Assata: An Autobiography (19 page)

I usually spent my weekends with one of my girlfriends or with my mother as much as possible. Toni was cool to hang out with and she knew where all the parties were. But we never had deep conversations so we never got really close. Bonnie and i met through Toni and began what was to be a best-friend relationship with an argument about Abraham Lincoln. We argued for hours until Bonnie's aunt told us to shut up and go to bed, since neither of us knew what we were talking about. Bonnie lived in the same building my mother lived in, and after that night we became close friends and talked about every subject on earth. Bonnie knew more than i did about what was happening in the world and we spent hours talking about Medgar Evers, sit-ins, freedom riders, etc. We began to write poetry about love and Black people, and sometimes we wrote morbid poetry about hate and death. As soon as we finished a poem we'd call each other and read it. After a while, we read poetry together. Dorothy Parker and Edna St. Vincent Millay were our idols. We read everything they wrote and even memorized their poems. After that, we read all different kinds of poets. We were "deep" and were forever in the library or a bookstore trying to find another poet who was "deep," too. The more we read, the more we wrote. And it came in handy in the street. If we didn't like somebody, or if we had some dispute with someone, we wrote a poem about them. We made up all kinds of "dozens" poems and laughed our heads off. We were young and old, happy and sad at the same time.

Usually, every summer, i went down South to visit my grand parents. When they had the business on the beach, i loved it. But they had lost two different buildings on the beach, both destroyed by hurricanes. After the last one was leveled, they operated a restaurant on Red Cross Street. I liked working in the restaurant sometimes, but it wasn't as much fun as working on the beach.

One of the last summers that i spent down South, the NAACP rented a building a few doors from my grandparents' restaurant, which was a great source of interest to me. I was forever walking by, standing in the doorway, or sliding discreetly into the building to see what was going on. I could hear them talk about integrating the South by sitting in, praying in, singing in, and about nonviolence. I was glad because i surely wanted segregation to end. I had grown up exposed to the degrading, dehumanizing side of segregation. I remember that when we traveled from North to South and vice versa we really felt the sting of segregation more acutely than at other times. We'd drive hours without being able to stop anywhere. Sometimes we would pull into a filthy old gas station, buy gas, and then be told that we were not permitted to use their filthy old bathroom because we were Black. I can remember clearly squatting in the bushes with mosquitoes biting my bare buttocks, and my grandmother handing me toilet paper, because we could not find a place with a "colored" bathroom. Sometimes we were hungry, but there was no place to eat. Other times we were sleepy and there was no hotel or motel that would admit us. If i sit and add up all the "colored" toilets and drinking fountains in my life and all of the back-of-the-buses or the Jim Crow railway cars or the places i couldn't go, it adds up to one great ball of anger.

And so, when i saw these NAACP people, i was ready to do whatever it was that they were going to do. But they were very confusing. One day i was hanging around in the office and two men were talking about nonviolence and self-control. Then he walked around the room asking everybody questions.

"What would you do if they pushed you?”

"Nothing. I'd just keep on doing what i came to do.”

"What would you do if they kicked you?”

"I'd pray to the Lord to forgive them for their sins.”

"What would you do if they spit on you?”

"I'd just go on singing.”

Well, that was just too much for me. I could take someone pushing me, hitting me, kicking me, but to sit there and let some craka dog spit on me, well, just the idea of it made me want to fight. To me, if someone spit on you, it was worse than hitting you, especially if they spit in your face. I tried to tell myself that i would just sit there and take it, but every muscle in my body, every instinct i had, rebelled against it. The man continued around the room asking everybody the same questions. When he came to me, I answered the same, too, except for the spitting question.

"I don't know," i told him.

"What do you mean, you don't know?”

"I just don't know.”

"Well, little sister, we can see that you're just not ready. If you want your freedom, there's no sacrifice that's too big to make." Everybody looked at me as if i was some kind of stupid idiot. I felt bad, but i still couldn't get used to the idea of letting somebody spit on me. The man said i wasn't ready, and i had to agree with him.

When i think back to those days, i feel such admiration and respect for the spirit of struggle and sacrifice that my people exhibited. They went up against white mobs, water hoses, vicious dogs, the Ku Klux Klan, trigger-happy nightstick-wielding police, armed only with their belief in justice and their desire for freedom.

I remember how i felt in those days. I wanted to be an amerikan just like any other amerikan. I wanted a piece of amerika's apple pie. I believed we could get our freedom just by appealing to the consciences of white people. I believed that the North was really interested in integration and civil rights and equal rights. I used to go around saying "our country," "our president," "our govern ment." When the national anthem was played or the pledge of allegiance spoken, i stood at attention and felt proud. I don't know what in the hell i was feeling proud about, but i felt the juice of patriotism running through my blood.

