Black and Pink December 2016 Newspaper

Black & Pink December 2016 Newsletter The Incarcerated LGBTQ People Asserting Their Humanity Through Art

By Gabby Bess, Broadly, Nov. 15, 2016 BACKGROUND IMAGE: On the Inside press breakfast (Nov. 4), Abrons Art Center On the Inside is a new exhibition at the Abrons Art Center in New York that features work by people who found art, and their immense talent for it, after they were incarcerated. The artists featured in the show are currently locked away in the vast network of the United States prison system, which criminalizes people at the highest rate in the world. They identify across the LGBTQ spectrum and—through imaginative selfportraiture, detailed studies of Rihanna or Michael Jackson’s face, and sketched visions of Christ—are asking us to see them as not just prisoners, but people.

“This show isn’t typical prison art,” a woman named Jennifer, who sent in artwork to the show before she was released from a prison in Texas, said on a panel that was held last week to mark the opening of On the Inside. While incarcerated, Jennifer was used to drawing things like cards with Care Bears on them for her fellow inmates’ children in exchange for other goods. Art in prison, she said, is a clandestine currency and many people discover their capacity for the craft out of necessity. “It’s not the typical day-to-day stuff that as an artist in prison you’re almost required to do to survive because it’s what people want.”

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Poem: Live Your Life Please pass this around, lol. Dedicated to all who live their life–Live your life like no other. When you just live your life, good things come to you.

Life your life The way you want to Live your life like no other Live your life like it’s The last day of your life.

worried about what your friends are going to say The only person that matters is you Life your life Like you want to Do what makes you happy you need to love Friends come and go

I see the way you look at me When you with your friends I see the look on your face when I pass by

Live your Life

I can tell that you want me I can tell that you need me I can tell that you shy

Put your lighters up.

Live your Life.

Like No Tomorrow Live your Life

-Juicy

Undocumented queer activists Dago Bailon (left) and Karyna Jaramillo near the Phoenix, AZ headquarters of Trans Queer Pueblo, an organization that supports LGBT undocumented immigrants, providing legal help, access to healthcare, job training, and a sense of community (Washington Blade photo by Greg Marzullo) see article on page 6

A Message from Jason

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been some policy changes over Indigenous people throughout this Dear friends, I hope this note finds you all as the last eight years that increase nation resisted colonization. While well as possible. As I write you this access to care for transgender the colonizers won in many ways, note Donald Trump is preparing to prisoners. The Department of there are still millions of Indigenous become president of our country. Justice is currently investigating the people fighting to protect their Over the last few weeks we have Georgia Department of Corrections sovereignty. Just as the Black Lives watched as he nominated white for their discriminatory treatment Matter movement and anti-prison supremacists, bigots, banking of LGBT prisoners. There have movement resists white supremacy executives, and Islamophobic lovers been negotiations to get the today, Black people who were held of war to different cabinet positions. Federal Bureau of Prisons to move in chattel slavery resisted plantation You all may have paid particular transgender women, who have owners, fought back on ships that attention to his nomination of Jeff requested it, into women’s prisons. were stealing them from Africa, and Sessions to Attorney General. This President Obama has also commuted escaped. Those of us who are white is a man who helped create and more sentences of federal prisoners also have ancestors to turn to who joined in the struggle for expand the War on liberation. There were Drugs. He is violently those like John Brown racist, homophobic, and in the 19th Century anti-immigrant. What and Anne Braden in feelings are coming the 20th Century who of for you? Are you were willing to put anxious about what a their lives on the line Trump presidency will to act in solidarity. bring? What do you As we celebrate those think his administration who survived, we also will mean for prisoners? know that countless For LGBTQ people? people suffered and died For people of color? during these struggles.

For Muslims?

For Protesters hold up signs during a march against Donald Trump, We honor all of our immigrants? For HIV Los Angeles, CA, Nov. 12, 2016 (REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson) ancestors’ legacies and positive people? For than any president in history (though deaths by continuing the struggles disabled people? For our planet?

As an abolitionist organization, we he should obviously do thousands that they started.

During these tough times there at Black and Pink know that neither more). There are challenges ahead the democrats or the republicans that we must be ready to meet with are those who quote Joe Hill, who said, “don’t mourn, organize.” My want to bring about the changes we organizing and resistance.

As we prepare for the Trump response is that I think it is okay for believe in. We know that democrats and republicans have both helped presidency it is important to us to do both, let us mourn where growth the prison system. We know remember that whenever there we are as a nation, let us mourn that democrats and republicans has been oppression and there the spread of right wing politics, ignore our demands to get our people has always been resistance. The let us mourn our losses, and at the free. We know that democrats and election of Trump is not, in fact, the same time let us be moved to build republicans both push forward racist worst moment in American history. our power so that we may organize policies that attack our communities. We have a history of genocide and win. We do all of our collective We know all of this, but we can and slavery, the impact of which work knowing that once there were also recognize that there are unique continues today, regardless of who is no prisons, that day will come again.

In loving solidarity, challenges that we will face under a president. Just as the Water Protectors Jason Trump administration. There have in Standing Rock are resisting today,

What’s Inside!

• • • • • • •

On the Inside: Black & Pink family art exhibit opens: front, 5 Poetry from the Heart: front, 5, 10 Buscando Contribuciones/Call for Submissions, Black & Pink Topics: 3, 10, 11, 22 News you can use: Experiences of undocumented LGBT detainees: 6, 8 News you can use: Donald Trump’s looming mass criminalization: 7, 9 Letters to our Black & Pink family: 13, 16, 17, 18, 21 Letters & Art to our Black & Pink family: 14, 15, 19, 20

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We look forward to hearing from you! This is our first attempt at Page 4 this so please be patient with us as we work it all out. We will not be able to answer every call, but we will do our best. We apologize to anyone who has been trying to get through to the hotline with no success. We are still working this system out. Thank you for being understanding.

Statement of Purpose Black & Pink is an open family of LGBTQ prisoners and “free world” allies who support each other. Our work toward the abolition of the prison industrial complex is rooted in the experience of currently and formerly incarcerated people. We are outraged by the speci c violence of the prison industrial complex against LGBTQ people, and respond through advocacy, education, direct service, and organizing.

Black & Pink is proudly a family of people of all races and ethnicities.

Black & Pink Hotline The hotline phone number is 617.519.4387! The hotline will be available Sundays 1-5pm (Eastern Time) for certain. You can call at other times as well and we will do our best to answer your calls; they will be answered as often as possible.

We are sorry that we can only accept prepaid calls at this time. The purposes of the hotline are:

About this Newsletter Since 2007, Black & Pink free world volunteers have pulled together a monthly newsletter primarily composed of material written by our family’s incarcerated members. In response to letters we receive, more prisoners receive the newspaper each issue! This newspaper is being sent to over 9,400 prisoners!

Supportive listening. Being in prison is lonely, as we all know. The hotline is here for supportive listening so you can just talk to someone about what is going on in your life.

Disclaimer: Please note that the ideas and opinions expressed in the Black & Pink Newspaper are solely those of the authors and artists and do not necessarily re ect the views of Black & Pink. Black & Pink makes no representations as to the accuracy of any statements made in the Newspaper, including but not limited to legal and medical information. Authors and artists bear sole responsibility for their work. Everything published in the Newspaper is also on the internet—it can be seen by anyone with a computer. By sending a letter to “Newspaper Submissions,” you are agreeing to have your piece in the Newspaper and on the internet. For this reason, we only publish First Names and State Location to respect people’s privacy. Pieces may be edited to fit our anti-oppression values and based on our Editing Guidelines.

Organizing. If there are things going on at your prison in terms of lock downs, guard harassment, resistance, and anything else that should be shared with the public, let us know so we can spread the word.

Restrictions: The hotline is not a number to call about getting on the pen pal list or to get the newspaper. The hotline is not a number to call for sexual or erotic chatting. The hotline is not a number for getting help with your current court case, we are not legal experts.

