We Have To Stop Valorizing Black Cops

By Mary Retta

Republished from Black Agenda Report.

The purpose of policing—to jail and kill Black folks—remains the same regardless of the officers’ race. 

Policing in America is facing a PR crisis. Following the May 25th murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, the term “defund the police” has become a rallying cry for thousands across the country. Six months later, however, America has not defunded its police force––and in fact, has in some cases taken steps to give police departments even more money. Instead, police forces across America have taken an insidious approach: painting their departments in blackface.

After the January 6th Trump riot at the Capitol building , Yoganda Pittman, a Black woman, was named the new Chief of Capitol Police. Her appointment followed the resignation of former Chief Steven Sund and the arrest and firing of several white police officers who were found to be in attendance at the MAGA riot. Pittman’s appointment appeased many liberals who falsely believe that allowing Black folks to infiltrate or run law enforcement agencies will lead to higher levels of safety for Black Americans. The termination of several officers  who took part in the riot has convinced many that we are one step closer to “reforming” the police by weeding out the racist, bad apples within the department. 

This is a nice narrative, but a false one; in order to understand why, we must look at the history of policing in this country. Modern policing in America was originally created as a replacement for America’s slave patrol system wherein squadrons made up of white volunteers were empowered to use vigilante tactics to enforce laws related to slavery. These “enforcers” were in charge of locating and returning enslaved people who had escaped, crushing uprisings led by enslaved people, and punishing enslaved workers who were found or believed to have violated plantation rules. After slavery was legally abolished in 1865, America created its modern police force to do the exact thing under a different name: maintain the white supremacist hierarchy that is necessary under racial capitalism. The purpose of policing––to jail and kill Black folks––remains the same regardless of the officers’ race. 

Liberal media has also contributed to the recent valorization of Black cops. In the days after the January 6th riot, many news outlets aggressively pushed a story about Eugene Goodman, a Black capitol police officer who led several rioters away from the Congress people’s hiding places while being chased by a white supremacist mob. Several news outlets published testimonials of Black police officers disclosing instances of racism within the department. A January 14th article in ProPublica  notes that over 250 Black cops have sued the department for racism since 2001: some Black cops have alleged that white officers used racial slurs or hung nooses in Black officer’s lockers, and one Black cop even claimed he heard a white officer say, “Obama monkey, go back to Africa.” 

These white officers’ racism is unsurprising, and I am not denying any of these claims. But focusing on these singular, isolated moments of racism wherein white cops are painted as cruel and Black cops are the sympathetic victims grossly oversimplifies the narrative of structural racism that modern American policing was built upon. After hearing these slurs that they were allegedly so disgusted by, these Black cops still intentionally chose to put on their badge, don their guns, and work alongside these white police officers who insulted and demeaned them, laboring under a violent system with the sole purpose of harming and terrorizing Black and low-income communities. Similarly, while Goodman’s actions most likely saved many lives during the riot, we cannot allow one moment of decency to erase centuries of racist violence. 

The great Zora Neale Hurston once said: “All my skinfolk ain’t kinfolk.” Her words ring ever true today, and these Black police officers are an excellent example of why. It’s tempting to believe that putting Black folks on the force will solve racial violence, but this is a liberal myth we must break free of. Allowing Black people into inherently racist systems does not make those systems better, safer, or more equitable: a quick look at many Black folks in power today, such as Barack Obama, Kamala Harris, Lori Lightfoot, and Keisha Lance Bottoms immediately prove this to be the case. Everyone supporting racial capitalism must be scrutinized and held accountable, regardless of their identity. We cannot on the one hand say that ‘all cops are bastards’ and then suddenly feel sympathy when those cops are not white. If we want to defund and abolish the police, we must resist the narrative that Black cops have anything to offer us.

We Need More: On Police Brutality, Reformism, and '8 Can't Wait'

By Justin Yuan

Republished from Michigan Specter.

