Rev Left Radio - RIBPP Update: Rashid's Cancer Diagnosis, Mass Work, and Carceral Cruelty

Episode Date: July 28, 2022

Comrade Garlic joins the Show to discuss Kevin Rashid Johnson's cancer diagnosis and struggle for adequate care within the brutal carceral system, a lack of medical care as a weapon against political prisoners, updates on the RIBPP and its mass org, serving the people, compassionate release, and more. Red Voice: The Voices of the People: https://redvoice.news/ RIBPP Linktree: https://linktr.ee/ribpp Free Shawn "Flip" Joyner: https://actionnetwork.org/letters/free-shawn-flip-joyner Contact: [e-mail] [e-mail] Instagram @'s: - @intercommunalbpp - @pathersolidarityorganization - @garlicjunior Outro music: "This Time We Get it Right" by Comrade Garlic  Listen to more here: www.soundcloud.com/comradegarlic Support Rev Left Radio: https://www.patreon.com/RevLeftRadio

Hello everybody and welcome back to Rev Left Radio. On today's episode, I have back on the show, Comrade Garlich, to discuss the current situation with Kevin Rashid Johnson, namely his cancer diagnosis and his brutal mistreatment within the prison system. We also talk about the organization more broadly revolutionary intercommunal Black Panther Party. Their mass organization is some developments therein. also some organizations that work in alliance with the RIBPP or have in some ways contributed or shown solidarity with them. A bunch of them are mentioned and shouted out in the episode.

All the links mentioned in this show about how to apply pressure to help out or even just to follow the news so that if and when another phone zap or another action is needed on Rashid's behalf, you'll be there to see it and hopefully participate. Anything at all in this situation helps a lot. And as we mentioned in this show and in the Kevin Rashid Johnson interview we did a year or so ago, showing that there is a number of people outside of the prison that care or in a continuous contact with certain prisoners, particularly political prisoners, is in and of itself a safety mechanism of protective bulwark for that individual prisoner because the worst brutalities and depravities can be, and dehumanizations can be inflicted on people in the corrections, you know,

especially when they feel like they are out of sight and out of mind when the people in the prison that are being dehumanized have nobody on the outside watching their back or caring about them it's open season so it's particularly important just with phone zaps or anything like that to participate if you can it's a simple and easy way to show them that you know somebody like rishid has people on the outside that deeply care and have his back so without further ado here's my conversation with comrade garlic about Rashid's cancer diagnosis, the mass organization, and much more. Enjoy. Hey, everyone. All-Pyter people, this is Comrade Garlick from the Revolutionary Intercommunal Black Panther Party. I'm the Minister of Justice, and, you know, just kind of here to talk about our recent events centered around our Minister of Defense, Kevin Rishi Johnson. Absolutely. Well, welcome back to the show.

Always a pleasure to speak with you, and folks might remember you from the, basically, the interview we had with Kevin Rashid Johnson, which we did, I think, a year or so ago, but I also put it on our best of series that we just released this spring. So people have probably heard it, and you were instrumental in making that interview happen. And this is kind of in some sense of follow-up on what's going on with Rashid and his situation. So let's just start there. What exactly is going on for people that have no idea of what's happening? So recently, we found out that a comrade,

has been diagnosed with prostate cancer. You know, on the 1st of July, this is when we first got news of this. They took, you know, 13 samples out of a biopsy performed on June 23rd, and 11 of them were malignant. And so it kind of seems like it kind of, what we think is what happens is that they, that the prison, actually knew about it well before this came out.

So, like, there was, you know, he had his blood drawn on October 8th of 2021. And, you know, so he had a PSA levels of 14.3. I think a normal PSA level is supposed to

be around, like, four. So, you know, around this time, too, was when he was in Ohio and that's when he was faced with, you know, large white supremacist, repression, pretty much being like to his face

verbally threatened, like, you know, we'll kill you in here, we'll make a little like an accident, this is that mess. They were trying to get prisoners to, you were trying to put hits on them through the other incarcerated folks. That, you know, obviously that didn't happen, but they were trying to bribe them with, you know,

