In 2010 Michelle Alexander's the book The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness exposed the truth about "a caste-like system in the United States, that has resulted in millions of African Americans locked behind bars" and then denied voting rights, employment, student loans, and entrance to most colleges and universities. These African American men, women along with Hispanics are basically stripped of their rights to legally survive. As we elected the first black man to the white house in 2008, the majority of black men in America were not even allowed to vote. Jim Crow is alive and well in America, no longer is it hiding behind white robes and hoods branding KKK, they are now fully exposed wearing corporate grey suits, blue police uniforms or a black judges robe.
As I stood drowning in a sea of black folks on the national mall on a very hot summers day celebrating the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington, D.C., from the Capital to the Whitehouse to the Linclon Memorial there was some distinct messages that was loud and clear, Trayvon Martian, Rascism in the Criminal Justice system and The New Jim Crow.
I started this blog as a required assignment for a Masters in Criminal Justice course but my goals shifted from this being a requirement to complete a course to using this blog as a platform to help tear down the walls of racism in our American Criminal Justice system.
I will use this blog to piggy back off of Dr. Michelle Alexanders book to help shed some light on this epidemic of casting minorities primarly black men into prison for years with felony charges while their white peers are merely given a slap on the wrist, probation, or community service for the same identical crime.
Young teenage African American males under the age of 16 are more likely to be charged as an adult for a crime when a white male would be charged as a juvenile for the same crime. American criminal justice system must actively expose disparate treatment from the onset of a traffic stop to sentencing.
On November 4, 2008 Americans were so desparate for change that they elected the first African American Man to serve as President of our country. The George W. Bush administration had done so much damage to the economy and to the moral of country that White Americas felt that it just could not get any worse than it was and they were willing to try the Great Black Hope a "Black Man" Barack Hussein Obama II. President Obama's election was clearly a bipartisian effort on blacks, whites, democrats and republicans.
Everyone who voted for President Obama had his or her own personal agenda for casting the vote. Although I am a registered democrat a candidate must earn my vote, I cherish my constitutional rights to vote and I do not freely give it away.
To increase his chances for election Mr. Obama had chosen Joseph Biden a white democratic from the North, who had served in the U.S. Senate as his running mate. Would these two candidates share the same concerns on Black American issue?. How can Senator Biden a "priviledge" white man understand racial profiling, disparate treatment in the criminial justice system, denied employment or the fear of being a back man in America? My opinion was until Senator Biden walked several miles in the shoes of a black man he would never understand our plight as African Americans.
As a black woman and the mother of a black male with a mental illness, my primary concern was protecting my son from the police. I had to know what were thier plans for the mental health care and disparate sentencing of Blacks in the criminal justice system. I was not expecting a miracle, I just want "Change" in the criminal justice system. While campaigning the two candidates clearly did not share the same views when it came to race related issues.
Here are some of the reponses that President Obama had on issues of crime in the United States that earned my vote.
Accomplished bipartisan criminal justice reform:
As a lead sponsor
of landmark legislation to reform the Illinois criminal justice system [Obama
accomplished] several initially controversial measures such as mandatory
videotaping of confessions.
Source: Obama`s Challenge, by Robert Kuttner,
p.190 , Aug 25, 2008
Have Civil Right Division enforce laws fair and justly:
If we know that in our criminal justice system, African-Americans
and whites, for the same crime, receive--are arrested at very different rates,
are convicted at very different rates, receive very different sentences. That is
something that we have to talk about. But that’s a substantive issue and it has
to do with how do we pursue racial justice. If I am president, I will have a
civil rights division that is working with local law enforcement so that they
are enforcing laws fairly and justly. But I would expect a white president or a
woman president should want to do the same thing, because I believe the pursuit
of racial equality, of the perfection of this union, is not just a particular
special interest issue of the African-American community. That is how all of us
are going to move forward. And to the extent that we don’t deal with those
issues, those longstanding, deep-seated issues, we will continue to be hampered.
We will be competing with the world with one hand tied behind our backs.
Need justice that is not just us, but is everybody:
In
the last decade, whites were 70% of persons arrested, but only 40% of inmates.
Why?
A: The criminal justice system is not color blind. It does not work for all
people equally, and that is why it’s critical to have a president who sends a
signal that we are going to have a system of justice that is not just us, but is
everybody. I passed racial profiling legislation at the state level. It requires
some political courage, because oftentimes you are accused of being soft on
crime.
Source: 2007 Democratic Primary Debate at Howard
University , Jun 28, 2007 Supports alternative sentencing and rehabilitation
Principles that Obama supports to address crime:
Implement penalties other than incarceration for certain non-violent offenders:
Increase state funds for programs which rehabilitate and educate inmates during and after their prison sentences.
Provide funding for military-style “boot camps” for first-time juvenile felons:
Source: 1998 IL State Legislative National Political Awareness Test , Jul 2, 1998
Some heinous crimes justify the ultimate punishment:
While
the evidence tells me that the death penalty does little to deter crime, I
believe there are some crimes--mass murder, the rape and murder of a child--so
heinous that the community is justified in expressing the full measure of its
outrage by meting out the ultimate punishment. On the other hand, the way
capital cases were tried in Illinois at the time was so rife with error,
questionable police tactics, racial bias, and shoddy lawyering, that 13 death
row inmates had been exonerated.
My next blog topic will exlore what President Obama has done in regards to disparate treatment in criminal justice
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