“You have to act as if it were possible to radically transform the world. And you have to do it all the time.” — Angela Davis

At this point, I’m sure everyone reading this is well aware of the uprisings that took place across the country and around the world following the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. I’m sure you’ve all seen your social media feeds filled with a slew of heartfelt proclamations that Black Lives Matter, personal stories of discrimination and loss, as well as ways to move forward from these tragedies, enact change, and achieve some measure of justice for those murdered by police. Chief among the many campaigns that have been circulating is 8 Can’t Wait, a project by Campaign Zero.

Since COVID-19 threw a wrench in my summer plans, I spent break commiserating with friends and comrades, watching police beat and arrest protesters, and endlessly doomscrolling through Twitter. But in the weeks and months after the grisly video of cops slowly killing George Floyd was released, I noticed more and more posts across social media from friends, family, and strangers alike all repeating the same phrase: “8 Can’t Wait.” Tentatively hopeful, I dug in.

Was an abolitionist project finally breaking through to the wider public? Was Angela Davis involved? These were my initial thoughts, but as I dug further and learned more about this social media phenomenon, my hopes shattered replaced only with the same numbness I felt freshman year when my roommate told me, without a hint of irony, that if every police officer were made to watch the Green Book — starring Mahershala Ali and Viggo Mortensen — police violence would plummet. Now I hope I shatter your hopes as well.

8 Can’t Wait was launched in early June in response to the killing of George Floyd and quickly gained steam on social media and in the news. Fawning think pieces and op-eds everywhere from Vox to Rolling Stone to GQ to Variety accompanied glowing endorsements from high-profile political and cultural figures such as Barack Obama, Oprah Winfrey, Ariana Grande, and others, lauding the project’s “succinct and clear message” and potential to save lives. At the core of the effort are eight “data-driven” reforms that Campaign Zero claims would decrease police killings by an almost unimaginable 72%. At first glance, the reforms look promising:

• Ban Chokeholds and Strangleholds

• Require De-escalation

• Require Warning before Shooting

• Exhaust all other means before Shooting

• Duty to Intervene

• Ban Shooting at Moving Vehicles

• Require Use of Force Continuum

• Require Comprehensive Reporting

Think of all the deadly encounters that could be avoided if police were required to de-escalate. Or the lives that could be saved if chokeholds and strangleholds were banned across the country. However, the assertion that widespread implementation of these eight policies would result in anything close to a 72% drop in police killings is misleading at best. Countless cities, townships, and states across the country have already enacted many of the reforms 8 Can’t Wait prescribes. Many large cities like New York, Los Angeles, and Philadelphia already have at least half of them. In fact, Campaign Zero confirmed both Tucson and San Francisco have all eight policies in place. While claiming to reduce police killings by 72% certainly grabs attention, in reality, many cities would only see a fraction of that reduction, and that’s assuming that 8 Can’t Wait’s analysis of the data is reliable. Chicago, a hotbed of police brutality, witnessed 76 police killings over the past 7 years, 56 of them black. The city also already has seven of the eight reforms listed by 8 Can’t Wait, so the people of Chicago will have to look elsewhere for jaw-dropping reductions of police killings.

Unfortunately, Campaign Zero’s supposedly “data-driven” policies aren’t exactly as clear-cut as they claim. In their own study, they allege that the average police department, out of the 91 that they analyzed, already had three of their eight recommended reforms. Right off the bat, that finding throws their fantastical 72% reduction of police killings out the window for the majority of cities, and those with only one or two policies aren’t guaranteed anything close to a three-quarter reduction in police killings. The aforementioned 2016 study that Campaign Zero conducted and based 8 Can’t Wait on contains methodological issues that seriously undermine the bold claims that it’s being used to support. It compiles data from just 91 police departments over only an 18-month period.

It’s well documented that police departments and officers get away with heinous violations of human rights and civil liberties all the damn time. As things currently stand, police, as individuals and as an institution, enjoy nearly limitless legal protections.

