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At the risk of shaking the table: having a pen pal is very nice.
Checking in via jpay is faster (though its a scam), but the act of sitting down to write a letter, stamp it, address it, take it to the post office etc really fosters a sense of intimacy that I think I didn't truly realize.
When a letter is really your only or main method of communication it gives you the chance to be really intentional with your words, and also discover who you are as a person. Because it's like..what is so important about yourself and your life that feels worthy of
attempting to distill it onto a piece of paper, especially when there's a limit to what you can write.
As an outside organizer, my work and words need to be accountable to those who are actually experiencing the violence of prisons daily. Taking time away to focus on building up more inside relationships has helped me feel more grounded and also sheds perspective on how useless
a lot of this infighting truly is. Another thing that letter-writing does, its it forces you to assess your boundaries and also practice not making promises you can't keep. @deemsum has said this before and I agree, maybe everyone shouldn't be writing letters.
That's because, people on the inside need to have people who actually follow through, and have the capacity to show up for them in meaningful ways. So basically, having penpals is great, I think more people should have them, and I think even if they dont have penpals
outside "abolitionists" need to have organizing that is actually connected to people who are currently incarcerated AND organizing to meet their material needs right now via mutual aid and also before you take on a pen pal you need to make sure you can commit/be realistic.
One thing the carceral state does is produce a narrative that there is one type of incarcerated person. In order to fight back against that, abolitionists can mistakenly fall into the trap of doing the same thing.
Not every incarcerated person can or does want to organize, is "perfect" or "nice," or spends all of their time in programming and/or reading all day etc. cc @deemsum
Many are simply trying to survive, and they're still human beings deserving of support, friendship, comradeship, and most importantly freedom.
