Past and Present: Slavery Has Never Been Abolished

On January 20th, 2009, the first African American president of the United States of America was elected into office. The country rejoiced and the nation came to a naive consensus that we were in the sweet, post-racial era. The recursive behavior of Americans has come time and time again throughout the nation's history. The 1992 Los Angeles riots brought to light the result of the country's neglect towards African Americas and the direct aftermath of the racist and ultimately destructive laws from the 60's. However, since the riots and especially after the election of Obama, Americans have bought into the allusion that racism is well into the past when in actuality, America has never abolished slavery and instead moved it from the plantation to the prison. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, it is an estimated 1 in 3 chance for black men to go to federal or state prison in their lifetimes. One in nine black children has had a parent behind bars and one in thirteen black adults can't vote because of their criminal records. These statistics are even higher in areas of distress. As Michelle Alexander, a civil rights lawyer states in her 2010 book "The New Jim Crow, "Jim Crow and slavery were caste systems. So is our current system of mass incarceration."

Derek Neal and Armin Rick of University of Chicago and Cornell, respectively, add that "the growth of incarceration rates among black men in recent decades, combined with the sharp drop in black employment rates during the Great Recession have left most black men in a position relative to white men that is really no better than the position they occupied only a few years after the Civil Rights Act of 1965." Needless to say, the system, benefitted by those that are white and oppressed for those that are not, have not exterminated racism. It has instead, made racism less overt, less explicit, however iniquitous. So in fact, slavery has never ceased to exist but rather evolved into the modern-day prison system.

Throughout U.S. history, the government has evolved its laws so as to satisfy its racist agenda-- to stay relevant in the status quo and therefore its oppression unabated. It is clear, that the importance of unpacking the events of LA in 1992 cannot be understated, for the complex ramifications of the riots and the racist ordinances imposed by the country, are still devastatingly affecting marginalized groups in America today.


-Nicole Man