Hybachi LeMar speaks from SCI Smithfield on “Prisoner Support” panel alongside Juan Carlos Hernandez at the Chicago Anarchist Skillshare
[This is a call from Pennsylvania State Correctional Institution Smithfield. This call is subject to recording and monitoring]
[Solidarity! Solidarity!]
Alright – Solidarity, yall! Revolutionary greetings! This is Hybachi LeMar, and these are ways of providing effective prisoner support.
First I’d like to say, thank you Orphanage, Midwest Books to Prisoners Collective, and everyone taking this brief and special moment in time to hear how you can effectively give prisoners support.
While there are many ways you can help, tonight’s presentation will provide a strong base for showing support. You’re all extraordinary, and you standing up with us is appreciated.
When I asked my bunky how folks outside can support prisoners, his first and immediate response was “By providing books!”
I agree 100%. The only literature available on the tall wooden cabinet in the unit we’re on are Bibles and Christian pamphlets.
I was ordered to ship my books home when I was transferred from Jacksonville. The only option the administration gave me was that they be destroyed.
Destroyed. Something to think about. For example, why not at least give the option for ideas to be donated to the prison library instead that they be destroyed?
Books like “The Sentences That Create us” help me communicate better.
Culturally relevant reads on the Zapatistas and Lorenzo’s “Anarchism and the Black Revolution” would be colorful alternatives to the Bible.
I’m glad to hear my books made it home safely.
Another key unlocking the door to human development is the bliss that comes with the ability to share romantic connections. While friendship, once found, is priceless, prisoners are lonely – lonely for an affection that’s no less human. To have someone to send those special kind of letters to, and to feel your heart race when you get one back at mail call.
Tens of thousands are isolated in America’s holes. Having the chance to hook up with someone unlocks the chains from the heart to explore. The mind can become an exit: and those of us wanting romance can be, frankly speaking, with limited time we have in the moment.
Two of the most effective ways you can support prisoners aboveground is by:
1. assisting collectives like as Midwest Books to Prisoners and South Chicago Anarchist Black Cross zine distro. Books and Zines are battlegrounds, especially in their capacity for self improvement. Having them spells the difference between the mind being idle and learning; and marks the difference between possessing ignorance or knowledge.
And 2: helping prisoners become a part of something bigger and more meaningful; particularly by supporting correspondence dating as a means of connecting the dots of divinely human desires.
These two aspects of support are highly overlooked and are highly requested.
With this said, we’re placing an ad called “Heart and Mind”; which is a free penpal service for correspondence dating between those in the same situation for a radical romance; and safe, on the platform of respect and intercellular growth, and the intellectual intimacy that comes from those seeking study from materials sent.
You can donate $0.63 to Midwest Books for stamps – Midwest Books to Prisoners, that is.
You can upload the “Free Stuff App” from the Play store to find free books near you to see if Midwest Books could use any that you may find. If there’s any you can pick up you can bring by and fulfill the request, because they can vary. My bunky, for instance, is relatively new to squatting, he likes carpentry.
You can make copies of PARC – the Prison Activist Resource Center – which is a list of support systems that’s held in high esteem by prisoners; we hand-copy addresses from it.
Finally, it’s important to ask yourself these things as you extend your support; what do I like to do as a hobby? Something that could work handle in globe with effective prisoner support.
For example, if you like biking, you can bike your zine-mobile to drop off never-before seen materials to lit tables and vestibules throughout the city.
If you’re at demonstrations, you can share photos to add to a newsletter like “Heart and Mind”
You can share a skill for a zine to cross-pollinate skillshares with those inside.
These are very effective ways to extending support. Thank you – Solidarity – Compa LeMar