[Flash Walken]

I’m going to hop on a bit of a historical soapbox here because I think there is a ton of ignorance being displayed in this forum on the realities of American society. It’s not a hardened ignorance and I don’t think it’s necessarily fueled by anything other than a lack of information. ####-eyed optimism about the society we want to live in shouldn’t cloud the reality of the society we actually inhabit.

In the US in the 1860s, the American northern and southern states went to war against each other, and the reason for it wasn’t as simple as a slavery vs. non slavery narrative that’s often presented, it was over the inclusion of slavery into the constitution of a newly formed state, Kansas. The war was savage and eventually the south lost and Kansas did not included slavery as a protection of their constitution. The era following the civil war in the US is referred to as ‘reconstruction’, and it saw military units from the north (including Custer’s famous regiment) acting as military police in southern states to enforce the new racial equality. Contrary to the popular narrative, Jackie Robinson wasn’t the first black baseball player in the majors. Black athletes were formally apart of American pro baseball clubs following the civil war until the mid-1880s, some 15 years. During this time, several states had black majority populations, especially Virginia.

During this same period, blacks held public office, owned successful businesses and generally began to assimilate into society, particularly in northern cities, but not exclusively. The areas that saw the largest social change were of course, the southern states, which had resisted abolishing slavery and faced military occupation following the war. All black politicians elected in this era ran under the Republican party, the party of Lincoln, with some small black representation in southern states continuing until the start of the 20th century.

From the mid 1880s though, political negotiations and concessions between democrats and republicans saw a steady reduction in state and federal protections for black citizens. Much like what is happening in Florida and other US states right now, arbitrary voting rights laws began to be passed that were applied unfairly to the black population in a concerted effort to marginalize, intimidate and prevent black representation in the electoral process. Things like literacy tests would be applied to potential voters in order to qualify to vote. However, those that could not pass such tests were given an opportunity to vote if they had been previously allowed to vote. Of course, that is an obvious ploy to prevent blacks from voting, as the referenced time frame for these grandfather clauses were during a period where blacks were denied the right to vote on a federal basis. “Well, we’ll let you vote but only if you’ve voted before. Oh, you were legally denied the right to vote because you were a slave? Well, you’d best learn to read in the next 5 minutes if you want to vote.” The racism involved is depressingly obvious.

This escalation in racist policies from the mid 1880s to the turn of the century saw increased black migration to northern cities which had a stronger history of preserving black rights. These ‘black codes’ in the southern states mirrored many of the same types of laws in existence in Apartheid South Africa at the time. As mentioned earlier, some of these states had black majority citizenship which was denied legal representation, again, mirroring South Africa. More on that later.

Anti-black legislation and social decorum continued to chip away at the gains made from the civil war and end of slavery. Blacks in American society became increasingly marginalized as a result of policies and politicians voted for by white citizens. Even following a war which almost destroyed the United States, white people were still very intent on curtailing the rights and freedoms of their black citizen peers. By the turn of the 20th century in the Carolinas, not a single black voter was eligible to vote for a state representative. Similar voter turnout in black majority states like Louisiana were becoming the norm. Violence, intimidation, coercion and state protection of racist paramilitary organizations saw descent into pre-civil war style rights for black Americans, violating many of the constitutional amendments established as result of the civil war. Lack of voter representation also extended to local politics and justice, where blacks were unable to serve as jurors.

Even federal offices and organizations were segregated in the early 20th century, essentially a complete reversal from the policies which integrated all federal labour forces following the Civil War. 50 years after the civil war, the white population of the united states had essentially voted in slavery and segregation by choice, again.

When Wesley Snipes was born, he was legally barred from many public spaces, restaurants and theatres, some forms of public transportation and of course, from voting, nor would he be legally able to marry a white woman. That’s how recent this is. For nearly 100 years, many southern states did not have a single black political representative in local, state or national government. Attempting to change the status quo could and would get you murdered, often with state support, approval or cover. These instances were not sparse, but dot the collective American historical reels with horrifying frequency.

The same week Courtney Cox was born, 3 men were murdered in cold blood, their bodies buried in a dam in Philadelphia Mississippi for trying to register black voters. To give you an idea on just how prevalent the racism was, the state of Mississippi actually REFUSED to prosecute the individuals involved in the case. This is just FIFTY YEARS ago. Tom Cruise and Jim Carrey were toddlers. One of the murderers found guilty of not only the murder of the 3 voting rights workers but also the murder of several other blacks in unrelated crimes, was a 25 year Philadelphia Mississippi police officer; another, a prominent Baptist Preacher. The preacher, a Sheriff and a Deputy Sheriff were all acquitted, despite a colossal amount of evidence and testimony of their direct involvement.

Following the civil rights movement of the 50s and 60s, quality of life, poverty and education of black citizens improved substantially and steadily. That is, until the 1980s, and there is a reason for that. But first, some more direct information:

Black poverty fell quickly between 1959 and 1969, from 55.1 percent to 32.2 percent. But after that, the drop was slower and more uneven. In 2011, 27.6 percent of black households were in poverty — nearly triple the poverty rate for whites.

