Structural Sufferings
There are so many reasons for mass incarceration, especially when it comes to incarceration of youth. There are more black men imprisoned today than any other moment in America’s history. Men are being pushed into the prison system for reasons that other races are not put in jail. There is a deeper discrimination in America than we thought we moved on from. Young men are also being discriminated against based on their color and the history of their ancestors. There is racism embedded in many of us and we have to make a conscious choice to realize that we have dysconscious racism and to try and change it. Another issue is that young black men are looking at their communities and seeing all the discrimination and then it becomes a cycle where they believe that that is their future. That is a horrible thing to think of when you are a teenager. Having your life drawn out, even when you do not know what is happening. Alexander says, “Thousands of black men have disappeared into prisons and jails, locked away for drug crimes that are largely ignored when committed by whites” (740). Another issue is that society is ignoring what is happening, therefore we cannot change this issue because it is not being talked about. No one is fighting for the rights of men who have lost their rights. Alexander hits on this point by stating, “What is more problematic, though, is that hardly anyone in the mainstream media noticed the oversight…Hundreds of thousands of black men are unable to be good fathers for their children, not because of a lack of commitment or desire but because they are warehoused in prisons, locked in cages. They did not walk out on their families voluntarily; they were taken away in handcuffs, often due to a massive federal program known as the War on Drugs” (739). This is a huge issue, especially when so many people are committing crimes, but the only people serving the time are minorities of color. This discrepancy creates a stereotype that people of color, especially men, are dangerous.
People may think that they know human suffering but they do not know until they are in the shoes of the person with the suffering. Also, every person has their own type of suffering. There are no two kinds of suffering because everyone takes their suffering in a different way. Every man in jail has a different suffering, even if their suffering is being in jail. People who are not in jail will never come close to understanding the suffering of those inside the bars, especially those who are wrongfully incriminated. Alexander writes, “We know that people released from prison will face a lifetime of discrimination, scorn, and exclusion, and yet we claim not to know that an undercaste exists” (742). Then there are those who do not even believe in human suffering, or at least they do not want to acknowledge it because if it is out of mind, it does not exist. Alexander says, “Much has been written about the ways in which people manage to deny, even to themselves, that extraordinary atrocities, racial oppression, and other forms of human suffering have occurred or are occurring” (741). When people deny the sufferings, they do not “exist” in this world because they are not being talked about. People who are not suffering do not want to help others because it is not their suffering to be solved. There is a disconnect between humans in this world where we think that every man or woman for him/herself. Alexander states, “In his words, ‘Denial may be neither a matter of telling the truth not intentionally telling a lie. There seem to be states of mind, or even whole cultures, in which we know and don’t know at the same time’” (742). I do not know the suffering of the young adults who are a part of my community partner. We grew up with different cultures and different sufferings. I can only listen to the sufferings and attempt to make even one person’s sufferings less. We can help by trying to know and understand what is going on in this world and what we can do to help.
I think that taking aim at the financial underpinnings of the prison is a good strategy to stop mass incarceration. Prisons are money makers, but if there is no money being sent to the prisons, then why have mass incarcerations? There will be no point to the large prisons to keep incarcerating men if they do not get funds for them. In “When We Fight We Win” it says, “In April 2014, ColorofChange.org announced that it had convinced three large investment companies to divest from CCA and the GEO Group, the two largest private prison companies” (p 58). There are 850,000 members in ColorofChange.org and they call themselves “the nation’s largest online civil rights organization” (p 85). On their website they write, “Color of Change helps people respond effectively to injustice in the world around us. As a national online force driven by over one million members, we move decision makers in corporations and government to create a more human and less hostile world for Black people, and all people. Until justice is real.” I believe that what this organization is doing is trying to stop one of the root causes of mass incarceration, which is the profit of prisons. These companies want to turn a profit and corrupt our criminal justice system. These are the companies we need to fight in order to make a change.
Other Quotes I like:
“Today, most Americans know and don’t know the truth about mass incarceration” (742). People may think it is an issue in America, but they do not know how many people of color are actually incarcerated in America today. People do not know the facts because they are not being educated on this topic.
“Denial is facilitated by persistent racial segregation in housing and schools, by political demagoguery, by racialized media imagery, and by the ease of changing one’s perception of reality simply by changing television channels” (742)
“They see only what they want to see and wear blinders to avoid seeing the rest. This has been true about slavery, genocide, torture, and every form of systemic oppression” (741).
