Those interested should purchase Tip of the Spear from
@Workshops4Gaza
, a collective committed to the liberation of Palestine. All proceeds will directly support solidarity efforts in Gaza.
I don't think people realize just how much this deep-seated but usually unspoken fear that Black people aspire to take The White Man's place and do to him what he has done to us has been a major driver of US historical and political development.
Pat Robertson says critical race theory is "a monstrous evil" that is urging people of color to "rise up and overtake their oppressors" so that once they've "gotten the whip handle," they'll then "instruct their white neighbors how to behave."
When ppl call Attica "the deadliest prison uprising in US history," or some derivation thereof, they collapse defensive political violence from below w/ racist state violence from above. The rebels killed 3 ppl: 1 guard/2 captives. The state killed 39: 29 captives/10 guards.
Of her piece “The United States of Attica,” the late great Faith Ringgold said, “This map of American violence is incomplete – please write in whatever you find lacking.”
Rise in power Mutulu Shakur, revolutionary intellectual, soldier, healer. Among his many contributions to the Black liberation struggle was this study on prison-based counterinsurgency and behavior modification. It’s 💯📠
To title a film on Chairman Fred “Black Messiah” is to give Hoover and the FBI the power to define the leadership style of the movement they sought to disrupt, destroy, discredit, and otherwise neutralize. Black revolution framed through a counterrevolutionary discourse.
As we prepare to observe the 50th anniversary of the Attica rebellion/massacre we should be paying attention to what is happening in Israeli prisons and acknowledge the internationalism of Attica and the US Prison struggle more broadly. 1/
Incarcerated people successfully sued the state of New York for the opportunity to behold the solar eclipse, asserting their right to commune with the cosmos. Attica Is.
On the 52nd anniversary of the Attica Massacre - one of the bloodiest confrontations in the US settler colony since the Wounded Knee Massacre of 1890 - consider these words from the institute of the Black World:
If you are at home raising children (like me) and therefore unable to be fully present in the struggles for radical social transformation that we see emerging all around us, remember that raising radical children is the most important thing you could be doing right now.
Truly honored that Tip of the Spear has received praise from a radical scholar like Dr. CBS, whose new book - Black Scare/Red Scare - is a massive contribution to Black Studies and beyond ❤️🖤💚 1/5
Check out this cool “Militarizing Barbie” zine a student made in my “Ethnography, Power, and the Archive” class. H/T to
@prisonculture
for visiting the class and inspiring the final project.
Now that
#Barbie
is the focus of more of our conversations, it is worth remembering when the US military and Mattel created an alliance between 1989 and 2002 that
#militarized
Barbie. This 🧵 is a
#zine
part of my current
#military
#Barbie
research.
I am happy to share “Captivity, Kinship, and Black Masculine Care Work under Domestic Warfare,” my new article in American Anthropologist now available here // DM or email me for a PDF.
“PEOPLE EVERYWHERE ARE EXPRESSING THEIR RAGE ABOUT ATTICA”: a flyer listing militant solidarity actions inside the walls on the streets, and underground. 49 years ago today. This is what we mean when we say Attica Means Fight Back.
It’s official: the display copy of Tip of the Spear has been expropriated from the
#AAACASCA2023
exhibition room. What an honor! I sincerely hope it brings revolutionary clarity to whomever now has it under their care.
Last night’s Tip of the Spear book talk at
@bolcoop
was 🔥, not least because Dr. Joshua Myers is such a deep thinker and thoughtful interlocutor. Shout out to the
@AUAntiracismCtr
for organizing the event with such care.
#Blackstudy
Gratitude to
@proteanmag
for publishing an excerpt of my book and for highlighting the "cruel resonance" between discourses that similarly pathologize Black and Palestinian resistance.
Republished here is an excerpt from Orisanmi Burton’s (
@orisanmi
) “Tip of the Spear: Black Radicalism, Prison Repression, and the Long Attica Revolt,” a crucial revision of the prevailing understanding of the Attica revolt and its political context.
The rebellion did not inevitably lead to massive loss of life. Rather, state actors made a conscious decision to end it through a public display of lethality.