So what happened in US society that caused Blacks to start being locked up with such a staggering amount of frequency that it puts to shame black incarceration rates when the government formally endorsed and created laws that specifically applied only to blacks?

Kicking off his 1980 Presidential campaign as Republican Nominee from a grandstand in Philadelphia, Mississippi, Ronald Reagan gave what was to become a prophetic and controversial speech, especially as the first official speech as nominee. Regarded by “all Mississippi blacks as the bastion of white racist terror,” where three civil rights workers “were murdered,”, their bodies dumped in a dam, “for trying to register black voters,” only 16 years prior, Philadelphia Mississippi was not an accidental location for Reagan to introduce the optics of ‘states rights’ into the campaign discussion. On the contrary, he was orating to a captive, white, audience. At the Neshoba County fair, the same county whos sheriff had helped orchestrate the murder of 3 civil rights workers only fifteen years earlier Ronald Reagan would frame his ideology of race relations, indirectly informing his views on South Africa, and domestic civil rights policy, for the coming decade. Appealing to the discriminatory nature of ‘Dixiecrats’, Reagan’s campaign machine attempted to exploit Richard Nixon’s “Southern Strategy” to its fullest, racially divisive extent; a hint to Pretoria of the coming changing governmental posture. As First Lady Rosalynn Carter remarked, “I think this President makes us comfortable with our prejudices,” an extraordinary statement from any respectable member of the political arena let alone the preceding First Lady. It’s a comment that characterized Reagan Administration posture towards white South Africa, black Africans and black Americans.

Like the ‘Black Codes’ used prior to Jim Crow and still in use in South Africa during Reagan’s presidency, new drug laws began to be passed and enforced disproportionately against America’s black population.

Crime statistics show that in 1999 in the United States blacks were far more likely to be targeted by law enforcement for drug crimes, and received much stiffer penalties and sentences than whites. A 2013 study by the American Civil Liberties Union determined that a black person in the United States was 3.73 times more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession than a white person, even though both races have similar rates of marijuana use. Iowa had the highest racial disparity of the fifty states. Black people in Iowa were arrested for marijuana possession at a rate 8.4 times higher than white people.

In 1998 there were wide racial disparities in arrests, prosecutions, sentencing and deaths. African-Americans, who only comprised 13% of regular drug users, made up for 35% of drug arrests, 55% of convictions, and 74% of people sent to prison for drug possession crimes. Nationwide African-Americans were sent to state prisons for drug offenses 13 times more often than white men,[10] even though they only comprise 13% of regular drug users.

In the late 1990s, black and white women had similar levels of drug use during pregnancy. In spite of this, black women were 10 times as likely as white women to be reported to a child welfare agency for prenatal drug use.

Here’s a graph:



Now, here’s the thing. The vast majority of these incarcerations are for drug crimes, which are federal crimes. Those who have been found guilty of federal crimes no longer have the ability to vote, the right to serve as jurors and the right to not be discriminated against in employment and housing.

"Today there are more African-Americans under correctional control — in prison or jail, on probation or parole — than were enslaved in 1850, a decade before the Civil War began. There are millions of African-Americans now cycling in and out of prisons and jails or under correctional control. In major American cities today, more than half of working-age African-American men are either under correctional control or branded felons and are thus subject to legalized discrimination for the rest of their lives."

On the war on drugs — and federal incentives given out through the war on drugs — as the primary causes of the prison explosion in the United States

"Federal funding has flowed to state and local law enforcement agencies who boost the sheer numbers of drug arrests. State and local law enforcement agencies have been rewarded in cash for the sheer numbers of people swept into the system for drug offenses, thus giving law enforcement agencies an incentive to go out and look for the so-called 'low-hanging fruit': stopping, frisking, searching as many people as possible, pulling over as many cars as possible, in order to boost their numbers up and ensure the funding stream will continue or increase."

"He declared the drug war primarily for reasons of politics — racial politics. Numerous historians and political scientists have documented that the war on drugs was part of a grand Republican Party strategy known as the "Southern strategy" of using racially coded 'get-tough' appeals on issues of crime and welfare to appeal to poor and working-class whites, particularly in the South, who were resentful of, anxious about and threatened by many of the gains of African-Americans in the civil rights movement."

On racial profiling

"I think it's very easy to brush off the notion that the system operates much like a caste system, if in fact you are not trapped within it. I have spent years representing victims of racial profiling and police brutality and investigating patterns of drug law enforcement in poor communities of color, and attempting to help people who have been released from prison attempting to 're-enter' into a society that never seemed to have much use to them in the first place. And in the course of that work, I had my own awakening about our criminal justice system and this system of mass incarceration. ... My experience and research has led me to the regrettable conclusion that our system of mass incarceration functions more like a caste system than a system of crime prevention or control."

To categorize this situation and the things that surrounded it like the looting and civil unrest as anything other than resistance to racial discrimination is to be blind to reality.