I believed that if the South could only be like the North, then everything would be all right. I believed that we Black people were really making progress and that the government, the president, the supreme kourt, and the congress were behind us, so we couldn't go wrong. I believed that integration was really the solution to our problems. I believed that if white people could go to school with us, live next to us, work next to us, they would see that we were really good people and would stop being prejudiced against us. I believed that amerika was really a good country, like my teachers said in school, "the greatest country on the face of the earth." I grew up believing that stuff. Really believing it. And, now, twenty-odd years later, it seems like a bad joke.

Nobody in the world, nobody in history, has ever gotten their freedom by appealing to the moral sense of the people who were oppressing them. Once you study and really get a good under standing of the way the system in the United States works, then you see, without a doubt, that the civil rights movement never had a chance of succeeding. White people, whether they are from the North or from the South, whether it was in 1960 or 1980, benefit from the oppression of Black people. Those who believe that the president or the vice-president and the congress and the supreme kourt run this country are sadly mistaken. The almighty dollar is king; those who have the most money control the country and, through campaign contributions, buy and sell presidents, congressmen, and judges, the ones who pass the laws and enforce the laws that benefit their benefactors.

The rich have always used racism to maintain power. To hate someone, to discriminate against them, and to attack them because of their racial characteristics is one of the most primitive, reactionary, ignorant ways of thinking that exists.

A war between the races would help nobody and free nobody and should be avoided at all costs. But a one-sided race war with Black people as the targets and white people shooting the guns is worse. We will be criminally negligent, however, if we do not deal with racism and racist violence, and if we do not prepare to defend ourselves against it.

STRANGER

Everything you love
is from a different world.
Hungry,
you turn your nose up
at my peas and rice.

I was taken to Roosevelt Hospital in Metuchen, new jersey, and shackled to the bed by my foot. Dr. Garrett had established that i was one month pregnant. When he visited me he demanded that the shackles be removed at once (based on the elementary principle that proper treatment, both mental and physical, of a woman threatening miscarriage would not seem to include being chained to a bedpost). My mental stability was also threatened by the round-the clock guards who sat outside my hospital room with shotguns trained at my head.

After ten days, i was discharged from the hospital over the objections of my doctor, brought to the middlesex county jail for men, and kept in solitary con finement from February 1974 until May 1974.

At first, they wouldn't even give me milk. Since pork was served as a staple meat almost daily, i began to slowly starve. (In county jails it goes like this: one sheet, one horse blanket, a metal cup; your cell is raided if you have luxuries, like salt.) They did every thing they could to thwart the care Dr. Garrett was trying to give me. They hired their own doctor and insisted that whenever my doctor saw me, their man had to be present. This meant a severe limitation on the number of visits Dr. Garrett could arrange because their doctor happened often "not to make it" out to the prison on the days examinations had been agreed to and scheduled.

My lawyers had initiated a lawsuit against the state of new jersey in federal court charging medical maltreatment and dietary abuse. Before the date the hearing was scheduled, i was extradited to the State of New York, which made the federal court action moot.

When i arrived at Rikers Island again, i was anemic and mal nourished, according to my entrance physical. New jersey had been giving me iron pills, but i was anemic up to the last blood test before giving birth.

The pregnancy, or "special," diet at Rikers, in addition to the regular food, was powdered milk, juice, and a hard-boiled egg daily. This was my diet until i gave birth, and things seemed to go normally.

Meanwhile, the lawyers obtained another court order from the New York court permitting Dr. Garrett to continue treating me. When he first came to Rikers, i was in the infirmary. They told him the court order was "no good" and that he couldn't see me. I was left in a room for three days with a woman who turned out later to have active tuberculosis. It was May and they had turned the heat off. It got cold again and women who were having seizures, meth adone withdrawal, and one sister who they said had pneumonia all piled blankets on their beds. The sister got worse and worse. Finally, they brought her to Elmhurst Hospital where they discovered she did have tuberculosis. I found this out later, when she was returned to Rikers, kept in isolation, and the doctors wore masks and gloves when they visited her.

I also had monilia, a vaginal discharge, which worsened be cause the Montefiore Hospital doctors assigned to Rikers could not agree about how it should be treated. They refused to treat the condition at all until my culture was returned from Elmhurst Hospital. By the time they managed to get the culture back, the whole inside of my thigh was chapped raw from the discharge, and i could barely walk.

