Death, or Something Like it.
I want so much to write about the death penalty today. I recently read a great book that a friend gave to me called Actual Innocence, which talks about the Innocence Project, a group dedicated to helping wrongly accused and convicted convicts. It's sickening to know that this country deems it an acceptable practice to let innocent people die in the hopes that a few of the injected are guilty. Ok, though, enough about that. Let's talk about jail in general.
We are an incarcerating country. Break the law, you go to jail. Oh, wait, let me rephrase that: Break the law, be poor or a minority, you go to jail. The prisons are full of low income minority groups. You'll hear a lot of excuses from a lot of people as to why this is the case. Mostly people can agree that lack of education and money in the inner city is to blame for the surge of criminal activity among the poor. But there is another problem.
Last month I wrote about some problems that drug addicts face in saving their own lives. Beyond having the shame of living with addiction, there are criminal ramifications for buying and selling drugs, for carrying, and for being under the influence.
In the 1980's, Nancy Reagan pummelled us with her War on Drugs. She wanted to send a clear message that not only do we not like drugs, not only do we hate them sooooo much, not only do we hate the addict, we are going to WAR! Granted, this was at a time where most kids didn't know what war was all about, our fathers had all come home from Vietnam, no one had really ever attacked us on our soil in our lifetimes. Beirut and Grenada were words you heard a lot in the news, but what was war, really?
War is what we've waged silently on the minority population in this country. 1 out of every 8 black men will be in prison at some point of his life. That number is staggering. Yet, many white people say "Why are blacks mad at me? I didn't have slaves. My parents and grandparents didn't have slaves." While to an extent, it's right to feel that so much hatred is put on you just because of the color of your skin, think about the institutional, governmental racism that happens every single day.
"Quit looking at the symbols. Get out and get a job. Quit shooting each other. Quit having illegitimate babies." - State Rep. John Graham Altman (R-SC), addressing African-American concerns about the 'symbol' of the Confederate Flag, New York Times, 01-24-97.
"Two things made this country great: White men & Christianity. The degree these two have diminished is in direct proportion to the corruption and fall of the nation. Every problem that has arisen (sic) can be directly traced back to our departure from God's Law and the disenfranchisement of White men." - State Rep. Don Davis (R-NC), emailed to every member of the North Carolina House and Senate, reported by the Fayetteville Observer, 08-22-01
The war on drugs cost this country $19.179 BILLION in 2003 alone. Over 50% of incarcerated felons are there for non-violent crimes or drug offenses for which there is a mandatory sentencing in effect. 3/4 of that are black or latino men. This is institutional racism. Above that, it's accepted.