‘On the Inside’ Opening: Incarcerated LGBTQ People Asserting Their Humanity Through Art

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continued from front page Many of the works are by transgender women who are currently incarcerated in male prisons. According to Black & Pink, nearly 100 percent of transgender women who have not had genital reconstructive surgery are subjected to this systematic violence, despite the fact that it is against the law. But in boundless sensual portraits, these women have imagined themselves outside of the clothing and presentation restrictions forced upon them.

In a tiny box within the main gallery space, the size of a solitary confinement room, there are more explicit, and detailed, drawings are displayed. There are also drawings of civil rights leaders and heroes, which also double as selfportraits that illuminate the aspects of strength and resilience in the artists.

Across genres, all the art is made with items accessible to a prisoner—KoolAid, the wobbly plastic ink inserts of pens, inhalers fashioned into airbrush machines, pencils, deodorant—or stolen from somewhere technically not accessible to a prisoner. Next to each illustration is a number that you can

If the enemy wants to see you destroyed Suffering in vain Then act like you’re dying in pain If they want the worst to happen with you Act like your soul is on fire In tears, with fear And so as they think they’re laughing at you So sad, foolish they are Cause I’m laughing at you Faking tears so many years

Portraits from ‘On the Inside’ (The Guardian)

text to send a message to the artist to let them know you have seen them.

(The text will be printed out and mailed, which is the only way to write someone in prison.)

As part of the panel, Janetta Johnson, a formerly incarcerated transgender woman who is now the director of TGI Justice, said that the artwork reminded

Enjoying and controlling My laughter Then when I’m ready to strike back I will bring chaos.

All there will be is tears I’m “Cherrie Bomb,” It’s my twisted soul Forever and ever The rainbow is my strength My love and desire Keep hating on my life of happiness.

-Santos V. (CA)

her of the conversations she had with LGBTQ people in prison. She said she talked with inmates about their hopes and dreams for the future, about the life they saw for themselves, “to better understand what systems of oppression keep us in prison,” and realized that many people ended up behind bars because they were trying “to meet the basic necessities like food and housing.”

After viewing the show for the first time, she said, “My immediate thought was what would happen if we as a society or we as people invested in people before we went to prison.

It would be nice if we could check in with people and just ask what do you need in order to evolve in a way that you don’t need to participate [in crimes of survival]. What do you need to be successful in your artwork or anything else?”

The show is call to those of us on the outside to think about how we have chosen to deal with people who get caught breaking the law, and how those people are disproportionately people of color and people from the LGBTQ community.

LGBT detainees describe harrowing life inside Eloy

By Greg Marzullo, Washington Blade, Dec. 8, 2016

Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Eloy detention center in Arizona (photo by Yash Mori, courtesy of Flickr)

Moths cover the walls in the claustrophobic antechamber of the Eloy detention center in Eloy, Ariz. The fluttering insects are dark brown, obvious against the stark white cinderblocks where they crawl toward the room’s single door.

“My grandmother said they were reincarnated souls,” said Dago Bailon, my guide to this Dantean holding cell for America’s undocumented immigrants. I’ve arrived at Eloy with Bailon and other representatives of Trans Queer Pueblo, a Phoenix-based organization whose goal is to assist LGBT undocumented immigrants, providing legal help, access to healthcare, job training and a sense of community.

The town of Eloy is about 80 minutes south of Phoenix, along a desolate expanse of Route 10, and the detention center stands completely isolated from any commerce or housing, although the facility is one of the town’s leading employers. The August sun is unforgiving on the day I visit with Trans Queer Pueblo, a trip organizers and volunteers make monthly to visit detainees in the hopes of connecting them with legal aid.

I first met Bailon months earlier at a café in Phoenix.

“I crossed the border,” he said, “I was around 8 or 9. That was an experience I’ll never forget.”

Bailon, who is now 29, crossed with his grandmother and brother and remains undocumented in a state infamous for its rough handling of Mexican immigrants. In 2011, he helped to found the Arizona Queer Undocumented Immigrants Project in response to the state’s 2010 legislation SB 1070 that was widely regarded as the most draconian immigration law in the country. One of its provisions stipulated that police officers were required to demand papers from anyone they suspected of being in the country illegally. If the suspected immigrant did not have their papers on them, it was considered a misdemeanor.

“Initially, our mission was to bridge the LGBT and migrant communities,” he said. “We saw a lot of the movement was focused on the migrant community and was really religiously led.”

Within five years, however, Bailon and others founded Trans Queer Pueblo in order to address the wide scope of disenfranchisement faced by LGBT undocumented immigrants—healthcare, job training, legal aid and, of course,

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the confluence of immigration and homophobia or transphobia.

“LGBT communities, the migrant community and the detention movement was really focused on family ties,” said Bailon. “Some of us are running away from our families.”

Even in the organization’s nascent days, Bailon and others heard of gay men, lesbians, bisexuals and trans people in detention centers who desperately needed contacts, legal aid and advocacy to help them navigate a system that often proves deleterious to their safety.

“For people who are LGBTQ, immigration detention is more than just unpleasant—it’s, in fact, dangerous,” said Aaron Morris, executive director of Immigration Equality, a national LGBT immigrant rights organization.

“LGBTQ people are much more likely to be subjected to physical assault, trans women in particular.”

Physical and sexual assault and suicide are commonly reported from those inside the detention centers. One of the recent cases that gained national attention was that of Marichuy Leal Gamino, a transgender woman who reported being raped by her male cellmate in 2014 at Eloy.

“They’re all jails at some point,” Morris said of the detention centers, before adding, “We have rarely heard good things about Eloy.”

A 2013 study by the Center for American Progress stated that LGBT detainees are 15 times more likely to experience sexual assault than their heterosexual counterparts—a threat well known by Karyna Jaramillo, a trans woman who spent two weeks in Eloy in the summer of 2015.

“When I got there, they started yelling at me,” Jaramillo said of the other detainees, speaking to me through an interpreter. “They would yell homophobic slurs, transphobic slurs. They started screaming, ‘Yeah, we’re going to have someone we can get laid with tonight,

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Protestors at Trump Tower, Nov. 13, 2016 (James Keivom, New York Daily News)

Donald Trump’s Looming Mass Criminalization

By Seth Freed Wessler, The Nation, Nov. 28, 2016 William Diaz-Castro is about to become one of the “criminal illegal immigrants” whom Donald Trump campaigned against for 17 months—and whom, as president-elect, he now plans to deport immediately.

“What we are going to do is get the people that are criminal and have criminal records—gang members, drug dealers, we have a lot of these people, probably 2 million, it could be even 3 million—we are getting them out of our country,” Trump said in an interview on 60 Minutes four days after his victory.

“Or,” he added, “we are going to incarcerate.”

This statement had the appearance of softening his earlier position; at times during the campaign, Trump threatened to deport every one of the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants who live in the United States. But the impact on families and communities of immediately removing even 3 million people would be cataclysmic. That’s equal to the population of the state of Mississippi, and more people than Barack Obama removed during his entire presidency.

The people Trump says he will target—those “bringing drugs,” “bringing crime,” who are “rapists,” as he put it in the speech that launched his campaign—sound terribly scary. The idea

that there are millions of them is quickly seeping into our political discourse as though it were fact. In reality, any effort to deport 3 million “criminal” immigrants will first require branding law-abiding people as criminals—a process that’s been unfolding across presidential administrations stretching back to Bill Clinton’s, but that Trump plans to escalate massively.

This is how it happened for Diaz-Castro: On March 22, the soft-spoken 30-year-old construction worker and his partner, Linda Guzman, 29, who works the day shift at a laundromat, were awakened by the sound of urgent knocking on the door of their two-bedroom apartment in New Orleans. Their 3-year-old son, Willie, was asleep in a bed beside them; a friend was spending the night in the second bedroom. Before Diaz-Castro could get out of bed and dress, his friend opened the door and found five armed Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in black jackets. Documents say they were conducting a “knock and talk,” the name ICE gives to its home-based roundups. The friend let the agents in without asking if they had a warrant (they did not).

The officers began to question Diaz-Castro in the living room. He says they insisted on scanning his finger-

prints. The scan didn’t turn up any criminal warrants, but it did turn up two past deportations. ICE took Diaz-Castro into custody and sent him to an immigration detention center in central Louisiana run by the private prison firm GEO Group.

