Hafizah Geter Gives Moving Poetic ‘Testimony’ At Medgar Evers College

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A traveler — a poet — and a bit of a millennial-beat, Hafizah Geter read at Medgar Evers College on December 14 in an event that attracted scores of finger-snapping students from the Crown Heights institution.

Her spoken-word reading, with an emphasis on equating the political with the personal, led to her final poem of the evening, “Testimony,” an unreleased tribute to Ditmas Park-native Anita Neal, the mother of Kyam Livingston.

Ms. Livingston, at 37 years old, died in her jail cell in 2013 after guards allegedly denied her requests for medical help for several hours. The following year, Ms. Geter, new to Brooklyn, met Ms. Neal when she refused to overlook her day-in-&-day-out crying on her sidewalk as she mourned the loss of her daughter.

Attica Still Matters: Interview With Heather Ann Thompson

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Forty-five years after the prison uprising at Attica, much of it remains shrouded in mystery. Even more revealing, most Millennials and Americans are unfamiliar with the prisoner rebellion. Thankfully, the brilliant historian and University of Michigan Professor Heather Ann Thompson has penned a new book, “Blood in the Water,” that not only tells the story of inmates demanding basic human rights, but also unearths new information that those who wish to perpetuate the system of mass incarceration would prefer be kept secret.

During our conversation, Thompson describes the conditions that led the inmates in Attica to throw off their shackles and how the lessons of Attica can be applied to prisons across the nation in the present day.

Kevin Patrick Kelly: What were some of the conditions that led to the uprising in Attica?

Chelsea Manning And The Execution Of The Human Conscience

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Chelsea Manning’s torment at the hands of the state continues.

She has already attempted suicide and was punished by being placed in solitary confinement. Shortly after launching a hunger strike to protest prison conditions and the denial of gender confirmation surgery, Manning appeared to go “missing.” According to members of the Manning Support Network, Chelsea Manning missed numerous scheduled phone calls, prompting serious concern. Those concerns were thankfully alleviated when the Manning Support Network recently received a phone call from Manning.

What is happening to the military whistleblower can be seen in the examples of Edward Snowden, Thomas Drake, William Binney, John Kiriakou, Jeffrey Sterling, and numerous others. The state is launching both a covert and public campaign to execute the human conscience. Whistleblowing and other acts of flexing the human conscience will invite an onslaught by the state.

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