Ep. 183 Blood in the Water by Heather Ann Thompson -- The Stacks Book Club (Derecka Purnell)

Written By Lauren Tyree

Today on The Stacks we discuss the book that inspired this podcast, Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and Its Legacy by Heather Ann Thompson. We're joined by Derecka Purnell (activist and author of the forthcoming Becoming Abolitionists) to delve into this Pulitzer Prize winning book; the coverup, the legacy, and the ways we rely on a superficial notion of justice.
There are minor spoilers on this episode.

Be sure to listen to the end of today’s episode to find out what our book club pick will be for October!

 
 

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TRANSCRIPT
*Due to the nature of podcast advertising, these timestamps are not 100% accurate and will vary.

Traci Thomas 0:08

Welcome to The Stacks, a podcast about books and the people who read them. I'm your host Traci Thomas, and today is The Stacks book club day. It's a discussion of Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and its Legacy by Heather Ann Thompson. I am beyond thrilled to finally be discussing this Pulitzer Prize winning book on this podcast after three and a half years of sort of kind of talking about doing this. Our guest is the brilliant activist lawyer and author Derecka Purnell. Her debut book is coming out on October 5, and the title is Becoming Abolitionists. You must read this book. It is so good. Today we talk about the event and what stood out for us in the book how we imagine these events playing out in 2021, and a lot more, there are some minor spoilers on today's episode. Be sure to listen to the end of the episode to find out what our book club pick will be for October. Now it is time to finally dive in to the Blood in the Water episode of The Stacks.

All right, everybody. This is a monumental day for The Stacks. We are finally discussing Blood in the Water by Heather Ann Thompson with the incredible wonderful, amazing, brilliantly talented and smart and just wonderfully great Derecka Purnell. Derecka, welcome back.

Derecka Purnell 2:22

Hi, thank you so much for having me again.

Traci Thomas 2:25

I'm so happy I don't think you you probably actually don't know this story. So I'll give you a quick, quick Olympia when I read this book for the first time in 2017. And I loved it so much. I immediately went to my mom and was like, What do you remember about Attica and she basically was like, I remember the prisoners, like, killed a bunch of people and whatever. And I was like, That is not what happened. You don't remember anything like I was so mad. And then I was like, I need to go listen to someone talk about the book. So I went into my podcast app and was like, you know, Heather and Thompson and like button water. And I could only find two podcast episodes that talked about the book. And one was like some really high brow literary thing. And they were like, not talking about race at all. Like they weren't really talking about the stuff I wanted to talk about. And the other one was like a super inside baseball lawyer podcast. And they were talking about, you know, all the legal battles and the, the I don't even know, you know, what they call them, but all the like little movements and things that they were doing. And I was so upset. And then I was like, You know what, I should make a book podcast. So blood in the water is the book that actually like led me to make this podcast three and a half years ago. So incredibly, being able to talk about this book. Finally, I've been telling everyone this origin story for three plus years. And now that we're finally like, gonna talk about it. Just I'm really excited, though, I probably don't, I don't know that we'll be able to do justice to the book that I the conversation that I wanted to have three and a half years ago, I think I've changed so much. I've learned so much that it's probably going to be totally different. But I'm just really excited that you're here to do this with me because I think that you're great and I know that you're going to have such insights because you are a lawyer and because you are involved in prison and policing and abolition and all of these things. So with all that being said, what did you think of the book? Kind of generally?

Derecka Purnell 4:23

Wow. So I think the book is just what it will take for his story and like a certain kind of historian to tell a particular story of an event especially one as traumatic as Attica rebellion I just don't know what it was like to sit through like files and files and piles of rooms and to fight and contested so that she was able to put all this in here in the way that she told the stories like some of this eulogy some of this narrative these like glimpses then their characters at first when I read it, I was like, Okay, I feel like she's being very sympathetic because Another President administration, and then as the book goes on, you're just like, oh, my gosh, I cannot stand this person. Right. So the book is just just incredibly well done. Yeah. It's just, like an amazing text like I, I don't think it's, yeah, it's overwhelming. How much information like you said, it's a thick book, like it's not, it's not a little book. And so it seems as if she left no stone unturned, which is important, given like the nature of what it is, and now that I don't think we have access to these documents anymore. So yeah, so it was just like an incredible account that she was able to forget all of this in that time period. And now we have to talk about so yeah.

Traci Thomas 5:43

So you don't know this. Also, I should have filled her in on some of these things. But you don't know this either. I just recorded right before I talk to you, I actually recorded an interview with Heather and Thompson that is going to air the week after your first episode. So everyone else has heard from Heather a little bit, so I might have to fill you in touch here and there on what she said, since you are not privy to that information. But that being said, the other thing that we're commemorating with this episode is that this month, September 2021, marks the 50 year anniversary of this uprising, which uprising so crazy. I should tell people when I think of this book, everyone knows I love this book, but I will say on a second reading, I found it a lot harder to get through. I knew what was coming. I started to remember like the details about like, you know, Frank, big blacksmith like his torture. I kept remembering and kept waiting for the picture that was in the book or like there were things like that where I was like, I don't want to read this part because I know what's coming in a way that I didn't feel the first time I was so voraciously reading the book I was like I don't I need to know what happened. And so it was a little bit more upsetting for me to read the second time I have more sympathy for people who told me the first time I told everyone to read it. They were like, Why didn't you warn me? This book is like traumatic or

Derecka Purnell 6:57

Yes, super traumatic.

Traci Thomas 6:59

I don't know. I think I was just so wrapped up in the story and feeling like I didn't know any of this, the first time that I was reading it. So I was like, wasn't really thinking about the trauma in the same way as I was this time. And I also think, for me, this was sort of an introduction to me a lot about like, prisons, you know, like I had read The New Jim Crow at this point. But I hadn't read a lot about what it's like, in prison for people since then. I've read a lot of memoirs and a lot of other books that talk about this stuff. And so I had a different understanding. But this book was sort of a weird, I guess, place to start.

