Trouvé chez la Redstar Perspective:
“The prison system bears the imprint of slavery perhaps more than any other institution,” she says. “It produces a state that is very similar to slavery; the deprivation of rights, civil death and disenfranchisement. Under slavery, black people became that against which the notion of freedom was defined. White people knew they were free because they could point to the people who weren’t free. Now we know we’re free because we’re not in prison. People continue to suffer civil death even after they leave prison. There is permanent disenfranchisement.”
The US, argues Davis, is still struggling with its refusal to address slavery’s legacy. “There was the negative abolition of slavery – the breaking of chains – but freedom is much more than just the abolition of slavery. What would it have meant to provide economic security to everyone who had been enslaved; to have brought about the participation in governance and politics and access to education? That didn’t happen. We are still confronted by the failure of the affirmative side of abolition all these years later.”
Does that not leave black politics entrenched in a paradigm set almost 150 years ago? “The problem is that we [as a country] haven’t moved on,” she says. “Certainly it’s important to recognise the victories that have been won. Racism is not exactly the same now as it was then. But there were issues that were never addressed and now present themselves in different manifestations today. You only move on if you resolve these issues. It took 100 years to get the right to vote.”
Axé.
coldhearted scientist وداد 
I promise I won’t become a bore about Dennis Kucinich, but I noticed that one of the pieces of his platform is formal acknowledgement of the need to make reparations for the history of slavery. At least it is on his political radar screen.
I am already a bore about Kucinich and I do not consider the topic boring. This is one of the reasons.
One of the things I find striking about Davis’ text is that she says it was once in contrast to slaves we (citizens) defined ourselves as free and now it is in contrast to prisoners.
This cleared up a great part of a question I was going to ask in a post: now that we have voided the Constitution and so on, exactly what are those “American freedoms” we are “fighting” to “preserve”? Not to be in jail, I guess. Of course, what we have done is turn the entire country into one big jail, with different circles of Hell of course (some offshore). When people realize that you could be outside (jail) today, inside tomorrow, perhaps they will finally wake up.
My sources say it will take 30 years to recover from this so I guess I will be alive for it. It has taken Argentina about that long, as had been estimated as well.
Professor didn’t you have a post about slavery/prison that you got some flack over?
Yes, from Pistolette. Did I know that prisoners have records and might be guilty, and so on. She missed the 60s and 70s when the prison/slavery connection was discussed. I thought of her when I saw this piece and considered making a pointed remark, but was too tired!
The very fact that black men are incarcerated in such numbers should make clear the connection to slavery.
Yes, indeed, but now there is all this rhetoric about “personal responsibility.” Parts of the Black community say it too.
Now I’m going to say something Rachel’s Tavern will call me ‘racist’ for. When I go to stores in the ‘hood, which I do fairly regularly since I can walk to them which saves me driving, I see why parts of the Black community go on about ‘personal responsibility.’
When I see certain teenagers and twenty-somethings pushing people around, whining and demanding service, of other poor Black people but also other poor immigrants and minorities in the rudest possible way, I know I am looking at oppressed and underprivileged individuals but I also notice that it is the same behavior exhibited by Ugly Americans in tourist resorts abroad and by Loud Moneyed Texans swilling margaritas in upscale chain restaurants.
My point: those who talk about ‘personal responsiblity’ do have a point, but it is a point which applies to *everyone* and especially *every American* at the present juncture.
And it is *not* a solution to the incarceration problem, and it is *certainly* not an explanation of why so many Black men are incarcerated. The slavery connection *is* that explanation.
In my experience, those who speak most about “personal responsibility” are very often blundering fools who have a lot of problems in their own lives and a profound need to direct their sense of the cause of their own problems on to somebody else.
…and/or to blame the victim, of course! But you’re right, they are in reality often talking to themselves.
Blaming the victim is quite common on the part of the far right. However, in Australia, it is far more common to succumb to an ideology that overestimates the power of “the individual”. Thus, directly out of this ideology comes the notion that whatever happens to one is somehow directly related to one’s “personal responsibility” — except for very extreme things like a death in the family or the contraction of cancer or something. The blaming of the victim, in the latter case, is an outcome of confused thinking more than it is necessarily an outcome of malice. The assumption that we are all rational individuals who control our destinies is far from true — and hard work does not make it true. Hard work is more likely to assure material prosperity, but to equate material prosperity with “controlling one’s destiny” is a huge mistake, and is also a form of confused thinking.
Life is not fair.
It never will be.
There are many people from repressed / disadvantaged backgrounds
who have become happy, productive,
creative members of society.
We all do not work from an even starting line.
If someone commits a murder, or any socially deleterious act, should society accept that behaviour? Why? Should there not be consequences for one’s behaviour?
Think. One must be fair on both sides.
Those who commit crimes are not only blacks, latinos, etc., nor are minorities the only ones in prison.
Crime needs to be dealt with on an individual basis, not a racial presupposition.
Slavery ended quite a while ago. Is is time to move on.
I almost didn’t let this uninformed comment through. Greg, please read the full post, the article to which it refers, and the comments thread. This is about the prison industrial complex, not about whether criminals should be allowed to invade your home. Please also note that I do not like sanctimonious people, especially sanctimonious men.
Making light: I did not, however, realize there were any white people in prison until you told me. Even though there is a former governor of my state doing Federal time right now I just had no IDEA white people could ever go to jail. Maybe I should tell them to clean up their act – they could get arrested! Have you been to jail yourself? What was it like? In any case, thanks for letting us all know. 😉
Taking you seriously: As far as slavery being over and it being time to move on – it helped to get rid of Jim Crow, and to get voting rights, and affirmative action, but there’s racial profiling and a whole lot of other things I assume you will actively work on fixing so that it will become feasible to really move on, since that seems to be so important to you. It’s the whites who haven’t gotten over slavery, keep trying to find ways to reinstitute it, and so on. Me, I’m for reparations.
I find these sentiments by Greg Wood to be an interesting juxtaposition:
“Life is not fair.
It never will be.”
and:
“Think. One must be fair on both sides.”
Which is it, Greg?
That’s a perceptive reading and a good question.