unless we take control of the means of control in our community and the wealth and bring together the masses to struggle to change these conditions. Thank you for using GTL. All right, well, Rashid, it's been a subject to monitoring and recording. Thank you for using GTL. All right, well, Rashid, it's been an absolute. honor to have you on, to hear about your life story, to learn about the party and all the amazing work that you're doing. Before I let you go, where can listeners find more of your work,

including your books, and how can we directly support you and the R-I-B-P-P-P? All right. I have a website which has most of my articles and my books available on it. That's Rashid-M-O-D.com, R-A-S-H-I-D-M-O.com. and I let the comrade, comrade Garland, he can share, you know, more contact information for the IBPP, how to reach us online, our social media pages. I also have a Facebook page, Kevin Rashid Johnson, and I let the comrade give you more contact information for the party. Yeah, so, you know, my email is nalj. ribppp.org.

So that's another contact for us. If anyone's trying to contact the general secretary, it's general. dot secretary at rbp.org. And the chairperson, sojourner, her email is chair at rbpp.org. We also have a guest to catch up, which is Solidarity, the number two, R-I-BPP, so Solidarity to R-BPP. It would be super helpful. They don't feel like, you know, Derey funds because the phone calls are bad expensive. So that would really be helpful for us.

We have an Instagram page as well, Revolutionary Intercommunal BPP, and there's a Facebook page as well. my personal i guess instagram is garlic junior if anyone cares but it's felt how it sounds just garlic junior so hit me up send me a message i post a lot of memes wonderful yeah we'll link to all of that in the show notes so people can find the organization check out the books and importantly donate directly to to rashy through the cash app because i think that's incredibly important so thank you again to both of you for coming on, love and solidarity with everything you're doing, and you always have a home here at Rev Left if you want to amplify any message or get anything out about the

party or your experiences within the prison system. Thank you, Brad. Thank you. It was also an honor. I would say thank for having us, Brad. I feel like this interview was like a long time coming thing, so cool to finally speak with you a little bit. Absolutely. Keep up the great work.