Derecka Purnell 7:38

No, yeah. Yeah, no, I can absolutely see that. So this is my, this is my first time reading but in the water. So I learned about Attica, Attica, uprising through other texts, and then through talking to like, organizers, prison lawyers. And so this is my first time getting through, like the text. And so it was like, Oh, wow, it's like so much more comprehensive than what I anticipated. Even though I knew all the words I knew of the claim. I knew other words that had been done on it. So I knew this as like the V book. I never gotten through the text because I learned so much about Africa through like people and through like it just it's just the thing that you have to know about. You have to study and so through like pamphlets, or through the black radical tradition, read it right. So I had been exposed. I'd known about Attica. I know like the history, I knew the murders, I knew about all of this stuff, but I had the level of detail that you will see, look, I had not known. And so that's why I think when I first started reading, I was like, Oh, this seems interestingly sympathetic, based on like, what I know of advocate. And then as the book went on, I'm like, oh, okay, like, I see, I see what turns and what moves she's making, to bring everything to full view what's happening. So I can't imagine on a second read to get through this would be so much more difficult. But now like, I know, sort of what to expect?

Traci Thomas 9:05

Yeah, I definitely it was definitely a lot harder for me the second time, one of the things that I think I don't I don't know if you could read this book and not have this thought, but who knows. One of the things that really struck me was how similar conditions are for people in prison 50 years later, like I just I mean, some things have changed like people can shower more often, but so much of it is the same fucking shit. Like we talk so much in America about progress. And you know, things take time to make change and all this bullshit and this book was just like a reminder that actually, it doesn't take any time to make change if you want to make change. If the powers that be want to see changes made, and this book is a reminder that like so many people, wants and desires are so unimportant, you know? Like, yeah, I found this book to this reading to be much more bleak, I think is a way I guess I could put it. It's like there was so much that struck me in a way that I just don't remember from the first time like, and I think maybe because it's the 50th anniversary. And I also think because I read it in conjunction with your book, you know, I read the first half of your book,

Derecka Purnell 10:22

I see, yeah.

Traci Thomas 10:23

I read the first half of your book, then I was like, Oh, my God, I need to read blood in the water. So then I quickly read through that again. And then I went back and finished her book. And I think that like the combination of these texts, kind of in conversation was really, we talked last week about a lot of hope for me. I don't know what it was felt really bleak. Like, I don't know, I don't know if you had that sense as well.

Derecka Purnell 10:47

I think the first thing I felt was just a lot of anger and frustration, not necessarily at like, how the stories were presented, but just because of how familiar it is, and exactly what you just said, there's so many conditions are the same. And when you look at the Reform Movement, especially the prison reform movement, the way that they present, the problem of prisons is typically one of conditions, and not the fact of confinement. Right. And so it's absolutely important that, you know, conditions are sanitary for as long as we have prisons, that people are, you know, treated with dignity, they're able to have food and light, and medical attention and medical care, right, like all these things that the prisons have been demanding. But also not to like to remember that one reason why people are Oh, the state has been interested in reform, it's because they thought that it will be a way to quell some of the rights to quell some of the the right so it became so much about the conditions for life in prison administrators on one since they were angry and sort of like blamed the left wing black people, and other things, like even the intent of the main super intent of the person of the question of the Oswald figure, right? He's interested in prison conditions, because he thinks that prisons can actually be a rehabilitative source. Right? Right. So he's committed, he sees himself as like a good guy. It's like, Look, if we, if prisons actually felt and looked how they were supposed to feel, and look, then we wouldn't have these uprisings. We wouldn't have these riots, we wouldn't have these grievances. And what gets lost is actually the fact of confinement. Right? So like that people were being incarcerated. The reasons that were people were being incarcerated, and rehabilitation through prison, it's probably not a good option, because it's people shouldn't be in prisons in the first place. Right? It's, it doesn't speak to the country, she speaks of it a little bit, right. She talks about policing in their neighborhoods, she talks about how some of them are incarcerated for parole violations. But it's still like the fact that the confinement is problematic. And sometimes I wanted that to come through a little bit more, but like, it's right. And it's not just because they were nonviolent. And she gets to like some of their stories, which I think is incredible. But the fact is, though the problem.

Traci Thomas 13:07

Right, what you're talking about before also about like how she kind of paint some of the figures who can turn out to be horrific, horrible human, as like sort of sympathetic in the beginning. I agree. Like I think Oswald is, like, particularly of note in that way like that he comes across as like he's trying to be this good guy, and he inherits this problem at Auburn. And, you know, he's just trying to like, do right by everybody, right? And then like, we quickly find out that he's such a pathetic, small man, and like, his ego is so fragile. And like he's personally offended by all of these things, and uses his personal feelings about how he's being spoken to, or like how he's being perceived to retaliate and punish prisoners over and over and over again. Yeah. And like, and that he's held up as this like, liberal figure like that. That whole idea of an Oswald like that we see today. All the time in politics, right? Yes, constant. I mean, I think that like, Joe Biden is an example of that, right? Like this person, who is who is held up as like, you know, he's the progressive, he's kowtowing to the progressive below button. But really, he is so concerned about his image and like so concerned, and like one, and he is the author of the crime bill, and like, he has a history of like all and like, that's one example out of the current president, but we could do it for every president we've ever had. We could do it for every senator we've ever had, like we're seeing it constantly. And the way that she sort of writes his story is just so I think it's so well done. He becomes like one of the most important figures not only to the story, but also like to explain how something like this could happen. He becomes a figure that a symbol of this moment, right?

Derecka Purnell 15:04

Yes, yes. No, absolutely. I think what struck me with his character.