For example, in July 2016, police officers brutally attacked and arrested Shase Howse, who was looking for his keys in front of his home, after he replied “Yes, what the fuck?” when asked if he lived in the building. Ludicrously charged with multiple felony counts, Howse lawyered up and the charges were dropped.

If, like me, you wondered how Howse’s attackers got away with physically assaulting an innocent man then lying about what happened, it’ll probably make you as angry as I was to learn that police lying not only in their post-incident paperwork but in court and in affidavits is so common that cops themselves have a word for it — “testilying.” In fact, it’s so ridiculously bad that even the quintessential conservative (and fucking creepy-ass weirdo) himself, Alan Dershowitz, has said that “Almost all police lie about whether they violated the Constitution in order to convict guilty defendants” and that “All prosecutors, defense lawyers, and judges are aware of [that].” As bad as all that sounds, don’t worry. It gets worse.

Justifiably upset at what happened to him, Howse tried to sue the officers in federal court for excessive force. He lost. As it turned out, those officers are protected by qualified immunity, a legal doctrine affirmed by the Supreme Court that protects government officials from civil liability unless they violate a “clearly established” right. In essence, Howse, along with every other individual in the country, has no clearly established right to not be assaulted on his porch. Qualified immunity is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the astronomical number of “get out of jail free” cards that cops have. So you can rest easy knowing that cops can do basically whatever they want, especially if you’re poor and a minority, and get off either scot-free or with a slap on the wrist.

The issue that liberals like those behind 8 Can’t Wait are either unable or unwilling to grasp — and that abolitionists have been calling attention to for decades — is that police brutality is a matter of power. So long as police are empowered to impose their will violently on the very people they claim to protect, injustice and suffering will continue, and no amount of pinky swears or promises will curtail that power. While projects like 8 Can’t Wait appear well-meaning in their focus on police killings and how to reduce them, the oppression of poor and marginalized communities does not begin or end with a single statistic. 8 Can’t Wait is hampered by statistics that lack geographic, political, and historical nuance and, instead, tries to simplify the systemic issue of policing down to specific, personal, lethal encounters.

Any successful attempt at beating back the tide of police killings must reckon with the whole of the issue, which means recognizing and challenging police militarization, the prison-industrial complex, and our cruel, predatory criminal (in)justice system. In other words, abolition is the only sustainable, truly effective way forward. Applied to the realm of police killing, the abolitionist theory of change demonstrates that the only way to permanently end the violence at the hands of police is to dismantle the entire rotten system such that police officers and departments don’t have the tools or ability to deal out death and suffering. The tepid reforms Campaign Zero puts forth with 8 Can’t Wait do nothing to shift power away from police, and their failure to address the near-complete lack of accountability and oversight that police departments across the country enjoy seriously compromises the potential effectiveness of the already-limited policies that 8 Can’t Wait is pushing.

The frustrating thing about incrementalist reform projects like 8 Can’t Wait is that there’s no need to wave around in the darkness searching desperately for any way forward. The abolitionist movement has been around for decades, created and led by black scholars and activists, such as the black queer women of the Combahee River Collective. From the modern carceral state to American policing’s origins in slave patrols and explicitly discriminatory night watches, abolitionists such as Angela Davis, Mariame Kaba, and Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor have spent years illuminating the fundamental cruelty of police and prisons as an institution and, more importantly, blazing a path toward an alternative future where our response to crime is not to incarcerate and punish but to rehabilitate, strive for restitution, and address the underlying causes of crime, such as poverty and a lack of social welfare programs.

