I find it so funny when I hear the term, “Make America Great Again” or the “good old day”, better yet “law and order”. Maybe I missed something in history class or missed something during my own personal research but when were these good old days and when was America great? I guess it depends on who you ask or what perspective you are talking from. If this is true, then the American dream must also be a nightmare because some people in America have never felt it was great place (nightmare), while others feel as if it was great place (dream). So who determines who has access to the American dream or the American nightmare? Better yet has American attitudes changed any since the early 1800s.
Ava DuVernay documentary 13th is such an eye opener to some of the major issue in American. The documentary deal with mass incarnation and the creation of second class citizens and the 13th amendment. Some of the statistic given in the movie were shocking to see, for example the documentary claims that although African American men make up only 5 percent of the world population; they make up 25 percent of the prison popular. Moreover the documentary claim that the prison population in 1970 was 357,292 but by 2000 had risen to 2,015,300. The likelihood of a white male going to jail over the course of his lifetime is 1 in 17. While a black male likelihood of going to jail during their lifetime is 1 in 3. Why does this difference exist? The documentary went farther to name systems like the punishment clause, convict lease system, black code, the 3 strikes and you’re out law, truth in sentence and the federal crime bill; in addition to the stand your ground law and SB 1070.
Is it possible that we as a country still have not dealt with the choices and decision our forefathers made? Is it possible that we want to pretend as if certain issue don’t exist? Is it possible we want to separate ourselves from our forefathers, so we are not held responsible for their actions? Finally should we be responsible for the things our forefather did and did not do? In my opinion yes. Yes to all of these question asked. As a country we have to deal with the fact that slavery was a choice and decision that was chosen, it did not just come about. We have to deal with the fact that after slavery we had a system like Jim Crow, and now we have to deal with the new Jim Crow—–Mass incarnation.
But when was the first big prison boom? To answer this we have to look at the United States and how the prison system was started. We also have to look at the 13th amendment and the loophole/clause that was added. According to the 13th amendment:
Section 1. 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.
Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.”
We all know that slavery is illegal, however thanks to the 13th amendment slavery is allowed if the person is being punish for a crime committed. The prison system did not take hold until after the Civil War when slavery had ended (Browne 2007). Laws like the Black Codes, which were used to make a legal activities criminal if done by African Americans; things like loitering and breaking curfew would be a reason to imprison an African American, making them slaves to the state. There was also convict leasing, where a person had the opportunity to purchase prisoners (mostly black) to work on their land, this was the same as slavery. Then you had the chain-gangs who we can thank for creating American massive road system. America was still getting free labor, just as they had done during slavery. If we jump to the 21th century we see the same things happing. For example private corporation are running prison for profits, it’s actually a multibillion dollar industry in every state; sounds familiar? Private Corporation can even take prisoners from jail to work inside of the business, all at no cost for the owner. Moreover we know America has not changed because it’s back to its old deceptive ways. For example the first women chain gang prison has been operating since 2007. Some state are pushing for laws similar to the black code like, curfews, anti-loitering and anti-association law (Browne 2007)
This brings me to my final point, the criminal system we have in place has always been design to keep slavery alive. It was not design to reform but to keep America free labor dream alive, to make America like the good old days great.
Reference
http://www.reimaginerpe.org/node/856
http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2014/08/14/slavery-legal-exception-prisoners-drugs-reform-column/14086227/
http://constitution.laws.com/13th-amendment