Oh, I guess it's not like character I know

But what struck me, I guess he is sort of a character, right? Because this is her portraying him to some degree. Right. So what struck me with Oswald, and his remarkable similarity to other people in administrative positions who are facing people and their grievances, like the same responses, you know, change can't happen overnight. I'm on your side, I'm reasonable. I'm fighting the good fight. And then he's looking at the demands that were coming from the prisons. And what's so sad Tracy is that they are so similar to lists that we see from like black people, people of color at colleges, and businesses and prisons today, like literally like more Spanish speaking officers and counselors, black culture courses, better medical care and treatment by and competent psychiatric staff. Right. So it's so better food, better clothing, and print libraries. So many of these grievances you can find in black neighborhoods, black schools, from black students and white schools. It's it's the same set of like demands for like the basic conditions of human life. And then you have the I'm on your side liberal person who's like, I'm trying my best be reasonable, right? And it's like being reasonable about trying to get fresh fruit. Right? About You know, not being not receiving medical care. So sometimes it I even had to wash myself where I was like, Come on, guys. I stepped. Accept the 28th. Just please, please, please, you don't know what's coming. I know it's companies I find myself even doing that. I didn't even write write, write, and then even still taking a step back and having to remember like, oh, yeah, this is the bare minimum. Right. But he should be grateful that they're asking for this. Like, this should be like, the minimum right. So yeah, sometimes it can present as like the President's might be unreasonable. Because he demands where he met most of them. And then it's like, no, he didn't he actually did it. And the prisoner was right.

Traci Thomas 17:21

Right. Right. It's hard though. Because it's like we know as the audience is the reader, you know, we have Hindsight is 2020. And it's hard to be like, Look 39 of you are gonna die now. Yeah. You know, and it's like, again, it's that bleak that bleakness, right, it's like, I know what's coming. And I know the right answer, as far as like, standing your ground and like, demanding what you deserve. And all of these things. And then I'm also like, I don't want you guys to die. Like, yeah, and it's, it's a hard, it's a hard feeling. And I can only imagine in the moment, how much harder and more difficult decisions these are. And again, like, yeah, to your point about, you know, progress and the demands that were these are the same kinds of demands almost the same exact demands as people who are not incarcerated, who are students and who are, you know, people in their workplaces, all sorts of things, government employees, Amazon employees, right, like we're seeing it everywhere. And I just one of the things that stuck out to me and I'm guilty of this thinking too, is like, as a society, so not individuals, but like as a larger society, we don't value people who have been convicted of crimes right? We think that they're dumb are we think that they're not worthy, or we think that they're people we can throw away and it's like these men at Attica and and the people before them, I mean, Auburn is talked about in the book, George George Jackson, Jackson, yeah, like that. All these that this is their, Attica, it's not unique of the time period. This is all part of our tradition, right? Like this is just one moment, one moment that spiraled in a horrific way, but like that this is all part of a larger conversation that's been going on for hundreds and hundreds of years. But my point is like that we're conditioned as a society to think that people who have done something have harmed others and have been put in prison because of that are not intelligent or not capable of organizing or like that these people like this book really forced me to confront a lot of the a lot of that kind of thinking that's just been ingrained in me that I've never challenged on my own. You know, like, I think that I saw people who have been imprisoned. This book helped me to start to see people who have been imprisoned in a different way because we're fed so much copper ganda, and like so much of that, like prisoners are bad and violent. And I totally understand how when the news came out in 1971, of what had happened, that people are like, of course, the prisoners castrated and murdered people. Like of course you would believe that lie because we've been taught our whole lives to believe that black and brown people are violent and horrible. And these are the worst of the worst. And they're like, it's just like, the rage part of it is certainly watching this cover up, unfold and being like, we're still falling for this shit. every fucking day. Like, we still see this shit. I mean, you know, firsthand being from St. Louis, being an activist on the ground after the murder of Michael Brown, like, you know that we were told that he was a monster, and he was this and he wasn't bad.

Derecka Purnell 20:32

No angel. No angel.

Traci Thomas 20:35

Yeah. And it's like, that is part of it. We always are taught to side with law enforcement, even though we know every single fucking time they're lying to us. We know this.

Derecka Purnell 20:44

I know. And well, what was so remarkable about this book is that even when the story had to be corrected, that all of the guards had been killed with bullets and not sliced or, or had their throat slashed, that their families refused to believe the true refuse to believe it. They refused to believe the truth. They said, bullshit, they refuse to believe the truth. And so yeah, I thought that was so indicative of a commitment to white supremacy is a state that was so in unexamined. And I love your point about the ideas that we've been fed about, you know, people who are incarcerated, black and brown people who are prisoners. I think what's so incredible about that, and this is related to our imagination conversation, is that there is way more evidence, way more documented evidence of the violence of white people towards people of color in this country. Just way more evidence of genocide, slaughter, lynchings, castrations, jailing, right. And so even if we compare the level of violence, right, that comes from colonial capitalist carceral conquests, and we compare that to the violence that happens in our community, it far outweighs that far outweighs it. But it's because it's used towards establish borders and boundaries and communities and neighborhoods. It's that that level of violence is acceptable, the level of violence, that guards went into those prisons every day and inflict it upon the people who are incarcerated, they're completely acceptable. That retaliation or rebellion unacceptable, right? So it's yes, I love that point so much. It's who gets to be the legitimate user of violence in order to secure an end, right? Yeah, if you're fighting, using violence to get free, you should be shut down. If you're using violence, incarcerate, you should be applauded. And you should get a badge or promotion for being a hero, right?

Traci Thomas 22:47

And you should face No, no crisis, no consequences whatsoever, and you should be protected. Right? It's not just that they didn't have consequences is that that at every turn, people in power did everything they could to protect these troopers, and these CEOs, and all these people who are part of the retaking. And like, look, I understand that prisoners are not supposed to have uprisings. Like I get it, you don't have to explain that to me. And I certainly think that like there would should have been some form of consequence, if this is the system in which we live, and we're trying to uphold this. However, on the flip side, the fact that all of the indictments were against the prisoners like that, even after people were murdered, and even after this was a total fuckup. In my eyes, we see that the state believed that they did the right thing at every turn, and we're willing to sacrifice anybody and anything that they had to and they were willing to lie, and to cheat and to hide documents and to get judges and all of that, like they were willing to commit to this so fully because it obviously meant they knew that the other side would have been the other option would have been catastrophic for the way that we understand prisons, right. Like, if 50 years ago, the Attica brothers got amnesty on September 12, and gave the hostages and they got all of their demands, like talk about imagination, what does it look like now? Like what is presenting? What is prison look like now? Is it even worse? Or is there this movement of like, we were able to work together? And you know, like, I came? I honestly can't even imagine it, which speaks to my shitty imagination, but I don't know.

