Historian, author and activist Paul Street has high praise for James Forman Jr.’s new book, Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America. Forman is a professor at Yale Law School and a former public defender in Washington, DC. His book “fills a giant hole in the literature,” illuminating the role played by “Black elites in the rise of the mass incarceration system,” said Street, himself an expert on race and the U.S. penal system. “Many ordinary, working class Black voters in the 70s and 80s have actively supported the racially disparate war on crime and drugs that ended up producing racist mass incarceration,” said Street, whose latest book is titled They Rule: The 1% v. Democracy.
In typical critical analyses and progressive multiracial mobilizations Black suffering is acknowledged while antiblackness is negated
Historian Elizabeth Hinton’s book reveals that, in the late sixties and early seventies, there were hundreds of local rebellions against white violence and racial inequality.
The U.S Has a long history of blaming Asian immigrants for outbreaks of disease, and every time, democracy and public health suffer.
Prison officials could have prevented sickness and death by releasing those who were most vulnerable to coronavirus and least likely to reoffend — older incarcerated people.
As long as capitalism exists, the capitalists will seek to elevate some people and denigrate others, sowing divisions to deflect attention away from a common enemy.