OUT TODAY! 🎧
we spoke w/
@HalfAtlanta
&
@blackleftaf
about the life and work of Walter Rodney: pan-africanism, marxism, underdevelopment, guerrilla intellectualism, and much more
Congratulations to the 2021 Freedom Scholars. I am honored beyond words to be among them and accept this award as a mandate to sharpen my praxis in support of revolutionary abolitionist movements.
Introducing the 2021
#FreedomScholars
! The nation's boldest scholars lead critical studies and analyses of social movements and inspire us to reimagine and build liberated futures. With
@GroupHealthFdn
, we're investing $1.5M into their social + economic justice scholarship.
A good review that inadvertently exposes the limits of the “progressive” standpoint the book critiques. This has been one of the hardest parts for readers to deal with. It is rather thorny contradiction.
In my latest in
@JournalSpectre
, I revisit the momentous Panther 21 case 50 years later. I am particularly excited for folks to hear the original recorded version of “An Open Letter to Judge Murtagh,” read by Panther Cetewayo Tabor.
What we ought to take away from this Ivy League President spectacle is that you might as well be radical in these Red Scare times because even when you spout lily-livered liberal drivel they will still come for you if you aren’t imperialistic enough. Now is the time for courage.
THREAD: At the age of 16, Joan Tarika Lewis became the first sister to join the Black Panther Party in 1967. Tarika quickly climbed the ranks of the cadre and at one point was a lieutenant, helping to train new recruits and run one of the Panther offices in West Oakland
This is incredible: "rebellions cannot be studied with our traditional Western historical methods. Life must be breathed into latent meanings written in invisible ink." 🔥🔥🔥 Major gratitude to
@nickfbarber
&
@CharlotteERosen
The best way to understand the historical development of the US prison post-1970 is through the lens of counterinsurgency. These discussions w/
@MAKCapitalism
trace how the state (FBI & CIA) manages “intractables” & coercively extracts knowledge from vulnerable populations.
Both parts of our recently discussion with
@orisanmi
are now up on
@MAKCapitalism
. We talked about two of his recent pieces examining the prison as a site of domestic warfare with FBI & CIA counterinsurgency programs:
pt 1:
pt 2:
Former BPP member Sundiata Acoli is an elderly man who has been incarcerated for nearly 48 years. Despite his exemplary prison record and low recidivism risk, he has been denied parole 6 times. Please demand that
@GovMurphy
#BringSundiataHome
I’ll be pulling up to the Schomburg on Saturday at 5:30pm to pay my respects to our late, great ancestor Eddie Ellis, whose intergenerational assignment to me a decade ago birthed Tip of the Spear.
What if I told you the Attica rebellion never really ended, that racist state repression and reformist counterinsurgency didn't destroy it, that it diffused and took on many different forms, that it is a living Black radical genealogy?
TEXTO NOVO! Em "Encarcerando revolucionários", Orisanmi Burton (
@orisanmi
) analisa a emergência do projeto de guerra carcerária, uma campanha clandestina para introduzir lógicas e técnicas de contrainsurgência nas prisões estadunidenses.
Link no próximo tweet 👇
All
@ucpress
books are 40% off during the month of May! If you were interested in pre-ordering Tip of the Spear: Black Radicalism, Prison Repression, and the Long Attica Revolt, now would be a good time to do it! 😉
Fascinating moment during Dhoruba bin-Wahad’s lawsuit against the FBI in which judge Constance Baker Motley reveals that like Dhoruba, her cousin - BPP member John Huggins - was also a COINTELPRO target.
In other words, COINTELPRO was not simply about targeting extant Black revolutionaries, it was also about preventing the intergenerational transmission of revolutionary knowledge.
I mostly hate email but sometimes I don't: "Dear Professor, I have a question for you. I know in class we discussed that nothing is inherently racial; However, wouldn't capitalism be an exception?" 😍
Back in 1967, O’Hara lamented what he felt like were debilitating constraints placed on his forces by public opinion, which prevented the guard from besieging urban ghettos like the US was doing to Vietnamese villages.