While there is no single, concrete path to abolition, there are clear next-steps that abolitionists have emphasized for years — ones that would actually challenge the power of police, shrink the carceral system, and put an end to state-sanctioned violence, incarceration, and suffering. In fact, as a result of the infuriatingly shallow demands of 8 Can’t Wait, abolitionists from across the country have come together to form 8 to Abolition, a campaign focused on prison and police abolition that eschews the nitpicking incrementalism of 8 Can’t Wait, calling the project “dangerous and irresponsible” for “offering a slate of reforms that have already been tried and failed, that mislead a public newly invigorated to the possibilities of police and prison abolition, and that do not reflect the needs of criminalized communities.” Their demands are:

• Defund police

• Demilitarize communities

• Remove police from schools

• Free people from jails and prisons

• Repeal laws that criminalize survival

• Invest in community self-governance

• Provide safe housing for everyone

• Invest in care, not cops

A commitment to abolition in line with the demands set forth by the activists behind 8 to Abolition is absolutely imperative. The ultimate, guiding vision of the resurgent socialist Left must be one of abolition. The moral gravity of having a system of unaccountable arbiters of death and violence, enforcing a racist legal code of class oppression, throwing people in pens to be the slave labor of the modern capitalist economy makes the cause of abolition a necessary one. The fascist Right sees the role that the police and carceral state play in the perpetuation of white supremacy and bourgeois class domination. They think it’s great. The liberal Right throws its hands up in exaggerated shock, tosses a pack of Band-Aids to the dead and dying, and calls it a day. It is up to the working-class movement of the Left to fight like hell because, until all of us are free, none of us are.

As Usual, Most Of Us Miss The Point on Ice Cube and His "Platinum Plan"

By Ahjamu Umi

Republished from Hood Communist.

Rapper/actor/entertainer Ice Cube has worn many hats throughout his professional career.  He started as a so-called gangsta rapper with the impactful group NWA in the late 80s.  Then, he joined forces with Dr. Khalid Abdul Muhammad and the Nation of Islam to become a hardcore Black nationalist rapper in the early 90s.  That phase devolved into him making several high profile records with Mac 10 and WC as the “Westside Connection.”  Records that were part gangsta, part party animal.  Finally, he moved into mainstream motion pictures.

Most recently, he rotated back into the struggle for African self-determination with many public statements supporting protests against police terrorism.  And, in the last several days, its been exposed that he worked, at least on some level, with the administration of the current empire president to help create and/or support the regime’s so-called “Platinum Plan.”  The alleged purpose of this plan is to supposedly uplift the African community within the U.S. with more promises of capitalist advancement for the African masses. 

Most Africans are attacking Ice Cube for working with Trump’s people, but this is an understandable yet extremely subjective and superficial analysis of the real issues here.  What most Africans, and everyone else, will refuse to do is actually study this so-called Platinum Plan.  Most of us will instead rely on sound bites from the capitalist media and celebrity culture.  Most of us will never actually read and assess the plan itself. 

And, studying this plan, and any plan that is supposed to improve the conditions of the African masses, at the very least, requires us to study it in great detail so that’s exactly what we will do here because whether its Ice Cube or Mickey Mouse, our people have to develop increased political sophistication so that we can read through the lines and properly understand what’s being beamed at us.  This is particularly important when you are talking about the Democratic or Republican Parties, both of whom Malcolm X beautifully exposed for us over 50 years ago, although most of us will never study his analysis as well.

You all need to study this so-called plan.  The basis of it is promises to provide three million new jobs for African people.  To create 500,000 African owned businesses by increasing capital in African communities.  A promise of $500 billion in capital.  Higher policing standards (whatever that is supposed to mean).  A Second Step program which is supposed to address criminal justice system reform “while ensuring our communities and streets are safe.”  There are other statements about support for African churches, immigration policies that protect U.S. jobs, and healthcare.

Let’s break down each element here. 

Three million new jobs:  You have the last four years to provide ample evidence for how this regime, (and all the other ones to – we are neither Democrats, nor Republicans, nor Americans) manipulates employment data.  For them, millions of new jobs that pay minimum wage, offer no benefits, and have no job protections is a bragging right.  The truth is there is no where in this country where quality jobs defined as livable wages, affordable healthcare, and safe work conditions are increasing.  What is increasing are service jobs with low wages, no healthcare, and no stability.  These types of jobs serve the economic interests of the bourgeoisie like Trump and he and those in his class have a history of creating these types of low level jobs.  Anyone with even a cursory perspective on this question would understand clearly that the jobs these people are talking about creating will do nothing to improve the collective conditions of African people.