The penalty in a civil proceeding would be deportation, like Diaz-Castro had faced before.

But in April, instead of moving through the civil immigration system, he discovered that ICE had referred him to federal prosecutors to be charged with the crime of “illegal reentry,” or returning to the United States after deportation. For the past seven months, Diaz-Castro has been locked in the St. Tammany Parish jail awaiting trial. If he’s convicted, he’ll instantly become a “criminal”—and will count toward the 3 million people that Trump has vowed to deport.

No federal agency tallies how many of this country’s undocumented immigrants have been convicted of a crime.

Trump’s estimate is likely drawn from ICE data indicating that approximately 1.9 million noncitizens of every status— including green-card holders—have convictions. The nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute has come up with a best estimate, based on an analysis of ICE’s data on people deported in 2012. The MPI calculates that roughly 7 percent of this country’s estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants have a criminal conviction, or around 820,000 people.

Of these, says Randy Capps, MPI’s director of research, an estimated 300,000 were convicted of felonies.

Some of those 300,000 felonies were serious or violent crimes—assault, burglary, manslaughter—but most, Capps says, were drug crimes. And many of those convicted are felons in the sense that Diaz-Castro may soon be: guilty of the crime of border crossing. For Trump to meet his deportation goal, he will need to criminalize millions more immigrants like him.

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LGBT detainees describe harrowing life inside Eloy continued from page 6 fresh meat.’ They would grab their parts and tell me, ‘Look at this, this is all you’re going to have.’”

Jaramillo said her stay at Eloy was a battle against her own mind as much as the system itself.

“It was a constant fight with my thoughts,” she said. “It was this war that was happening inside my head—desperation, depression…absolute fear.”

Jaramillo, 46, only got out of Eloy after she finally spoke to a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) representative, who set her bond price at $5,000. Her family was only able to raise $4,500, but ICE accepted the lesser amount and let her go.

“That’s why sometimes cases take forever,” she said, “because we are a bank for the state and for this country.”

Jaramillo, born and raised in Cuernavaca Morelos, about an hour south of Mexico City, first came to the United States 27 years ago. She says there weren’t as many border guards then and crossing was relatively easy. Thirteen years after her initial entry, she was living in Texas and got pulled over by police for expired license plates. She was deported, and the journey back to the United States was torturous. At first, she was caught, but she made the attempt again the same day.

“I had to walk for two nights and two days. We had to get water from where the cows drink. It’s dirty. There’s cow poop. It was contaminated. At the end, my thighs gave out on me, and I was pulling them with my hands so I could continue walking. We had to pay a lot of money—about $3,000—to the coyotes.”

“Coyotes” are human smugglers who get people across the border for a steep price, and they’re known for leaving their charges to die in the desert or demanding more money than originally agreed upon.

When I asked Jaramillo what would drive her to risk such an experience

across the Sonora, she begins to cry.

“I had been threatened before [in Mexico] by gangs and people who told me that I had to sell drugs or had to give my body to them.”

About a decade after her second crossing into the U.S., Jaramillo, who has struggled with alcoholism, began drinking again. She was stopped by the police, and upon investigating her background, they discovered she had an unpaid DUI on her record from 10 years prior. The police contacted ICE, and six ICE officials picked her up outside of the gym. They handcuffed her and eventually sent her to Eloy.

“I’ve always been afraid of the police,” she said. “In Mexico, the police, instead of helping, are part of the corruption. They’re the ones harassing you, and the same happened with ICE. They never respected my gender identity.

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Without access to her hormones, Jaramillo said she began thinking of committing suicide. She told the medical staff at Eloy about her needs, and they did give her hormones and antidepressants. However, she’s dubious about the center’s motivation and fast turnaround time.

“I know that at that time, something had happened and they were investigating the detention centers. Far from wanting to help me, I think they wanted to look good.”

It’s no secret that the Obama administration has deported more people than any other, claiming they’re focusing on criminals instead of young people and families. However, something as innocuous as jumping a New York subway turnstile can result in a criminal charge.

“I think the Obama administration was great at…tossing what was a tem-

“For people who are LGBTQ, immigration detention is more than just unpleasant—it’s, in fact, dangerous. LGBTQ people are much more likely to be subjected to physical assault, trans women in particular.”

Aaron Morris, Executive Director, Immigration Equality They continued to treat me as a man, telling me I was not a woman.”

She was detained with other men, and in recounting her time there, she begins to cry again.

“I was thinking if I could make it another day. If I was going to be able to stay alive in there, knowing somebody could start something and get me in trouble. If they send me back to Mexico, I would lose my life. I had the fear… of somebody touching me without my consent and not being able to protect myself, and if I do that, they’re going to say it was my fault.”

porary Band-Aid and then allowing us to bleed in another way,” said Bailon.

Despite the Obama administration’s high deportation numbers, the looming Trump presidency is causing even more anxiety.

“We are in a state of aggressive triage,” said Morris. “When you think about what President-elect Trump has really prioritized throughout his campaign and continuing through his president-elect status, he has consistently said he is going to deport people—a great number of those individuals will be LGBT people.”

Donald Trump’s Looming Mass Criminalization continued from page 7 In late October, the Trump campaign released a plan for his first 100 days.

Among the items on that list is legislation that would impose a mandatory minimum sentence of two years in federal prison for people caught in the United States after having been deported. Those who return after being deported twice would face a minimum of five years.

In his November 13 60 Minutesinterview, Trump made a point to add the word “incarcerate” to his list of punishments that undocumented immigrants would face. Here, too, Trump’s surrogates have long hoped to expand the programs created and implemented by previous presidents—in particular, a Bush-era program that has already flooded federal courtrooms with criminal prosecutions.

In 2005, the DHS and Justice Department launched a program called Operation Streamline, which sought to criminally charge nearly every single border crosser caught by the Border Patrol. In what amounted to a judicial conveyor belt, as many as 80 border crossers, their ankles and wrists cuffed, appeared en masse before magistrate judges in federal courts at the border.

In proceedings that took about a minute for each defendant, the men and women pleaded guilty to misdemeanor illegal-entry charges. At its height, Streamline operated in eight of 20 federal-court sectors along the border. For years, Jeff Sessions has pressed to expand the program to all 20—and as attorney general, he could finally enact that proposal.

Under the Obama administration, criminal prosecution for border crossing also extended into federal-court districts in places like Utah, Virginia, and Louisiana, where Diaz-Castro was charged with illegal reentry. Inside the St. Tammany Parish jail, Diaz-Castro said he has met at least a dozen others with stories like his—undocumented immigrants living with their families in Lou-

isiana who were detained by ICE and then charged with illegal reentry. Since 2005, three-quarters of a million people have been prosecuted for border-crossing crimes, according to estimates by the advocacy groups Grassroots Leadership and Justice Strategies.

Yet there’s no clear evidence that the prosecutions deter crossing. The Border Patrol doesn’t measure their long-term effect, and social scientists have found they have no impact on deportees’ intention to return. “Of course I would come back,” Diaz-Castro told me when we met at the jail in September. He spoke from behind the glass in the visitation booth, handcuffs digging into his wrists.

“There’s no question—this is where my family is.”

Trump has said that after the “criminals” are deported, he will “make a determination” about what to do with the rest. But his advisers and presumptive cabinet members have already indicated that Trump may expand the prosecutions beyond border crossing, and Republicans have previously attempted to create several tools that would allow him to do so. In 2015, congressional Republicans introduced legislation that would criminalize overstaying a visa, which currently remains a civil offense that is punished only with deportation.

The bill died in committee.

In 2002, the Bush administration also launched the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System. “Special registration,” as the program was known, required all noncitizen men on temporary visas who were over the age of 16 and who came from 24 Muslim-majority countries (as well as North Korea) to register with federal authorities. More than 80,000 men registered, and 13,000 were placed in deportation proceedings, mostly because of visa irregularities. Though the program was mostly unenforced at the time, it also allowed courts to levy misdemeanor penalties against those who weren’t properly registered.

