Mass incarceration, and disproportionate treatment by all aspects of the Prison Industrial Complex, is a cultural knee on the neck of the Black community as a whole.
Robert Taliaferro
Voices from the inside out: George Floyd and 13th Amendment
July 1, 2020Prisoner columnist Robert Taliaferro explores how George Floyd’s death sparked a delayed discussion of race. Will such discussions be sustained once the cameras are turned off and the reporters leave, or will they once again fall short of needed reforms and honest solutions?
Voices from the inside out: COVID-19 in prison
May 3, 2020Depending on the state and their prison system, healthcare inside is marginal during the best of times. Some prisons in Wisconsin are better than in most states, but that care is not consistent throughout Wisconsin’s facilities.
Readers’ views, May-June 2020
April 29, 2020Readers’ views on The dialectic in thought and in liberation; labor and pandemic; pandemic and ecology; pandemic and school; women’s liberation; and voices from behind bars.
Thoughts of COVID-19 in prison
April 1, 2020In prison here in Wisconsin, the guys are not as engaged as people in the community simply because of the nature of where we are. We are still in a relatively sterile environment which would change dramatically if someone comes in from the world and is a carrier. Healthcare inside is marginal during the best of times.
Readers’ views, March-April 2020: Part one
March 17, 2020Readers’ views on climate struggles; labor struggles; racist politics; election contradictions; Modi’s Kristallnacht?; anti-abortion terror; rewriting history; and women and culture.
Voices from the inside out: Impeachment and injustice
Prisoner Robert Taliaferro’s column on the meaning of the Senate’s impeachment trial of Donald J. Trump.
Voices from the inside out: Impeachment reveals flaws of democracy
January 22, 2020Prisoner Robert Taliaferro reflects critically on the myth of democracy in the U.S., revealed by Trump’s impeachment.
Voices from the inside out: Generations in jail
November 17, 2019Robert Taliaferro takes up the high rate of incarceration in the U.S., focused on its effects on children whose parents are in prison.
Readers’ Views, September-October 2019, Part 1
September 1, 2019Readers’ Views on: Youth revolt, from China to climate strikes; Gunning for immigrants; Circling the abyss; Queer Notes; A prisoner responds; 1619 and today; Reading ‘N & L’; Elena Grigorieva; and Deborah Morris
Voices from the inside out: Promises broken
August 31, 2019A prisoner’s critique of Wisconsin’s Governor Tony Evers’s broken promise of reducing prison population in the state to half.
Voices From the Inside Out: Prisoners debate socialism and capitalism
June 26, 2019Over the past several years there has been a heated debate in the U.S. regarding socialism. These same issues are discussed nationwide within its prisons, with an interesting level of diversity which rivals opinions beyond the prison walls.
Voices From the Inside Out: Served the time but kept in prison
April 23, 2019Robert Taliaferro writes of the harm done to prisoners by then Wisconsin Governor Tommy Thompson’s actions in the 1990s to keep prisoners behind bars despite the laws for mandatory release.
Voices from the Inside Out: Importance of community support
March 9, 2019In Madison, Wisc., during the 1980s, a solitary Black woman roamed the hallways of the Dane County Courthouse for the purpose of attending trials of Black defendants. Her goal was to ensure that every Black woman, man, and child would see at least one Black face in the courtroom other than their own.
Review: ‘Always Color Outside the Lines’
January 31, 2019Review of Robert Taliaferro’s wonderfully illustrated book, “Always Color Outside the Lines: Freedom for the Artist Within”–a book that shows his philosophy of art and his expertise with different media and techniques.
Voices From the Inside Out: Wisconsin’s prison system on trial
January 24, 2019Prisoner Robert Taliaferro looks forward to what a new governor in Wisconsin may mean for prisoners, especially prisoners of color, who have suffered under Governors Tommy Thompson and Scott Walker.
The many forms of racism in the U.S.
December 2, 2018Prisoner Robert Taliaferro discusses how racism and xenophobia are alive and well in the U.S., and take many forms, both blatant and subtle.
Readers’ Views, July-August 2018, Part 1
July 23, 2018Readers’ Views on: Fighting Trump’s Anti-Immigrant Hysteria; Women’s Liberation; Attacks on Gays; Support Restaurant Workers; Swords into Plowshares; Human Rights Struggles in Iraq…; …And in Russia; Arthur Gursch in Memoriam
Voices From the Inside Out: ACCESS/KEEFE robs prisoners’ families
May 9, 2018Prisoner Robert Taliaferro writes of how the predatory company ACCESS/KEEFE is now the most expensive, convoluted and ONLY way Wisconsin prisoners can receive funds from external sources.
Voices from the inside out: Prisoners discuss impact of 13th Amendment
January 29, 2018Prisoners Faruq and Robert Taliaferro write about the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution that allowed for prisoners to be enslaved, taking up different aspects of slavery as it appears in prison, in the U.S. and the world.
Time to stop Trump
November 14, 2017Prisoner Robert Taliaferro writes of his hopes for the 2018 U.S. midterm elections to send a message that youth, the true middle-class, women and the LGBTQI community, people of all colors will take their country back.
Readers’ Views: November-December 2017, Part 1
November 12, 2017Readers’ Views on: Puerto Rico:Trump’s Katrina; LGBTQ in Australia; Transgender in Texas; Women’s Liberation; Racism in Canada; Detroit and “Detroit”; Labor and Robots; Haitian Revolt; Why Read N&L?; and a Correction.
Readers’ Views: September-October 2017, Part 1
September 5, 2017Readers’ Views: facing far right’s threat; don’t scapegoat; Canadian strike; Transgender troops; women’s liberation; homeless in Los Angeles; defend dissidents; why read N&L.