500,000 new African businesses and $500 billion in capital: Whenever a plausible suggestion for providing healthcare for people or rehabilitation efforts, eliminating houselessness, etc., there is immediately an outcry from reactionaries demanding to know “where the money will come from?”  Yet, some of you believe that this level of capital will be invested in African communities to permit us to independently develop.  A quick study of history will reveal to us that this concept, and all these bogus concepts in this so-called plan, are not new.  In the 1960s, in response to hundreds of urban rebellions, the Nixon administration with the support of McGeorge Bundy and the Chevron Foundation, wrote the script for Affirmative Action as a vehicle to create an African petti bourgeoisie that would have class interests that led it to protect the capitalist system.  This was accomplished.  And with that accomplishment its important to recognize that the goal of Nixon, Bundy, Rockefeller and all those folks 50+ years ago was never to uplift the African masses, although that’s the same rhetoric they used then.  It was to do exactly what they did, create an overseer class of Africans.  Today, even if you believe the numbers they are committing to, this is still their objective.  Whether we recognize it or not, the level of mass protests always rock the capitalist ruling classes to their knees.  They will always do whatever possible to control and mitigate that militancy.  Expanding the African petti bourgeoisie is again their answer.  The question you have to ask yourself is if after 50 years ago, there is no clear pathway for the masses of our people to advance through this model, why would you believe this go around will be any different?

Criminal Justice Reform, etc.:  By reform if you mean reducing the systemic inequities in this racist system (and if reform doesn’t mean that then what’s the point), you are living in a fantasy world if you actually believe this plan is going to make that happen.  This mass incarceration system is based on the same exploitative model that built capitalism.  Releasing a handful of people is great because they all need to be released, but as long as there is a capitalist system, there will be people incarcerated on a mass scale and the overwhelming majority of those people are going to be African and Indigenous.  Also, this talk about protecting and keeping jobs in the U.S. is laughable.  These people want you to believe that poor immigrants are the reason jobs are not available.  The truth is corporations have benefitted from the North Atlantic Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and other trade tariff agreements to move their operations overseas because its more profitable for them to do that.  The capitalist assault against organized labor along with the refusal of unions to embrace actual political education, has weakened unions and made them revenue motivated entities.  This has done more to create conditions where jobs can leave this economy than anything else and the crafters of this so-called plan are 100% in favor of gutting unions which leaves no voice and protection for workers.

We can go on and on, but the point is this issue is so much bigger than Ice Cube.  This is a question of our lack of political sophistication and our weakness in accepting any random capitalist approved celebrity as our mouthpiece for advancing our people.  When we do this we continue to demonstrate how easily we are willing to be chumped by this system.  Some of us want these things to happen because we are really just concerned about our individual ability to get ahold of some of those dollars that could potentially be invested so that we can build upon our personal business, etc., desires.  These people should be viewed as parasites on our people no different than pimps, drug dealers, etc.  For those of us concerned about the masses of our people, we know that no capitalist plan is ever going to be the solution.  If that was true, it would have happened a long time ago.  Stop looking to celebrities and everyone else to be our voice.  That has simply never worked for us.  Until you see this as your responsibility to get involved and get serious about understanding these issues on deeper levels than the superficial basis we are talking about them now, we will continue to be political chump footballs for everybody who has access to the glitter and lights this system provides to them at your expense.

Systemic Racism and the Prison-Industrial Complex in the 'Land of the Free'

[Image by Keith Negley via NY Times]

By Holly Barrow

Following the tragic murder of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin on 25th May, the world has erupted into protest to demand an end to the vicious racism which continues to infiltrate society. At the forefront of this crucial public discourse on race lies the criminal justice system as it has disproportionately targeted and traumatized BIPOC (Black, Indigenous and people of color) communities for decades.

