Letters to the Editor
Quentin Ridley #1644792
Terres Unit
125 Private Rd. 4303
Hondo, TX 78861
My name is Quentin Ridley.
I am presently incarcerated within the Texas Department of Criminal Justice Institutional Division.
I am a reader of The Burning Spear newspaper and as I was reading on the lateness of The Spear article in your Volume 27, Number 6/7, February/ March 2014 issue, I noticed that you stated, “We call on you who unite with the mission of The Spear to support it.
Sell The Spear. Write, edit, proofread or bring whatever skill you can contribute to the process as we use The Burning Spear to light the fire that will burn imperialism to the ground!”
Here is my contribution and I am asking for you to please put the following in The Burning Spear so the readers will know of some of the things that go on here in the Texas prisons.
Racism here in Texas is on a grand scale and Texas officials are not hiding it either.
Here in the Texas prison system is the only place where blacks are the majority and everything the blacks do as a group in unity is considered gang-related or a security threat.
The “divide and conquer” strategy is still being utilized subtly on a psychological level.
The Texas prison system has incorporated a therapeutic drug treatment program called Gateway that originated out of Chicago.
This program is racially motivated to force blacks to turn away from our culture, traditions and history and to believe that white people are superior.
This program and the people who run this program violate the health and safety of black offenders, degrade black offenders and threaten to send black offenders back into the prison system if they do not admit that white people are superior.
I was once in this program as due to parole stipulations.
I was unable to complete the program because I was retaliated against for pursuing legal activities.
I was writing grievances when my rights were being violated and then they finally kicked me out of the program on ”behavior discharge” because I had five pages of black history documents that spoke of the history of the Black Panthers.
As of now I have been transferred back to an assigned disciplinary prison unit and given a year parole set off.
I am currently trying to file a 1983 lawsuit due to the issue but I am being denied my legal materials as they claim that my property is in transfer process.
In my criminal case I have been unjustly convicted. I have attempted the appeal process and I have been denied by the courts.
I am an indigent black male who does not have the proper funds or the proper support to prove my innocence and have the light shined on the corrupt and unjust acts of the Texas authorities.
I am asking for you to please place the above in The Burning Spear so that your readers can be informed that there are some very interesting stories inside the Texas penal system.
The counselors of this Gateway program and the program itself needs to be investigated, especially the Havias Unit.
Please help us!
Respectfully submitted,
Quentin Ridley