POLITICS OF SELF-DESTRUCTION
By Mumia Abu-Jamal
Column Written 7/30/01 All Rights Reserved
Most people think of politics in a very limited way. They think of election day, or of a certain political campaign.
This view of politics limits it to one day every other year or so, or even to one day every four years for presidential or gubernatorial elections.
The late Dr. Huey P. Newton, former Minister of Defense of the Black Panther Party, taught members of the organization that all things were impacted by politics. That idea helped people to see politics from a wider, broader view, for politics doesn't mean pulling a lever, or poking out slots in a ballot. It means the exercise of power for communal benefit, or nothing at all.
Many of us also think of the so-called criminal justice system in narrow ways. We fail to see some of the political connections. The most obvious, of course, is that most judges are themselves elected officials, who are often as ambitious as any ward-heeler.
Similarly, the prison industry is a profoundly political business. Who goes to prison, for how long, and where one goes, are all political decisions that have wide-ranging political implications.
There have been a wealth of studies, from scholars of various disciplines, as well as by a number of social groups and research agencies, demonstrating the disproportionate numbers and percentages of African-American men and women who are (and have been) incarcerated.
But since when have scholarly tracts or research studies changed public policy?
Far too often, public policy is driven either by emotion or crass political interests.
What happens when tens of thousands, or hundreds of thousands of black men, women and juveniles are sent out of the central cities to the rural rims or outlands? (Well, apart from the obvious?)
The mass depopulation of the urban core, and forced, shackled migration to the rural areas of states is not just the transfer of people, but the transfer of resources and power as well. New York, Pennsylvania, and California, for example, have virtual prison industrial towns, where the main employer is a state lock-up. Young boys grow up with a dream of being prison guards.
When the national census is taken, these hundreds of thousands of Black, Hispanic and urbanites from Harlem, Philadelphia, and Compton are counted as residents of Canandaigua, Waynesburg and San Rafael. When Congressional seats are drawn, those hundreds of thousands are counted as residents -- residents who cannot vote! So, as the population falls in the cities, congressional seats are cut, and seats are added to rural, conservative districts.
Is it any wonder why such conservative rural districts almost routinely vote for tougher, longer prison terms? It brings them quite a bit of political bacon.
By the same token, if Black politicians were intent on maximizing Black political strength, they would demand that the imprisoned be housed, if at all, in close proximity to their home districts. Their failure to do so insures the continuing loss of political power and representation, for those who live in the cities, and the disproportionate empowerment of rural, conservative districts.
This is one little known factor in the apportionment changes that are now taking place in Congressional house seats.
Years ago, writing in his classic 'Black Reconstruction' (1963), the great scholar-activist, W.E.B. DuBois wrote, "The whole criminal system came to be used as a method of keeping Negroes at work and intimidating them. Consequently there began to be a demand for jails and penitentiaries beyond the natural demand due to the rise of crime" (p. 506). In essence, the state took the place of slavemaster. Dr. DuBois was writing of the brief Reconstruction period after the Civil War.
We live in another age, to be sure, but once again the powerless bodies of Blacks are used for mass political (and economic!) purposes.
The more things change ... ?
Text © copyright 2001 by Mumia Abu-Jamal.
All rights reserved.
Reprinted by permission of the author.International Action Center
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