Systemic racism and inequality is intrinsic to law enforcement in the US, with mass incarceration riddled with racial disparities. From the thirteenth amendment loophole to the War on Drugs, Black communities have suffered exponentially under this facade of ‘justice’, with families torn apart as a result. The War on Drugs is in fact one of the plainest and most brazen examples of heavily racialized laws borne out of a desire to incriminate Black communities. When looking at initial federal sentences for crack cocaine offenses, such inequalities within law enforcement become strikingly clear: conviction for crack selling - more heavily sold and used by people of color — resulted in a sentence 100 times more severe than selling the same amount of powder cocaine — more heavily sold and used by white people.

This is no coincidence and just one example of a system patently stacked against low-income, Black communities. We need only look at some key statistics to recognize how deeply this goes: African Americans are more likely than white Americans to be arrested, are more likely to be convicted and are more likely to experience lengthy prison sentences. Beyond this, African American adults are 5.9 times as likely to be incarcerated as white adults.

In light of such disproportionate arrest and convictions of Black people in the US, dismantling the current prison system - particularly the prison-industrial complex - is key in the fight against racism. The prison-industrial complex describes the overlapping interests of government and industry; essentially, it refers to the corruption at the heart of the criminal justice system in the use of prisons as a mechanism for profit.

This is a system that abolitionists and activists have been attempting to eradicate for decades as it has become increasingly clear over the years that there is a very real and dangerous incentive to incarcerate human beings. With the rise of for-profit prison systems has come further exploitation of predominantly African-American men and other ethnic minorities. With regards to class, this system additionally hurts low-income citizens at a significantly higher rate, with many recognizing the harrowing reality that, in the US, poverty is often treated as a crime.

Poor and minority defendants are typically unable to access the same level of protection and defense as their wealthier counterparts. Similarly, the state recognizes the likelihood of their inability to afford bail, with over 10 million Americans in prison as they await trial on low-level misdemeanors or violations simply because they cannot afford the bail set for them. This keeps prisons filled; a key proponent of the prison-industrial complex.

With police officers incentivized to make arrests as they are aware that police departments will not be funded adequately if there is no motive to do so, and billion-dollar corporations having stakes in the private prison system - from technology such as tagging to hospitality for inmates - incarceration has become a means to generate wealth and boost local economies. This comes at the expense of the most marginalized groups, namely poor people of color.

Regrettably, this line between ‘justice’, ‘protection’ and corporate interest is becoming comparably distorted across immigration removal centers. And again, it is BIPOC who largely fall victim to this. Detention, surveillance and border wall construction have all become big business, with approximately two-thirds of all detainees being held in for-profit facilities. Tech companies have thrived off of tracking migrants, with software company Palantir holding a $38 million contract with ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement).

To provide further insight into just how money-oriented the detention of predominantly vulnerable individuals - such as asylum seekers - has become, we can observe the distressing rise in shares in the largest prison company in the world. Shares in CoreCivic — which runs both private prison facilities and detention centers — spiralled by 40% when Trump was elected as president. This came following his promises to deport thousands and demonstrates a clear recognition that this would see private, for-profit immigration detention facilities boom.

To deny the concerning correlation between incarceration - both within prisons and detention facilities - and investment suggests willful ignorance. The treatment of prisons and detention facilities as money-making machines is of detriment to democracy and makes a mockery of those who hail America as the ‘land of the free.’

In fighting systemic racism, we cannot neglect to tackle the prison-industrial complex. Its roots and very mechanisms are rooted in the oppression of the most marginalized.

