Black Muslims : Mass Incarceration + Silence = Genocide

[Chevron Dove]

The Reckoning


What Blacks Owe to Each Other

As a follow-up to The Debt: What America Owes to Blacks, Randall Robinson makes the compelling case that at the same time that African Americans push for reparations, they must simultaneously fight another equally important battle against the growing prison industrial system that is as ominous a development for black and brown Americans as the slave trade was for the people of Africa between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries. Tragically, African Americans have been and continue to be overwhelmingly thrown into new prisons-for-profit, increasingly built and run by corporations. Robinson argues that blacks owe it to each other to expose and dismantle this phenomenon because the repercussions, not only to those actually imprisoned, but for the entire black community, are frighteningly multidimensional and intergenerational.
The Reckoning grew out of Robinson’s work with gang members, ex-convicts, and others profoundly scarred by environments of extreme poverty. It pays homage to the residents of these neighborhoods waging heroic struggles to save their communities, and holds up for public examination America’s elected officials joining with corporate America to make private-sector prisons a twenty-first-century growth industry.

Author photo:
Willets Photo Studio, St. Kitts
About the Author

Randall Robinson is the author of MAKEDA, An Unbroken Agony and the national best sellers The Debt, The Reckoning, Quitting America, and Defending the Spirit, as well as the novel The Emancipation of Wakefield Clay. He is a professor of law at Penn State Law School and is the creator, co-producer, and host of the public television human rights series World on Trial. Robinson lives with his wife Hazel in St. Kitts, West Indies.

http://www.randallrobinson.com/reckoning.html

Wow! Thank you for posting this information!

 

[Chevron Dove]

I know I'm going to get flamed, but -

Who is going to appeal to president Bush about this issue?

We might as well appeal to him, or to any white president, as to president Obama. We'll get the same result. Look at what happened when his friend, the respected professor Louis Gates was locked up, finger-printed and mug shot for trying to enter his own house. The racist policeman got a free trip to the White House where he got to sip brewskis with the president in the beautiful Rose Garden.

We're not gay and we're not illegal so we're not a high priority for the country or for our black president. It's like the title of the thread says - Mass Incarceration + Silence = Genocide. We've got to start making some noise.

I am in total agreement with this sig line:

The Only Friends That We Have Are Ourselves...And Anytime We Are Not About Ourselves As A People, Then We're About Somebody Other Than Us.

It's up to us to save us.

YEEESSS!!!

We need to start making some noise!

And Sister Noor is right, why should you be flamed for telling the truth!?

I don't feel that we should be worried about this system's forums, whether it be democratic or Republican, we need to be dealing with issues that harm us as a people, and the prison systems are designed to harm us as a whole.

 

[Chevron Dove]

Is even the first african american president above and beyond criticism and scrunity?

I don't claim to completely agree with Ms. Wallace's take, but it even leads me to go:

"Hmmm..."

http://blackagendareport.com/content/obama’s-america-and-new-jim-crow..

FYI

Brother Chuck, you posed a great question, that tugs at my soul. On the one hand, i think, well because i feel that he is Black, this system will probably make great effort to consume all of his time because in that way, the president will not be able to affectively address any issues that have and are terribly harming black people all over the world as a result of America's power and trade system, and so out of emotion, I feel that Black people might not want to appeal to the president. Therefore, out of this kind of emotion and love for the Black president, many Black people, in my opinion, will allow racism to put them down. Black people are still losing jobs after the election but, they will be quiet as they go to the unemployment offices and fail to see that this was all planned. so now, what do we do? Be quiet because he is a Black president and he can't do it all? What happens when unemployment fails the unemployed? We sit and watch the Gay's go to and from work and gain rights to be Gays, while Black people are dealing how to get money to eat and provide for their children. So then comes the crime and then the prison sentences...

But then on the other hand, I think, well if we don't deal with real issues in regards to this system then we are doomed. This though would mean that we would have to charge the president on issues, and there is no way that we can avoid this because the moment he took office, he became the DEFENDER OF THIS NATION'S POLICIES THAT HARM PEOPLE OF COLOR ALL OVER THE WORLD.

It would be great if his being Black helps people of color but, that is not why he was placed in office by many White people who voted for him. They voted for him to protect their desires, while many Black people voted for him to protect and help and deliver Black people from oppression, and failed to understand that there are more White people on the other side of the 'tug of war' rope pulling for him to do their will than on the Black side of the rope.

Now if we come together and start pulling on the president and overcome the White racism, then perhaps we will be MAKING NOISE, and then we will be a force to reckon with, but the president is placed in the middle and that is the reality, in my opinion.

 

[Chevron Dove]

I saw Michelle Alexander on C-Span and she seem more concern over this issue then the President or most people. Many folks feel that most people in prison belong there. [And some do].But there is a bigger picture and until one's own loved ones or associates end up behind bars or worse, only then will some people take off the blinders and see the bigger picture of what's going on here.

yes, and that's is the sad reality.

And the hard reality is that when it comes down to seeing the unfairness of this system byway of a relative being locked up, then it is tougher to be really affective because the focus becomes inwards and a desperate situation to help that loved one and most of the pleas fall on many deaf ears at this point. But it becomes so much better if we can see above our own personal circles and see the bigger picture and perhaps form some kind of self help sub group to be able to combine our energies together to help a family in distress or victim in distress under this systems laws, then we might be able to make more noise.

i know we've had many groups in the past during the CRM that have since become ineffective, but I believe we should try and try again...don't accept failure as a means to stop trying. We need to keep trying until we get relief one way or another.

 

[Chevron Dove]

CD I have a copy of Michelle Alexander's book. It is an eyeopener. The president should be concerned...but is he

I'm wondering that, even if he were concerned, how can he do something significant to help due to all of the other concerns he may be pressed to see as more important, issues that will help others instead of the African people that have supported him and believed in him.

But I can't tell you how much I am grateful for you posting the author Michelle Alexander! Oh my gosh! I never knew anything about her until you posted this. I since read up on her and listened to the youtube that Sister Noor posted, and I am so elated!

Thank you!