The following statement appeared in Hear Her Voice on 2025 February 03. It was first published on 2020 July 08 in Black Agenda Report as a statement of solidarity with that summer’s historic uprising against the War on New Afrika/Black Nation. Just as, at the time, Shakur adds the support and voice of modern-day captives in u.s. prisons to the broader uprisings on the outside, today he does the same in his writings on the Palestinian liberation struggle and all national liberation movements.
We, as prisoners held captive in one of the united states’ many modern-day plantations, wish to stand in solidarity with our people as they protest the systemic racism and genocide perpetrated by the united states security forces and criminal (in)justice system.
As our people march and protest in righteous anger and rage throughout the country, we not only want to add our voices in unity, we also want to say, We Too!
We Too! Are often murdered/lynched in the streets by the u.s. security forces and throughout its prison system, and it’s ruled a suicide or death by natural causes.
We Too! Are often lynched in the biased and racist courtrooms throughout amerika as we are railroaded into the Prison Industrial Complex.
We Too! Are systematically harvested from our communities and families and fed into the Prison Industrial Complex in the interest of big business, privatization, and social control.
We Too! Are often the first to be sentenced to death, either literally or figuratively, through a slow death of an outrageous amount of years.
We Too! Are the victim of racist attacks and beatings while unarmed or handcuffed behind our back by racist guards or strike teams and its covered up.
We Too! Are subjected to white supremacist gangs and militias hiding in plain sight behind badges, in prison guard uniforms and as prison administrators.
We too! Are subjected to the planting of evidence, the filing of false reports/charges, thereby extending our sentences without any checks, balances, or oversight.
We Too! Are subjected to decades in solitary confinement without due process or peneological justification.
We Too! Are the first to be denied parole or clemency for decades, no matter how many programs we have completed and in spite of meeting the criteria.
We Too! Are denied preventable health care and allowed to die and suffer due to official Indifference.
We Too! In the midst of a pandemic that is sweeping the country and ravishing the prison system, are also being denied C-19 testing.
We Too! Are being denied serious consideration for early release or pardons based on the color of our skin, what city or community we come from or based on our politics or religious beliefs.
We Too! Are here and feel your pain, because your pain is our pain and we stand united and in solidarity with you because Prison Lives Matter as Black Lives Matter!!!
ALL POWER TO THE PEOPLE WHO FIGHT FOR IT!!!
#WE TOO
June, 2020
Committee For Freedom (CFF)