various privileges and whatnot, you know, fast-forwarded after, you know, he got sent back to Virginia as when, you know, the testing and all that started to happen. So, you know, we, we, uh, us and, of course, a lot, large help from Mary Radcliffe from the San Francisco Bayview. Uh, we, we started a, you know, a phone's app, a movement to, you know, get people calling and give them treatment because, you know, cancer serious, you know, and it moves quickly. We finally, Rashid was finally seen on the 20th of July. So, you know, he was told that, you know,

two weeks from then, he would have to make the decision to either start radiation or surgery. So we haven't quite got to that point yet to see if they actually follow up with their two-week timeline. but you know if not we're going to definitely start pushing again for the calls and emails and whatnot as well he's he's been suffering you know now i guess they call it a cancer fatigue he's uh extreme exhaustion uh he's having you know body aches swelling of arms and legs stuff like that yeah that's absolutely brutal um you were mentioning the the white supremacist sort of in the

Ohio correction facilities and it's linked to what is is the argument or the the speculation just that there was actively poor treatment that could have exacerbated or that they knew that he had cancer but they kept it from and what what's the what's the exact claim there yeah that's that's exactly what we think we think that they knew as early as then and you know purposely did not act on it I mean I think we've seen plenty of times with the with you know the prison system, how, you know, if they can't outright kill you, they're going to kill you in some sort of way, be it, you know, the shitty food. Like, you know, realistically, it's almost like, it's almost like, yeah, of course he's got cancer

now, you know, like you got poor, you know, nutrition, terrible, you know, hygiene, schedules, you know, he's told me plenty of time whenever he is released, he only has 30 minutes to go out to send emails, to shower, to do, you know, the various things that he can. can do which like you you know I like to take 30 minutes shower you know what I'm saying like so and not only another thing happened every day so like with all things considered you see how they treated with meas you have to treat it with Tulu like they that's this this is their ammo this is a state's MOT if we can't kill you out right then we're just gonna we're gonna do the long game yeah and if anybody has any doubts about that or wants to learn more about the absolute

brutality of prisons in general and Kevin Rashid Johnson's treatment in particular, that interview we did with him, he laid out multiple situations that have happened to him that, you know, you would think was in like a bad prison movie, but happened routinely in the rotten correction facilities, you know, throughout this country. But I do want to ask a little bit more about medical treatment in prison. It's a fair assumption that a lot of people don't have at least firsthand accounts of what it's like just basic health care in prison. Can you speak a little bit about that outside even the context of his cancer diagnosis but just what it's like for people in prison to get routine high quality medical care you know um you know just speaking to you from

the first senate council i've gotten from the comrade uh he's even told me how uh he's gone to the doctor doctor's been like oh we really need you know this to happen for you i'm i try to push for it and you know it's kind of like it's kind of like with the uh how the police do stuff like if you get one person that's kind of trying to do the right thing and the you know your surroundings will will push back on it you might even get a transfer you might even lose your job you know what I'm saying so it's like you're there especially with someone who is a political prisoner especially they have no interest in treating you you know what I'm saying you're if you're an enemy of a state they they want you to die right

And yeah, the health care front becomes, as you've alluded to, just another weapon in their arsenal to attack him and dehumanize him and make his time even shittier than it could possibly be. You did mention earlier before we started recording about another prisoner and their context and kind of connecting this story up with that. Do you want to touch on that? Yes. So I was talking about Sean Flip Joyner. This is another new African man in Nadaway Correctional who's suffering from a brain tumor. And he's recently, you know, he obviously got taken back to the hospital. He's now, like, lost control over motor skills. We've been doing another campaign for him to get a compassionate release.

You know, we don't want anyone to, we don't want anyone in prison begin with, but also we don't want anyone dying in prison from something like this. So we're calling for the compassionate release to his family. so he doesn't have to die within these walls. You know, we have like a change.org petition as well. I can seem to link to that for later. So if anyone wants to check it out. But, you know, like this isn't an isolated incident.

