A Black Agenda Radio commentary by executive editor Glen Ford
Attorney General Eric Holder claims to have just discovered racial disparities in prosecution and sentencing in the United States. That’s like Robert E. Lee claiming to be surprised at the existence of slavery. Holder is making noises like a prison reformer to divert attention from the fact that Obama’s budget calls for increased funding for prisons, in the midst of austerity. It’s a con game.
Eric Holder's Ploy to Divert Attention from Obama's Expanded Prisons Budget
A Black Agenda Radio commentary by executive editor Glen Ford
“Holder claims to have experienced a revelation about the impact of race on crime and punishment in this country.”
Eric Holder Holder has been the top law enforcement officer of the United States for more than four years, overseeing a federal prison system of almost 220,000 inmates and with responsibility to protect the rights of two million more prisoners under state and local jurisdiction. All of these populations are disproportionately Black – and have been so for longer than Eric Holder has been alive. Yet, the attorney general pretends to have only just discovered that prosecutors are tougher on Black defendants, and that judges give Blacks longer sentences than whites
(Well, then again, they do follow Al Sharpton, and might believe anything.)
Still, Eric Holder has some nerve, acting as if he’s a newcomer to the criminal justice system when, in fact, the buck stops with him and President Obama when it comes to law and order in the United States. Now in his and Obama’s second term, Holder claims to have experienced a revelation about the impact of race on crime and punishment in this country. With a straight face, he declared: “It is time to ask ourselves some fundamental questions about our criminal justice system.”
“He is requesting more money for the federal prison system.”
Actually, Holder is a couple of centuries late in asking those questions, which have been answered over and over again in studies and reports too numerous to mention, virtually all of which have concluded that Blacks are surveilled and stopped more than whites, charged with harsher offenses than whites for the same behavior, prosecuted more vigorously, sentenced to more time for the same crimes, and forced to serve their sentences in worse conditions. These are facts that have been established through generations of research. Holder’s pretense of ignorance is beyond contempt. The next thing you know, Obama’s Secretary of Labor will claim to have just discovered that Black unemployment has been roughly twice that of whites for most of the last half century.
Holder is simply following his boss’s lead. The Obama style is to make little noises or gestures that appear vaguely liberal – like acknowledging the existence of unfairness – and then turn around and do something that makes the situation worse. For instance, Obama gave lots of eloquent speeches on the vital role that Social Security and other entitlements play in society –and then wound up trying to gut these same programs. Even as Obama cuts deep into the bone and marrow of vital government services, he is requesting more money for the federal prison system, including funding for a brand new state-of-the-art supermax prison
For Black Agenda Radio, I’m Glen Ford. On the web, go to BlackAgendaReport.com.
BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com .
Opponents of transformational change are seeking to “domesticate” the protest movement with bland calls for “justice” for George Floyd, who is dead and beyond justice, said Ajamu Barak
The demand for community control of police ushers in a new stage of struggle, in which “young people are imagining a world where these tremendous institutions of imperialism and the police state ar
Having not yet won real power over the police, this is no time for a lull or a truce -- it’s time to sharpen our political instruments and deepen the mass movement’s social penetration.
Black rebellion brings insecurity to those in power, as editors, mayors and even long dead criminals are being called to account.
The protests in Hong Kong are led by an assortment of US-backed proxies who have separation from China as their principle goal.
