I woke up shortly before 7AM. I was anxious – not only about what was at hand for the day, but about who I would be visiting, and why. The day felt very murky. It’s amazing how tension can create pseudo-environments around you. But, nevertheless, they feel very real. It’s almost like you can smell and feel the thick fog that surrounds you. But, I’m only in a 7×10 cell on death row.
The day was August 31, 2006, the scheduled execution of my comrade Hasan Shakur – a young and vibrant prisoner-activist. I had known Hasan for almost 8 years, when he was just Derrick Frazier – a wild and stubborn youth. That made us click, because at the time I was just the same – a wild and stubborn youth. Over the years I had watched Hasan shed off his reactionary and destructive shell and put on his armour of revolutionary consciousness.
I paced my cell in stress that morning. I found a lot of weight on my shoulder. I found that this weight was frustration – frustration at having to go through yet another scheduled murder of one of my friends. Two weeks in a row I had already faced the executions of two friends – Richard Hinojsa and Justin Fuller – and I sensed that if this 3rd was carried out it might just be the last straw.
I can’t explain what these times feel like. Having been on death row since July 1, 1997 I’ve been in the midst of over 300 state-sanctioned murders – quite a few of them men that I knew; men that I had walked and talked with; men that I had ate with; men that I had hugged and shared family stories with. This is the humanity which politicians like to hide behind this concrete and steel and behind front pages stories that exclaim: MURDERER EXECUTED TODAY! Isn’t that just another way of saying Murderer Murdered or Social Genocide Continues Today in America!?!
Though through the years I’ve lost many close friends and brothers, like James “Jamil” Means, Frederick “P3” McWilliams (and others), this situation stood out even more, because there was a deeper relation. We have the aspect of bonding within these walls and that bond gets advanced when families on the outside bond. Long before our families began interrelating, Hasan and I were already interrelating on another deep level and that was the Struggle. Our first Struggle being to break out the stigmas of death row prisoners and the next being to break from these physical chains. And for an environment (prison) which breeds ignorance, hate and recidivism, that’s no easy task.
It would be this unity which would cause our loved ones to come together – friends meeting friends, activists meeting activists, wives meeting wives. And with family comes a love that is extreme.
I spent the night before listening to the special shout-out show being done on 96.1 KDOL. This was the first show I had ever listened to of this special nature (for guys with dates). It wasn’t done out of avoidance, but there’s something very sacred about these times. It’s a time that I feel should be private between him and his loved ones, and since Hasan and his family was my family, I did have to tune in.
I was greeted by the voices of friends – Hasan’s wife, our comrade Ray from The Welfare Poets, and my sister-in-law Claire. Then there were the abundant calls from familiar friends. I was enchanted by beautiful poetry being read by Ray for Hasan to his wife. And even though there were many laughs in the air and hopeful wishes floating through the air, I could still feel the tension. Yes, I could have cut it with a knife.
I would get my first strain of pain when my own wife would call into the show in sobs and tears. We couldn’t expect everyone to be strong, and it was this gentle soul, my soul mate, which reminded me of what exactly was at hand.
It was at that moment that I found myself gripping a pen writing a few words to my comrade. It was already late – no recreations going, so I would send this at recreation first round. I let my comrade know that I had been listening and that I would be saving my words for when he got back. There would be no goodbyes in that note. I did have hope.
In the morning I woke and got that notation on its way. I knew that shortly we’d all be in the visiting room and so I mentally prepared for that. Visiting time came around 8:20AM and I was on my way.
When I entered the visiting room it was very empty. Only 3 or 4 persons around and that unfortunately added to the gloom of the day. I was greeted by a bright smile from my sister-in-law and a revolutionary fist to the glass by my brother Ray. This was our first visit, and a long awaited one. This brother here who had been being a soldier for us (myself, Hasan, Tony Ford and Randy Arroyo) for the past 2 ½ years had finally come to enter the Killing Machine that was claiming the lives of so many. We vibed automatically and we jumped from subject to subject. I can now look back and see how intense I was. I can still remember saying how tired I was; tired of having to go through this over and over. People think that the cruel and unusual punishment is in the lethal injection itself. I must tell you – it’s not. It’s the dragged out pain of year after year watching men be slaughtered. And that’s what it is – no matter how neat they try to do it. This is a slaughter house. And my comrade was here soaking it all in.
As we talked, I could not pass up the opportunity to share a few of my own poems with this brother who was out there living my vision as a poet and activist. If I couldn’t give anything else I could give the deepest aspect of myself found in the form of spoken word. And I did. I recited one of my pieces called “La Vista,” and after that I went into a piece about death row called “The Final Call.” By the end of this poem I found myself facing the tears of my sister-in-law who apparently felt the reality of that piece. I closed on “Poetically Speaking Too” (inspired by fallen comrade Tommie Hughes), which, ironically, Ray had read in 2004, the first time we brought The Welfare Poets to Texas for the annual march in Austin. Our visit ended shortly after that when Ray left to go see our brother Tony Ford. We ended, but we didn’t end – fist locked to the glass, eyes locked with vows of keeping on with the keeping on! We knew that whatever happened later that day it would propel us somewhere.
