All Our Trials
By Corey Devon Arthur
Adapted from the book by Emily L. Thuma with art by Corey Devon Arthur
Women of color were being raped and assaulted by men who subscribed to the white supremist patriarchal culture of sexual violence. Some of these women resisted their rapists by lethal force. Consequently, they were imprisoned and further oppressed by the racist and sexist carceral state for exercising their right to self defense. Since the 1970s these women survived off of protest and the people's promise to keep pushing back. "All Our Trials" by Emily L. Thuma unravels what those promises were, the master plan to fight back, and the people who executed them.
To understand the complexity of Thuma's work, we look at what happened through a zine of All Our Trials. They shouted, "SHUT IT DOWN"! "The protestors, mostly Black and white women, held hand made signs that read "Free Joan Little!" and "Abolish Women's Prison." In 1974, a 20 year old, Joan Little fought back against sexual brutality, by use of lethal force.
Jail guard Clarence Alligood threatened Joan Little with an ice pick if she refused his prick. She killed him in self defense. He "was discovered in Little's cell with no pants on." Imagine how she felt. It was like tension you take from being in a tight space with nowhere to run or hide. You feel sharp things sticking up from everywhere.
It happened to other women. Dessie Woods, Inez Garcia, and Yvonne Wanrow resisted the men who assaulted and raped them and their children in free society. They became beacons for women who were victims to a culture where "Rape was the rule; immunity from rape the exception." The criminal Justice system criminalized these women and then crucified them. This was justice for women who were "poor, non white, and non gender conforming." Our government labeled them as sexual deviates and murderers.
The system was supposed to protect them. Instead the state said, "Smoke em," in the Courtroom. Then systematically "rape em," until they die in prison. That is how the patriarch bred men to "break em." It was nasty work.
Feminist and other radical groups began to breathe in the same foul air as their sister (Re)sisters.The sickness of sexual violence caused a split between factions of feminism. Carceral Feminist found it hard to stick together. They believed that women's safety and salvation were solidified by America's racist and violent driven carceral state. This posture was in direct conflict to anti-carcel and anti-racist feminist who believed that the carceral state were coconspirators of the patriarchy. And that they facilitated and perpetuated racism and violence in women's lives.
Anti-carcel feminists reasoned with other feminists groups, like anti racist feminist to, "Resist partnering with law enforcement in their work, citing the carcel state's criminalizing of women of color as proof." The multiracial coalitions of anticarceral feminist, "were not successful in preventing mainstream (white) feminism's alliance with law enforcement." Some feminist were kin to, and sleeping with the enemy.
The State's prosecution of Joan Little sparked a popular people's movement. It also woke up a warrior lionized in the people's heart. Angela Davis was pissed the fuck off! Davis penned an essay from her jail cell titled "Joan Littles: Dialect of Rape." Ms. Magazine pumped her raw words to 3 million readers in 1975. The people were coming for the patriarch's head, starting with the prison system.
All Our Trials is also told with prison art. “In the 1970s, prison activists on both sides of the bars employed what historian Dan Berger calls a "strategy of visibility" to counter this problem." Throughout the book are illustrations of pamphlets, posters, newsletters and artwork, They were all done by prisoners directly subjected to the sexual violence of the patriarchal carceral state.
I contributed illustrations to the Zine. I can attest as a prisoner artist to the power of advocacy and protest through art. "By circulating information and facilitating relationships that enable incarcerated people to resist their conditions." All Our Trials is an operational blueprint for how to challenge what Thuma calls the "Total Institution." The prisoner's portrayal of our pain are documented portraits, not just of our oppression, but also our resistance!
A statement of strong resistence came from a Black feminist manifesto. It read, it was best if we stuck together, in order to stick it to "The Man." This response was based on the analysis that, "the major systems of oppression are interlocking." Only a unified front could present a credible threat to the State.
According to Barbra Smith of the Combahee River Collective and the CWS, "Confronting sexism in the black community and racism in the White feminist community." meant fighting for Willie Sanders. Sanders was a black man who was falsely accused of rape for no other reason than being a black man. "Transforming these conditions would require coalition building."
Sanders's case was a "Key political opportunity for coalition building." The plan of attack was to rebuild the conscious collective from the bottom. "One of the ways the anti-violence activist fought back, "Was to raise mass consciousness about racist and sexual violence on the street level education." This caused reactions from even lower.
During this time inroads were being made and led by incarcerated men to "re-educating" other men. "Working with men Committing Violence allied with William Fuller and other "Self described former rapists." Fuller declared that it, "Led him to recognize the "anti-social" nature of the violence he had committed "both in the streets and prison." This form of resistance would prove pivotal to the movement.
A stronger feminist solution started when we saw and called it for what it was. In 2018 Judge Aquilina sentenced Larry Nassar, "up to 175 years in prison for the rape of 265 women. Many folks called it justice. Dean Spades frames it precisely as "Judicial rape."
In 1999 I was a 22 years old prisoner in Attica C.F. . I heard an Officer yell out. "I want them Rape-o's put down by the time I get back." Every cell on 46 company opened, and he disappeared for a cup of coffee.
Other prisoners and I began beating three men convicted of rape. They cried quietly. It ended by flesh beating skin.
Officer Cartwright returned. "NO ONE SAW ANYTHING, Huh?" He said with a smirk.
I am sorry and ashamed of my actions. I was turned out by the system. This is not justice. All Our Trials breaks it back down to the beginning. By "believing the rape survivor the very first time she spoke up!" Point blank!
Corey Devon Arthur is an incarcerated writer and artist who is part of the Empowerment Avenue Collective, with his work published in venues including, The Marshall Project, Writing Class Radio, The Drift, and Apogee. He will exhibit his art at two galleries in Brooklyn, New York in early 2023. You can check out more of his work at dinartexpression on Instagram, and on Medium.