Post by Moses on Jun 16, 2005 5:56:05 GMT -5
Text of Radio BC audio commentary
May 20 2005
How to Build a Racial Police State
The Mad Dog majority in Congress is bent on further perfecting an already mature police state, specially tailored for urban America. Under legislation passed or pending in the U.S. House, it only takes three people – rather than the current five – to constitute a gang, mandating especially harsh punishment. Ten years for any act of violence, 20 years for serious assaults, and 30 years for kidnapping, aggravated sexual abuse or maiming. Mandatory death or life imprisonment for crimes that result in someone’s death.
Understand this well: These mandatory sentences have been tailor-made to target ghetto and barrio youth. That is, they are race and class-based laws, and meant to be so. Can anyone imagine a mandatory life or death sentence for a white businessman who engages in violent domestic behavior that winds up killing his wife. Or mandatory death or life for good old boys who mortally injure each other in barroom brawls. No, you can’t. But almost any casual trio of Black youth, living and hanging, and doing some crime on the same block, can and will be designated as a gang, for purposes of selective prosecution.
There has been no national spike in violent crime. But facts mean nothing to the leaders of the U.S. House of Representatives, who, if they could, would reinstate the Black Codes of the post-Civil War South. Under the Black Codes, three or more African Americans congregating in the same place constituted an illegal gathering. In modern day America, whole neighborhoods, or combinations of neighborhoods, have been designated drug zones, places where everyone is suspect and the usual constitutional rules are not in effect. Of course, this has never happened to a white neighborhood anywhere in the country. And it never will, despite the fact that drug use is roughly the same, among whites and Blacks. The difference is that Blacks are constantly under surveillance, are arrested far more often, are charged with more serious offenses, are prosecuted more vigorously, and given harsher sentences. In practice, their race, age and address are tickets to prison. For whites, the same factors are likely to amount to a free pass.
Writer and activist Tim Wise has assembled the data to prove it. In last week’s issue of BlackCommentator.com, Wise writes that non-Hispanic whites commit more than half of all violent crimes, but make up only one-quarter of the prison population. Blacks commit about a quarter of the nation’s violent crimes, but are fully half the prison population. Either half the whites are getting off, or two times too many Blacks are behind bars.
So, one would think that mandatory sentences for violent crime would wind up doubling the number of white people in prison. But that will never happen, because the white public wants more Black people in jail, not more white people. To make sure the desired result in achieved, racists in Congress carefully structure laws that are designed to operate only in the ghettos and barrios. Mandatory justice, but only for the usual suspects. This is how a racial police state is built.
May 20 2005
How to Build a Racial Police State
The Mad Dog majority in Congress is bent on further perfecting an already mature police state, specially tailored for urban America. Under legislation passed or pending in the U.S. House, it only takes three people – rather than the current five – to constitute a gang, mandating especially harsh punishment. Ten years for any act of violence, 20 years for serious assaults, and 30 years for kidnapping, aggravated sexual abuse or maiming. Mandatory death or life imprisonment for crimes that result in someone’s death.
Understand this well: These mandatory sentences have been tailor-made to target ghetto and barrio youth. That is, they are race and class-based laws, and meant to be so. Can anyone imagine a mandatory life or death sentence for a white businessman who engages in violent domestic behavior that winds up killing his wife. Or mandatory death or life for good old boys who mortally injure each other in barroom brawls. No, you can’t. But almost any casual trio of Black youth, living and hanging, and doing some crime on the same block, can and will be designated as a gang, for purposes of selective prosecution.
There has been no national spike in violent crime. But facts mean nothing to the leaders of the U.S. House of Representatives, who, if they could, would reinstate the Black Codes of the post-Civil War South. Under the Black Codes, three or more African Americans congregating in the same place constituted an illegal gathering. In modern day America, whole neighborhoods, or combinations of neighborhoods, have been designated drug zones, places where everyone is suspect and the usual constitutional rules are not in effect. Of course, this has never happened to a white neighborhood anywhere in the country. And it never will, despite the fact that drug use is roughly the same, among whites and Blacks. The difference is that Blacks are constantly under surveillance, are arrested far more often, are charged with more serious offenses, are prosecuted more vigorously, and given harsher sentences. In practice, their race, age and address are tickets to prison. For whites, the same factors are likely to amount to a free pass.
Writer and activist Tim Wise has assembled the data to prove it. In last week’s issue of BlackCommentator.com, Wise writes that non-Hispanic whites commit more than half of all violent crimes, but make up only one-quarter of the prison population. Blacks commit about a quarter of the nation’s violent crimes, but are fully half the prison population. Either half the whites are getting off, or two times too many Blacks are behind bars.
So, one would think that mandatory sentences for violent crime would wind up doubling the number of white people in prison. But that will never happen, because the white public wants more Black people in jail, not more white people. To make sure the desired result in achieved, racists in Congress carefully structure laws that are designed to operate only in the ghettos and barrios. Mandatory justice, but only for the usual suspects. This is how a racial police state is built.