The Black family's forced affinity to vacations in prison
"I've been on vacation...".
Lil Wayne on ESPN Superbowl Preview Show
What does some black celebrities like TI, 50 Cent, Ja Rule, Lil Wayne, Tupac Shakur, Lil' Kim, Foxy Brown, Shyne, Mystikal, Gucci Mane. Michael Vick, Wesley Snipes, Burress, an many others have in common. Answer: They've all been on (or are still) vacation.
But, for the most part, these celebrities are only poster children for a black community and its cultural base being devastated by the industrial prison complex. Not only celebrities, but blacks in general disproportionate representation in the criminal justice system has spiraled out of control where more black men are in jail than in college.
U.S. incarceration rates by race, June 30, 2004 includes not just black males but blacks in general.
But, just reviewing the same source for black males only, statistics are not only startling,but become even more startling.
When me and my several other siblings were told that the family is going on vacation, it normally meant a long drive westward from Texas to California. Nowadays, when someone says they've been on vacation, it may be indeed westward, but it is westward from Texas to Prison.
Recently, when Lil Wayne casually proclaimed that he had been on vacation in a short clip on ESPN that probably had millions of viewers, it was like everyone goes on these types of vacations these days. So has going to prison become a normal social more in the black community? Is being incarcerated to be expected by young black men?
If the answer to both of these questions is "yes", then post-racial is really a cover phrase for a second act in systemic racism in America.
SOME LINKS AND SOURCES
Follow the Prison Money Trail http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/2797/
Black men in prison: To fix this problem we must fix the black family
http://africanamericanpragmatist.blogspot.com/2009/03/black-men-in-prison-to-fix-this-problem.html
America’s New Slavery: Black Men in Prison
http://www.finalcall.com/artman/publish/National_News_2/America_s_New_Slavery_Black_Men_in_Prison_4475.shtml
Mass Incarceration: Savaging of Black America
http://www.blackcommentator.com/95/95_cover_prisons.html
Commentary: Me and my brother and black America, Michael Eric Dyson, Special to CNN
Prison Talk - Prison Information and Inmate Support Community
Racial Bias for Black Prisoners: High Percentages of Blacks ...
Requiem for Ordinary Black Men
Black Men in Prison: What Obama Must Fix Right Now
Prisons as a Growth Industry in Rural America: An Exploratory Discussion of the Effects on Young African American Men in the Inner Cities
The Black Peoples' Prison Survival Guide
Bulging Prison System Called Massive Intervention In American Family Life
United Prison Ministries International - Women in Prison
Black Family Press
Plight Deepens for Black Men, Studies Warn [More black drop outs in prison than working]
Justice Policy Institute
Prison Policy Initiative
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