Holly Barrow is a political correspondent for the Immigration Advice Service; an organization of immigration lawyers based in the UK and the US

The System Isn't Broken, It Was Designed This Way: A Critical Analysis of Historical Racial Disadvantage in the Criminal Justice System

By Chenelle A. Jones

Contemporary ideologies concerning the structure of the criminal justice system often purports that the system is somehow broken and in dire need of repair from the institutionalized racism that continues to permeate the system. However, to make this assertion of "brokenness" is to also make the assumption that the system was void of any racialized erroneous features at its genesis. This resounding fallacy concerning the structural makeup of the criminal justice system is exasperating because historical trends in justice administration have shown that the criminal justice system is not broken, it was designed that way. The criminal justice system was created in such a way to disadvantage, subdue, and control certain minority groups, namely African Americans. Trends in every facet of criminal justice research concerning police, courts and corrections, provide evidence that the criminal justice system is doing exactly what it was designed to do - marginalize and control minority populations. Although African Americans comprise 13% of the U.S. population, they account for 29% of arrests, 38% of prisoners in state and federal facilities, 42% of death penalty cases, and 37% of executions (Snell, 2011). Research continues to highlight the racial disparities that infiltrate the criminal justice system. While often the recipient of differential treatment, subjective laws, and more punitive sentences, African Americans experience the wrath of the criminal justice system when they are the offenders of crimes. However, when African Americans are victimized by crimes, their victimization is often disregarded and/or addressed with futile effort. Higginbotham (1996) noted these racialized differences in the administration of justice after an extensive review of punishment for crimes committed by both White Americans and African Americans from 1630 to 1865. He found that White Americans tend to ascribe little justice to African Americans while White Americans were indifferent to their own criminality (Higginbotham, 1996). Hawkins (1996) used the phrase "black life is cheap" to describe the devaluation of African American life and their inability to be afforded justice when victimized.

The devalued status of African Americans and their disparate treatment concerning offending and victimization as identified by both Higginbotham and Hawkins, predates the Antebellum period. Even the U.S. Constitution once considered African Americans only 3/5th of a person. So, the notion that the disparities in the criminal justice system are the result of a "broken" system is to overlook and disregard the historical context from which the system was designed. The criminal justice system has been used as a means to perpetuate racial inequalities since its inception. It is a social institution that is vulnerable to numerous external influences and therefore the belief that it is "broken" and somehow in need of repair, is to display a misguided understanding of the macro and micro level contextual factors that affect the criminal justice system and its historical role in race relations. The system is operationally and structurally unsound. There is a need to reconsider the very essence and mechanisms of the criminal justice system. There is a need to reconsider the external influences such as racism, classism, and sexism that influence the system. There is also a need to reconsider the economic and political institutions that control the system. The system is not just "broken" and in need of repair, the system was never right from its establishment.

The criminal justice system is a reflection of society. African Americans have a historical reputation of marginalization and denigration in the United States that reputation is paralleled in the criminal justice system. During the slavery era, African Americans were considered chattel. They were deemed inferior to Whites and forced into slave labor to support the southern economy. Attempts to escape or revolt prompted Whites to use slave patrollers and pass "slave codes" which embraced criminal law and regulated almost every aspect of slave life (Gabbidon and Greene, 2012). These laws were only applicable to African Americans and their violations resulted in harsh punishment because they threatened the very institution of slavery and challenged the status quo. This disparate application of law and the unequal distribution of criminal penalties perpetuated the ideology of White supremacy and Black inferiority. As a result of being birthed from this ideology, the criminal justice system still harbors structural glitches that disadvantage African Americans. Therefore, the assertion that the system is "broken" is an inaccurate assessment, the system was never right from the beginning.

The enforcement of slave codes provides one example of disparate treatment in criminal justice. Laws regulating the slave trade provide another. The slave trade consisted of the abduction, trade, and sell of Africans into slavery, often involving long passages across the Atlantic Ocean. W.E.B. Du Bois found that even after the death penalty was instituted in America for trading slaves, very few Whites were convicted, let alone executed for slave trading (Du Bois 1891). He found that many White Americans believed the punishment of death was too severe a punishment to impose on someone engaging in the slave trade, therefore, White offenders were often found not guilty of the offense. This early form of White crime in America was allowed to persist, particularly due to White supremacy, the devaluation of African American lives, and the economic benefits of the institution of slavery (Du Bois, 1891). Again, historical race relations served as a key component in criminal justice disparities concerning application of the law and imposition of punishments.

