The House I Live In.

I put this trailer up on my twitter page a couple of weeks ago, but I thought I would also share it here. Check it out:



I think the saddest part for me was then the little boy was crying for his mother. I know this is cliche, but it is true that once you have children, things like that affect you in a way that they did not when you didn't have kids.

Also, I think it's weird that in Nancy Reagan's Just Say No campaign the main color was green. But green is typically associated with the word Yes, not the word No. It's like a Jedi mind trick.

Now, I know that it is easy to see trailers or movies like this and leave feeling like the problem is too big and there is nothing that I can do about it. But there are things that we as individual citizens can do try to change things.

There are a number of ballot initiatives in states across the country this year that have to do with decriminalizing/regulating certain drugs. Regardless of your own views about drug use, I think it is reasonable to say that the criminal justice system is not the best avenue for dealing with the problem of drug abuse. The more that individual states can relax their laws regarding illegal drugs, the more compelling the argument becomes that a new federal strategy is needed. So if you live in a state with a drug decriminalization issue on the ballot this year, I urge you to become more informed about the measure, and to look at it from the wider lens of The War on Drugs.

If you would like to see when The House I Live In is playing at a theater near you, visit thehouseilivein.org.

Questions? Comments? Leave them for me below.

This just in...

Well, would ya look at that? No sooner than I write about how we finally have a case with a clean victim, someone in the Sanford police department leaks information about how Trayvon Martin had been suspended three times from school.

Well, this changes everything! People who get suspended and/or smoke marijuana totally deserve to be followed down the street and shot to death.

Keep it classy, Sanford PD.

Who are we kidding? This is a blatant attempt to distract us from the the issues at hand. An unarmed boy was shot to death, and the police responsible for investigating the matter chose not to look into it further, until hundreds of thousands of people told them to.

I am really debating how much more I want to keep arguing the details. I will ask these questions: was Trayvon's school record a factor in deciding in whether or not to arrest George Zimmerman? If yes, what makes it relevant? If no, then what are the reasons for the information being leaked?

Moving on.

I said in my last post that I was going to talk more about how the connotation of black = dangerous got drilled into people's heads. But then I got all riled up and ended with that awesome video instead.

It is quite the fascinating story though, so I want to take this opportunity to share it with you.

I recently watched a documentary called Slavery by Another Name on PBS. From the website:

Slavery by Another Name is a 90-minute documentary that challenges one of Americans’ most cherished assumptions: the belief that slavery in this country ended with the Emancipation Proclamation. The film tells how even as chattel slavery came to an end in the South in 1865, thousands of African Americans were pulled back into forced labor with shocking force and brutality. It was a system in which men, often guilty of no crime at all, were arrested, compelled to work without pay, repeatedly bought and sold, and coerced to do the bidding of masters.

Some brief lowlights from the film:

Pre Civil War, fifty percent of the capital that was invested in the South was invested in the purchase of slaves. So when the Emancipation Proclamation happened, slave owners were at risk of losing a huge amount of money. Because you know, they couldn't return their slaves and get their money back.

What happened then?

Well, lawmakers in the South started criminalizing a lot of normal behaviors and greatly increasing the penalties for petty crimes. New crimes were created like loitering (aka walking around and looking about,) vagrancy (aka not having a home since you used to be a slave and now you weren't anymore,) and walking next to a railroad track, became things for which you could be arrested, fined and sentenced to hard labor. And if you didn't have the money to pay the fine, that was no problem--they just increased the amount of time you had to do hard labor.

So, how did the hard labor work?

Well, wouldn't you know it--the State would rent out these "criminals" to private business owners. Some of the same people, who a few years before, had been slave owners! Imagine that.

The business owner gets to profit from the labor, and the State gets to profit from the renting. And the black people? They get to be forced to work for free.

And they were actually get treated worse than when they were slaves, because as rented workers, there was no incentive for the business owner to treat them well. If they got sick from horrible living conditions, or just got worked to death, the business owner would just go and rent another guy. Under slavery if a person died, the slave owner would lose the money invested in the purchase of the enslaved person.

myblackfriend, you're really starting to bum me out--what does this have to do with the connotation between black and dangerous?

I know, it bums me out too. Let me get to my original point.

Before the Emancipation Proclamation, most people in the criminal justice system were white. Not long after slavery officially ended, 90% of the inmates in the criminal justice system in the South were black. So this disproportionate number of black people in jail thing has been going on ever since we were freed.

And here's something curious about how white people's perceptions of black people changed over time. While black people were being dominated in almost every way under the institution of slavery, many white southerners saw them as hardworking, trustworthy and obedient. Once slavery ends, that's when you see the narrative of black people being dangerous criminals start to form.

And in some ways it would make sense. If you're a young white kid driving around the South with your parents, and you see a chain gang full of people in prison stripes and they all just happen to be black, in your mind you may start to think black people are inherently dangerous.

It's only when you start to examine things a little more closely, that you begin to wonder if there aren't other factors at play.

Well, myblackfriend...slavery was a really long time ago.

True, but as we just learned, it would appear that it wasn't nearly as long a time ago as we were originally led to believe. And it just so happens that things like this are still happening today.

