The Texas Crucible at Dirty DarringtonSlave Plantation and Concentration Camp
By Julio A. Zuniga, July 2020
How can people, organizers, abolitionists, hacktivists, media, families of the general population ignore the largest monument of Confederacy in Texas? Texas Department of minimal Justice is once again using oppressive tactics to cover up their own flaws. When will the black and brown communities stop swallowing their pride and allowing the racist regime to continue systematically stripping all rights from us slaves?
TDCJ directors say TDCJ has a contraband problem, so they further oppress the families and inmates from the only true ray of hope and light that we have. Our mailrooms are denying every fucking thing: Onion paper with a drawing on it, a magazine because one page has a breast showing…. Now, mind you, there is no A/C, no visitations, no creative tools on commissary, no virtual contact with family, no TVs in our cells, not a chance at parole, even during a pandemic. There is nothing left but to revolt, there is no real solution in restricting mail to combat your so called contraband issue. It’s all a farce. It’s not the reason for this oppression.
Contraband is easily resolved by paying work wages to inmates, ending indigence among the population, thus choking out the need to hustle for toothpaste and deodorant. By paying work wages to the working man it also ends sexual assaults in prison and sexual harassment of female staff. This is a real solution and it needs to be addressed by the families of the enslaved, straight to your Texas government, and not the Republican death squads neither. We understand all too well that we are 2nd class citizens and we must work that much harder to live in your societies, but how can we live without the basics? Your politicians are pocketing millions of agribusiness dollars and syphoning your tax dollars on top of it and you dare not ask where it goes? Dirty Darrington is a monument of slavery, torture, a hypocritical institution. In its face you will see a Bible college in all its splendor, cranking out field ministers by record numbers. Nothing wrong there, but take a stroll 100 yards south and no longer do you see Jesus, but a satanic cult of slave drivers and their machines to destroy thousands of acres of land that enslave men to death in triple digit heat. Welcome to Rosharon.
There is a chapel and at the sides of this chapel are segregated areas with no restrooms. Inmates are forced to defecate on this recreation area where people are playing basketball 4 feet away. It’s a Christian Baptist seminary college, yet solitary confinement is forcing people to suicide, attempted suicides, destroying sanity of the men who reside there for petty disciplinary cases. Here’s a challenge: I challenge anyone to find out exactly how many people have lost their minds and/or died by suicide under the direct care of Major Pharr, the person responsible for the men in administrative segregation areas. Here’s a thought: How about the people protest TDCJ HQ – Lorie Davis and demand them to pick a side – Christianity or Luciferianism. Stop all the sick hypocrisy. We can’t breathe down here. We need positive changes to be brought to this racist slave camp. No more bullshit Texas politicians giving us promises that aren’t worth a damn.
The only thing keeping people alive today is the contraband, and since Texas cannot tax it, it’s all demonized. Now you have imposed your solution, and so we demand pay, wages for offenders. We want new technology to visit virtually with our families, JP4s, or corrlinks instituted immediately. Families want to see their sons or be able to email back-n-forth.
Texas needs to come together to protest these Confederates in Huntsville and in the State Capital. You can ask any of the 300,000 inmates if they agree. I dare you. There is no such thing as good time/work time credit. Ask any criminology department in Texas and they will tell you it’s a control tool to keep us docile. I tell the entire population: you are losing nothing by protesting, demonstrating, uprising. They lock us down at will anyway, so make it about your rights. These people are not writing letters of recommendation or anything that resembles real recognition.
Millions of dollars were spent in March/April on brand new surveillance cameras at Dirty Darrington, hundreds of them. During a medical lockdown they brought outside people to install these tools of oppression and entrapment. I’ve never seen them used for what the TDCJ says they are for.
There is nothing left for us. Nothing. So now I’m going to the public to ask respectfully to bring your pots and pans, demonstr4ate your love and support at the very grounds where these atrocities are undergoing further aggressive tactics to silence and hide their true face of racist hate.
This isn’t justice. It’s sanctioned murder, torture, prison slavery. If we want racism to end, start with the 13th amendment. We can’t breathe! I am asking to bring all these issues directly to Texas Governor Abbott and Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick. Let them feel loss, stop voting for them. Stop voting for racist slave drivers. Today I am every mother and father, son, daughter, niece and nephew, black, white, brown, no matter what race, we want humans to unite and direct the protests to Dirty Darrington unit. Show yourselves. Stand with us in solidarity. Please, for humanity sake. We cannot end racism if these racist institutions continue to thrive. Please understand, progressive change is vital. Take a look at the shit TDCJ covered up in Sugarland, Texas: the 95 contract slaves found. What reparations they can give is ending prison slavery, ending solitary confinement. Solutions come from communities, not the Republicans in the State capital. Just look at the history of Travis County Jail. Black men lynched for petty crimes. It’s no different today and it’s getting worse.
Please contact your nearest IWW/IWOC and let them know you are standing in solidarity with Comrade Z to bring progressive change to all TDCJ torture chambers. We have to end the racist regime that is TDCJ. Start here: ask about the dilapidated conditions we live in. Ask about the chicken coop. Go see for yourself what TDCJ has operating all over Huntsville. Come and bring the media. Bring the noise. Bring your local representatives. Come and see exactly what TDCJ is all about. We can’t breathe. All the men are crying for their mamas, just like George Floyd, who was from Houston, Texas. His spirit lives here. Come and see. Black Lives Matter is right to bring down Confederate monuments. Texas has 95 to 100 such monuments and all of them use the Confederate gray suite. See things for what they are. We can’t breathe.
Please contact every media outlet, from every city in Texas and let’s organize a solid demonstration at all Confederate concentration camps. Let the men in white know that it’s okay to lay it down for the sake of change. They need you to give them the confidence. You the families, the mothers, will help us get the TDCJ knee off our necks? We can’t breathe. We can’t breathe! We… can’t… breathe!!
To begin: contact these groups to find out how you can get involved. Contact: Central Texas ABD, Austin ABC, Fight Toxic Prisons, IWW-Sante Fe, Kansas City IWOC, Oakland IWOC. Contact all media to begin interviewing Comrade Z, who is standing up against solitary confinement Texecution, prison slavery, prison rape, mailroom Nazism. Racism in Texas ends by killing the very constitution that sanctions Confederacy.
Feel free to write Z at:
Julio A. Zuniga #1961551
Darrington Unit
59 Darrington Road
Rosharon, Texas 77583
Writing Guidelines Here
Z’s artwork can be viewed on Instagram at @julioazunigaart
Burn ‘em down