Montefiore Hospital and the Health and Hospital Corporation went to court to prevent Dr. Garrett from delivering my baby. Their position was that since i was a prisoner it was not necessary for me to have the doctor of my choice. They also said he was "disruptive" because, when he did manage to see me, he "often wrote in my chart," which they found very disturbing. The kourt upheld them. I was only a prisoner!

I went into labor the morning of September 10, 1974, at 4 A.M. on 2 Main at Rikers, where i had been kept in the psycho ward. I got out of bed, took a shower, braided my hair, and packed. My labor was mild, a pinch every half hour, which rapidly became a pinch every fifteen minutes. At 11 A.M. i was sure i was on my way, but i had no doctor to confirm it, and i refused to go to the infirmary. Around noon i asked to call Dr. Garrett and they some how got hold of him. (He was at Elmhurst Hospital trying to persuade them to let him deliver my baby.) At about 3 P.M., he arrived at Rikers and i went up to the infirmary to meet him. He told me that i was "effaced" and definitely in labor. I would not allow the other doctors there to examine me.

I was taken to Elmhurst Hospital in a motorcade. It looked to me like a million police cars buzzing around the vehicle in which i, a woman in labor, was riding. And they all followed. Into Elmhurst Hospital and up to the delivery room. They surrounded the hospital.

There was a demonstration outside of Elmhurst Hospital in support of my right to choose the doctor who would deliver my baby, and Evelyn and Dr. Garrett held a press conference at the hospital to explain the situation. There were actually two policewomen inside the labor room and several outside. I was having contractions every five minutes. Finally, i let one of their doctors, a resident, examine me to see how the labor was progressing-which turned out to be a terrible mistake. When he finished, i was bleeding. After that, there was no way I would let any of them touch me again. I ordered them to bring me a stethoscope (to see if the baby's heart was beating normally) and a few other instruments i would need because, i said, "I am delivering the baby myself."

It was a standoff for a couple of hours. Then a nurse told me to walk around to ease the pain and encourage labor. I got up, then pretended to fall out (knowing how afraid they were of lawsuits), and the doctors rushed over to pick me off the floor. I knew they were worried. I stated again, "I am delivering the baby myself." I checked the baby's heart with the stethoscope. It was beating normally.

That, or the press conference, or the demonstration outside of the building seemed to do it. They told me that if i signed a release statement absolving them of all responsibility, they would let Dr. Garrett deliver my baby. I signed, making certain that they had no control over Dr. Garrett or over anything having to do with my labor. And that was that.

He took over. He examined me, listened to the baby's heart, and, at some point, broke my water. He explained carefully every thing that would happen and answered all my questions. He gave me a local anesthetic in the cervix. I didn't want Demerol or a saddle block, but the paracervical block seemed O.K. At this point i was very tired.

After that i was still in labor but felt little pain. I went to sleep for a while. I woke up about 3:30 A.M. and i could feel the baby lowering and thought i could feel the baby's head. I called the nurse. She said, without looking, that i wasn't "ready" yet. When i insisted, she looked and went running for Dr. Garrett. They wheeled me into delivery, he gave me a local anesthetic, and did the episiotomy. I pushed three times and she was here. At 4:00 A.M., Kakuya Amala Olugbala Shakur was born. I said, "Check that baby out" (just to ensure her subsequent safety). The birth itself was peaceful and beautiful-out of sight. It's very important for a woman to go through the birth experience with people she trusts.

Later that day, September 11 , they still hadn't brought me the baby. Dr. Garrett had gone home to sleep and, when he returned, at 6 P.M. that day, i still hadn't seen the baby. He reminded them that i was supposed to breastfeed her. They told him he hadn't "written a prescription" for breastfeeding. Finally, they brought me the baby and i breastfed her every four hours-another incredibly beautiful experience. The nurses from the nursery were very friendly and kind and kept me informed about the baby's condition. But the staff in D- l l , the psycho ward where i was kept in a tiny, guarded room, were something else again.

They allowed me only one shower a day. No toothbrush or toothpaste, only mouthwash. They don't furnish it, a friend can't bring it, and the prison won't allow it. I had to beg them for a bra while i was nursing. The prison refused to let me bring one. Many strange doctors tried to examine me to hasten my discharge and get rid of me. I came close to physically brawling with a couple of them because i refused their examinations. Finally, they discharged me anyway, without the consent of my doctor. The Commissioner of Corrections, Benjamin Malcolm, had signed a paper taking all responsibility for my discharge.

They put me in an ambulance, chained me to a stretcher, and brought me back to the Women's House of Detention at Rikers Island. They took me straight to the infirmary and said, "You will have to stay here and be examined." I was really depressed, having been separated so abruptly from my baby. I said, "I don't want to be here. I won't be examined here. Send me to PSA [punitive segregation area: solitary confinement], anywhere. I don't care. I just have to be somewhere by myself. Just leave me alone."