You know, like this isn't just about Rashid. This is about, you know, all of our political prisoners and all of the people that are, you know, incarcerated right now. Yeah. Do you have any sense of how often the appeal to compassionate release actually works? Is it like everything else, an absolute uphill battle and there's only sort of the exceptions or rare occasions where it actually comes through and works or is there actually a little bit more robustness to that

to that claim of you know we need this person to be released because they're terminally ill and they don't want to die inside prison yeah so it's definitely it's definitely a rarity but you know something that's giving me hope uh you know recently i met comrade julien and as you know he uh he was incarcerated for the last 50 years um so So, you know, that stuff like that does give, you know, a little bit of hope, you know, if we can get, you know, someone like Jalil back home, you know, with his family, with friends, with comrades, then we can also, you know, do the same. As we know, the prisons hate, the one thing the prisons hate more is people knowing what they're doing. Exactly. You know, they, long as if they feel like they have the, you know, the protection of no one caring,

about incarcerated folks, then they think they can do whatever they want. And so the biggest thing is to just, is to let them know that, you know, we see y'all, we know what y'all are doing. We're going to call. We're going to email. We're going to keep highlighting the situation and making sure people know what's going on. Absolutely. Yeah, that's a huge deal with behind the phone zaps. Of course, you're working towards a goal, but also a byproduct of that is that it's showing the prison that this inmate or this set of inmates has people on the outside, friends, family, and beyond that are monitoring the situation that are actively caring about that person and that in and of itself can at least act as a bulwark against the worst acts

of depravity behind the scenes because, as you said, they know on some level they're being watched and reports are getting out to people outside of the prison. Do you want to talk about also your organization in general? I know you mentioned something about a development with the mass org in particular and i'd like to give you some time to talk about that no for sure um we uh oh real quick too um just for like for if people want like the uh the full kind of like uh just like articles highlighting a lot of the timeline and stuff that's been happening rachid uh you can find it on redvoice dot news uh they've been really helpful at you know putting stuff out there uh for us so i just wanted to let people know about that um

But also for the MAZ organization, the Panther Solidarity Organization, we've been making some pretty good headways here, I think. You know, we got our main group out in Newark. We've started to form multiple in New York City. We're on Baste right now, specifically in Ridgewood. You know, for Newark, we've been in, you know, I guess people will call it, you know, like a hood or whatever called a Bradley Court. For over, we've been doing two served-to-people programs over a year now, which has been pretty great. We're doing hot breakfast Saturday mornings and doing dinners, Wednesday nights,

and Bradley Court, and also, you know, just like various activities for the kids, be at boxing, whatnot. We've been doing, did Halloween event, Black Caucus event. We've got another Black August event, obviously, coming up. So we've been, it's been really nice because, you know, We've been, the whole thing, you know, revolutionary and communalism is that we want to be, we want the folks in their areas to, you know, determine what they need. And we want the mass organization to be something that the masses take up. And so it's been, it's been super inspiring, really, to see folks come out.

Folks in, you know, the masses will tell you what they see as well. So we have people all the time being like, yo, y'all are out here every week, like rain, sleep, snow. You know, we will show up, and they really appreciate that. And now they're offering, it's like, oh, do you want to, like, I can cook. Like, I can do this. I can do that. And we've had people dropping all stuff. We've got, you know, people, you know, cooking various parts of our dinners and meals now.

You know, mothers, people that, you know, haven't, you know, previously been politically active are now participating in. And I think that's like the real difference between something that's charity. and something that's solidarity. Absolutely. Yeah, serving the people in, you know, all weather conditions, being consistent with your presence, right? That's a huge thing with organizations. They'll get, you know, they'll go on a meeting and come up with some idea,

go into a community, it doesn't work out. You know, they disappear. They're there for a month, two months, and they're gone. You know, they could still do good stuff in that time, but you don't have enough time to form a connection with the community. But by serving the people consistently over time, as you say, there's almost a natural process of, you know, people from the community starting to get organized, coming in, trying to help the organization

that they see is helping their community. And then you build revolutionaries and literally build organizers out of the masses in that way. And so it sounds like you're doing that to the T. And that's a learning experience for other organizations to definitely take note of. How can people, you know, join or support, let's say, whether they're in that locality or even outside of it, is there any links or anything that people can go to to either support or join? yeah definitely so essentially we require three people in an area to be considered a collective so if you have three people you agree to our temporary program and that's the only real barrier because it's the mass organization so you want to make it like you know easy to participate in

you know we get sent an email to a general dot secretary ribPP.org and of course you'll be contacted with us we'll help you set up you know we We, you know, we have our national group chat and stuff like that. So we have a lot of people that you can bounce ideas off of, ask questions, you know, like anything you need to get started. We're definitely looking for it. And we also have another way, too. We have our Panther Solidarity Movement, essentially, if you have, you know, a group that you've already formed, but you, you know, you're in solidarity with us. You grew up our two-point program.