Trump’s top immigration adviser,

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Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, helped design the program as a lawyer for the Bush administration. He was photographed carrying a memo on DHS priorities in a recent meeting with the president-elect; reactivating “special registration”—a proxy for Trump’s promised “Muslim registry”—topped the list. If that happens, men who refuse to sign up could join the ranks of Trump’s 3 million “criminals.”

All told, Trump’s agenda will likely spur a massive expansion of the federal prison system. The morning after the election, stock prices soared for two of the country’s largest private-prison companies, Corrections Corporation of America (which recently changed its name to CoreCivic) and the GEO Group. These companies manage both the prisons and the civil-detention facilities where the majority of immigrants are held. In March, Trump told a crowd at a town hall, “I do think we can do a lot of privatizations, and private prisons—it seems to work a lot better.”

“Of course I would come back. There’s no question—this is where my family is.”

William Diaz-Castro

On November 25th, Jose Lara-Serrano, who had already pleaded guilty to illegal entry, was released from ICE detention and allowed to return home to his partner and their young son. Diaz-Castro is still waiting to be sentenced. He hopes that after he pleads to the misdemeanor and is transferred back to ICE, the agency will agree to release him too.

Yet his chances of halting his expulsion are evaporating. His sentencing hearing is set for December 7, six weeks before Trump becomes president.

More poetry from the heart The Games These Crackers Play As I do my time and it steadily passes me by. I can't help but notice the things they do here to try and make a grown man cry The oppression we deal with and go through can be overwhelming now & again, but the games these crackers play will really have you thinking.

If you get on an officer or a sergeant’s nerves and piss them off they'll have the captain come with the gas and if you're lucky strip is all that will happen where all your belongings are packed and stored and you sleep on a steel bunk with only boxers to cover your ass

If you're not so lucky your shit will all be thrown out and when the food comes the officers will flip your tray and put you on 21 straight meals called the loaf and when your tray goes flying the captain will come spray you again cuz they don't stop at one they want you to receive both You can be reading a book or just laying in bed vibing with your roommate when an officer yells at you quiet, kicking the door and you'll be wondering wtf until the captain comes with the camera and tells you the spray's coming so get ready for more

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If you try to grieve or report all these actions they'll be swept under the rug and you can count on everything again yet if they see it don't faze or effect you they'll try to break you by administering a beating when you were sentenced you thought you were only coming up the road with just a sentence to fight but when you get here you seen on every corner these crackers don't care about interfering and playing games with your life so you got to wake up prepared and ready to face a new day. cuz when you wakeup in the doc you're subject to the games these crackers play

-Jonathan B. (FL)

Call for Submissions: Trans Prisoner Day of Action January 22, 2017 will mark the second annual Trans Prisoner Day of Action: an international day of action in solidarity with trans prisoners. This project was first imagined

by Marius Mason, a trans prisoner in Texas, USA. Since then, through his friends and supporters, an international collective of people, both inside and outside of prison walls, have come together to make this day a reality.

Organizations are encouraged to hold an event, host speakers, screen films, invite presentations, and hold workshops to spread the word on the experience of trans prisoners, share knowledge, and build strategies of resistance. Those on the inside are encouraged to keep an open dialogue with outside supporters,

share their experiences and artwork, etc. This year, supporters in several countries will compile submissions to create the second Jan 22 zine (a self published magazine) to amplify trans prisoners’ voices through essays, artwork, poems, or any other creative medium.

If you or someone you know would like to send us a submission, please write to: MonkeyWrench Books c/o Austin ABC 110 North Loop Blvd E. Austin, TX 78751 Along with your submission, please include a brief bio if you would like, along with whether or not we can publish your mailing ad-

dress. The finished zine will be sent to all trans prisoners, free of charge, who request a copy. We will also send the zine to info-shops, bookstores and community centers.

This is a collaborative effort, and will be produced through fundraising—absolutely no profits will be made. We simply aim to share your voice and create networks of communication to build communal resistance and solidarity.

Please note that dependent on the quantity of submissions we receive, we may not be able to include every submission. Whatever is unable to fit into the J22 zine will be included on the website, and/or the 2018 zine.

Love & Solidarity!

-The J22 Collective

You are Invited!

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This is an invitation for you to join the hundreds of people who donate to the work of Black and Pink. Since we first started our work almost 12 years ago, we have provided as many free services to support our prisoner membership as possible. The following are some of our accomplishments over the years: • Designed a website to host a free pen pal service for LGBTQ prisoners • Created a newsletter, then a newspaper, and now a magazine of prisoner-generated content that is distributed to thousands of prisoners across the country • Engaged in direct advocacy work for dozens of prisoners, successfully getting people out of solitary confinement, getting some folks access to hormones, and getting people transferred to different units • Organized a national gathering for formerly incarcerated people and allies to come together to celebrate, heal, and prepare for the next steps of our organization’s work • Released a report, Coming Out of Concrete Closets, based on a 133 question survey filled out by 1,200 of our prisoner members • Hired staff to increase productivity to meet the ever-expanding needs of our prisoner membership • Established chapters in 8 different locations in the U.S. and support the creation of prison chapters Our work is made possible by the countless volunteer hours given by hundreds of volunteers, both inside and outside of prison. Prisoner volunteers create art, write stories, offer poetry, share information, and organize behind the walls. Our outside volunteers open your mail, update our database, write letters, visit people, post bail, and organize on the outside of the walls. This is an open family of people deeply committed to one another. Your donation can help us keep our work going.

All of our resources and support offered to prisoner members are free. We will never charge a fee for our pen pal program. We will never charge for a subscription for our magazine. All of what we have shall be given freely to all those who need it.

In order for us to keep all of our projects free for prisoner members, we need financial support. You are invited to join the hundreds of folks who donate to keep this work going. We are asking prisoner members to donate for the first time ever. We turn to you because you are part of our family, and your donation can make a big difference. We welcome all donations in any amount, including stamps. Imagine the difference you can make...

• $1.00 pays for 2 stamps that can be used to send pen pal forms to new prisoner members • $10.00 covers the cost of one person receiving our magazine for a year • $15.00 covers the connection fee for a phone call with a prisoner • $30.00 covers the cost of a social media ad publicizing the pen pal program • $50.00 covers the fee to post bail for someone Less than five years ago we ran our organization on money we raised each month, barely covering the costs.

Now we have a yearly budget of just over $150,000! We receive 35%of our budget from a single donor, 40% from foundations, and the rest from individual donors. If everyone who receives our newspaper donated an average of $10, we would add over $100,000 to our yearly budget. Imagine the possibilities. With more resources comes more staff. With more staff comes an increase in speed responding to letters. You can help us grow our budget. You can help us expand our family. Anything you give will make a difference.

To make donations to Black and Pink you can have money orders made out to Black and Pink and then mailed to: Black and Pink – Donation 614 Columbia Rd. Dorchester, MA 02125 If you have friends on the outside who want to donate, they can do so online at www.blackandpink.org/donate Black and Pink is an open family that depends on one another to survive. We do our work together because our members and friends make it possible. As 2016 comes to a close, consider making a donation.

In loving solidarity,

Jason, National Director and founder

Letters to Our Black & Pink Family

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Hi to All My B&P Family, I am a positive person. And I do all I can each day to pass that on to others around me. And even though I have spent almost 22 years in prison I can still say that I learn and grow constantly.

Even in the times when I am challenged by the stupidity of some staff as well as some inmates. But I realize that I must lead by example and have the conversation with others in hopes that I can educate them on how to approach trans women.

It is simple to me. I just let others see that I am a human being first.

And all I want is to be respected and treated equally as the male inmates

are treated. Because it can be difficult being a woman in a male facility - and I don't allow anyone to treat me as anything other than what I represent.

So no matter how people see me, just doesn't matter to me. I know who I am and I am secure with myself. I am strong and confident to know that anything I wish to be, I know I can achieve that.

There's a thing I call keeping your circle closed. If you allow anyone in that circle then you have to take everything that comes along with it. And I know that I am not what everyone loves. But I love myself. So all the decisions I make involving the

people I want to be associated with are my decisions only.

