Reply ID: uxrv
2/12/14
Hey C.B.B. (candleships),
Sorry it took so long for my reply. I've been busy with college and recently getting married.
But I wanted to reply to your reply to my blog "Is the Criminal Justice System Color Bind?".
My comrade, because slavery is the basis of the US prison system (as embodied in the 13th Amendment to the Constitution), this same resort to the brutality to exert "control" pervades it. So as was done with the slaves, US prisoners are projected to the public as objects of suspicion, fear, and hate. In this sense, we are the new "niggers."
When guards wish to demean us, we're often told we're only "offenders", which means less than human. Yet, in reality, the only thing that differentiates us from the "public"—and who can say they've never violated any laws of the oppressive state?—is we've suffered the indignity of having the government brand us "criminals."
As the guards who run these prisons frequently admit to us, the only difference between us and them is they've "never been caught". Which makes them the worse hypocrites who devote their lives to punishing others—breaking up homes, families, and communities; and subjecting us to all manner of abuse in the process—for violating laws that they don't respect themselves.
In America, people of color and the poor are the primary targets of aggressive policing, criminal prosecution, and mass imprisonment. Criminal injustice in Amerikkka is far from blind—and definitely ain't colorblind.
2012 jan 11
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2012 jan 5
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