Have you ever heard of stop and frisk? That's when the police can stop and search you, just cuz. It's completely legal, and apparently happens a lot in inner-city neighborhoods. Lots of black and brown people get stopped and frisked, and some have drugs on them ( little known fact: 83% of drug arrests are for possession.)

Do you know how many white people I've known that would have drugs on them if they were stopped and frisked? Several.

What kind of neighborhood do you live in? When is the last time the police routinely stopped and searched people who were minding their own business in your neighborhood?

I am not even trying to say that people should or shouldn't be arrested for having drugs. What I am saying is if you're going to have such an invasive procedure in place, apply it to all citizens equally. Don't target and punish one group of people and let another group get a pass. Don't put one group of people in jail and call them violent and dangerous, while another group of people is doing the same thing, and they're allowed to get high and watch Workaholics in peace. That is just plain UnAmerican. At least the America that I like to believe, and sometimes just have to hope (despite depressing evidence to the contrary,) actually exists.

But do you want to know the most pernicious thing about it?

All of these things: don't run away, don't learn to read, don't walk next to the railroad tracks, don't raise your voice around white women, don't try to come to my school, don't walk down the street with marijuana in your pocket, don't date my daughter, don't wear a hoodie, don't come into my gated community, don't look at me when I'm looking at you, don't write a blog that focuses on race, don't be smart, don't be stupid, be just like me, remember you'll never be like me.

All of these messages exist to support one basic belief: Everything will be just fine, as long as you stay in your place. If you don't stay in your place--we're going to have problems.

Well, my friends? I roundly reject these messages. And I invite you to reject them too.

Comments? You know what to do.

All the news that's fit to print.

Several months ago, my faithful reader JD made a comment on this post that said that I should make a post about all the various inequities that exist between black people and white people in different aspects of life. I always thought that was a good idea, but thought it would require me to spend some time on the internet gathering my facts. And since it's hard enough as it is for me to just sit down and write stuff on the blog, I really didn't know when making a post that required actual research would ever happen.

But then I read a book called The Covenant With Black America. It's a collection of essays written by black scholars that talks about problems facing the black community, and what can be done to solve these problems.

Each chapter outlines a problem, and also has several statistics that help to illustrate the disparities that exist. This means that I no longer have to do research on the internet, I can just pass the statistics onto you all. Voila: blog post written.

I'm not going to change the writing that much. I don't think that's plagarism since I'm not hiding my source, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's some sort of copyright infringement since I'm sharing a fair amount of the material from the book. Hopefully, I won't get sued.

Education

-- 33% of black students in 7th through 12th grade have been suspended or expelled from school at some point vs. 15% of white students.

--for black people ages 16-24, 13% do not have a high school diploma or GED vs.7% of white people from the same age group.

--the nationwide college graduation rate for black students who enroll in college is 40%, compared to 61% for white students.

--46% of black adults scored in the lowest category of proficiency in the National Adult Literacy survey, vs. 14% of white adults.
(Click on the link to get an idea of the skills that the survey seeks to assess.)

Criminal Justice System

--13% of black men have permanently lost their right to vote as a result of being convicted of a felony. The same is true for about 2% of men of other races.

--Black people are about 12% of the U.S. population, and about 44%(!) of the prison population.

--The black prison population grew by 300% between 1954 and 1984, and from 1954 until the early 2000's has increased 900%(!) [Sidenote: What era of time in U.S. history does the mid-1950's roughly coincide with?]

--Young people of all ages use drugs at similar rates, but black youth represent 60-75% of all drug arrests.

--Black youthful offenders are twice as likely to be transferred to adult court than their white counterparts.

Policing

--Nationwide, 10% of black drivers pulled over were likely to be searched or have their vehicles searched, vs. 3.5% of white drivers.

--A study on the New Jersey turnpike found that while only 13.5% of cars
on the turnpike had a black driver or passenger, 73% of motorists stopped and then arrested were black.

--57% of black police officers believe that officers are more likely to use violence against African-American people than white people, while only 5% of white police officers agree.

Housing/Transportation

--49% of the homeless population is black.

--Black renters are 20 times more likely to get less information than white renters of similar economic backgrounds when inquiring about advertised housing. Landlords tell them about fewer apartments and don't show them everything that is available.

--Homeownership rates: 49% for black people compared to 76% for white people.

-- Black and Latino people make up 62% of bus riders. Only 12% of the Department of Transportation's budget is spent on public transit, compared to 60% spent on highways, which serve primarily white suburban commuters.


Economics

--Black people own/have 1.2% of the wealth in the United States. This figure has not changed since the end of the Civil War in 1865.


Just a couple of things I want to say...

There are other areas of life/additional statistics that are talked about in the book that I don't mention here.

If your first inclination is to question the validity of the information presented, you should read this post.

You might find the stats on prisons/arrests/etc. on a white supremacist website. This helps to illustrate the idea that so much of how we process information depends on our perspective.

This book was written five years ago. I don't think long enough for things to change significantly in one direction or the other.

I think we should all just marinate on what we've just read, and perhaps ponder these questions:

--What feelings came up for you as you were reading?

--How much of this did you already know? The things that you did already know, where/when did you learn them?

--What statistics are most surprising? Least?

If you'd like to read the book, you can buy it on Amazon,or see if they have it at your local library.

And if you have anything that you'd like to share, feel free to leave me a comment.