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Prison as class warfare
RON JACOBS recommends a radical analysis of the role of the prison as a fundamental extension of the racist and capitalist US imperial exercise
protest

Tip of the Spear: Black Radicalism, Prison Repression, and the Long Attica Revolt
by Orisanmi Burton
University of California Press, £23.59

 

THIS new book changes the narrative around the 1971 Attica Prison Revolt in a substantial, even revolutionary way.

In the text, Burton reframes the uprising at Attica State Prison in 1971 as part of an ongoing revolt. In doing so, he shifts the emphasis from the massacre by law enforcement that is most present in other tellings. In addition, his repositioning of that incident as part of a longer, ongoing movement by black, Latino and other prisoners for the abolition of prisons and jails in general makes the history of Attica a living fact.

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