"Our" America

Submitted By Alahya McKelvey:

 

Throughout history the idea of "race"has shaped our country. Ideas like there are many different races and that one race is better than another race is not new to America. The idea of race is stamped throughout American history and it helped shape the country into what it is today. As the idea of race emerged so did the forming of Racial Caste Systems over the years. Slavery, and the Jim Crow laws were both once legal racial caste systems used to control the black population in America. Now the criminal justice system is using mass incarceration as a modern way to control the black population, more specifically the black male population.

Slavery

Slavery was probably the first legal racial caste system in America. Due to the growing need for labor, and the fact that they didn't want to pay for it, big plantation owners in the late 1600s began capturing black people and forcing them to work on their plantations. In order to have complete control over them, Plantation owners went to Africa and bought back non English speaking blacks. Plantation owners and basically all whites at this time viewed Africans as an inferior race and felt that enslaving blacks was the only way to control them.  After the Civil War slavery was abolished and all slaves were set free. Soon after slavery was abolished the government issued the Jim Crow laws.

"The slave went free; stood a brief moment in the sun; then moved back again toward slavery." -W.E.B Du Bois

Jim Crow

After slavery was abolished the Jim Crow laws came right behind slavery as the second biggest legal racial caste system in American history. The Jim Crow laws were a set a of laws that made it illegal for blacks to do certain things. Blacks couldn't eat at the same places as whites, they couldn't go to school with whites, they couldn't even use the same bathroom as whites. Although the passing of the 13th 14th and 15th amendments right after the civil war gave black people the same rights as as white people it did not make them equal. Blacks were still being denied the right to vote, the right to own property and the right to get a good education. As the civil rights movement began to challenge the so called "way of life" for black people, Jim Crow laws began to disappear and by the mid 1960s they were gone. Just as the black community  began to breath a sigh of relief a new racial caste was born. 

Criminal Justice System

The criminal justice system is nothing new to America. The criminal justice system dates all the way back to colonial America. The enslavement of black people dates back to this time also. Because slavery and the criminal justice system were "created" at the same time its clear to see why the criminal justice system discriminates against blacks. From the the slave codes in the 17th and 18th centuries, to the black codes in the 19th century, to the Jim Crow laws in the 20th century, America has firmly established "the crime of color" in the criminal justice system. The slave codes, black codes and Jim Crow were all once legal laws blacks had to follow and if they didn't their punishment would be steep. It was Basically illegal to be black at some point in every century of "our" country. Now as we are in the 21st century and it is illegal to discriminate against a person because of their race, it is not illegal to discriminate against a person because of their criminal background. Ex offenders are denied the right to vote, the right to get housing and the right to get a good education. Just like blacks were in the Jim Crow Era.  

The above video talks about the black male population in prisons across the U.S. The video states that more black men are in prison today than were enslaved in 1850. The video also state that although black men account for just a bit over 6% of the U.S population they make up over 40% of the U.S prison population. As we look at these numbers we say "well how can that be true?" Most people think that black men must be committing more crime than any other race. People who think this way is contributing to the problem. the fact is that blacks are not committing more crime than any other race, they are just targeted more. As Marc Lamont Hill said in the above video he can go to an Ivy League college on any given weekend and find all types of illegal activities like drug use and underage drinking but police presence is not at ivy league colleges, there are in black communities. Many laws are in place that target blacks and minorities more. The war on drugs is maybe the biggest. As stated in the video the prison boom came from the 1980's war on drugs when the government vowed to extract drugs from its communities. But what it did was extract black men form urban communities instead. Because all you had to do was be caught with five grams of crack to get a mandatory five year prison sentence a lot of black men were arrested. These black men were not even drug dealers, they were drug users. On the other hand when the war on drugs was started, a person had to be caught with five hundred grams of cocaine to be sentenced to a mandatory five year prison sentence. Because crack was considered a "poor mans drug", more black men were arrested for crack, on the other hand cocaine  being a "rich mans drug" more whites were arrested for it. The fact that you had to be caught with so much cocaine to even be charged or sentenced more whites went free. Because all you needed was a little bit of crack to be charged or sentenced more blacks were put into prison. 

America being racist in 2011 is seen as a big joke. After all how can a country still be racist after we just elected out first black president. Racism in this day in age is seen as almost non existent. The truth is America is racist, it may not be as racist as it used to be but a hint of racism still lurks. How can America not be racist, it was built on racism. Our country was built on the belief that there was one and only one superior "race" and that all other "races" were inferior to the white man. Not the fact that there is really only one race, the human race. Our country was built on a bunch of legal racial caste systems. Slavery, Jim Crow and the criminal justice system are all racial caste systems used in America to control the black population. Although the criminal justice system is not just for blacks, it laws and policies target the black community. With laws like the War on Drugs and stop and frisk targeting mainly the African American community more and more blacks are being arrested. We live in a country that is targeting black communities and locking up more black men than ever. We live in a country were "All Men Are Created Equal" but one race is still seen as superior. When the white man is still the superior race and all other races are considered beneath him, it makes you wonder who's America is it really?