Is racism gaining a stronger foothold?
Here in Big Horn County, we have racial diversity that is unique among the rural counties of Montana. We benefit from the legacy of Dr. King’s struggle for our nation’s freedom, but we can easily be drawn into the recent national degradation of civil rights. This unfortunate trend is making a mockery of the gains those of us experienced with neighbors and friends back in the 60’s. Our loss of civil rights is most concentrated in our prisons. Our county has one of the highest incarceration rates in Montana, if not the entire U.S.
We have a tradition in America of listening to God’s words on behalf of the civil rights of those who suffer, and hearing the Godly path to real security. Jesus’ Sabbath reading from Isaiah at the Nazareth synagogue around 32 A.D. alludes to this central agenda of the prophets, including Jesus, as recorded by Evangelist St. Luke.
Luke 4:16 – “Now Jesus … stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written, 'The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and the regaining of sight to the blind, to set free those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.'”
Two present day intellectuals, Randall Robinson and Michelle Anderson, point out that our “get tough on crime” rhetoric has led to class warfare in America. The title of Anderson’s new book captures the hidden nature of this new apartheid in America – “The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness.”
Of course real people sometimes wrongly suffer regardless of race in our criminal justice system, but the racial bias in prison, courts and law enforcement mocks the justice and freedom concepts written into our constitution. A few tidbits from Anderson’s and Robinson’s books:
Twelve percent of all non-violent drug arrests involve black people, yet 56 percent of all drug prosecutions are of blacks. While drug use and selling rates are the same among races nationwide, African Americans are incarcerated at rates more than double those of other races.
A higher percentage of blacks are imprisoned in America now than were imprisoned in South Africa at the height of apartheid. Today, there are more African Americans under correctional control, whether in prison or jail, on probation or on parole, than there were enslaved in 1850. To add insult to injury, our national incarceration rate is an almost laughable shame when compared to other civilized nations.
No other nation disenfranchises prisoners like we do. Even those who have served their time, reformed and returned as productive citizens, are banned from voting. More blacks are disenfranchised from voting now in America than were banned from voting in the registration laws of 1870, found unconstitutional.
Most devastating for slaves in America was the loss of family and even family memories because of forced separation of parents and children. Today, this family destruction is returning. Those freed from incarceration cannot return and recover their provider status with their families. They cannot get food stamps, cannot live with their families without the whole family being evicted from public housing, cannot get jobs, cannot get a car loan. They also live under pressure to return to crime and unfortunately, many succumb. Our criminal justice system has abysmal recidivism rates.
For generations, Montana prisoners have manufactured license plates. This is overseen by our government to guarantee no profiteering from the vulnerability of prisoners like in China or, thirty years ago, the Soviet Union. Everywhere else, that’s all changing.
Historically, prison-labor programs have allowed prisoners to work for the public sector, for example, to manufacture lisence plates. Advocates of prison labor point to reduced costs to the state, vocational training, and work ethic as benefits of such programs. However recent changes, promoted by ALEC, allow prison labor for private sector products and open the door to profiteering. The new prisons for profit program promoted in our twisted private enterprise system gives prisoners jobs. Absenteeism is not an issue. Workers can be controlled effectively, and have little recourse. Benefits, such as health care, are paid by the tax payer, as are room, board, and security. How will legitimate employers hope to compete with this no-cost, no union labor force?
With new laws and our massive American incarceration rates there is never a lack of workers. The multi-billionaire Koch brothers have significant investments in for-profit prisons also invest millions in media and policy think-tanks. To read about the return of slavery in America’s prisons, use the links below and pray/work for deliverance of those in captivity. Alternatively, have a rational fear session, from a prophet speaking in the tradition of the Bible’s prophets about judgment under God. Watching Dr. King’s 1968 speech on Viet Nam is useful for those who believe the Bible’s spirituality speaks to politics today:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b80Bsw0UG-U
or read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther_King,_Jr.
Click on the link “Viet Nam War”
‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑Other Sources:
Michelle Alexander, civil rights advocate and the author of The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, which has just been re-released in paperback. She won a 2005 Soros Justice Fellowship and now holds a joint appointment at the Moritz College of Law and the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity at Ohio State University. Alexander served for several years as the director of the Racial Justice Project at the ACLU of Northern California, which spearheaded the national campaign against racial profiling. At the beginning of her career she served as a law clerk on the United States Supreme Court for Justice Harry Blackmun. She lives outside Columbus, Ohio.
Randall Robinson, founder and past president of TransAfrica and a law professor at Pennsylvania State University. He is the author of An Unbroken Agony and the national best sellers The Debt, The Reckoning, Quitting America, and Defending the Spirit, as well as the novel The Emancipation of Wakefield Clay. He is the creator, co-producer, and host of the public television human rights series World on Trial. Robinson lives with his wife Hazel in St. Kitts, West Indies.
Our national incarceration rates:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_the_United_States
ALEC and prison labor profits:
http://www.thenation.com/article/162478/hidden-history-alec-and-prison-labor
Michelle Alexander’s new book on the growing racial bias of our criminal justice system:
Video of interview with Michelle Alexander and Randall Robinson:
http://www.democracynow.org/2012/1/13/on_eve_of_mlk_day_michelle
Public schools in low income communities inadvertently teach criminal mentality, preparing students for incarceration instead of success in America. http://www.truth-out.org/stop-school-prison-pipeline/1326636604
John Paul Lederach was a fellow student of mine in college. His experience and ideas are relevant to the dominant culture’s paradigm of conflict handling on the res. This I contend is near the root of the despair over racism, abuse, dysfunction and poverty around us. It’s a useful problem to address in health education, because the habits associated with the paradigm are so pervasive, concentrated in relational behaviors at all levels of society in this county, and the irrationality makes it a prime agenda for education.
http://blog.onbeing.org/post/15823286942/the-art-of-peace-from-conflict-resolution-to
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David Graber
RR 1 Box 1211D
631 Woodley Ln
Hardin, MT 59034
406 665-3373
www.greenwoodfarmmt.org
Bonnie's email graberbj@gmail.com
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