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August 05, 2005
Black Commentator: Mass Incarceration and the Black Elite
Text of Radio BC audio commentary
August 5 2005
When Black Commentator Associate Editor Bruce Dixon wrote his recent Cover Story, “The Ten Worst Places to be Black,” some people in Wisconsin and Iowa got very upset. In terms of the disparity in the rates of incarceration between Blacks and whites, Wisconsin and Iowa were number one and number two. Number three was the prison hell called Texas, but Wisconsin and Iowa’s racial imprisonment disparity was more than twice as large as even Texas. Therefore, Wisconsin and Iowa were placed at the top of our Ten Worst Places to be Black. Milwaukee seems to tattoo prison numbers on Black baby boys, at birth.
Dixon also pointed out that Milwaukee has the highest child poverty rate of any big city in the country. There is, of course, a connection. It’s very difficult to build two-parent families when such huge numbers of would-be marriage partners are in prison. The effects cascade throughout Black society, destroying the very fabric of African American life.
However, there is an historical current in Black politics that is more embarrassed than outraged at mass Black incarceration. Thus, we witnessed a long NAACP boycott of the state of South Carolina, because it refused to remove the confederate flag from the Capital Building – but then the NAACP stages its national convention in Milwaukee. The NAACP rewarded – with millions of convention dollars – the city with the highest Black incarceration and child poverty rates. Somebody’s got their priorities very, very wrong. These are the same people who care more about getting relatively small numbers of Blacks in prestigious universities, than punishing the localities that place far higher numbers of young Blacks in prison. They care more about getting contracts for a few more Black business people, than in destroying the savage, thirty-year old public policy of criminalizing whole Black neighborhoods.
I’m reminded of a petition sent to the white administration of New Orleans by an elite organization of Blacks, back in the 1880s. These community leaders were upset that Black women city jail inmates were set to work cleaning up the streets. Their concern was not for the well-being of the female inmates, many of whom had been sentenced for prostitution, and some of whom were probably glad to get out of the dungeons and into the open air.
No, the Black elite were upset that the sight of these unfortunate women on New Orleans boulevards made the “colored race” look bad. They were embarrassed. A century and a quarter later, much of the African American elite is exhibiting the same political behavior. Why else would they reward a city that treats its Black citizens as badly as Milwaukee. For Radio BC, I’m Glen Ford.
You can visit the Radio BC page to listen to any of our audio commentaries voiced by Co-Publisher and Editor-in-Chief, Glen Ford. We publish the text of the radio commentary each week along with the audio program.
Posted by lois at August 5, 2005 05:01 PM