Maoist Brainrot/Applied Prison Abolition (FKA: On Despair and Solutions)
by Therese
Mao begins On Contradiction by saying this; “The law of contradiction in things, that is, the law of the unity of opposites, is the basic law of materialist dialectics.” He then quotes Lenin in the very next sentence, as I am also doing, “Dialectics in the proper sense is the study of contradiction in the very essence of objects.” Which is wild because it’s basically the same as the first sentence, but Mao wanted to glaze Lenin, and they’re both just glazing Marx, who glazed Hegel, I think? Who cares, this isn’t a Krispy Kreme (unfortunately I could go for donuts, honestly, yes, I’m leaving it in) lets leave the glaze for the low effort simps, real gooners of this theory bullshit….
(Listen, I wish it was a praxis column too but unfortunately this armchair is just so comfy, I never want to leave. You know what I will say? The cameras are all shitty, don’t have mics, and probably don’t have someone looking at the other end. The prison has ghost wardens—break free, comrades. No face no case. Also shoplift from large and small businesses at every opportunity you can find. Anyway),
….as I was saying, real theory gooners know true constructive material analysis comes from constant and concentrated criticism of that which we love, hate, believe and reject. All the time. I’m going to be calling Mao a little bitch (whine about it, MLMs) in this column, while using a bastardized, approximation of his take on contradictions within dialectical materialist worldviews to make some point we all basically already believe—Prisons are colonial bullshit and should all be torn down. They’re stupid. If you aren’t a total prison abolitionist, I think you’re stupid. Like period, full stop. You can show this to your non-prison abolitionist friends (why are they your friends, girl) and if it helps them see how stupid it is to say it’s okay for a bunch of rich, old, bitch ass, faggot ass, smelly white men to rape every continent and then get away with throwing the indigenous, oppressed, and often (always, literally every single time) Black and Brown people in cages because they wrote some rules on a sheet of paper, then great! I’m happy for people to see that being a bootlicker cuck is dumb—but that isn’t my point with this column. As a journalist, I believe my job is to tell the truth. So. Let’s get honest in this bitch.
First. A small aside. You may have noticed that there is a small streak of brainrot strung through my word. Skibidi. I’m not doing this to appeal to the children, inshallah, far from it. I’m on some post-modern bullshit with it, elevating brainrot to an academic and published level creates a literal contradiction of speech within the text, that can then be mirrored again with the contradictions and themes of contradiction in the literal text, and honestly (journo, truth. Whatever), I’m mostly doing it because I think that’s really cool. Or Chile—You know, sis? The tea is so gagged, boots the house down. Do you get it? You don’t need to understand my method or my madness. But yeah, that’s what that is—don’t worry too much about it, hunnies.
On truth. On prison.
There is no fundamental split between left and right under the everpresent guise of bourgeoise panopticon imperialist colonization.
The left is anemic and well meaning, the right is more individualistic—please shut uuuuup. This is a first graders’ understanding of any political dichotomy. The only meaningful split in any social problem we face in America, is whether one believes Eurocentric, "Western," Patriarchal, Bitchless, "Global Northern," Air Frierless, Bad smelling, White Supremacist Colonialization is at the core of the continued atrocities committed against us, or if it's somewhere else— (If you believe it’s somewhere else, then I don’t know, go suck off a Nazi, congratulations your vibes suck and Luffy, Naruto, and Goku would hate you. Get your eyes off my words, fuck). The main issue, or as Mao would put it, the Principal Contradiction within any given social problem, was the true root of the problem, making true cohesion between the dichotomy contained within a contradiction at all, the resolution of this contradiction is how Hegelians would achieve what they called synthesis in basic dialectical materialist worldview. Synthesis from the thesis/antithesis resolution, thesis/antithesis from the dichotomy of the contradiction (think of it like… Thesis = Proletariat, Antithesis = Bourgeoisie, the synthesis-- once the Principal Contradiction would be resolved would be the Dictatorship of the Proletariat. Mao needed like 50,000 words to explain that. What a little bitch, bro, I’m saying. Like dweeb head ass, on some Poindexter timing fr.
