The opportunity to see Michelle Alexander is one that I have hoped would present itself ever since reading her book last year. Her legal and analytical work specifically in regard to race, drug laws, and the prison system not only profoundly opened my eyes, it played an essential role in directing me to the study of legal philosophy. Despite that fact she was speaking a broader terms about a book I have already read, I still found it both insightful and invigorating. Partially because she is a phenomenal public speaker, but also because she didn't just recite the outline of her book, she shared relevant information as well as personal experiences from only the last year. The one that comes to mind is the letter she received from an inmate who had incarcerated for a minor drug offense, and who wound up in solitary confinement, with a 20 year sentence, and was almost driven to insanity because of a fight with a guard. This is one of many examples of a system that is fundamentally broken, prisons have no incentive and make no effort to rehabilitate there inmates, in fact its in there best interest to keep them as long as possible and ensure that they end up back behind bars after their release.
My only point of contention in regards to what she said arose not during her presentation, but in the form of an answer she gave to a young woman during the Q&A.
The question was regarding prison reform, and paraphrased went something along the lines of... "Do you think that there needs to be a black man or woman at the forefront of prison reform for it to be successful?"
Her response was "yes" which she justified by making comparisons to the civil rights movement and how if it was a white man or woman leading the charge for reform the focus would be driven away from the racial issues and that ultimately they would not be addressed, or even worse, they would be pushed elsewhere. While I can see why she might feel this way given the colorblind rhetoric of government, I don't think it is necessarily true, and furthermore, the negative repercussions that she worries would manifest seem to me to be a slippery slope fallacy. I feel this way because prison reform is not only a racial issue, it is a structural one, and the prison system in its current state will take advantage of whatever race, gender, or group it can. Right now, it certainly cannot be disputed that the the low class African American male is unfairly targeted by police and prisons alike... but I am skeptical to the claim that these issues are motivated for the most part by racial bias. Rather, I think that structural inequality occurs because of its enormous financial incentives for the people that uphold and administer law. I am in no way asserting that racism doesn't exist or play its part, but I don't think it is what motivates the majority of the structural racial bias. It goes without saying that the racial history of America set the stage for the current issues at hand, specifically that the black race as a whole is struggling with the remnants of racism but most importantly with huge economic disparities. As we all know, financial issues coupled with lack of social advancement breeds crime. And since poor (many of them black) families have been systematically herded into low income housing in the cities, policing the negative repercussions of poverty has been for the most part centralized. This is important for two reasons, firstly because it gives the prisons and police a specific area to focus on (which is good for them because its efficient... the more arrests and convictions they make, the more tax dollars they get) and secondly because they can use the ghettos violent expansion to justify more policing and more prisons. Now, there is good reason to assume that this is a racial issue, because the statistics show that it is, but I think it is a racial issue not generated from hatred of the black skin color, but rather because it is good for business to ensure that the ghetto is never saved. The fact that the prison system is for profit, and the police are given funds in correlation with arrests and citations means that from a business standpoint, they will target whosoever is most likely to commit a crime. And because the ghettos are predominantly black, have little education funding, and are a hotspot for drug use and violence, means that they will get targeted the most, right down to the laws that are passed. This is because prisons and police have a considerable amount of lobbying power, and will pay huge amounts of money to get stricter drugs laws as well as harsher penalties for convicted felons, because it increases the chances that they will become a repeating felon. My point is not that this isn't a racial issue, it certainly has become one, but I don't think that race is a necessary prerequisite for this system to function. It seems to me that as long as the prison system and police force are for profit industries that have no incentive to strive for rehabilitation, they will continue to target whichever group or race which is statistically most likely to commit a crime, even if its low income white families. This is why I don't think that reform would "only" succeed if lead by a black man or woman, because it is a system that has the potential to unfairly target any type of person, and one that actively works to the detriment of society. It is the proverbial bandaid that is attempting to stem the flow of blood from a severed artery. Instead, we need to get rid of the for profit prison industry, reform our drug laws, focus on rehabilitation, and drastically increase education and social welfare funding for low income areas. This is something that can be done by a person of any race, because it is a problem that has the potential to effect any person of any race even if currently it is focused on one in particular. Until our culture and government no longer permit this system to function the way it does, it will continue to disenfranchise and target any group, race, community, organization, class etc, that can help these crooked businesses make a profit.
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