Black Agenda Report
Black Agenda Report
News, commentary and analysis from the black left.

  • Home
  • Africa
  • African America
  • Education
  • Environment
  • International
  • Media and Culture
  • Political Economy
  • Radio
  • US Politics
  • War and Empire
  • omnibus

The Evolution of Slavery
Max Parthas
07 Feb 2024
Mass incarceration

In the U.S., a nation built on the enslavement and exploitation of humans, the system of slavery cannot be destroyed. It has merely changed from one form to another.

In 1850, anyone, even descendants of enslaved people, could shell out $600 and legally own a human being. When I say legal, I mean supported by the state with force. If someone steals your human chattel, you can file charges and the slave catcher police will hunt down the thief and return your so-called property all on the taxpayer’s dime. Unless they were given it, or somehow bought their freedom, people were considered to be enslaved for life. You would be born into slavery, your kids would be property under your alleged owner, and so on to their children in perpetuity.

When the civil war forced a switch to the state taking over the enslavement of human beings the evolution of slavery created some distinct differences in the conditions of bondage.

First, you were no longer born into slavery. Instead, you had to be criminalized, and then captured and convicted where you became state property until you weren't. Also, your children aren't doomed to be human chattel. But the conditions are certainly ripe for them to be captured and owned by the state. So much so, that almost everyone knows these days 1 in 3 Black men are expected to spend time in prisons or jails.

For slavers that is a guaranteed income. They start counting how many beds they'll need for prison construction based on testing done in grammar schools. Again, everyone has heard the phrase “school to prison pipeline.” It's not just a phrase, it's a fact. It exists. From the time of Jim Crow laws, to that of ghettos and redlining, to the introduction of crack cocaine into the country by the Reagan administration, and on through the new jack city sardine cans called “projects.” Manufactured environments of forced poverty and community corralling KEEP the conditions for enslavement by the state ripe at all times.

In New York there are communities where so much revenue in arrests, bail, and incarceration is generated, that despite the abject poverty, they are known as million-dollar blocks. If you live in these areas surrounded by human hunters, the odds are you're going to be caught up in it, and then caught up by them.

In many states like Wisconsin you'll find most of the inmates come from a small percentage of communities. Researchers found that more than half of African American men in their thirties have served time in a Wisconsin prison, more than 1 in 2. According to Project Milwaukee: Black Men in Prison, "In the 2010 Census, Wisconsin had the highest percentage of incarcerated black men in the nation. One out of every eight black men of working age is behind bars. In Milwaukee County, more than half of African American men in their thirties have served time in prison."

Let me point out that Wisconsin's population is also 83% white and only 6% black.
So no. You're no longer born into slavery. But you may be born on a human farm where manthiefs tread, butchers work, and judas goats lead.

Once you've been convicted, under the 13th Amendment, you are now state property. Sometimes they don't even wait for a conviction. Once you've been caught up the odds change drastically. It's a system and those who profit from it know exactly how the percentages work. In school you're more likely to be targeted and punished with expulsions based on race or geographics alone. Following Newton's laws of motion, immediately your incarceration lottery odds increase. Throughout your life, events like this pile up until the mathematically inevitable happens. You are owned and operated. Your number gets picked in the slavery lottery.

That first incarceration amps up social expectancies for the rest of your life. Once leaving state and federal prisons, the recidivism odds increase that you'll become a reusable resource. "76.6% of prisoners are re-arrested within five years." More than 3/4 are coming right back to the plantation. Like manufactured poverty, the reasons for recidivism rates are due to the stigmas and collateral consequences placed on the formerly incarcerated by the state. Another masterfully maintained self-perpetuating system. Put a fish in water and it will swim.

We live in a world where Facebook has publicly claimed an ability to read minds based on algorithms. Corporations are sending you ads to products you briefly spoke about in private conversations. Police use predictive policing based on patterns and programs installed by the racially biased. Everything is about patterns and percentages, which means none of this is either unknown or by mistake. It's expected and cultivated.

How did Hillary Clinton say it back when she and Biden were calling Black children super predators in racial jungles who needed to be brought to heel? When they were making it rain billions for slavers with the omnibus bill? 

They know and now hopefully so do you. Protect your babies. The new slavery isn't about having slaves for life. It's about the state filling prison beds and jail cells. The faces can change all day as long as the beds stay filled. Once you go in, like a roach motel, you may never come out again.