I can only be responsible for Lisa. It allows me to be a better person and a better listener and leader in such a dull Place. And this place is only in the right now. I know where my future is, and how to get there. So I follow that path and stay focused in my journey in life when you breathe, you have to exhale. So make the right decision, keep your circle closed and allow yourself to be surrounded by people who are better than you. You will become smarter and a more structured person. Peace to everyone.

Lisa (CA)

Black & Pink Family, How much more suffering do I have to endure here in Arkansas? The administration is trying to outlaw the LGBTQ community in the Arkansas department of corrections. They tell me there is no such thing as consensual contact between two individuals housed in prison. I got with my "partner" and we fell deeply in love. But I got put in the hole because I was intimate with my husband Joe. I am being punished for being sexually involved with the man I love. That breaks my heart and I've had many sleepless nights. I'm so afraid of losing him out of my life. I tell him how much I love him. We are both in the hole suffering from hot temperatures, severe heat, why am I being punished for having sex with the man I love? I am being retaliated against for being a part of the LGBTQ community. I tried to be strong and understand why people

hate what they don't understand, but sometimes I break down and cry myself sick! Arkansas prison systems say P.R.E.A. policy doesn't allow same-sex sex in prison, they are using P.R.E.A. as a weapon towards homosexuals and transgenders where I am housed. It's wrong and an injustice. Something needs to be done by this prison abusing P.R.E.A. policies and procedures. P.R.E.A. was implemented to eliminate prison rape, not consensual sex in prison. The unit I'm in is homophobic and transphobic. I need to know how to cope and adjust to these harsh cruel discriminatory tactics and policies. I fell like they treat me like an alien and as taboo for my beliefs and sexuality. They are trying to teach me that the way that I am is wrong. But they are wrong for acting unprofessional towards me and keeping me locked down based on phobias and not facts. I'm treated

unfairly and different because of "who I am". It's hurtful but I'm staying strong and surviving through this struggle. This is Venus again by the way, torn and hurt emotionally. Hopefully I'll be able to heal from these scars this prison has put on my heart. Thank you Black and Pink for giving me somewhere to turn to let my voice be heard and my tears to dry. Ya'll are truly my friends and family. Without Black and Pink's monthly newsletter, I don't know where I would be. Mentally, it gives me some sincere peace of mind.

To everyone who thinks you are alone in the Solitary Struggle - you're not! There are thousands more just like us. My heart goes out to everyone who is discriminated against because of who you are. Stay strong and REAL. Never let the police see you sweat. I love you Joe!!!!!

Always your sister in the struggle, Miss Venus W (AR)

Letters to Our Black & Pink Family

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Murder By the Hands of Justice We have rules to protect the rights and freedom of everyone, the question is, do we have the right to make those individuals simply exist that commit those crimes? There is a difference between owning up to ones’ responsibility for the consequence of ones action and making one simply exist. In prison you just exist. Your voice goes unheard. Do you really feel this is fair?

Who’s to say the punishment fits the crime when the people doing the sentencing have no idea how it feels to be in prison longterm. How a person changes over time and how long is too long? Do we just throw them away? Are some lives worth saving? How will we ever know if we don’t even try to give an honest effect.

Whether in prison or on the street’s of suburbia all humans have imperfections. A officer once told me a comment that will stick with me forever, “You know the difference between inmates and the people on the outside?” I said “no.” He said, “the only difference is they have not gotten caught.” Meaning some people do something in their lifetime to be arrested for they just don’t get caught.

There is goodness inherent in some human beings in here. No one is perfect and to help really reform people in prison would be an enormous benefit to society as a whole. You know when your paths will cross or how that one person could simply change your entire life. They could be your neighbor one day and how we treat them can make a real impact in their lives.

Sometimes, I actually feel buried alive in here. I eat, I breath, I simply exist.

That’s all. Nothing more, nothing less. Is it life? Is it really living? Is it worth waking up for everyday?

I know when I was on the outside I had no idea we treated humans like this at all. Dogs in kennels get softer mattresses and more yard time.

Our minds are stagnant with a lot of wasted time. We are forced to spend our life in idleness. Our life, liberty, family, belongings, hobbies, and all are taken from us. We literally live out of a metal box under our metal or concrete bunk. No pictures are allowed out on our bunk, no reminders of home, very little clothes, and everything you own fits into a bag you can carry like you never existed in the world before.

We all function in a world based and judged on appearance. We create categories and labels as we judge one another. We also make tidy little explanations in life for our own failures or mistakes never just admitting we are all human. People that get out of prison are instantly labeled ex-cons for the rest of their lives. Who wants to give an excon a job? Dejection, courage, and confidence gets lost along the way with a mingled blend of not knowing how to get back on their feet. Thrown back out into the world with no money and expecting them to swim before they sink.

They need to learn trades and how to strengthen their resource skills in here.

To work and have some money saved up so they don’t get depressed about

being at the mercy of others when they first get released. The way they have a chance to become a productive member of society before temptation surrounds them and they completely fail. The system already miserably fails at deterring individuals by treating them like animals.

It took only one Thomas Edison to light up a nation. What if he would have given up? It can take only one person to speak up for all of us to make a real difference in the system and more.

It’s the hardest thing in the world to put yourself in someone else’s place.

You can only imagine some of the things these people have seen in their lifetime. It’s easier to throw a label on them and move on. We all bleed the same, breath the same, and die the same. Would you want to be treated like this? Do you really know what’s been done to them? Please remember this the next time you judge someone else.

I’m innocent of my charges, but I don’t expect you to take my word for it. I will prove it in court when I get my new trial. All my evidence will be hard the next time. It should have all been heard the first time because I’m a true waste of taxpayers’ money. The media made me out to be someone I’m nothing like at all. They got a lot of the facts wrong and that changes history because people believe everything that’s on the news. They left out important facts and spliced conversations together to make an entirely different story in the end.

continued on page 15

Letters & Art to Our Black & Pink Family

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Life Life - can't be counted in candles or measured in number of years, it's counted in small joys and good times as well as laughter, as well as in heartaches and tears....

Life Can't be counted in candles but in the things done with effort and pride, with dreams followed boldly and hopes kept alives in times when we failed, but tried.

Life, Can't be counted in candles or measured in years that have flown, It's counted in kindness, close friends and loved ones and in all the sweet blessings we've known.

By Charles D. (GA)

Artist: D. Runa T.

Dear Black & Pink Family, My name is NaQuaiel aka Shawty Blu. I am 21 years old and I am a transgender woman! I have been living as a female since 17. This is for those who lived their life being told you will never be shit and I have a testimony! I first became and known I was gay since my 7th grade year in middle school I was picked on, got beat up and much more. One day I came home and told my mom what happened and told her I was gay.

She states to me we are Christian,

we don't play that in my house, so I left it quiet for a couple of years!

When I hit 17 I started dressing as a female. It was my senior year I tried out for cheerleading and made the squad. I went home + told my mom.

She didn't believe me so I told her I was leaving and never coming back.

She said get out you ain't gone never be shit no way you nasty fagget! As I packed my stuff I cried, then left. I moved in with my best friend Beth who was also a cheerleader on the

squad. I told her I was going to drop out and she said "no don't", I got you my mom + dad loves you and they say you can stay until we finish high school. The rest of my school year got better and better. I got straight A's and graduated with a 4.5 GPA, graduated top of the class. I also got accepted into UNCG and graduated with my Masters. Since then I had been working as a registered nurse at Moses Cone Family Practice in Greensboro. My mom ending up

continued on page 15

Letters & Art to Our Black & Pink Family

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This Life Chose Me I've hurt a lot of people throughout my life with thoughts, feelings, fists, bullets, even the knife It's like I'm some kind of poltergeist I try to be nice, I practice what's right deep down inside of me I'm as dark as night the person inside me wants to be freed the true me it seems like no two eyes can see people see who or what they want me to be Scarface, Al Capone, Don Corleone or the thousand other characters they see on TV I'm human, yet no one believes me I'm trapped inside of a non-transitioning form of invisibility these bars have become my scars I'm in-between Venus and Mars inside of myself looking out through the eyes of my heart I'm no super hero from one to ten I'm below zero finding me is like finding Nemo and Shaq Attack hitting ten straight free-throws I'm just a wet food stamp buried in a mountain of trash my only worth is being other people's cleaning rags their dirt is my curse there's never a ray of sunshine things only get worse my life belongs to everybody else with no room to breath or space to be myself

these hell holes are so cold being yourself can be detrimental to your health even be the means to a sudden death theres tears, pain and death in this place - nothing but hate to display good character you make a mistake in here is fear - the most vilest, violent, evil, wicked conduct is the way that's highly respected and praised this unjust system, this den of snakes locked me away in a closet with no plan of escape by any rate my life's in bad shape even I question, God am I worthless?

