GEORGE FLOYD
the face of a broken system
The recent events surrounding the death of George Floyd have been difficult to watch, but it is important to remember that it is not an isolated incident, it is just one example of the pattern of systematic oppression, brutality, and injustice that black people face everyday. From the lynching of African Americans during the Jim Crow era, to militarization of the police in the 70s were are the products of the choices made by those in the past. It is easy to look back, to see this happen again and again and to get disheartened, to believe that nothing has changed. But as Martin Luther King Jr said at a time that seems strangely familiar "The time is always right to do what is right".
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CRIMINAL
the black american man
Throughout American history, the image of the African American has been used by those in in power to create long standing biases in American society, but it wasn't until after slavery that the image of the dangerous criminal emerged. Starting with the creating of "The Birth of a Nation" and the first prison boom in America, this image of a criminal was used over and over by politicians until it became ingrained in American society. Nixon, Reagan, Bush and Clinton, one after the other, decade after decade of systematic racial targeting. And so here we are today, where black men make up around 6.5% of the U.S population, but 40.2% of those in prison.
SLAVERY RESURRECTED
prison labor and the 13th amendment
"Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the part shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction"
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At the moment, prison labor is a multi-billion dollar industry, with countless companies profiting off those who are slaves of the state. In fact, many of the same laws that appeared under Jim Crow are still here, just in the form of mass incarceration, and so we see that with the 13th amendment we have not completely dismantled the institution of slavery but allowed it to grow alongside us, taking the form of what is socially acceptable.
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