So, what is the Principal Contradiction? Mao believed there was only one that all other contradictions cascaded off of. I don’t remember what he specifically thought the big Principal Contradiction was to save the world. I’m not going to look it up either. He was wrong. I’ll tell you the Principal Contradiction right now, the problem at the root of every problem.
Colonization.
Decolonization is at the core of the patriarchy, queerphobia and transphobia, capitalism, and racism-- any social ill one can name, from poverty to our spiritual constipation-- all relate back to colonization and the ongoing global settler colonial project. For the duration of this, I’d like you to remember that at the root of this, of every Black and Brown person in prison, for every Trans Person incarcerated, for every Neurodivergent, Disabled, Poor, Desperate, Colonized person held in a cell against their will—there is an enforcer of colonization who wants them there, who is willing to shed blood or pay someone else to to keep people trapped. Literally colonized. They want all of there, where the businesses and puppet governments of this world can extract every red penny from our crushed and withered bodies.
They’re trying to pass a new sales tax in Kansas City to build a new jail. We have established jail is stupid. Jail is dumb, bitchless concept and supporting it is supporting some colonizers right to extract wealth from a body you hope isn’t yours—which is evil. If you support building a new jail, you’re going to hell :^). The vote to pass that is less than a month away, happening on Apr. 8th—the day before that Leavenworth is voting to build a new ICE facility. Do you see what they’re doing? Ramping up to put more of us in underfunded cages. More Black and Brown and Trans and Queer bodies, piled up—we have a responsibility to each other to fight these battles and prevent these facilities from opening by any means necessary.
They do not care about us. They are actively colonizing the world, and we are being squeezed from the imperial core. “Trans woman detained in Aurora ICE facility for 2 years struggles to get court date,” “Harassment, pervasive fear, and transphobic abuse,” “Death of trans woman in ICE detention highlights need for action,” the headlines are heartbreaking, and the articles that follow tell tales of a disturbing truth. “For the trannies that we don’t kill on the outside, or drive to killing themselves, this is what waits for you.” I can hear the sneering voice of some wrinkled old Colonel Sanders looking dinosaur say, the embodiment of the American project, an evil old white man who wants to make a buck.
“People make money off of keeping people detained, and that’s so problematic. You cannot be making money off of people wanting to seek a better life.” (Andrea Loya, executive director of Casa de Paz)
“Then my door rolled open one night. One inmate after another assaulted me. Fourteen different individuals. An officer stood there and watched the whole thing, chanting,”Yeah! Do it!” I couldn’t fight them. I was tired. So I just lay there. Let them finish.
I went to the infirmary. They basically said, “You’re alright. You’ll heal.” They gave me some triple antibiotic ointment, and that was it. No paperwork, no nothing. They just like covered it up, [like] Get him off the unit. That’s how I ended up here. I’ve been in nine or 10 prison units in the system, in 27 years.” (Willow Eva Williams, Poet, Former Prisoner)
“At a time when we are grieving the murders of transgender women of color, and the murder of 20 year-old Claudia Patricia Gómez Gonzalez by Border Patrol at the Texas-Mexico border, it is unconscionable that a transgender woman would die in the hands of ICE at the Cibola trans pod in immigration detention. The community, now more than ever, needs to organize to protect our most vulnerable, in particular transgender immigrant women who are surrounded by violence on a daily basis,” (Anandrea Molina, President of Organización Latina de Trans en Texas)
"In here, we do not exist anymore," (Anonymous Trans Woman)
Take these words with you, and remember at the root of this, is the colonial project seeking to ultimately eat and consume us all. We must move radically differently. Not just for the sake of ourselves, our future, or even the world—Our spirits demand it. More than destroying the cop in your mind, in order to truly reach a point where we can free ourselves from this system, we must break the chains the settler has implanted in our mind. The pilgrim. The settler. The fucking motionless, bitch ass, cuck pilled, slave necessitating colonizer.
He has no place in the world we’re trying to build.