“I think for the ultimate peace and security of the situation it will probably be necessary for Israel to give up this conquered territory because to hold on to it will only exacerbate the tensions and deepen the bitterness of the Arabs.” -MLK
We’re sending a huge thank you to
@orisanmi
for sending us copies of his book “Tip of the Spear: Black Radicalism, Prison Repression, and the Long Attica Revolt.”
✊🏾🙏🏽
#ShutDownAttica
Here is the first draft of a playlist I started working on to accompany my forthcoming book: Tip of the Spear: Black Radicalism, Prison Repression, and the long Attica Revolt. Will keep adding tracks overtime. LMK what you think. . .
The oath of the Prisoners Liberation Front, an excerpt from the "Prisoners Injustice Resistance and Survival Manual," was authored in November 1969 from the Manhattan House of Detention (aka The Tombs) 11 months before nearly all the jails in NYC erupted in planned rebellions.
✨august book picks✨
Tip of the Spear by Orisanmi Burton
Big Black: Stand at Attica by Frank Smith
for info on book club meetups join our mailing list at the link in bio 🌱
"Burton offers both a strident case for Attica’s legacy as a bold and prefigurative revolutionary struggle." Jarrod Shanahan reviews Orisanmi Burton’s "Tip of the Spear."
At a moment when solidarity with our people locked down is desperately needed. Prison admins are tightening their grip around the inside/outside communications infrastructure, all under the guise of enhanced service, security, and efficiency. Don't believe the hype.
On the second day of the rebellion, Nelson Rockefeller dispatched Major General Almerin C. O'Hara, a former Commander of the New York State National Guard, to Attica.
I'll be talking Attica, Counterinsurgency, and Prison Education at the NYU/Columbia "Crime, Law and Punishment Workshop" next Monday 3/26 @ 5pm. Slide through if you are so inclined.
"It is much easier for us to grasp the despicable treachery of the state officials of New York - for we are used to the abuses of white power - than it is to digest the meaning of Attica."
Lest we forget that a century ago the 1918 flu pandemic was followed by the 1919 Red Summer in which hundreds of Black people were killed by white supremacist terrorism. History will not repeat itself.
This piece clearly demonstrates that the thesis of my book is not “new.” Ringgold and many others clearly understood Attica as a paradigm for American (and thus Imperial) violence as well as an ongoing “heroic struggle for freedom” that exceeded prison walls.
Last night’s Tip of the Spear book talk at
@bolcoop
was 🔥, not least because Dr. Joshua Myers is such a deep thinker and thoughtful interlocutor. Shout out to the
@AUAntiracismCtr
for organizing the event with such care.
#Blackstudy
Since I’ve been preggo I haven’t been reading as much as I want to. But once I started reading
@orisanmi
’s Tip of the Spear and Josh Myers’ Of Black Study together, I’ve been reading for hours every day. These books are incredible separately but a divine pairing. 🤝🏿🫶🏿
He procured the helicopter and the tear gas that inaugurated the massacre and although he maintained that he played no other role in the atrocities that ensued, members of the press reported hearing O'Hara issuing commands over the radio during the assault, suggesting otherwise
In 1970, the NY Times published a piece purporting to expose Jewish fears that anti-zionism was the new antisemitism within Black Power and New Left groups. The FBI took notice and turned the article into a pamphlet as part of its Counterintelligence Program or COINTELPRO. 1/13
A few weeks after the rebellion, while being tortured in solitary confinement, surviving Attica rebels wrote a letter acknowledging the international solidarity that had been pouring in from all over the Third World. 2/
“Of course, we can't do just what we would do in Vietnam. Out there if you had a sniper in a room you'd just crank up a tank and fire a shell through the window, destroying the whole room and much of the building. I dt tk pub opinion would accept. . . that kind of force here.”
We are excited to announce our next seminar talk on Thursday April 13 at 12pm PST / 3pm EST with Dr. Orisanmi Burton
@orisanmi
! "The Wake Up"
Zoom registration:
We can no longer send money orders to our people in NY State prisons. All monetary support now has to be mediated through JPay, a private corporation that is cornering the market of “e-services” to incarcerated ppl. See: by
@LVikkiml
for more info