Black People: not all of us are criminals. Criminal Justice System/Cops: Not all of us are bad but we will protect & defend the ones that are.
Decades ago in the US, our criminal justice system was prearranged to operate how it does today. Resulting in the mistreatment, mistrust, & harsher sentencing for the nation’s black & brown people. The system budges only when efforts from ally white American society exhibit distrust. Prison was set to be the solution to quickly dispose of the social needs of the African American community. The unjustness has always reeked in our faces but known to be swept under the rug simply because this is just the way it is. Although most of the issues are to be passed off to us as a common public health crisis by the elite, the history of rigid criminalization on social issues within black communities still prevails. Concerns such as massive unemployment rates, mental illness, and addictions leading brothas & sistahs to Prisons. Making melanated folk almost half of the prison population. These prisons are just coincidentally placed in cities that are dense of POC. In these unprecedented times of 2020, more of us are waking up to see how fishy this all is. As the saying goes, history repeats itself, but it will continue to if we don’t take ownership of our freedom, history, and conditioned existence. The black criminality myth dates as far back as the slave ships. During slavery, the criminal justice system enforced crude laws on black folk. To begin with. An article for the New York Times shares the following.
The 13th Amendment is credited with ending slavery, but it stopped short of that: It made an exception for those convicted of crimes. After emancipation, black people, once seen as less than fully human “slaves,” were seen as less than fully human “criminals.” The provisional governor of South Carolina declared in 1865 that they had to be “restrained from theft, idleness, vagrancy, and crime.” Laws governing slavery were replaced with Black Codes governing free black people — making the criminal-justice system central to new strategies of racial control.”
Being black was unconstitutional. Pursuing one’s own freedom was unconstitutional. Slaves learning to read was unconstitutional. This makes it no surprise that there are highly racist measures to keep blacks in place. That place being the race who is simply prone to criminality. The majority of our Great African American Revolutionists broke the law to accomplish historic victories. Harriet Tubman freed over 300 slaves, which was considered to be stealing property. Fredrick Douglas managed to escape his slave entrapment, by “stealing himself.” Even our peace-loving MLK was considered a criminal by the President.
There is an enduring myth around black on black crimes. This threatening occurrence is fragile and should be handled with care within the community. The oppressive structure has donated the keys to the anger and violence sparking in this country since USA was founded. It always has. Looking at unsettling facts like one in three black males being likely to serve hard time within their lifetimes. The media depiction will show otherwise but only one percent of black folk commit violent crimes a year. Amongst blacks being the most likely to die from violent crimes. Cops are slower to respond to inner-city protection needs and are quicker to end investigations. It’s hard to trust a system that has no trust within you.
Things like gang violence are becoming less of an extreme now, yet killings come in higher rates in inner cities like Chicago, Detroit. More of an uptight, survivalist energy looms in the poorest underdeveloped areas in the US. These communities need more resources in creating solutions for Socio-economic issues, education, mental illness, food deserts, mistreatment. It is hard to stay positive in a structured environment that’s not built for you to excel. So yes, some do fall into traps of addictions & drug dealer activity. A reality that most Americans couldn’t phantom existing in. For some people committing a “crime” is a matter of putting food on the plate.
For some, it is a crime to simply drive while black, run while black, sleep while black. How much longer are we going to accept this low rated treatment? Much of the black community are born into watered-down versions of the American Dream. Mothers, sons, daughters fathers, and mothers living behind bars.
Things like racial profiling, wrongful convictions, and maximum drug convictions are stealing freedom. It is no wonder POC are more hesitant to call the police in already frightful situations, what if they aren’t believed? What if they become the target? I recently watched a clip of a black business owner calling 12 to his store after being robbed. The squad immediately rushes in attacking him. A 2015 video of a Texas officer violently abusing & arresting a black woman shows him telling her that “black people have violent tendencies 99 % of the time.” on the way to taking her to jail. A report on Exoneration in American explains,
“6 Murder in America is overwhelmingly intra-racial: 84% of white murder victims and 93% of black murder victims are killed by members of their own race.7 This high murder rate means that African Americans are far more likely than whites to be investigated, arrested, and convicted of murder. Mostly, those who are investigated and convicted are guilty. But innocent African Americans also face a much higher risk of being suspected of murder, and of being convicted despite their innocence.”
Innocent black murder suspects, especially the ones convicted with false evidence also fall victim to murders others commit. Those who have been exonerated could spend about 14 years in prison before finally being released. Time one cant get back. Much more innocent will not even be considered to be exonerated.
Even the crimes we commit on each other get less alertness than crimes against white Americans and other races. Anthony Sorwells, a Cleavland black serial killer continued strangling 11 women to death over 10 years. He kept the bodies in piles of trash inside his 3 story home. Several rape victims were able to escape his wrath. One was turned away by authorities, the other felt threatened that police wouldn’t believe her so she covered up her story. Him and the majority of his victims were poor drug addicts. The system isn’t meant for their betterment.
The list of the injustices in the criminal system goes on and on. Dismissing claims and filing out bogus police reports for victims. Forcing witness to just pick a face out of a prepared line up, not addressing the dark underlying truth. We need justice.
I recommend watching these.
i. Innocence files
ii. 13th
iii. When they see us
iv. crips & bloods: made in America
v. Tulia, Texas
https://scholars.org/contribution/black-politics-and-origins-americas-prison-boom Micheal Javon Fortner
http://www.law.umich.edu/special/exoneration/Documents/Race_and_Wrongful_Convictions.pdf National Registry of Exonerations
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/08/14/magazine/prison-industrial-complex-slavery-racism.html The 1916 Project