I left the visit with incompletion. I wanted to leave with a BANG! And so I found myself back in my cell to wait. And that wait would be weight. And that weight would be fuel generating within. And I have a confession of sorts. Where I am housed (A Pod 45 cell) faces the back road where the van drives in and out to escort prisoners to Huntsville. I found myself standing in this small window looking out. And by 12:30pm I saw it driving off. A small white van with pitch black windows and I thought to myself… there goes my comrade in that van. I thought of all the others that went in the same way and I found myself wanting to run after that van. I wanted to run after that van and kick everybody’s ass on the inside and pull my comrade out of there. But I had a noose around my neck just the same.
As the evening approached my pace quickened in my cell. When I looked at the clock 6pm was upon me. I knew that at this time either this execution was being halted or being carried out. The silence that I was feeling within was torturous. At 7pm I zipped down the dial to 96.1 KDOL to catch the report that I knew would be coming. And I caught it. I caught it like a boulder being thrown into my stomach and that was when it was announced that my comrade’s execution was carried out.
My eyes wobbled. My stomach churned a bit and if I had been in a crowd I probably would have been swinging on whatever moving. But I had the grip of 4 walls clutching me. Holding me by the head like the big brother does to the lil’ brother while the lil’ brother is swinging and missing. And then the sting came – directly to the throat like sharp arrows and all the resentment found its way out in some very hot tears. These tears forced themselves out, because I’m so damn tired of crying. I’m tired of losing my tears. And it was at that point, when they took this fighter, that I said they’d owe me for my tears.
I had to sit back. I had to analyze my own thinking. I felt very confused about what had just happened. That should seem strange for a state that has shown to be merciless. But, the truth is, you never get used to this process even though you know what to expect from it. And so you’d think that I’d know what to expect from my feelings. But, I don’t! And that’s what’s so vicious about this process. You never know what to expect from yourself. The men who mutilate themselves, tried suicide, and for those that committed it, probably didn’t know what to expect from themselves either. And I struggle to do the same.
And I struggle to tell you what it’s like to feel these things. I can tell you that I see this as a war and so perhaps I feel just like men fighting in Iraq. Perhaps I feel like men who were in Vietnam slugging through the mud, scared daily about what might pop up in my face. Sick, tired, angry and longing for something else. Anything – even a different kind of war. Just not this.
And what’s most frightening is how we must carry on. We must continue to go on – recreating, writing, fighting, laughing while those we loved are gone. It’s not easy to do. It’s like being on the battlefield. We’re all side by side and we’re all pushing forward. Bullets are whizzing by our heads. The smoke is thick so we can barely see each other, but we know they’re there. We can feel each other. Smell each other. Sense the heart beats and the same desire….. to win, to be free, to get away. And the we also feel the bodies drop – even though we’re not there. We know they’re dropping. But we can’t stop. We have to keep going. If we stop then we might drop. We might not make it. We can’t surrender our own hope, our own fight. So we keep going with the hopes of making to safety, and then, only then, can we stop and evaluate the battlefields. Only then can we stop to breather. It’s not any easy scenario, but it’s the only one I’ve known for 10 years.
My comrade is gone. He’s gone, but not forgotten and we can’t forget because he’s left so much behind. He’s left back instructions and blueprints and demands. Demands that we not give up. He’s passed on the torch. He’s thrown it into our hands rather we wanted it or not. Not to accept it means to not accept ourselves, because we are living legacies of each other. In the face of all brothers, good and bad ones, he set a bar. He showed that one could break away from senseless living and move into meaningful Struggling. And the critique of him doesn’t matter unless we can match him. When we can match what he did do then we can speak on him. But, until then all we can do is try to do what he did.
It’s not easy to do the right thing, and that’s because it’s easy to abandon responsibility. Struggle means responsibility which is why most people dread it. But I dread losing. I dread being at the bottom. I dread us losing those that could be world changers. Hasan was a poke in the eye of belligerents. I want to blow to their mouth while they’re squinting. I want a coup de grace by any means necessary.
And so I’m catching that torch. I got it and I’m waving it from side to side. The mission is not done. Another soldier has fallen to be risen. It’s said that when a dictator dies his reign ends, but when a martyr dies his reign begins. Which means we must now invoke another fighting spirit to fill us.
My heart aches right now. I’m angry, and I feel I should be, because we have a country that is breeding problems. And I’m tired of fighting my own and talking to brain dead people. And so the task is great. Liberation by death is preferable to life by oppression, so I will kiss both on the lips and make them tools of my own will. My will says don’t give up! My will says touch the masses! And my will says that I will overcome!
Long live the fighting spirit of Hasan Shakur
And the battle has just begun!!!
Engaged with Struggle for life!
Haramia KiNassor
