Monday, Jul. 29, 2013
The Zimmerman Mind-Set
Back in 1903, in his groundbreaking book The Souls of Black Folk,
W.E.B. DuBois argued that the defining element of African-American life
was being viewed as a perpetual problem--one's very existence as a
problem to be dealt with, managed and controlled but never solved. More
than 100 years later, DuBois' rhetorical question seems as relevant as
ever: How does it feel to be a problem?
There is a profound
difference, of course, between having problems--which all people are
allowed--and being a problem. One of the reasons that Trayvon Martin's
tragic death resonated so powerfully with millions of people of color,
black and brown men in particular, is that it was one of those rare
situations in this so-called era of colorblindness when suddenly the
curtain was pulled back. All the usual rationalizations for routinely
treating young black men as problems and up to no good, were stripped
away. There was just a young teenager on the phone with a girl, carrying
a bag of Skittles and an iced tea, and he was viewed for no logical
reason as scary, out of place, on drugs--someone who needs to be
confronted, interrogated and put in place.
Our
criminal-justice system has for decades been infected with a mind-set
that views black boys and men in particular as a problem to be dealt
with, managed and controlled. This mind-set has fueled a brutal war on
drugs, a get-tough movement and a prison-building boom unprecedented in
world history.
Today, millions of people of color are stopped,
interrogated and frisked as they are walking to school, driving to
church or heading home from the store. In 2011 alone, the New York City
police department stopped and frisked more than 600,000 people. The
overwhelming majority were black and brown men who were innocent of any
crime or infraction. Their mere existence was cause for concern, just as
the sight of Trayvon Martin walking leisurely through his own
neighborhood was enough to make George Zimmerman call the police.
Studies
have consistently shown that people of color are no more likely to use
or sell illegal drugs than whites, yet black people have been arrested
and incarcerated at grossly disproportionate rates during the
40-year-old war on drugs. If people who abuse illegal drugs were viewed
as people who have real problems--rather than people who are
problems--then drug treatment would be the obvious and rational response
rather than putting people struggling with addiction in cages, treating
them like animals and stamping them with a lifelong badge of
inferiority.
Once released from prison, most people find that
their punishment is far from over. Felons are typically stripped of the
very rights supposedly won in the civil rights movement, including the
right to vote, the right to serve on juries and the right to be free of
legal discrimination in employment, housing, access to education and
public benefits. They're relegated to a permanent undercaste. Unable to
find work or housing, most wind up back in prison within a few years.
Black men with criminal records are the most severely disadvantaged
group in the labor market. In some places, more than 50% of people are
in this demographic.
Research shows that racial disparities in
violent crime disappear when you control for joblessness. Unemployed men
of all races are equally likely to be violent, particularly if they are
chronically without work. But rather than viewing high levels of
violent crime in ghettoized communities as a symptom of the deeper
economic and social ills, black men and boys are viewed as the problem
itself and treated accordingly. Jobs are promised but almost never
delivered, and schools are allowed to fail as ever bigger prisons are
built to manage "the problem."
Trayvon Martin will not be the
last black boy who dies or goes to jail or gives up on his life because
he was viewed and treated as nothing but a problem. We are all guilty of
being too quiet for too long. Let it be said hereafter that we were
quiet no more.
Alexander, a civil rights lawyer, is the author of The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness
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