For the second time in two years,
America’s prisoners have staged a mass, coordinated strike, demanding
an end to slave labor for incarcerated people, channels for redress of
grievances, an end to racial discrimination in the American penal
system, access to rehabilitation programs, the reinstatement of Pell
grants, the right of ex-prisoners to vote, and the right of
rehabilitated prisoners to be paroled.
The strike started on August 21 and will run to September 8. Prisoners
are participating through “work stoppages, spending boycotts, sit-ins,
and hunger strikes” and face brutal retaliation for their participation,
including torture in the form of extended solitary confinement.
America is the world’s most prolific and indiscriminate jailer,
imprisoning more people – and a greater proportion of its population –
than any other country in the history of the world. More black men are
imprisoned in America today than were ever imprisoned in Apartheid-era
South Africa.
Thoughtfulfangirling 