What's my purpose? What's my worth?

Why has my life been nothing short of cursed?

I never chose this life this life chose me I'm just a frightened little kid fifteen born a slave to one mans hate another mans greed I'll never be free, I could never be me I'm lost set adrift in an endless sea where everyone lives in closets and has two faces and nothing is ever what it seems to be I never chose this life this life chose me.

By Nuubyyah T. (AR)

continued from page 13 We need laws to hold the prosecutors, detectives, justice systems, media, or anyone else accountable when their actions take someone’s innocent life away without researching all the evidence. They should not be able to fabricate stories of what they believed happen and ignore all the real evidence that does not match up.

I consider that murder by the Hand of Justice. I strongly believe in Freedom of Speech and twisting a story to catch the public’s interest.

continued from page 15 Please live life to its fullest because I never believed this could happen to me. Life is short. We should all want to live in peace without ruining other people’s lives not knowing all the facts and jumping to the wrong conclusions. No money in the world can pay me back for how they treated me or the lies they told and the life they stole from me. My only hope now is to take time to make a difference in the world while I’m fighting for my life.

Doris M. (FL)

getting sick after my 20th birthday, she told me she apologizes for telling me I was never gonna be shit and I accepted her apology. We have been tight ever since. My moral to the fam out there is never stop going, keep moving when your light is green. Hold ya head up high and say it with pride, "I'M GAY AND I AM SOMEBODY"!

Love, Shawty B. (NC)

Letters to Our Black & Pink Family

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Re: Shooting Attack on Pulse, Orlando, Florida, Sunday, June 12, 2016, 02:02 hrs.

Dear Family, I have no television. No radio. If not for Black & Pink I would still be parsing from the “rumor mill” bits and pieces surrounding the attack on us at Pulse in Orlando, June 12, 2016. Much later someone was thoughtful enough to let me borrow a well-read copy of The Advocate; August/September. I was able to get a bit less of the politics, and more of the “nuts and bolts” of the attack (not saying it wasn’t political for some).

Of I course I choked up. Couldn’t catch my breath for a bit. I actually obsessed over counting the brave faces of those we lost, through tears, hoping there weren’t really so many, and wondering if someone hadn’t.... miscounted. The word “macabre” comes to mind. Typical of American “society”; manipulated as it is by the media, political action committees and the politicians they finance.

The call, as expected, has gone out to again legislate against guns- our guns-- when for generations since the first of this category of legislation when into effect, and the generations since, it has done nothing but disarm us, making us easy prey for “society’s” well-armed lunatic-fringe cowards. The actions of the individual who did this, like all those leading up to the Stonewall uprising June 28, 1969 (not “riot.”

Be aware of the difference between a “riot”; which is always illegal; and an “uprising”; which may always be lawful), is the epitome; the very definition; of cowardice.

And why not? Omar Mateen was the offspring of a cowardly society, a phobic society, brainwashed by bigoted politics of the same caste of professional dissemblers and liars who are slowly disarming us; imprisoning us; in greater numbers every year, while “society” basks in the warmth of smooth political jargon and births more “Omar Mateens” who, on the one hand it will publicly condemn for their violence against us for being Gay, and so on the other continue insisting we defend ourselves with catchy political slogans, while hoping against hope we don’t expire before the police arrive. Remember how we rejoiced and gave thanks to “Almighty SCOTUS” for giving us our “right” to marry? Is it possible someone up there in Washington knew this was a possibility? Only the law-abiding would disarm at the mere order of their leaders. Only the law-abiding are so trusting.

Many will disagree with what I’m about to say, but it has to be said: had it been that just four people who had been drinking that night, trained in the proper control of firearms, alert to trouble, and had been armed at the time of the attack, eighty to ninety percent of the carnage that took place at Pulse Sunday morning, June 12, could have been stopped, maybe more. And I’m aware of the so-called “studies” that have proliferated to “prove” otherwise and they’re bullsh*t-- save for the spotty occurrence cherry-picked by

all the same people we’re dealing with now, and employ the police who arrive on the scene after we’ve been shot to pieces, who are themselves tasked with disarming us.

Anyone read Matthew Breen’s editorial (The Advocate August/ September 2016 “Editor’s Letter” p.

8)? Mr. Breen says in part: “...this killer...was an American...

His hatred was homegrown. As the days pass and the investigations continue, we have learned that the killer was a frequenter of Pulse, that he was on gay apps...was he gay and closeted? Perhaps, but it doesn’t matter. He lived in a world in which homophobia was fueled... undoubtedly by the nation in which he was raised. Such poisonous hatred is cultivated right here in the United States, by fundamentalist zealots... saying gays should be put to death... nurtured by right-wing legislatures that have made a criminal act out of going to the bathroom...promoted by each and every governor who signed a law giving states carte blanche to deny [LGBT people the privileges and immunities they accord nonLGBT people]. [A]nd it’s a hatred nourished by a Republican party that makes allies of [those] and their systematic, organized, and unyielding attempts to degrade and diminish LGBT people...when you...argue for [LGBT people] to be unequal under the law, or

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Letters to Our Black & Pink Family

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continued from page 16 call us perverse abominations, someone is going to act on [it]...

And... a delusional killer did ... You cannot foster attitudes and laws that dehumanize [LGBT people] and then stand back [feigning] shock and disgust when someone [implements] your ideas... [Nor] decry the ‘lifestyle’ of [LGBT people] and then [mourn] when someone takes you seriously and [commits murder].”

If you haven’t read it, I highly recommend you do. His passion to give us a loud voice approaches being a force of nature. Come to think of it, we are a force of nature.

I wholeheartedly agree with everything he wrote. But when he Mateen had “unfettered access to assault weapons” and, “we’re coming for your assault rifles too”; though stopping shy of calling for a ban on assault weapons, the implication is there. If so, this is where Matthew’s and my ideologies part ways.

I’m not a Republican. Nor am I a Democrat, a Socialist, or Communist.

I have seen nothing from these factions which indicate to me they don’t have the same agenda: domination. Their approach is simply different. I do know this.

Whichever faction have held office, the people have become less and less well armed, greater and greater numbers have been and are left criminalized and fewer and fewer are able to defend themselves against attack. The success of the attack

on us at Pulse is due to one thing.

Our reliance on police, employed by the same people clamoring for our disarmament, and who in face have themselves, “unfettered access to assault weapons” and “carte blanche” t shoot us down in the street, at traffic stops, or in our homes, any time they want, and you know what?: that’s what they’ve been doing. Furthermore, Mateen was law enforcement. This killing-this mass murder-- was not about Mateen’s possession, or ease of possessing military, police or other weaponry. It was about people’s ability to defend themselves; whether people have the right to defend their own lives, successfully, without having to rely on police, who only show up after the fact to “mop up” while we, ignominiously I might add, die in a pool of our own blood-- dare I saw: what its always been about.

Matthew, you’re an American. I’m not. I’m incarcerated in one of your American prisons, after having done nothing. I am on the receiving end of American legal, philosophical and political corruption. And I’m Gay. There’s not much more of a denial of human rights than this. To even suggest that you could disarm, give the police your responsibility to defend yourself; something as precious as you; with any expectation of success, is patently naive of you, in particular when it can be shown as the case in all generations, that it-does-not-work. Simply put-- if

someone is intent on killing you, knows your habits, and where you’ll usually be, and you can’t defend yourself, YOU-ARE-DEAD! I’m not angry at you, Matthew. Just passionate, like you. You’re one reason I “came out” (and you’re cute in this picture, by the way).