Derecka Purnell 24:28

You have, you know, I wanted something similarly, and the state refusal to grant amnesty had, I think, very little to do with the actual uprisings that was happening advocate, but rather than the potential of further uprising, yes, yeah. Right. And so it reminded me of what I kind of wrote about and become an abolitionist with The South African colonel who decided to use extraordinary force against the students who were protesting as a way to and during the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. He boasted that he proudly broke the backs of the organizers by shooting into crowds of unarmed children. And that was his training to send a message to deter future uprisings from students who wanted a free liberated non apartheid South Africa. Right. So now what this Attica uprising response means is that for any prisoners, you know, who dare to be, to dare to rebel who dare to say, Stop starving to be stopped subjecting to sexual violence, stop subjected me to environmental violence, there was one man who said I hadn't I think started 25 years. 25 years, right? Don't subject me to this level of violence. And we're going to resist because we deserve that. And the things that we're asking for a basic dignities that each human being deserves incarcerated or not, for them to be met with such show of violence was to send a message to future prison organizers who dare to tell the state that they made it more. Right and well, I don't know if you've had a chance to read Elizabeth Hansen's book, American empire, the history of uprisings, the Untold History of Uprising-

Traci Thomas 26:24

I haven't read it yet.

Derecka Purnell 26:25

I love this book. What one thing I gathered from that book is that protests against police have become remarkably safe in the last 60 years, this more safe like there used to be these huge shootouts with the police. Right. And so what happened is that to stop police terror, neighborhoods were organized and rise up against cops, who were constantly surveilled, and who would beat them who is sexually assaulting. And then we engage in all of this right? And what has happened over time is that police have gotten increasingly aggressive, and protests have gotten so much safer for police. But you wouldn't know that because the number one feature of protests as condemned is violence. But these are the spaces protesting seen in decades, saying was prison violence, whereas it has gone on hunger strike, and they're put in solitary confinement, right? So if you're, if you're penalizing prisoners, for peaceful, non violent actions, in order to demand their compliance with state violence, now, what do you expect prisoners to do? Like what do you expect people who are incarcerated to do and I just find that, you know, the level of force was intended to dissuade future uprisings and has had a chilling effect so far.

Traci Thomas 27:45

Do you think that the reason that the state, and Oswald didn't warn the prisoners that they were going to come in with force if they didn't accept that last offer? Do you think that that was so that they could be violent? Or do you? Do you think that there was some other motive?

Derecka Purnell 28:06

Well, I couldn't actually quite call it so I remember, the draft agreement wasn't supposed to be presented as an ultimatum. I initially assumed that if they presented it as an ultimatum, they expected the prisoners to then retaliate against the hostages. So that was my initial assumption, which was unfortunately quite generous. To the state. And then I also Yeah, it seemed like they did absolutely want to end it, that you have hundreds of troopers outside, eager to go and eager to wreak havoc, and destroy, you know, this rebellion to punish brutally the people who had the mandate, you know, just basic dignities and necessities, um, to carry out the rest of their confinement and so it's, the more I think about I absolutely think it was sort of a trigger event. It's like, Nope, okay. And you can tell with immediacy, right, the second the time expired on the on the deal, they move forward, right there was it they were eager to do that, what do you think?

Traci Thomas 29:15

I think originally I thought the sort of the generous idea of like, they were trying to make it so that the prisoners like didn't hunker down and like that the officers could go in like as safely as possible and do their thing. But of course, like knowing how it played out I think that some of it was like they wanted to they want to be element of surprise, so that they could do the most damage. I mean, because otherwise you can't really explain the way that they went in right like you can't explain all that fucking tear gas and all the guns and the bullets that were in the guns and allowing people to go in with guns that weren't registered like they clearly knew that these troopers and and other law enforcement people were pissed off, like really fucking mad and wanted to make a point to all these black and brown people, and communist white people and you know, car killers like that they really wanted to make a point of like, don't fuck with us because we have the guns and we will destroy you. And I think that the people in charge knew that. I mean, of course they would never admit it, but like you don't, you don't send it off. You don't take off your bat, like, that's like some real corrupt cop shit that we, you know, we recognize now like when people were like, We need dashcam footage, and then it's like, oh, it was out of camera, like, What do you mean, your camera was off?

Derecka Purnell 30:34

Right.

Traci Thomas 30:34

How did it get turned off? Like, it's that same shit. So I think they didn't warn them because they wanted to cause the most chaos possible. I found it really interesting that so many of the prisoners didn't understand why the cops came in with so much force. Like, to me that was like, sort of a moment where I was like, wow, these these young guys were more naive than maybe I thought that they were. And it makes sense. A lot of them were like 1920 and 21. Like, I didn't know how horrible the police were when I was that young. You know, and like, obviously, I did not live a life that that led me to be in contact with the police nearly as much as I think some of these some of these young men did. But I was struck by the night tivity of that. And like, I don't know, I just I wish that some of the prisoners were more cynical and more like they're coming in, and they're gonna kill us if we don't take this. Like, I wish that they would have seen seeing that, though. I couldn't see it either, I guess but you know, I want it better for them.