You just want to be linked with us in that way. we have you know we have that option as well kind of adjacent to that too when it comes to street formation specifically you know we're building this thing called the clinch fist alliance that you know folks in these organizations that want to you know turn onto a more revolutionary aspect of their organization that's another way to to join up with as well So you have the Panther Solidarity Movement, the Clenched Fist Alliance, the Mass.org, and to join the mass org, you just have to more or less agree to the 10, you know, points. Yeah, and then the general.secretary.ri.R.BPP.com. I'll link to that in the show notes as well as redvoice.com, et cetera. Try to make it as easy for people to access the links being mentioned throughout this episode.

I guess as a more or less final question, this was, you know, a shorter episode meant to get out a specific acute set of points about Kevin Rashid Johnson's situation and the organization more broadly. But is there any other things that you wanted to say? And also, how else can people help specifically with Rashid's situation, if at all? I know one of the ways, just kind of just raising funds for like organizational stuff, we've been putting Rashid's artwork out on T-shirts that you can buy from us. You can find it on like very Instagram. I think the store is called Political Bay.

I can seem to link a little bit later. So that just helps us kind of just like keep stuff running. Also keeping an eye out on our social medias. Or just like intercommunal BPP on Instagram. We've got a Twitter as well. You know, and just, you know, just keep an eye out because if they don't do, if a prison doesn't do what they say they're going to do, we're definitely going to need another push to,

to keep them accountable and keep them moving also wanted to just for just you know for solidarity purposes I really wanted to shout out some other groups that you know

that are in alignment with us and you know that we really like if you don't mind yeah of course yeah so we've got La Marech was the Bangladeshi diaspora

mass organization out here in New York City with us they're doing fantastic work definitely check them out Mexicans Unitos, another, like a Mexican, mainly mass organization out here. They do this thing called La Plaza every Sunday. They've organized all the vendors essentially in the area in Sunset Park in Brooklyn. They've been doing this for over a year, going out, taking over the parks, hosting pretty much just like a large market every Sunday.

It's beautiful. Definitely got to check it out. You know, Annik Bayon, Manhattan, Gabriella and Buyin, Bain, Filipino groups. New York Barrico Resistance, which is the Puerto Rican group, Rookbury Press, printing out, you know, hard to find literature. We got Crow, the People's Collective in Sacramento, in the spirit of Mandela, the Jergo movement in San Francisco Bay, Bay News. They've been awesome out here, especially with the work for political prisoners, people's portable library out here in Newark, for the people, of course, and, And Red Voice News, we definitely, you know, we love you guys. Thank y'all so much for all the solidarity.

You know, we pant the love forever. Oh, yeah. Salute to all those comrades. It's beautiful to see all these organizations, you know, coming to the scene and doing work. And it's awesome to start seeing them connect up and help each other out. It's a beautiful thing. And the social media is important for your organization, specifically because a lot of news will be put out there. Like if there is another phone zap or, you know, another action needed.

the social media accounts, at least that's how often I'll hear about that stuff is through the social media accounts. So at the very least, follow and keep up on those. But yeah, thank you so much for coming on, for keeping us up to date with Kevin Rashid Johnson's situation. Obviously, we care about that a lot. We're always here to get the word out as much as possible. And your organization in general is one that I personally deeply support and our show supports. So it's awesome to always check in with you and see how things are going. And so, you know, open invite anytime for any reason. You always have Rev left here for you.

And our hearts are definitely with Rashid and his struggle right now. And we'll do anything we can to help going forward. I thank you so much, Fred. I appreciate it a lot. I can't keep you on the same. The voices rattle my brain. Liberation flows in my veins. Black lives reduce to nags.

Your fucking night, it's next. Freedom to the West Bank. Freedom to the Philippines. Freedom for all colonies. done for you and me and fuck all police which pain for enemies vengeance guarantee the first will become last won't ever get the past my calm off that's brash won't hesitate to blast we gotta take up the task the earth dying real fast power to work in class lot of fire under they ass the people must unite the people are the light it's all of our fight it's time we get

it right the people must unite unite the people are the light it's all of our fight all fight this time we get it right this time to get it right