But I’ve been alive almost two generations. I’m well read and well traveled. I’ve studied the many sides of many questions. If the “six o’clock News” doesn’t square with what my eyes see, and my ears hear, it’s the “News” that’s bullsh*t, not my eyes and ears. I know, that the time to defend yourself does not begin with dialing 9-1-1. After that, it’s too late. What are you going to take away? Guns? Knives? Clubs?

Rocks? Name anything, and you still can’t take away hate. You can only prepare to meet it. You won’t do it by disarming. You won’t do it by begging, pleading, legislating, voting, or doing anything that removes you from responding.

Whether it be your government, its police, or one of your community members, you have to be prepared the meet eventuality; the inevitability; of others’ hate. What choice do you have?...

Love always, Gavin (UT)

Letters to Our Black & Pink Family

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From Anna S. (AR) I am a first time writer. I'm a 23 year old bisexual female. I got my first newsletter and I really liked it.

I loved all the poetry. I love what Black & Pink is trying to accomplish in the world for the rights of LGBTQs. We have feelings like anyone else. I was so happy when

they legalized LGBTQ marriage, everybody deserves to be happy, nobody deserves to be put down because of their sexuality. I'm sorry to hear about the shooting in Florida its sad that there is so much violence in this world. My family don't accept that I'm bisexual, my mom and four

sisters are the only people I talk to, my mom don't know I like women I have 2 hide it from her or she would disown me and it hurts me because I have a girlfriend I plan on marrying and I just don't like to hide. I want to be happy.

other states offer access to items like MP3 players and tablets that allow limited access to the internet through sites like J-Pay and Corrlinks. How many of you don’t get mail because frankly your friends and family all use their computers and phones to do all the talking most of them see a stamp as a thing of the past. This puts a lot of us out of touch with them and the state knows this. They don’t want us to have that access. They don’t want us a quick easy way to reach out to our attorneys and advocates. J-Pay offers a tablet called a JP5 tablet.

Texas inmates are not allowed access to it but many other states are. Pick

up your pens, write to the head of the commissary in Huntsville and ask that we be allowed access to it, that it be made available to Texas inmates.

Write your family and friends, have them send emails, beg, plead, threaten. Do whatever you can, we should be given the same access everyone else is. We have the same rights. Join me in this, we can make a difference. I once lost my family, now I have another, I have a mate, and we all have our pens. With love and affection.

How are you guys doing? I send my love and respects to all my brother and sisters inside and outside.

bi-sexual male who has stuck up for my rights on both of my prison terms.

On May 24, 2016 I was assaulted, cell-extracted, dragged out of my cell and pepper sprayed and given a rules violation report. This is because I am a strong minded black

I'm going to end this letter with a few thoughts. I just wanted to touch on the injustice of all the police shooting. It effects me deeply cause I am black and the police are just

getting away with murder. The same way as these prison guards around the country are getting away with cruel and unusual punishment and tortuous treatment of our LGBTQ family in prison.

Dear Family, It’s strange for me to say that “family”. My true family had left me alone long ago but I’ve found a new family. I came to prison and was so alone but it was the family that came and showed me I was not alone. I’ve since found the mate of my dreams.

This is my first time writing in to Black & Pink but I wish to tell you that I love you. We don’t seem to hear that enough but too this is a call to arms. Though many of you are not in Texas and do not know how badly we are mistreated but we can do something about it. Those of you with pens, they are your swords, you’re the wielder of a power there. Many

Yours, Roger (TX)

What's Up Family?

Carlton C. (CA)

Letters & Art to Our Black & Pink Family

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Hey My Brothers and Sisters, How's everyone doing out there? A lot has been going on with me but let me tell you bout me. My name is Jayden/JJ is my nickname. I am 27 years old and I'm bisexual and I'm also from the state of PA. I been through a lot these last 7 years and the struggles I been going through are hard decision. I lost mom in 2009, relationship ruined cause of me or my partners being set up by someone posing to be an adult/got charged up cause of this dude. There are other things that I will mention later.

I've been locked up since September 2012 in the state of Pennsylvania for failure to register as a sex offender, which I was sentenced to 19 months to 36 months (1 yr, 9 months to 3 years and 6 months). I just maxed out that time in PA. Now I'm back in the state that gave me these charges as a

sex offender. They are violating me cause I left the state of New Jersey 4 years ago and my parole officer lying all through paper work and revoked my parole. They violate sex offenders in this state of New Jersey for any little thing and this is the state that created Megan's Law for sex offenders. I'm trying to fight for my rights, I also have seen first hand inmates get physically abused in this facility I'm at now. The C/Os look for a reason to place their hands on you. The thing is I was refused P.C. when I got here at this prison cause they wanted me to implement one of the inmates and I was being bullied by a gang member who was my roommate and I was also physically abused and also threatened by him too. I'm in a new prison that has a lot of hatred and they don't even know what's true or false about a person.

I try to be strong cause all I know throughout my life is surviving the bad and ugly situation, I love being bisexual cause its who I am I learn how to accept other people for who they are and what they do as a human being. My brothers and sisters let's not fall to defeat or be afraid to speak our minds/ feelings to anyone, we need to fight against prison oppression as well as society oppression. Lets write people we know to help out or look at other organizations that might want to get involved. Well its been real, I love you all and may we learn to live and prosper through God & each other.

Shout out to York, PA & Baltimore, MD. Shoutout to: OH-Federal Prisons & WA- County Jails/ States Prison.

Love, Jayden AKA JJ (NJ)

From Angel A. (FL) I want to congratulate the USP Tuscon LGBTQ community on their success there. I may now try to work something similar here at USP Coleman II. Keep up the good work Ian and Mark.

Renee, I am glad for your victory in Washington. Also you have some decent information in your letter. I will pass the information on to our Trans family here.

The Shadow We live in a world where the shadows can overtake the mind, and in a way causes us to be blind, it’s like a magnetic force from the earth, pulling me from you, and you from her.

You're my today, he's my tomorrow, and is just how we deal with the sorrow.

We live our lives in sections whether we're happy or we're moping; remember when one door closes another one opens.

And this here is a door we must finally close, with pain in my heart, how great it shows.

By Kitty K. (IL)

Letters & Art to Our Black & Pink Family

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Dear Brothers and Sisters, These couple of weeks been weighing me down starting with me coming to the hole on 8-16-16. Then I get burned for yard because I talk like a girl. The C/O said, “Add bass to your voice.” Then on 8-25-16, the same C/O said, “Coward, faggot, ass ain’t going to yard, I wrote him up.” Sexual harassment. Just when I thought nobody cared, something came to me, a writing to cheer people up ‘cause there’s a lot of hate and

drama and even though it seems like nobody cares about us but the people who advocate and some family and friends, He cares, so please read this article and share it with a friend. It goes like this: There’s an angel sitting up above watching over me. He hears my cries.

He hears my plea, He watches over me. He knows when I’m awake, He knows when I’m sleeping. He knows

R.I.P. This poem is dedicated to all my sisters and brothers gone in Orlando and that pass in this life. Also to three best friends.

Brandon Face Miss Keyshia. Also to my grandfather. Rest in peace.

Love, Juicy This is supposed to be the Time I rest in peace but I can’t I go to sleep at night wake up see your face I know you gone away is it really you I see or is it Just a Dream or could it be your image watching over me R.I.P. Could it be that I miss you so much Could it be that you’re shining your love on me From Heaven Above.

R.I.P.

Know that I miss you from the bottom of my heart know that I wish you were still here Could it be I’m Still dreaming wishing you were still here Sharing your love I miss you R.I.P.

when I’m in trouble, He watches my every step. He’s always there without calling His name when I’m in need.

He’s always there for me when trouble seems to weigh me down.

He’s right on time. There’s an angel watching over me. He’s my protector every step of the way. Remember there’s somebody watching you even when you think there’s not, because He loves you.

