There are more African Americans under correctional control today -- in prison or jail, on probation or parole -- than were enslaved in 1850, a decade before the Civil War began.
The New Jim Crow is a book written by Michelle Alexander. She goes to great lengths to answer a recurring question. She writes how this question has surfaced in mainstream and ethnic media for more than a decade. The phrasing of the question differs depending on who's asking the question and why, but the question tends to boil down to this: Where have all the black men gone? They're missing in churches, missing from their families, missing from college campuses, and absent from work. Black women can't find a man to marry. Black children don't know where to find their fathers. Where are those guys?
There are always many variables when trying to determine what is going on with American African men in America today. Michele Alexander puts forth her theories that make a solid attempt to answer the recurring question - Where Have all the black men gone?
Michelle believes that too many black men have been targeted unevenly and unequally when compared to white men during the so-called War on Drugs.
She writes, that people of color are rounded up -- frequently at young ages -- for relatively minor drug offenses, branded felons, and then relegated to a permanent second-class status in which they may be denied the right to vote, automatically excluded from juries, and subjected to legal discrimination in employment, housing, access to education, and public benefits. Those who are lucky enough to get a job upon release from prison find that up to 100 percent of their wages may be garnished to pay fees, fines, and court costs as well as the costs of their imprisonment and accumulated child support.
Michele also reports that in 2005, for example, 4 out 5 drug arrests were for possession and only 1 out of 5 were for sales. Most people in state prison for drug offenses have no history of violence or significant selling activity. Nearly 80 percent of the increase in drug arrests in the 1990s -- the period of the most dramatic expansion of the drug war -- was for marijuana possession, a drug less harmful than alcohol or tobacco. In some states, though, African Americans have comprised 80 to 90 percent of all drug convictions.
The mass incarceration of people of color through the War on Drugs is a big part of the reason that a black child born today is less likely to be raised by both parents than a black child born during slavery. The absence of black fathers from families across America is not simply a function of laziness, immaturity, or too much time watching Sports Center. Hundreds of thousands of black men have disappeared into prisons and jails, locked away for drug crimes that are largely ignored when committed by whites.
She also believes that this system isn't about crime control; it about racial control. Yes, even in the age of Obama she writes.
Everyone knows that if you do the crime, you should be ready to do the time. One has to ask the question of why in America are we not using one standard to penalize crimes. Why should one group receives minor or no consequences for their crimes while another group receives major consequences for the same crime? Many answers can be found in a book written by an African American judge in New York who tabloid critics called Turn Em Loose Bruce. Judge Bruce Wright wrote the book
Black Robes, White Justice. Why our justice system does not work for blacks.