Max Parthas is National Campaign Coordinator and Founding Member of the Abolish Slavery National Network.

Slavery
Incarceration
Crime
School to Prison Pipeline

Do you need and appreciate Black Agenda Report articles. Please click on the DONATE icon, and help us out, if you can.


Related Stories

Roberto Sirvent, BAR Book Forum Editor
BAR Book Forum: Brittany Friedman’s Book, “Carceral Apartheid”
07 May 2025
In this series, we ask acclaimed authors to answer five questions about their book.
Christina Carrega
Despite Pardons, Many Formerly Incarcerated Black People Still Face Uncertainty
29 January 2025
Biden’s final executive order commuted sentences for thousands, but “collateral consequences” remain a risk.
Editors, The Black Agenda Review
ESSAY: United We Stand! Joint Struggles of Native Americans and African Americans in the Columbian Era, Jan Carew, 1995
16 October 2024
“The Seminoles had set a dangerous example, for if Blacks and Native Americ
Editors, The Black Agenda Review
REPORT: “The People Who Were Left to Die:” Horrors Suffered by Orleans Parish Prisoners in Wake of Katrina, ACLU, 2006
28 August 2024
Remembering the terrible plight of the incarcerated during Hurricane
Aisha
Roberto Sirvent, BAR Book Forum Editor
BAR Book Forum: Aisha Beliso-De Jesús’ Book, “Excited Delirium”
14 August 2024
In this series, we ask acclaimed authors to answer five questions about their book.
Ujima People’s Progress Party
Ujima People’s Progress Party Statement on Governor Wes Moore’s Marijuana Conviction Pardons
26 June 2024
Maryland Governor Wes Moore recently issued pardons for over 175,000 people in a show of "progress" in criminal justice reform.
OJ Simpson at his trial
Gus Griffin
O.J. Simpson and Understanding the Black Support He Never Deserved
17 April 2024
O.J.
BAR Book Forum: Nick Nesbitt’s Book, “The Price of Slavery”
Roberto Sirvent, BAR Book Forum Editor
BAR Book Forum: Nick Nesbitt’s Book, “The Price of Slavery”
18 May 2022
In this series, we ask acclaimed authors to answer five questions about their book.
The Black Misleadership Class Attempts to Obfuscate their Carceral State Correlation with the Bogeyman of “white wokeness"
Anthony Karefa Rogers-Wright
The Black Misleadership Class Attempts to Obfuscate their Carceral State Correlation with the Bogeyman of “white wokeness"
14 December 2021
At a time that we need more justice and access to democracy, the Black Misleadership Class is fighting for more prisons and tawdry police refor
BAR Book Forum: Caroline H. Yang’s Book, “The Peculiar Afterlife of Slavery”
Roberto Sirvent, BAR Book Forum Editor
BAR Book Forum: Caroline H. Yang’s Book, “The Peculiar Afterlife of Slavery”
23 November 2021
In this series, we ask acclaimed authors to answer five questions about their book.

More Stories


  • BAR Radio Logo
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Black Agenda Radio May 30, 2025
    30 May 2025
    In this week’s segment we talk about jails and prisons in New York City and State and the end of city control of the infamous Rikers Island jail. But first a Washington DC activist analyzes how the…
  • Democratic party where are you
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Afeni on Fighting the Bipartisan Fascist Consensus
    30 May 2025
    Afeni is an activist and lead organizer with Herb and Temple in Washington, DC. She joins us from Oakland to discuss politics in the U.S. and how the people can fight the fascism produced by the…
  • Rikers protest
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Eric Adams Loses Control of Rikers Island to Federal Receivership
    30 May 2025
    Our guest is Melanie Dominguez, Organizing Director, New York with the Katal Center for Equity, Health, and Justice. She joins us from New York City to discuss the federal takeover of Rikers Island…
  • Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
    Charles Rangel and the End of Black Politics
    28 May 2025
    The late Charles Rangel served as a member of the Congressional Black Caucus for more than 40 years. But the goals of Black politics and electoral politics are not necessarily the same.
  • Editors, The Black Agenda Review
    ESSAY: The Intellectual Origins of Imperialism and Zionism, Edward Said, 1977
    28 May 2025
    “In theory and in practice, then, Zionism is a degraded repetition of European imperialism.”
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us