The Modern Shackles of the 21 Century
The Problem That Is Mass Incarceration.
On May 1st Kanye West made yet again made headlines by spewing his mindless banter. However the most significant statement that he gave was “slavery was a choice”. Now normally I wouldn’t comment on half the things that comes out of that man’s mouth, but this statement requires special attention. The idea that West was getting at was the idea that the slaves had the numbers and physical strength to revolt and yet they remained in shackles so obviously that must mean that they were choosing to remain as slaves. The one of the biggest problems about Kanye’s thoughts is the fact that he is so miseducated with how slavery even worked and secondly that because he fails to know how slavery worked he also will be blind to what is happening even today. To be clear, slavery exists today just as it did back then it just has a different name; mass incarceration.
The culprit behind every form of slavery is a term called repression, defined as “ The use of force or violence to control a group of people” (Cambridge Dictionary). Slaves had no choice from the day they were kidnapped and forced into a land in which they were unfamiliar and had their bodies destroyed with as much ease as squishing an ant underneath one’s thumb. They were afraid and many had to learn the hard way what it meant to stand up to their masters. It is the same reason why people manage to rob banks with hostages in groups that are far bigger than the amount of people are robbing the bank; the gun will win almost every time.
So what happens when the person holding the gun is the one that was sworn to protect us with it? Well as of now, not a damn thing. Currently the united states has five percent of the world population and has twenty-five percent of the world’s prisoners (13th 2016). That means one in a every four human beings in the United States are behind bars, giving the United States the title of the highest rate of incarceration in the world. Besides being morally disgusting, the title is also an expensive one to hold, with the about $168,000 being used annually to house, feed, and guard an inmate just for the state of New York.
However, this idea of the law giving themselves the power to abuse the law that they are sworn to protect is nothing new. In the short story “ November is the Month of Migrations” by Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar. There is a police officer that pays a young woman to have sex with him in an alley. As you can assume, this encounter was nothing romantic. There was even a moment when the officer said “ You santhal women are made for this only” (The Adivasi Will Not Dance 2015). This officers clear abuse of power is a similar reflection of the abuse of power seen in the united states on what feels like a daily basis.
The problem is the lack of respect and power given to citizens in the United States has been and continues to be an overwhelming epidemic. There is no true justification for the current amount of people that are currently incarcerated. People are having their right to freedom be ripped away from them with little to no means of justice being on their side. What’s worse is the fact that most of the people being incarcerated are people of color. According to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People(NAACP), “African Americans are incarcerated at more than 5 times the rate of whites” (NAACP). Being a black woman myself, there is real fear that I will potentially give birth to a child that is destined for a jail cell.
I am in no means an extremist activist. I am just a woman that hopes to get pulled over by the cops and only receive a ticket instead of a bullet. The fact that the United States currently has more people incarcerated than any other country in the world and yet still has the slogan of being the “land of the free” calls to the hypocrisy of it all. My suggestion for those that wish to see a change is the following: PARTICIPATE. As much as it hurts to say, one voice is not loud enough to speak for the minority in the country. To create change we all have to be a part of implementing it. If that means you march, then march. If that means you right letters to local government officials, then write letters to fucking government officials. If you do anything, however, please just always remind yourself that you must be the change you wish to see and waiting for someone to make a move will only keep the less privileged stagnant in this country.
Works Cited
“13TH.” Netflix Official Site, 7 Oct. 2016, www.netflix.com/watch/80091741?trackId=13752289&tctx=0,0,23bb2544a7e72b98497f6a851e3584735af887fa:85fe4fd1b96b8bf1d2f2109e7b4461a833f465a4,.
“Criminal Justice Fact Sheet.” NAACP, www.naacp.org/criminal-justice-fact-sheet/.
Santora, Marc. “City’s Annual Cost Per Inmate Is $168,000, Study Finds.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 23 Aug. 2013, www.nytimes.com/2013/08/24/nyregion/citys-annual-cost-per-inmate-is-nearly-168000-study-says.html.
Shekhar, Hansda Sowvendra. The Adivasi Will Not Dance: Stories. Speaking Tiger, 2015.
“Repression Definition in the Cambridge English Dictionary.” Gender Pay Gap Definition in the Cambridge English Dictionary, dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/repression.