That's not quite what they did. When i refused examination, i walked out of the infirmary and they called the goon squad (several large female officers). They all jumped on me and started beating me. They had me on the floor--eventually my arms and legs were chained. They dragged me by the chains to PSA and stopped only when a nurse asked them to please stop. So they put me on a mattress and dragged the mattress. They took me to the observation room and left me, hands and feet cuffed. I had no sanitary napkins, no means to wash myself. The cuffs cut into my skin (the scars are still visible), and my wrists were bleeding. Later i found out that i had received an infraction for slapping an officer in the face while they were beating me.

I still refused their medical examination. They finally brought me napkins. I was left on a mattress, on the floor, no bed and no shower. I was there for two weeks. I continued to refuse all their medical attention, insisting that Dr. Garrett examine me. I refused to eat, so eventually my breasts, which were full of milk, stopped hurting. They offered doctors of all kinds and drugs (mainly tranquilizers). They sent the psychiatrist, who had the nerve to ask me if i was depressed. The Disciplinary Board met in front of my cell and gave me an additional sentence of fourteen days in PSA. All other inmates were cleared out of PSA. During this time i was still refusing most food. I was so weak i fainted a couple of times. At that time it was also Ramadan, when it is forbidden to eat until sundown for the whole two weeks. I just ate once a day, when the food was edible, and for the first few days I ate nothing at all.

After two weeks, they said, "If you agree to be vaginally searched, you can go to your floor." I did and went to my floor. The next day the captain came down to my cell and informed me that they had decided to lock me up again for refusing a complete physical from the medical staff assigned to Rikers from Montefiore Hospital. What had happened was that when i was returned to my floor they told me that Dr. Garrett had been permitted to examine me and that he was at Rikers Island, that my lawyer had gone to court and the court had ruled that i could be examined by Dr. Garrett. So i waited. A white doctor came in and said in order for me to see my doctor, i must see him and be examined by him first. I refused. Then they brought in a Black doctor, who greeted me with, "Hey, soul sister." He was really sneaky. I refused him, too. So Dr. Garrett was forced to leave and I was put back in PSA. They threatened me with administrative segregation, so i sat on the floor and refused to move when my sentence in PSA was up. They gave me an infraction and a verbal reprimand and said the vaginal search would be sufficient. Then the next day they locked me up again.

This time, i was locked in my cell for a month. I continued to refuse most food. They let me out to shower whenever they felt like it. I began a hunger strike at one point, and after a few days in the tiny cell i was sick. I wondered how long i would have to hold out.

Evelyn had filed a writ of habeas corpus before the brooklyn federal kourt against Commissioner Malcolm and Essie Murph, superintendent of the Women's House of Detention on Rikers, to force them to release me from punitive segregation. I was to appear in kourt for the hearing, but I didn't know the date. Then a deputy told me, "Your court date's been postponed. And your lawyer sends her advice: see a doctor." It was a lie. But I believed it. I was examined by the prison doctors under what I thought was Evelyn's advice.

So i was no longer locked. Just in jail. And separated from my child.

LEFTOVERS-WHAT I S LEFT

After the bars and the gates
and the degradation,
What is left?

After the lock ins and the lock outs
and the lock ups,
What is left?

I mean, after the chains that get entangled
in the grey of one's matter,
After the bars that get stuck
in the hearts of men and women,
What is left?

After the tears and disappointments,
After the lonely isolation,
After the cut wrist and the heavy noose,
What is left?

I mean, like, after the commissary kisses
and the get-your-shit-off blues,
After the hustler has been hustled,
What is left?

After the murderburgers and the goon squads
and the tear gas,
After the bulls and the bull pens
and the bull shit,
What is left?

Like, after you know that god
can't be trusted,
After you know that the shrink
is a pusher,
that the word is a whip
and the badge is a bullet,
What is left?

After you know that the dead
are still walking,
After you realize that silence
is talking,
that outside and inside
are just an illusion,
What is left?

I mean, like, where is the sun?
Where are her arms and
where are her kisses?
There are lip-prints on my pillow
i am searching.
What is left?

I mean, like, nothing is standstill
and nothing is abstract.
The wing of a butterfly
can't take flight.
The foot on my neck is part
of a body.
The song that i sing is part
of an echo.
What is left?

I mean, like, love is specific.
Is my mind a machine gun?
Is my heart a hacksaw?
Can i make freedom real? Yeah!
What is left?

I am at the top and bottom
of a lower-archy.
I am an earth lover
from way back.
I am in love with
losers and laughter.
I am in love with
freedom and children.