"Richmond We have a Problem": Not enough room for black men
Well it may sound cliche, but Richmond has too many black men. Yes, too many black men who are incarcerated. While Richmond is not the only urban hub that seems to be conspiring to dispense of black men disproportionately through incarceration at 7.16 inmates per 1,000 it is number 1 on a top 10 list that include mega-hubs like Los Angeles County (2.01); New York City (1.64); Polk County, Fla. (4.23), population 562,000; and Maricopa County, Ariz. (2.34), It's closest rival is Baltimore at 6.58.
As Richmond is midst of developing plans for a prison new facility that will hold 500 to600 inmates, it seems perplexing to find the demand for the black and poor to be placed behind walls so fashionable in the 21st century. Recently a team of consultants came from the National Institute of Corrections to help assess the feasibility and the alternatives for making sure that there enough room for black men at the prison inn.
However, the local sheriff, C. T.Woody, Jr., seems to be
at his wits end as whole generations go own the drain. In an series of articles being written by local writer, Michael Paul Williams, he rightly portray the darkness where there is death and hopelessness as dreary.
He referenced Woody as arguing the senseless warehousing stating that "too many of his (Woody) inmates don't belong in jail. Many are mentally ill, drug addicted, homeless or misdemeanor offenders. Also 57 percent of the inmates in jail are awaiting trial, rather than serving out there sentences".
But it is really the enlightened (get real) recognition of social justice and education leaders like Marian Wright Edelman who in a guest column published in the Los Angeles Wave that opines the fact that it's really about race and references some findings noted by scholar Dr. Glenn Loury's 2008 book "Race, Incarceration and American Values".
"Professor Loury describes how incarceration trends in the United States are connected to our country's legacy of slavery and segregation. He reminds his readers that cultural phenomena like lynching, Jim Crow, and legal segregation were all part of a deep-seated pattern of racial subordination in America that lasted long after slavery ended". It continues, "Scholars are now noting that in the post civil-rights era, racially skewed incarceration rates have become new way of continuing the same old pattern".
While Loury dares to not dance on the moratorium of racism by suggesting the 'same old patterns' persist, it is Attorney Michelle Alexander in her 2010 book "Then New Jim Crow" that indeed codifies a 'new caste system' that ensures durability of racism. In her book she states that the celebration of the civil rights victories was a "brief moment in the sun".
Alexander goes on to write "conservative whites began, once again, to search for a new racial order that would conform to the new and constraints of time. This process took place with the understanding that whatever the new order would be, it would have to be formally race neutral--it could not involve explicit or clearly intentional race discrimination".
She continues "Proponents of racial hierarchy found they could install a new racial caste system without violating the law or the new limits of acceptable political discourse, by demanding "law and order' rather than "segregation forever."
Both Loury and Alexander have successfully identified a systemic way of thinking by racists that seemed to have buoyed the thinking of modern post-racial apologists. Systemic in that a 'new caste system' has successfully been installed in cities like Richmond and where the public are fed not the true source of prison overcrowding, which is racism, but only 'race neutral' reasons like drugs or court ordered child support. In by-passing the real culprit of overcrowding and the uneven representation of blacks being incarcerated finding solutions will always be evasive.
While drug-related crime continues to headline reasons, let's talk about a another real and common situation using a fictitious name.. John Williams told me that he was incarcerated after not being able to pay his court enforced child support payments. Why both people of color an whites are incarcerated for child support delinquency, after another look it really becomes an extension of the 'new caste system' that Alexanders speaks about and it symbolizes the 'deep-seated patterns of racial subordination in America'.
It becomes clear in that racism is a process that defies any popular concern as young black men are caught up in a criminal system, the same system that never lifted a finger when black women were raped and fathered by white men children for many of years. These white men would never see a day in jail or never be made to compensate for refusing to support their black children. Racism has a way of only finding legal and conventional means to disguise its inherent desire to subjugate others.
However, one would ask 'where are all the black men' that should be an integral part of a vibrant and progressive in a post-racial society. The honest answer should be that a significant number can be found in overcrowded, racially induced jail houses in cities like Richmond and Baltimore. They should add that the warehousing seems like a permanent and planned process.