Derecka Purnell 31:37

Yeah, I think that one thing that they were holding on to was the idea that the cops, would it kill a rest of lives and one of their own? Yeah, right. And we simply know that's not true for lots of reasons. You know, I I think cops are pretty expendable. Yeah. Even though I think their job is much safer, then what? Television or the government, what have you let on they let you think that every day a cop spent on a uniform and enters into a dangerous profession where they don't know if they're gonna come home, it's much more dangerous to be an electrician, or a gardener or a farmer or a truck driver than this be a cop. You look at COP fatality statistics on the job way more dangerous to be, like many other professions and to be a cop, right. But I think that cops are still expendable, because they're still so they're the foot soldiers of capitalism and the printing industrial complex, they serve a greater purpose, which is to maintain order so that the elite can enjoy their lives. And so if I mean, Heather's what she does in the book is explained that lots of seals and lots of cats are also just poor white people who are dependent upon the prison as a source of employment. The cops, they depend upon being police officers, as sources of employment, right? This is Ruthie Wilson get more of the argument that cops the prison industrial complex is a labor source for surplus labor. So this is where people go and get jobs. So I think that they were absolutely expendable, knowing what I know now about the profession, because these are people who give legitimacy, their deaths if legitimacy to the violent institution so that then they can be replaced, right? So I don't think the state has an interest in preserving the lives of people who become cops, because if they did, they will be committed to abolition, which would then mean more people can live and not have to have a job predicated upon violence. So once the once the prison start realizing like, Oh, they're not even sending medical help, to the passages who are here, like this is on us to take care of them. The hostages became a burden, because they had to figure out how to care for them, you know, and so it's a such such a terrible and sad turn of events that really, I think, shows how class functions, like order is more important than the lives of people, especially the prisoners, and also the prison guards.

Traci Thomas 34:11

Right. That's so interesting, too. Because if for the for the state, if something happens to the hostages, it actually like is better for them. Yeah, like then they can say the prisoners are They're monsters. They're criminals. They're killers. Like they have no regard why should we give them anything? You know, like, the the death of the hostages? I'm sure the state would have preferred them to have their to have been stabbed somehow, but like those deaths actually helped the narrative for the state. Yes, it's so fucked. Okay, we're gonna take a quick break, and then we'll be right back. Okay, we're back. I have to ask you a hypothetical back to imagination. This is something that I have been been obsessed with since my first reading and I am just They'll obsessed with it. Oh, this happens in 2021. Who is getting called in as an observer? Who are the people that you think prisoners would want to be there? And slash or some of the people that the state would want to be there also?

Derecka Purnell 35:18

Wow, what a question.

Traci Thomas 35:22

I've been thinking a lot about it.

Derecka Purnell 35:23

Okay. Yes. So I don't have I have lots of feelings about this list. I'll think of who I think the most accurate list is. And these are not reflective of why this shoud be called in.

Traci Thomas 35:37

That's what my listeners to it's a lot of people that this is the person who would get the call, but not necessarily the person that I think has the has the skill and or, like activism experience that is needed.

Derecka Purnell 35:50

Okay, so some of these people do some of these people who don't, but this is who I think loosely be associated as observer less. So I think that Sherilyn I fall will probably called in.

Traci Thomas 36:04

I wasn't sure if women would be called in or not today. I thought about that a lot.

Derecka Purnell 36:07

Oh, that's interesting, because they call for -

Traci Thomas 36:14

They did. They did. Yeah. I don't know. I didn't put any I didn't really put any women on my list. Because I was like, maybe they wouldn't let women go, but who knows?

Derecka Purnell 36:23

Oh, wow. So yeah, I wouldn't say Sherilyn. I like she, you know, she UBF LDF. So I think she will be a huge one. I think Al Sharpton will be a huge one. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, I think people would, like sort of expect him. I can also see Farrakhan being requested because there's still a significant Muslim population. Black Muslim population. Yeah. Ah, who else I think would be cool.

Traci Thomas 36:51

I'll give you some of mine. Yes. Again, these are not the people I think should be called. These are the people that I think would show up. I think Shawn Yang would be on the list.

Derecka Purnell 37:00

I don't think Shaun king will be on the list. So I'm very curious about why you think Shaun king,

Traci Thomas 37:04

I think Shaun king would end up on the list from the state, you know, because remember, the prisoners had people and then the state had some people that they were like, Oh, well, we also think this purse, this black person should be there. You know, like, do you think they will call shine? Because I think that they, I think that they would be like, Oh, he's a black activist that black people listened to like, I think that that would be the misguided, like, well, but he's also like, we can work with him. Like he talks to the media. Like, I think that there would be some push to have him in the space.

Derecka Purnell 37:36

Wow, that was throwing me for a loop.

Traci Thomas 37:41

The other person I thought of was Ben Crump, the lawyer, too. Yeah. And then I thought of some journalists, I think perhaps Wes Lowry, Wes Lowry?

Derecka Purnell 37:50

Yes, absolutely.

Traci Thomas 37:52

I also thought of Clint Smith, because I know that he does a lot of like writing and he works at the Atlantic, but he also has spent a lot of time in prison. So I think that he might make the list. And then the only women that I sort of loosely thought of were the three women of Black Lives Matter. Because I think again, that's like those are, you know, like the way that they wanted the Black Panthers. They're like that there is a larger party activism there. Wow. Okay. So those and then I also think probably like, AOC, you know, like, I think there are maybe Cory bush or like, maybe some elected officials that are like popular because there were definitely some like, yeah, popular names. Maxine Waters.

Derecka Purnell 38:33

Yeah, yeah. I can see Maxine Waters being called in.

Traci Thomas 38:35

I can see Maxine Waters going and being like, yeah, I can like I can really see her actually showing up. I feel like I'm missing probably like some new york times z people, you know, like real, like, well known journalist, but maybe that today's day would be like Don Lemon. You know what I mean? Like, maybe it wouldn't be a writing journalist. Maybe it would be like a TV personality.

Derecka Purnell 38:57

Oh, yeah. Wow, this is so I love this question. Now, this is what I want to do for the next 30 minutes.

Traci Thomas 39:08

Yeah, I think I also probably didn't come up with enough people from the state side, because I just don't know those people. But I'm sure they exist. Like, do you. Do you think they call it like Tim Scott, and they're like, you're a black Republican, like go in there.

Derecka Purnell 39:22

Oh, wait, wait, we think in New York, or we think no, I'm thinking-

Traci Thomas 39:25

isn't Tim Scott, those the black senator from from South Carolina, Carolina.

Derecka Purnell 39:29

Yeah, but I think it will be fate specifics, I think okay. Or it wouldn't be Tim Scott.

Traci Thomas 39:33

Right. It has to find a plan.