Voices from the Inside Out: Death by incarceration
Among the reasons U.S. prisoners die in prison or are unable to reintegrate into society upon release are: lengthy incarceration, especially for minor crimes; lack of mental and physical healthcare; lack of effective rehabilitation.
Voices from the inside out: Parole is broken
March 16, 2017Wisconsin Gov. Walker’s plan to replace the state Parole Commission with a Director of Parole would reduce the likelihood of parole in order to save a mere $1.8 million a year, while spending $200 million a year to keep aging parole-eligible prisoners locked up.
Readers’ Views, November-December 2016, Part 2
November 27, 2016Readers’ Views on The Dialectic of History Vs. Retrogression; Prisoners, Supporters Speak.
Voices From The Inside Out: Wisconsin prison destroys books
November 26, 2016Prisoner Robert Taliaferro tells of how a Wisconsin prison destroyed all library books that had been damaged in any way, thus depriving prisoners of their rights and adding “fuel to the fires of revolution.”
Voices from the inside out: Wisconsin prisoner hunger strike
September 17, 2016Prisoner Robert Taliaferro writes of the Wisconsin maximum security facility prisoners’ hunger strike to end the inhumane practice of long-term solitary confinement and for improved medical care for prisoners with mental illness in segregation.
Readers’ Views: September-October 2016, Part 1
September 14, 2016Readers’ Views on: Racism and Revolt Put U.S. on Trial; Life and Death Under the Class Divide; Environmental Struggles; War and Atrocities; and Women’s Lives at Stake.
Readers’ Views: July-August 2016, Part 2
July 14, 2016Readers’ Views on Needed New Beginnings in Philosophy and Revolution; Making One Year Count; Subjugated Knowledge; Free Syria/May Day; and Voices From Behind the Bars.
Voices From the Inside Out: Prisoner’s ‘worth’
July 5, 2016Prisoner Robert Taliaferro discusses the profit made from prisoners by the prison industrial complex and the shame of supposed rehabilitative programs that in reality are required, not for rehabilitation but for continued punishment of prisoners and profit for the prisons.
Readers’ Views, May-June 2016
May 17, 2016Readers’ Views on Women as Reason; Harriet Tubman; Racism and Internationalism; Bisexual Health; Trans Liberation and Feminism; Chinese State vs. Workers; Nuclear Arms Threaten All; Ireland’s Red Banner; Remembering Olga Domanski; Haggard but Not Tired; Voices from Behind the Bars.
Voices From The Inside Out: Criminal Prisons
April 27, 2016Article by prisoner comparing the U.S. prison system–which commits extortion, assault, theft, substandard medical care, racism and a host of other crimes–to an erupting volcano whose magma destroys all it touches.
Voices From The Inside Out: Olga Domanski’s passion for justice and freedom
March 11, 2016Prisoner Robert Taliaferro remembers Olga Domanski as a pillar of News and Letters Committees who helped define the organization for decades and wrote a remarkable letter to his parole board.
Readers’ Views: January-February 2016, Part 1
January 25, 2016California prisoners battle barbaric ‘justice’ system; Against ISIS attacks; Women under attack; Support Maati Monjib; The Burmese Way; Race, class & politics.
Voices from the inside out: Racism and the Confederate flag
August 30, 2015A Black prisoner looks at the meaning of U.S. racism and the struggle to remove the Confederate flag from the capitol grounds of South Carolina.
Voices from the Inside Out: Selma’s mindset
May 7, 2015In reading Charles Denby’s “Continuing Magnolia Jungle terror exposes reality of ‘Great Society,’” one is struck by how poignant and presciently modern Denby’s thoughts were and how very little has changed today.
60 Years of News & Letters (Readers’ Views, March-April 2015)
March 8, 2015Readers’ Views on the 60th anniversary of News & Letters and Terry Moon’s column on it.
Readers’ Views, January-February 2015, Part 1
January 30, 2015From Ferguson to Staten Island; Revolutionary Rojava; Youth Protest; Violence Against Women; Detroit Solidarity; Paris March; Recalling Mary Jo
Readers’ Views, September-October 2014, Part 2
August 31, 2014From the September-October 2014 News & Letters
THE FREE SPEECH MOVEMENT AND THE BLACK REVOLUTION
I am in the movement still because of the Free Speech Movement (FSM)—it turned my life around. I studied everything about the New Left. I came to Berkeley and decided this is where I needed to be. [=>]
Voices From the Inside Out: On prison and race
July 7, 2014From the July-August 2014 issue of News & Letters
by Robert Taliaferro
Race has always been at the forefront of this nation since its founding. It seems ironic that the generation that produced the country’s first Black president is also the generation that is seeing the advances made in civil rights during [=>]
Portrait of Alice Neel
December 17, 2011by Robert Taliaferro
Alice Neel: The Art of Not Sitting Pretty by Phoebe Hoban (St. Martin’s Press, New York, 2010).
There are many ways to be involved in a revolution. Written words defining theory and practice, and mass social protests are two ways. Creating art outside of the norm is another.
Unfortunately, for many years revolutionary [=>]
Civil War still hotly contested
July 24, 2011Essay
by Robert Taliaferro
The history of the U.S. is a quagmire of facts and near fictions; conflicting thoughts and ideas; established truths and myths, and nowhere is this more evident than when one discusses the causes and effects of the Civil War. This is especially evident on its 150th anniversary as some try to rewrite history, [=>]
Voices from the Inside Out: Remembering John Alan
May 18, 2011by Robert Taliaferro
John’s writings are strikingly poignant and timeless, with a prosody that is uniquely old-school. The body of his work is eloquently instructive and historically prescient.
In reading his columns we are challenged to look upon his words as more than philosophical constructs; there is a timelessness that reminds us that history–if left to its [=>]