Blacks are sent to prison at
higher rates than whites
after convictions in drug cases
--Justice Policy Institute
As Richmond is midst of developing plans for a prison new facility that will hold 500 to600 inmates, it seems perplexing to find the demand for the black and poor to be placed behind walls so fashionable in the 21st century. Recently a team of consultants came from the National Institute of Corrections to help assess the feasibility and the alternatives for making sure that there enough room for black men at the prison inn.
However, the local sheriff, C. T.Woody, Jr., seems to be
at his wits end as whole generations go own the drain. In an series of articles being written by local writer, Michael Paul Williams, he rightly portray the darkness where there is death and hopelessness as dreary.
He referenced Woody as arguing the senseless warehousing stating that "too many of his (Woody) inmates don't belong in jail. Many are mentally ill, drug addicted, homeless or misdemeanor offenders. Also 57 percent of the inmates in jail are awaiting trial, rather than serving out there sentences".
But it is really the enlightened (get real) recognition of social justice and education leaders like Marian Wright Edelman who in a guest column published in the Los Angeles Wave that opines the fact that it's really about race and references some findings noted by scholar Dr. Glenn Loury's 2008 book "Race, Incarceration and American Values".
"Professor Loury describes how incarceration trends in the United States are connected to our country's legacy of slavery and segregation. He reminds his readers that cultural phenomena like lynching, Jim Crow, and legal segregation were all part of a deep-seated pattern of racial subordination in America that lasted long after slavery ended". It continues, "Scholars are now noting that in the post civil-rights era, racially skewed incarceration rates have become new way of continuing the same old pattern".
While Loury dares to not dance on the moratorium of racism by suggesting the 'same old patterns' persist, it is Attorney Michelle Alexander in her 2010 book "Then New Jim Crow" that indeed codifies a 'new caste system' that ensures durability of racism. In her book she states that the celebration of the civil rights victories was a "brief moment in the sun".
Alexander goes on to write "conservative whites began, once again, to search for a new racial order that would conform to the new and constraints of time. This process took place with the understanding that whatever the new order would be, it would have to be formally race neutral--it could not involve explicit or clearly intentional race discrimination".
She continues "Proponents of racial hierarchy found they could install a new racial caste system without violating the law or the new limits of acceptable political discourse, by demanding "law and order' rather than "segregation forever."
Both Loury and Alexander have successfully identified a systemic way of thinking by racists that seemed to have buoyed the thinking of modern post-racial apologists. Systemic in that a 'new caste system' has successfully been installed in cities like Richmond and where the public are fed not the true source of prison overcrowding, which is racism, but only 'race neutral' reasons like drugs or court ordered child support. In by-passing the real culprit of overcrowding and the uneven representation of blacks being incarcerated finding solutions will always be evasive.
Where have all the black men gone?
They're missing in churches, missing
from families, missing from college campuses,
an absent from work. Black women can't
find a man to marry. . .
Michelle Alexander-Hufffington Press, 2/22/1o
While drug-related crime continues to headline reasons, let's talk about a another real and common situation using a fictitious name.. John Williams told me that he was incarcerated after not being able to pay his court enforced child support payments. Why both people of color an whites are incarcerated for child support delinquency, after another look it really becomes an extension of the 'new caste system' that Alexanders speaks about and it symbolizes the 'deep-seated patterns of racial subordination in America'.
It becomes clear in that racism is a process that defies any popular concern as young black men are caught up in a criminal system, the same system that never lifted a finger when black women were raped and fathered by white men children for many of years. These white men would never see a day in jail or never be made to compensate for refusing to support their black children. Racism has a way of only finding legal and conventional means to disguise its inherent desire to subjugate others.
THE BEST WAY TO KEEP AN
INDIVIDUAL ENSLAVED IS TO
FIRST ENSLAVE THE PARENTS
OR GUARDIAN OF THAT INDIVIDUAL.
The Slave Family, by Cornelius Adams
However, one would ask 'where are all the black men' that should be an integral part of a vibrant and progressive in a post-racial society. The honest answer should be that a significant number can be found in overcrowded, racially induced jail houses in cities like Richmond and Baltimore. They should add that the warehousing seems like a permanent and planned process.
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