Derecka Purnell 39:36

I don't think yeah, I don't Yeah, I don't think they will. Because yeah, you're right. Yeah, it would be. I guess he Yeah, I guess he's I'm calling like, Glen Ford, which is interesting, because when Ford was that abortion society, which was a huge prison advocacy group, I can see the column like Dianna Hoskins.

Traci Thomas 39:54

I don't know my New York politics well enough. You're giving me names. I don't know.

Derecka Purnell 39:58

Oh, yes, people with Like close Rikers, no new jails. Voice oh, what's his name? Oh my gosh, the person who helped with them and me for organizing in Florida was his name. He couldn't even vote in the election. But he organized Oh, yes,

Traci Thomas 40:15

Yes, yes, yes, yes. Yes.

Derecka Purnell 40:17

Oh my gosh, on the tip of my tongue doesn't mean Oh, my God, that was going to drive me up a wall. I know, it's probably very specific. But no, I am not feeling need. And North Henderson they are like, people who are formerly incarcerated, that lots of people on the political spectrum trust in this work. So I would say they would definitely call them as it as observers. And I think the state will probably be okay with that.

Traci Thomas 40:45

Yeah, yeah, I can see that too. Okay, on the flip side of this question, and this is another thing that I thought a lot about, after my first reading less so this time, is how is this event different? If Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Medgar Evers, these civil rights leaders are still alive in 1971 is 71. Because there's no way that they don't call Malcolm X to be an observer, or ask for him to come? Or Martin Luther King if those people are alive, right?

Derecka Purnell 41:16

Like they're on the left? Right, right. Why the honor lists?

Traci Thomas 41:20

Do they show up? Are they involved?

Derecka Purnell 41:24

So Malcolm X, falls into this favor with the Nation of Islam, he, you know, converts to a more traditional form of Islam, so his own mosque. So he's in a different relationship with the Nation of Islam and black Muslims who are probably incarcerated. So I I, they call for Farrakhan. And Elijah Muhammad said, No, Farrakhan kind of go. So it couldn't be the case that Malcolm X then enters, but not through the nation.

Traci Thomas 41:55

But he's the he's the New York. He's got the New York temple. So he is the New York die, right?

Derecka Purnell 42:01

Yes. But now with the nation, though not with the nation.

Traci Thomas 42:03

But don't you think some of these guys maybe would have made a slight semi splint like, do we think that that he still has fever in New York?

Derecka Purnell 42:11

That's what that's the that's what I Yeah. About whether, yeah, he was still in a nation. Absolutely. But I'm not actually sure of the, like, specific politics of the black Muslims incarcerated, how they felt towards Malcolm was also formerly incarcerated, right. So he organized he left out, he left prison, he requested the transfer so he can have access to a library. So he gets some of the demand. So I can honestly see it going either way. Yeah, same. Martin Luther King is also very interesting, because he was very unpopular. Like, while I was having staff, he had been thoroughly attacked by the state. So he's not seen as like, the peaceful King that we have community service day for on January 28. You know, he's criticizing capitalism, more. He's organizing in Chicago around class, he's trying to organize a poor people's campaign, he's fallen into disfavor with black churches, because if he became too radical, so if King continued on the trajectory, we don't I don't know if we see him as a peacemaker. But it wouldn't be it wouldn't be the king we know today. It would be interestingly, a much more radical King in 1971. Yes, this is this right would have happened in like, 1964. Yeah, yes. Maybe I can see caveum called in maybe, but 1971. So tough.

Traci Thomas 43:44

It's really hard, right? Like these quite like, but that is something that I think about a lot is like, the ways in which the assassinations of those two men specifically have robbed so much future history, like nearby history, not 2021 history, but like, you know, if they hadn't been assassinated, they probably would still have been alive in 1971. And like, what is that interaction look like? And like, maybe Martin Luther King isn't called, you know, like, maybe he's not called, but maybe he has something to say about it. You know, when did that press conference?

Derecka Purnell 44:16

It started up Marshall, Thurgood Marshall would have been because he's, you know, he's the lawyer. He does. He's like, the person who is critical of King and he's critical of Malcolm X. He's the person who works with COINTELPRO a little bit he's a very, I mean, we see him as a hero like black lawyers people on the left liberals progressive, but they go Marcia was very frustrated with King and people who were doing sit ins and stuff so I can actually see their good martial band called, I don't remember when he was appointed to the bench, but I will say Thurgood Marshall was probably one of the people We'll get who gets called in as a negotiator.

Traci Thomas 45:02

Okay, I'm totally changing the topic because we have to touch I'm sort of running out of time, and we have to touch on the hostages families. Because that part of the book was I felt the most conflicted. I think I felt in the entire book, I think the stuff with the prisoners and what the state I was like, I feel very clearly about a lot of this. But when it comes to the hostages families, and you know, and they're not, they're not a all of one mind. So why I'm space, but I was so mad at the hostages families who could not understand and see that their story and the story of the prisoners were linked, like that could not appreciate that, you know, that didn't want the prisoners to be paid. And they were trying to get in the way of their checks, right like that. They were like, not only do we want this and that, but we want to make sure that these people don't get paid. And of course, I also understand that as humans, and I am definitely guilty of this, that there's like a want for revenge sometimes. And there's a want for like you put us in this situation. And this is your fault, right that you didn't have to have this uprising, and you didn't have to take my brother or my dad or my cousin or whatever. So like, I get that that like personal hate and like personal revenge. But on a bigger picture. I'm like, How are you guys not seeing that this is all the same story. Like, that part was so hard for me.

