Mumia Abu-Jamal’s Commencement Address to Merrill College at the University of California at Santa Cruz, June 10, 2000
An Ending; A Beginning
Dear Students, Professors, Parents, and Administrators at Merrill College of the University of California at Santa Cruz; Distinguished Guests; Friends; I thank you for your gracious invitation to speak to you, at a time of dual significance: This is the fourth graduating class that I’ve addressed this year, and it’s also the year I’ve formally graduated from my Master’s program at the California State University at Dominguez Hills; So, I have some insight into how it feels to be a graduate, the work, the hassles, and the relief of completion. I can almost sense your pervasive aura of relief, right?
For many of you, no doubt, the last thing that you want to hear is a lecture, right? Well, more relief: 'cuz I won’t give you a lecture Think of this as a kind of discussion; one-way, to be sure, but a discussion still; A discussion that emerges from another America; one that most of you have perhaps rarely acknowledged, much less interacted with. I speak to you from what is called “a Nation in Chains,” a metaphor, to he sure; But I think quite apt in some ways. Why? Well, let’s consider this simple fact: There are two million men, women, and children (yes: children) in American prisons and jails today; Two million. Did you know this? Does it stun you? Does it surprise you?
Think of it this way: That number of people are found in the combined populations of Dallas and Detroit; It's the combined numbers of Houston and Denver, Colorado; It’s roughly the Same population as can he found in both Philadelphia, and Long Beach. There are at least 30 countries in the world with smaller total populations than the U.S. prison population; Surely, Americans have a serious prison addiction.
Moreover, this “Nation in Chains” is a vast population that lives lives of enforced silence. Is it not so that in your fair state no prisoner may be interviewed on radio or TV? In a nation that prides itself on its claims of freedom of the press and free speech, prisons have become 1st Amendment-free zones. I know something about that, as I was given a misconduct for writing my book, Live From Death Row (1995). My institutional offense “Engaging in the business or profession of journalism” — Really, When I argued that such a charge violated the 1st Amendment of the U.S. Constitution (not to mention a similar provision, the First Article of the Pennsylvania Constitution), I was convicted of being ajournalist1 and given “hole” time: 30 days. The prison official running the so-called “hearing” said the First Amendment had nothing to do with it. (If you want to know more, and at the risk of shamelessly plugging my new hook, I invite you to read All Things Censored, just put out by Seven Stories Press). I shared that tale to illustrate the repressive nature of the state, and to put some flesh on the bony image evoked by my portrayal of prisons as a 1st Amendment-free zone; A place where increasingly, the Constitution does not apply.
Now, why these words to you, now, on the day of your graduation--perhaps one of the happiest days of your lives? (I mean, like, isn’t this a bummer?) Well, here comes the teacher in me, y'all: You may have graduated—But you’re still here! Professor Angela Y. Davis, who is both one of my heroes and a friend (and who teaches at the University of California, incidentally) hit the nail on the head when she noted: “In the realm of material reality, prison construction is very big business. And we wonder why there is so little money for education, for scholarships, for research,” (The Angela Y. Davis Reader (1998), p.229).
You have a state where billions of dollars goes every year — not millions, billions — to build an institution that, research has shown, not only does not correct, but makes people worse! While, education, the one thing that we know, rehabilitates people, goes begging.
You, the few, who have had the exquisite pleasure of education, who have had the resources to afford an education, and have now graduated, are entering a society that is addicted to the drug of prison; You’ll be looking for a job, some to pay your loans; others to support a family; and the temptation to go the easy way, to go the way of the system will be great indeed.
Did you know that prison guards in California make more than college professors, there? Is it just me, or is this a kind of social madness?
When you look for a job, and if your interests are purely financial, well; few places can offer the goodies that prisons can. But I ask you, why work for state repression when you can work for freedom?
There is a movement growing in the nation, that is denouncing the Prison Industrial Complex; that is fighting for an end to the racist death penalty, that is fighting for social justice, instead of the status quo.
The French philosopher, Michel Foucault, came to the U.S. in 1972 to study prisons. He went to Attica, and Philadelphia County prisons, and years later, explained:
“At the time of the creation of Auburn and the Philadelphia prison, which served as models (with very little change until now) for the great machines of incarceration, it was believed that something indeed was produced: “virtuous” men. Now we know, and the administration is perfectly aware, that no such thing is produced. That nothing at all is produced. That it is a question simply of a great slight of hand, a curious mechanism of circular elimination; society eliminates by sending to prison people whom prison breaks up, crushes, physically eliminates; the prison eliminates them by “freeing” them and sending them back to society;.. .the state in which they come out insures that society will eliminate them once again, sending them to prison...” [Jr. John K. Simon, “Michel Foucault on Attica: An Interview,” Social Justice, 18 (3) (Fall ‘91), 27.]
Prisons are but machines for social elimination, Foucault argues, and who can dispute it? Will you become a pan of this vile machine, or will you work to abolish it?
I thank you for taking the time to listen; Ona Move! Long Live John Africa! Free the Move 9! And Let’s Build A Movement!
With congratulations to you all, This is Mumia Abu-Jamal
From: C. Clark Kissinger cck1@earthlink.net