BY STUDENT
There has been a long history and trend of marginalizing minorities throughout the United States’ history, especially within the Criminal Justice System. Blacks and Latinx alike have lived side by side experiencing oppression within the Criminal Justice System. Throughout the Country's history, there has been slavery, leasing, mass incarceration, black codes, Jim Crow Laws, police brutality, and the war on drugs - unfortunately, the list doesn’t end there. With all these different ways to oppress the minority within the United States, where and from what did our current, modern Criminal Justice System stem from? Let's focus our attention on the Civil War Era, from 1861-1865, and the consequences that came about in the Southern United States. I want to demonstrate how the repercussions of yesterday's civil war, is still affecting the south and the overall United States today.
The New York Times writes a post about the picture shown above. A dug up gravesite buried with African Americans post-emancipation slaves from the post-Civil War Era, where I argue started our modern Criminal Justice System. From the Civil War, the 13th Amendment abolished slavery within the United States and in many Southern states, except as a punishment for crime. As James Baldwin wrote, "the black man has functioned in the white man's world as a fixed star, as an immovable pillar, and as he moves out of his place, heaven and earth are shaken to their foundations” (Baldwin, A Letter to My Nephew, para. 9). Well, the 13th Amendment shook white men to their foundations. Social life and infrastructure in the South, all based around slavery, was destroyed. To counteract these changes, the government made new policies made it illegal to be unemployed in Texas and other states. At the time, many recently freed black slaves were unemployed. Blacks and Whites were forced to struggle for space. Instead of arriving from another country and looking for employment opportunities, freed slaves had been released from a form of oppression trying to find placement within a new, devastated society. As author Henri Lefebvre argues, space is vital to the reproduction of capital and power relations within a community. White men had the power relations to create the first wave of people of color being arrested in masses. Instead of imprisonment, a convict- leasing system was implored. In Texas, black prisoners were leased out to private companies to live and work on plantations for their prison sentence. Here, with southern black codes and leasing, starts the institutional criminalization of African Americans in U.S. history.
What used to be grounds to bury poorly treated leased prisoners in Texas was supposed to be the site for a new school. The remains left the district in a year-long debate on whether to remove the remains to a new location, suggested by the school district or rebury the remains in the same place, as much of the black community wanted. Once again, power relations in Texas come into play as the majority in power tries to remove important history. Fortunately, the County finally chose to honor those unknown individuals who lost their lives to government, policy, and the Criminal Justice system. But still, with all the debates about what to do with the remains, convict leasing has just turned into mass incarceration and police brutality affecting Texas and all other places within the United States. What started in the 19th Century continues to plague our "justice" system as a massive amount of black and brown individuals are filtered in and out of the system daily.
Bibliography
Henri Lefebvre, The Production of Space, Boston: Blackwell Publishing, 1991. https://blackboard.albany.edu/bbcswebdav/pid-3851231-dt-content-rid-85578376_1/courses/2199-ALCS-283-9322/2199-ALCS-283-9322_ImportedContent_20190827075812/lefebvre_productiospace.pdf
James Baldwin, “A Letter to My Nephew,” The Progressive, December 16, 1962, https://progressive.org/magazine/letter-nephew/
John Savage, “How A Chilling Discovery In Texas Led To A Battle Over One of the Worst Chapters in U.S. History,” Splinter News, February 26, 2019, https://splinternews.com/how-a-chilling-discovery-in-texas-led-to-a-battle-over-1832790201
Sarah Mervosh, “Remains of Black People Forced Into Labor After Slavery are Discovered in Texas,” New York Times,July 18, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/18/us/grave-convict-lease-texas.html
This blog post really sheds light on discrimination through the justice system generation by generation. Power relations in the American economy have created oppression as what we know it. The history is clearly visible and unfortunate to look back at. Seeing that our criminal justice system has stemmed from years of exploitation, how do we as a society stop this horrid cycle? The system can be a vicious pattern, but we must learn from it. I enjoyed how in depth this post was regarding history and past struggle of the US.
ReplyDeleteI felt that your post helped speak of a situation that not enough people are speaking on. The history of our criminal justice system and the steps it took to get to where it is now. In many peoples eyes the system is just with little discrimination. However, if you look at past events and continue to follow the path to now you can see that towards people of color the system continues to fail. I really liked how you connected events of the Civil War era to the development and build of our justice system, it showed the systems roots in which the government tries to hide.
ReplyDeleteAs a criminal justice major I learned about the leasing of prisoners in the United States. It’s sad to think that even with all the oppression that African Americans and Latinos faced they then began to become slaves of imprisonment. I liked reading this blog post because it sheds light on all this injustice, its a difficult subject to talk about and I’m glad that you did.
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