Derecka Purnell 46:38

Yeah, well, it sort of reminds me. And this is like a broader thing that I noticed with the concept of justice, right? Because justice is often a standard for punishment, and revenge and retribution. And so what I noticed is that when so many activists were calling for justice for George Boyd, or justice Brown, what they meant was prison, or the death penalty for the person they associated with, like killing or taking their loved one and taking someone from the black community. We also have to remember that whenever there are cop killings, or prison guard killings, there's a family behind each one of them, and they're calling for justice. Right? So this word, once again becomes contested of what it means to be just. And so you have these people calling for justice. And they think that their cause is every bit of right is yours, and we expect the course to deliver justice. And not only are you delivering not delivering justice, you're now paying the families of the people who are responsible for the death of my loved one. This is why we have to just get rid of this word justice from the criminal legal system, because there's just no justice there, right? It's a game of who can get the most from the state. And every time I've noticed, even with like Mumia Abu Jamal, whenever people organize and to get him health care to make sure he can get, you know his hepatitis C shots and make sure that he can recover from COVID, the family of the Coppa he was convicted or accused by the allegedly killing, they organize to stop this, the police organized the stop this whenever people are trying to get Assata Shakur off of the like FBI most weren't listed trying to be a fugitive, the cops family organized against that. I mean, this is 40 years later, right? 40 years later, people are still livid about you know, her flight to Cuba are still upset that when Mia is claiming that he's innocent, they're they're angry at you know, these appeals for freedom even today in 2021. So that those hostages families were so angry and so upset, I think just reflects this broader trend of what people think Justice is, and how they have so much faith in these systems that they're capable of delivering something called just whether it's monetary, through a civil lawsuit, or through a prison, that conviction of the well pardons or clemency, whatever, they're so invested in this singular system, that it becomes the eggs, it becomes a basket, so they put all their eggs in, right. This is where we have to reduce our reliance on these systems in the first place. But yeah, it's just yeah, it's right. It's frustrating.

Traci Thomas 49:26

It's frustrating. And the other part of it is like, in this particular story, we see time and again, the people who killed the hostages, the people who fucked over these families. It wasn't the prisoners. It was the state why, you know, like, in this case, it's not even as direct as as it isn't the Assata you know, if you believe that she did it and that's your family member, then you believe she shouldn't have things because you want to punish her? Sure. But in this case, it's like the state. The prisoners didn't send you those checks to try to fuck you out of being able to To them, you know, like, right, the prisoner? Yeah, the prisoners didn't do a lot of this stuff to us. So I understand being mad at them because without them uprising, then there is no hostage situation like I fully fucking get that. And I'm sure that if I was a family member of the hostages, I wouldn't be as you know, I wouldn't be as like feeling as strongly as I am right now. But what given as an outsider's perspective, which is all I can offer, obviously is like, they didn't try to trick you out of your money. They didn't do anything to try to harm your family members or harm you. They didn't go in there with guns blazing like they didn't drop tear gas on you. And yet still, like it's like, they can't let go of this narrative because it's so ingrained in us that like, prisoners are bad no matter what. And that law enforcement is good no matter what. And like, and that's complicated by the fact that these hostages are law enforcement, right? Like, yeah, their jobs are law enforcement. And some of them were civilian employees of Attica, but still like, like,

Derecka Purnell 51:02

in their jobs were predicated upon the exploitation and incarceration of people who are exploited in their neighborhoods, right? It's like that the reason your partner, your husband, your brother have a job is because of capitalism, because it undermines and exploits black people in these other areas in Brooklyn and the Bronx in Harlem, they get sent to upstate and you have a job because of that. Right? Right. So the prisoners and acts of either they didn't ask me in this country, they didn't ask me even their ancestors in accidents slaves, right their grandmothers and great grandmother's didn't add to to flee the Jim Crow South. Right, their fathers and their mothers and their children. They didn't ask to be exploited in jobs during war time on to be let go and do. deindustrialization hit their cities, and jobs move overseas. Right? So none of these things these this group of people asked for, but yet, even still, just as overseers benefited on slavery, and there were wars that were fought under slavery, there was slave rebellions overseas were killed. There were all sorts of riots and rebellions, they didn't ask me put in that position, they were fighting to get free from it. And unfortunately, because of capitalism, and because of white supremacy, your loved one was complicit in maintaining this system. This person as an overseer brought person as a prison guard, as a CEO as a cop. And he's just like, we have to reckon with your complicity in this system. Or you can help join the people who are trying to undermine it. So yes, it's so infuriating. Yeah, it's simply presented as like guards versus prisoners. Let's actually capitalist slave on the plantation owners, people who are the 1%, who's forcing these rebellions in the first place, forcing this polarization in the first place between the people who were hella hella hella eggs, and people who are slightly above,

Traci Thomas 53:04

And other thing, this is so small, but the family of the hostages invoking the Truth and Reconciliation committee in South Africa, that really pissed me off because you know, damn, well, that's not fair. Because what a hated Nelson Mandela and everything he stood for he had been in South Africa. And that should just really just like, irked me on just a just like a fucking No, your history shit. Like, it just really made me.

Derecka Purnell 53:29

Like the word it's like history is so it's making me think of your conversation, like you just asked me about kink. It's like, I'm the king that we remember that were taught about that King would have been invited, but not the king in like 1968 to 1971. So yes, he just used to involve Nelson Mandela, but not actually the revolutionary violence that he committed.

Traci Thomas 53:48

And the fact that he was a prisoner. He's like one of the most famous prisoners ever, like, you don't get to invoke his legacy, talking shit about prisoners like, that is what he was. That was that was his legacy.

Derecka Purnell 54:04

And speaking of why he was a prisoner was because the ANC also formed a military wing, right, that was violent against the apartheid government, because all of the nonviolent peaceful actions they didn't care about, right, they care about and you just don't get to hide all of this history and then talk about his peace, right?

Traci Thomas 54:23

It just like, yeah, just invoke Truth and Reconciliation and not deal with the whole lead up to it. No. Okay. I just want to this can be brief also. But what is the legacy? As you see it, 50 years later of Africa?