Juicy Queen Bee (PA)

You Made Me Saving Grace like me I once was lost but you found me saved my life made me whole now look at me.

Made mistake after mistake no I’m not perfect but you gave me life Turned my life around Gave me happiness Now I’m free no more change holding me When I was lost you found me When I was broken you made me whole When I was weak you made me strong You made me wiser You made me happy to live for you You made me who I am You made me.

By Juicy

Letters to Our Black & Pink Family

Page 21

To the Most Beautiful and Inspiring Family in the World, My LGBT Family.

When I put my thoughts in verse, it's just a way to show the musings of a thankful heart. A heart much like your own, for nothing that I think or write is mine and mine alone.

So if you found some beauty in any word or line, it's just your soul's reflection in proximity with mine...

This silent message is for all my LGBT family and especial for the ones that want to gives up on their selves, that want to gives up on life because life deal them At this moment, I want you to takes some times and takes a close look at yourself at your inside, your personality traits, emotions -- things that has evaded you all of your life. What you looking for inside of you is one of the most powerful things an LGBT family can possess. Taps into its enormous strength and you become balanced, centered, calm and whole. You can't buy it in a store, you can't order it online, no one can gives it to you, not even me. In fact, it is so elusive that many of us spend much of our lives searching for it.

Some of us will eventually find it, others never will, but it's inside of you, it's inside of us. Somewhere buried behind our anger and our fear, somewhere buried behind our pretentiousness, our ego, our animosity and our hostility, somewhere buried behind our envy and our dismay is "our inner peace".

It has always been inside of us, waiting for each of us in our own

way to find it. But to find inner peace, you have to give it a reason to come out of hiding to take up visible residence inside of you. It is a part of our being that few of us ever give much thought to, perhaps because, unlike raw emotions that we wear on our sleeve, emotions that are waiting to make themselves known at the slightest provocation, inner peace has to be sought out, coaxed out of its hibernation spots deep within us. It arrives with little fanfare. In facts, it has a way of sneaking up on you and unlike other state of beings, it will not make an appearance until it's sure you're ready for it, because when it come to stay, providing you with warmth that no-one or nothing can damper. It is time for us to experience that warmth, the kind of warmth that mama and grandmama have. The kind that calm the spirit, soothes the soul and gives you a sense of detachment from troubles or distraction in the out-side world. Because you know that when you find your inner-peace the knuckleheads out there won't get on your nerves (smile), friends, neighbors and family won't be able to rile you up. When you find your inner peace, it won't let you get too high about your success or too low about your missteps.

I know that there have been times when you stumbled upon the level of self-awareness, but it left with the arrival of a new dilemma. The latest crisis, looking back on it, you might have scared it off because your personality wasn't ready to give into it. Too much ego, perhaps, too much pride at times, too much self pity, too much player (smile), too much

player hater, you see back then those common emotions told you whether or not you was going to have a good day, a good week, whether you felt good about yourself, your life.

There are many people, too many guided (or rather misguided) by similar emotions, especially those of us who have been burdened by life injustices, disconnected from our inner selves by society's dogged ways, but this moment, you got to reach that turning point in your life, you got to realize that just as much as any person of any race, education, social or economic level, you and all my LGBT family deserve to have inner-peace, an unshakeable connection with your belief, your faith and yourself. It's a deeply personal concept, but one that anybody can grasp naturally by simply breaking down your being, turning up and realigning your priorities and your emotions in an attempt to get everything that is out of check back in check.

My LGBT family, I ask each and every one of my family to please keep going, always look straight ahead and keep going, keep the faith in yourself, promise you, faith will takes you there if you can envision it, no matter what or where, no journey too hard, no place too far, faith is the exact distance between what you believe and where you are.

A journey traveled in just a blink of an eye. Once conceived, once believed, faith cannot be denied. Faith.

continued on back page

Page 22

Buscando Contribuciones

Call for Submissions

¡Hola hermosa familia hispano-parlante de Black & Pink!

Seeking erotic short stories, poems, and art by Black & Pink incarcerated and free-world family members for a new zine. To be mailed, art cannot include full nudity.

Please send submissions (and shout outs to the authors from the first issue mailed in January!) addressed to Black & Pink - HOT PINK. This is a voluntary project, and no money will be offered for submissions, but you might get the chance to share your spicy story with many other readers! The zine will be sent one to two times per year.

Estamos buscando contribuciones en español para nuestras secciones de Cartas A Nuestra Familia y Poesía Del Corazón.

Por favor envía tu contribución escrita en forma legible y de no más de tres páginas a: Black & Pink – ESPAÑOL Damos la bienvenida a cualquier escrito de tu creación, pero dado el espacio y la variedad, no todas las contribuciones pueden ser aceptadas. Al enviar tu contribución, das permiso a Black & Pink para publicar tus escritos en forma impresa y en Internet.

To subscribe to receive a copy of HOT PINK, write to our address, Black & Pink - HOT PINK.

Black & Pink Address and Topics

Please Note: You can send multiple requests/topics in one envelope! Due to concerns about consent and confidentiality, you cannot sign up other people for the newspaper. However, we can accept requests from multiple people in the same envelope. There’s no need to send separate requests in more than one envelope.

If you are being released and would still like to receive a copy of the newpaper, please let us know the address we can send the newspaper to!

ADDRESS: BLACK & PINK- ________, 614 COLUMBIA RD, DORCHESTER, MA 02125 If you would like to request: Newspaper Subscriptions, Pen-Pal Program, Address Change, Request Erotica, Religious Support, or Volunteering

Address the envelope to: Black & Pink - General

Newspaper Submissions - Stories, Articles, Poems, and Art

Black & Pink Newspaper Submissions

Black & Pink Organization or Newspaper Feedback

Black & Pink - Feedback

Black & Pink Religious Zine

Black & Pink The Spirit Inside

Advocacy Requests - Include details about situation and thoughts about how calls or letters might help

Black & Pink - Advocacy

Submit to Erotica Zine

Black & Pink - HOT PINK

Stop Your Newspaper Subscription

Black & Pink STOP Subscription

Pen Pal Program Info: LGBTQ prisoners can list their information and short non-sexual ad on the internet where free world people can see it and decide to write. There will be a forms in upcoming newspapers.

Mail Info: We are several months behind in our mail. There will be a delay, but please keep writing!

BLACKANDPINK.ORG

MEMBERS@BLACKANDPINK.ORG

Party in Brooklyn, NY

Happy Holidays from the Black & Pink Family!

Flying Over Walls, San Francisco Bay

As you can imagine, the holiday season is often a rough time for folks inside prison. Whatever holidays you may or may not celebrate this time of year, our incarcerated members are often denied the ability to celebrate their traditions in the ways they choose, whether their desire be to celebrate the returning of light for Solstice, the miracle of Hanukkah, the birth story of Jesus, the Black radical tradition of Kwanzaa, New Year’s Day, or something else.

All too often our members do

not have family and friends to reach out to them with cards or visits, making this time particularly isolating.

The cards bring moments of joy, connection, and kindness to our members while telling prison staff that people on the outside are watching.

Since 2012, Black & Pink volunteers have been coming together to create these cards.

Here, and continued on the next page, is a preview of the amazing work that folks created. Stay tuned for the full report next month!

Black & Pink 614 Columbia Rd Dorchester, MA 02125 Return Service Requested

PRESORTED STD U.S. POSTAGE PAID BOSTON, MA PERMIT NO. 1475

continued from page 21

As a family, we are a powerful force that can remove all obstacles from our lives, so I beg you my LGBT family, especial the ones in prison, try to think positive, keep the faith in yourself, across the distance of time, let reach out toward each other, let hold each others in our prayers. Be strong no matter what, if we get knock down, let get back up, let walk with each other side by side, let stop killing ourselves, let strive each and every day to betterment our lives and our self.

Think about this my LGBT family: Our mind, our faith, our heart, our inner peace is a powerful force of strength. We can’t lose, we're all winners.

Much love, Charles D. (GA)

Flying Over Walls, San Francisco Bay