MLK In Historical Context

Mass incarceration is one of America’s biggest problems. African American males make up 35% of the prison populations today. In today’s time you can see why. Black people are eight times more likely to be stopped by the police than a white person. You have to look at the government and ask, “what message are they trying to send? Why are the numbers so lopsided?”. Mass incarceration is just a new-found evolution of slavery. After slavery, they created black codes that were rules to restrict the African American population economically, socially, and politically. Eventually, after the civil war, reconstruction began, and it allowed black codes to wither away. Striking up as black codes were withering away, with the end of reconstruction, were Jim Crow laws. These laws segregated the south and provided barriers for African Americans to be seen as human beings but more as “3/5 of a person”. These laws were enforced in southern states by the state and locally still trying to oppress blacks. This didn’t stop until the civil rights acts of 1965 which in total ended segregation, allowed blacks to vote, and integrated southern schools. As you look at these events you can see that the oppression has evolved. At first it was physical in slavery then when black codes came they were more economic. When Jim crow came they were more politically oppressive then now in mass incarceration they are more mentally oppressive. Keep in mind, that all the oppressions were still at work, but one was more concentrated than the rest at those time periods. Mass incarceration stems from heavy black policing areas were police intentionally sit to catch black people. The affects of mass incarceration disable a person to make an honest living after they serve their time and mentally oppresses them. They are keep in a 6 by 8 cell with sometimes no windows and barely get to go out of it. Being in the system most people view prisoners as criminal, animals, filthy, and savages forgetting that these are human beings with family and emotions. Which puts them in a different mindset so when they get out they are a whole different person. They have lost so much time with their families that their families don’t view them the same. Its going to be hard to get a decent paying job and you can’t vote either. All of these things can mess with them mentally because the world they new before they went in is not the world they know when they get out.