Derecka Purnell 54:39

Oh, this is such a good question. I know sort of a big one. Yeah, it's a huge question. It's a huge question. So I think what's incredible about Africa, is that for the last, even the last year under COVID, watching all the prisons, Shyster hunger strikes, the rebellions, the uprisings that's happened in prisons and then jails all across the country. One legacy, unfortunately, is that many people are demanding the same sets of demands, except for like transfer attend on a peerless country, but roughly demanding the same sets of demands that we witnessed from 1971. And even those demands, like you said earlier had been part of a greater tradition of people organizing within prisons to try to get free to try to get some relief, to try to get some, like literally fresh air fresh foods. So watching those repressed their state repress the same set of demands and organizing around the same domains. I think it's one legacy in terms of the police, I'll also think is incredible, and that people are still continuing to sacrifice their bodies or times their little freedoms that they do have while they're incarcerated in order to figure out how to like fight back against the state. So there's still a traditional jailhouse lawyers are still prisoners who are organizing every single day. Just earlier this year, there are two offices in St. Louis as the jail, you know, so people who are breaking windows setting fire stolen Catholics, I say, help us. They're leaving us ain't here to die. Right. And so one thing I hope that we've no hope that we draw from the legacy of Atticus. So it's imperative that we're connected to people who are organizing, and who are doing work on the inside, because without like their organizing, we just have no idea what people are going through until they tell us or until it's too late. And so I am so excited when I learned about inside outside campaigns or inside outside book clubs. Earlier this year, I was in the inside outside book club. And I had a reading partner who was current who was incarcerated. Now he's out, thank God, but I was able to read together and then it became less about the book and more about a sense of community, he started telling me some of the grievances that he was experiencing what it was like, for him to be incarcerated while Colin was happening, right. So it's these sorts of connections, I hope our kids are in the legacy of Africa. They also help us to figure out how to forge relationships to help people who are currently incarcerated trying to get free.

Traci Thomas 57:11

Yeah, so good. Okay, I'm gonna mention just two small legacies. That one is not great, and one is good. The one that I think that is not great. The one that I think there's an unfortunate legacy is the way in which the media still continues to believe the state at every turn. I think that like we still are seeing this, and the ways that the media is involved in politics without being accountable to these political actions, or like, I guess not politics, but human rights, I mean, the whole thing, like the way that the media is, is still is still here. And then the other thing, and I hadn't thought of this, but Heather and Thompson mentioned that when I spoke to her earlier, is that the litigation part of this story, and how the prisoners didn't just take it, and that they were like, We are people, and we deserve rights. And we are going to have lawyers join us and push back not just against us being indicted, and being charged, but also demanding that we are owed something. And I think that like that, I don't know a ton about it, in the history of it. But in my mind, I feel like that leads us to where we are now in the ways that people push back against the state through litigation. You know, like, I think that that's part of the conversation. So yeah, those would be my kind of two bigger legacy things, aside from what you said, or in addition to what you said.

Derecka Purnell 58:34

I cannot I would love to be part about the prison litigation, because I'm so conflicted around the prison litigation, like sure like that, right. So in one sense, it's absolutely incredible that there's a tradition of movement lawyers, even today, like actually, St. Louis, works for our city defenders in St. Louis, and that currently litigated to close the workhouse. My first litigation I've worked on was a prison closure campaign. Right. So I think it's so so so important. And what just made me so angry about what happened, Attica just being the part where the lawyers went to the judges house, like three o'clock in the morning, they made their argument, you saw the federal order, that was a temporary injunction, the lawyers take this injunction, and they like rush to the prison, and they can't even get it. Right. And it reminded me of it reminded me of something I learned in law school and one of my classes, one of my first classes, and that was that the court has no army. And so all of our hope. And the execution of a judicial order is basically in the good faith of the executive branch. And in that case, it was a prison administration. And they knew that they could just say, No, we're good, and they probably weren't gonna get covered for it, and they did. And so it just went REM it was such a sober reminder, like, all right, like I remember days in Ferguson, it's like, oh, we have this court order, and then seeing the police go, okay, cool. Sure. Right. And it's just like, it's so important that the I know, as we're seeing this as a lawyer, that litigation often gets held up, it's like, we're gonna go to court and every time Donald Trump would do something, the ACLU would get 10s of gajillions of dollars to go like fighting in court. Like, that's very important. But if not equally important, it's more important that people continue to use their bodies to resist the violence, because the court has no army. So we can't just keep putting our faith in litigation to get us free. Like we literally have to do every strategic tactic including organizing protests, mass demonstrations, letter writing, pot, like literally everything again. And it can be easy to the hall to lawyers as the people who are using the Constitution, but that's, it's, it's necessary, but it's not sufficient.

Traci Thomas 1:01:02

Yeah. Okay, we're gonna leave it there. We didn't talk about the title and the cover, which we always do, but I don't know. I have nothing to complain about with this book. Basically. I just think it's beautiful on the outside and inside. I agree. Very beautiful. Yeah. The picture on the front is just like so powerful. And I just love I just love this book. Again, here's my last push on the podcast, but I will continue to push all the way through October. Derek has book becoming abolitionists, police protests, and the pursuit of freedom is out October 5, that is in a week from Tuesday. If you're listening to this, please put your pre orders in, please request it at your library. Please make sure that your bookstore is going to have it for sale is a great book. You do not want to miss it. Also pro tip. Buy a few copies for family members for the holidays. I'm just saying it's a good one, only to read it. Derek, thank you so much for being here.

Derecka Purnell 1:01:58

Of course, this was incredible. I literally could have just kept talking because I know you're just so funny and sobering to bring out very specific parts of the book that made you like angry and sweaty and happy and curious..

Traci Thomas 1:02:15

I'm sweating too. So thank you and everyone else we will see you in the stacks.

Thank you all so much for listening. And thank you again to Derecka for being my guest. Our October book club pick is a modern day classic about love and friendship. It is Terry McMillan's 1992 book Waiting to Exhale. We will discuss the book on Wednesday, October 27. And you can tune in next week to find out who our guests will be for that conversation. If you love the show and you want inside access to it, head to patreon.com/thestacks to join The Stacks Pack. Make sure you're subscribed to The Stacks wherever you listen to your podcasts and if you're listening through Apple podcasts or Spotify, be sure to leave a rating and a review. For more from The Stacks follow us on social media at thestackspod on Instagram, Threads and TikTok and at thestackspod_ on Twitter and you can check out my website at thestackspodcast.com. This episode of The Stacks was edited by Christian Dueñas. Our graphic designer is Robin McCreight and our theme music is from Tagirijus. The Stacks is created and produced by me, Traci Thomas.

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