Let's Talk Privilege
LEGAL PROTECTIONS
A brief history of the systems that ENSURED oppressIVE CONTROL OVER PEOPLE OF COLOR:
Colonial Times:
1787, The signing of the constitution
1862
1865
1868
1870
1865–1945 Convict Leasing and Debt Peonage:
1877–1968
Jim Crow
1933–1964
New Deal
Exclusion
1971–Present
The War
on Drugs and Mass Incarceration
Through the transatlantic slave trade, about 388,000 slaves were brought directly to north America. But from 1808 (when the constitution banned the importation of slaves) to 1860,"The U.S. slave population increased between 25 percent and 33 percent per year—an average of 28.7..." which caused 3.9 million slaves to exist in the US in 1860. (1)
SOURCES
Though the constitution never explicitly mentions race or slavery: citizenship, voting rights, and all other freedoms were not experienced by the millions of black people suffering from racism and slavery in the US.
The emancipation proclamation freed only those slaves in the confederate states meaning that 3.4 million slaves still legally existed at the end of the civil war. (1)
The 13th amendment was passed and officially freed all the slaves in the US: “Neither Slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime; whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.” (1)
The 14th amendment granted citizenship to all born within the US, including former slaves. (2)
The 15th amendment stated that the right to vote “shall not be denied…on account of race.” (2)
"... the South rapidly built a criminal justice system around imprisoning blacks. Fines for minor infractions suddenly morphed into jail time. Selective prosecution of blacks surged. New crimes made their way onto the books. But of course the point was not to fill jail cells; rather, it was to fuel a new form of involuntary servitude." (3)
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"In slavery’s antebellum form, humans as property were at least minimally protected because of their long-term financial value. But under convict leasing, a man’s value did not exceed what his employer paid the state monthly. If the laborer died in custody, the employer suffered only trivial financial inconvenience, as another convict could be readily procured at the same tariff. "(3)
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"[Convict Leasing] assured that virtually no African American man was safe unless under the protection and control of a white landowner or employer. If you wanted to be sure you would make it home from town — rather than being swept up, imprisoned under spurious charges, and sold into the convict lease system — you needed the surety provided by a powerful white man. Blacks went into sharecropping, a relationship itself akin to slavery, partly because they needed white bosses to protect them from the lethal convict labor system. The mortal threat of convict leasing and the chain gang subjugated African Americans to an agricultural peonage system at least until the mid-1940s." (3)
"Jim Crow laws were a collection of state and local statutes that legalized racial segregation. Named after a Black minstrel show character, the laws—which existed for about 100 years, from the post-Civil War era until 1968—were meant to marginalize African Americans by denying them the right to vote, hold jobs, get an education or other opportunities. Those who attempted to defy Jim Crow laws often faced arrest, fines, jail sentences, violence and death."(4)
"The legal system was stacked against Black citizens, with former Confederate soldiers working as police and judges."(5)
"American
rhetoric and law has been
hypocritical since its inception and nowhere has this been more evident than in legal protections and law enforcement for
black people."(5)
"for whites, the New Deal led to the largest expansion of the middle class ever seen, before or since, for Black people the New Deal not only failed to provide them with the same assistance, but in fact kept them trapped in poverty and various forms of reinvented slavery."(3)
"The Great Depression hit Blacks and other minorities particularly hard, more so than whites, and yet Blacks were systematically excluded from New Deal programs."(3)
"Whites and Blacks use drugs at about the same rate, and Blacks sell drugs at equal or lower rates than whites—and yet today in America, Blacks are incarcerated for drug charges at more than 10 times the rate of whites."
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"Today it is perfectly legal to discriminate against criminals in nearly all the ways that it was once legal to discriminate against African Americans. Once you’re labeled a felon, the old forms of discrimination — employment discrimination, housing discrimination, denial of the right to vote, denial of educational opportunity, denial of food stamps and other public benefits, and exclusion from jury service — are suddenly legal."
In depth
resources:
THE FUTURE OF RACE IN AMERICA: MICHELLE ALEXANDER AT TEDxCOLUMBUS
Michelle Alexander is a civil rights lawyer, advocate, legal scholar, and the author of
The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness,
MARC MAUER:
TACKLING CRIMINAL JUSTICE REFORM WITH THE SENTENCING PROJECT
SENTENCING REFORM: ENDING MASS INCARCERATION IS ONE STEP TOWARD RACIAL JUSTICE.
Speech made by Nicole Porter, Director of Advocacy for The Sentencing Project which "works for a fair and effective U.S. criminal justice system by producing groundbreaking research to promote reforms in sentencing policy, address unjust racial disparities and practices, and to advocate for alternatives to incarceration."
POSSIBLE Talking points And Responses:
Before looking at these specific points,
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for the tips and techniques for how to talk to others about privilege.
"We should be tough on crime, people need to learn a lesson if they do something illegal. If black people are worried about going to prison they should just stop committing crimes."
US Inmate race:
Black and brown communities are policed more and handed longer sentences than white people. This has lead to prison demographics being extremely skewed towards people of color which not only impacts their ability to get jobs, housing, and government assistance in the future but also has huge negative impacts on their families.
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US Population race:
"Before America’s era of mass incarceration took hold in the early 1970s, the number of individuals in prison was less than 200,000. Today, it’s 1.4 million; and more than 200,000 people are serving life sentences – one out of every seven in prison."
This expansion does not follow crime rate trends.
Watch:
The future of race in America: Michelle Alexander at TEDx Columbus above, She addresses this issue at 8:30
Black male offenders received sentences on average 19.1 percent longer than similarly situated White male offenders.(2012-2016)
Black male offenders received sentences on average 20.4 percent longer than similarly situated White male offenders, accounting for violence in an offender’s past in fiscal year 2016, the only year for which such data is available. This figure is almost the same as the 20.7 percent difference without accounting for past violence. Thus, violence in an offender’s criminal history does not appear to contribute to the sentence imposed to any extent beyond its contribution to the offender’s criminal history score determined under the sentencing guidelines.
PODCASTS TO TRY FOR FURTHER UNDERSTANDING:
Check out Justice in America, specifically:
EPISODE 25: CONVERSATION WITH SHERRILYN IFILL
Check out The Code Switch Podcast, specifically:
An Immune System