Even after 1863 when the Emancipation Proclamation granted freedom to slaves, laws were passed to regulate the lives of African Americans. These laws, commonly known as "Black Codes", penalized African Americans for offenses such as vagrancy and prevented them from testifying against White Americans, serving on juries, and voting. These disparate laws were then enforced by criminal justice practitioners such as the police. Violators were often tried in court by all-White juries, found guilty, and punished by being made to work in the convict-leasing system (Du Bois, 1901). From the beginning, the criminal justice system granted very little justice to African Americans, but if African Americans committed crimes, they endured biased and prejudicial juries who often found them guilty and imposed strict punishments. Conversely, if White Americans committed crimes against African Americans such as rape and/or lynching, rarely were they convicted and made to endure any punitive consequences.

In Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases (1892), Ida B. Wells notes the injustices experienced by African Americans within the criminal justice system. While conducting a broad study of lynchings in America, she found that African Americans were often shot, hanged, or burned to death for minor offenses such as testifying in court, disrespecting Whites, and failing to repay debts. Most of the lynching cases against black men were for rape, even when there was evidence of a consensual relationship. In 1892, Wells found that 66% of the reported 241 lynchings had African American victims. She also found that most White offenders who conducted the lynchings were not convicted of any crime (Wells, 1892). The exclusion of African Americans from testifying in court and the blatant acceptance of White crimes against African Americans without penalty, speaks to the devalued status of African Americans in society and the criminal justice system. It also illuminates the ideology of White supremacy that overtly governed almost every aspect of life then and continues to exist, although covertly now.

The injustices experienced by African Americans within the criminal justice system not only existed in slave codes, black codes, and lynchings, Jim Crow laws further criminalized the mundane behavior of African Americans and subjected them to disparate treatment within the criminal justice system. Jim Crow laws were legal statutes that perpetuated segregation and prevented African Americans from schools, parks, restaurants, theatres, buses, trains, etc. that were designated for White Americans. Violation of these discriminatory laws, which were enforced by law enforcement officials working for their respective criminal justice agencies, carried severe penalties for African Americans. This often led to the increased criminalization of African Americans. Sutherland (1947) noted that African Americans were arrested, convicted, and committed to prisons at a rate of almost three times that of White Americans. Sutherland's findings reveal that even years after its origin, the criminal justice system continued to be used as a means of social control to maintain the social hierarchy of White superiority and black inferiority. This supports the assertion that the system was never broken, it was designed to marginalize African Americans and in doing that, it was very successful.

Building on the idea that the criminal justice system consistently devalues African American life, Johnson (1941) developed a Hierarchy of Homicide Seriousness in which he describes racially disparate perceptions of crime (See Figure 1). Hawkins (1983) further expanded on Johnson's model to include "stranger", "friend", and "acquaintance". Both models highlight the historical devalued status of African Americans in the criminal justice system by noting that crimes are considered "most serious" when there is a White victim and Black offender. These crimes disrupt the established social hierarchy and indicate that African Americans are somehow behaving incongruently with their position in society. As a result, the punishments for these crimes are often very harsh. Crimes in which there is an African American victim and White offender are considered "least serious" because these crimes align with the established social order. African Americans are perceived as inferior to White Americans, therefore their victimization is often overlooked. This model of disparate treatment concerning the victimization of White and African Americans is evidenced in the administration of justice quite frequently.

The Scottsboro Boys is one case that supports Johnson's (1941) model of racially disparate perceptions of crime. The Scottsboro Boys were several African American boys who rode on a train with a group of White boys and two White girls. While they were on the train a fight erupted. Although the White boys were removed from the train, the two White girls who remained on the train claimed they were raped by the African American boys. As a result of their devalued status in society and the belief of White superiority, the African American boys were presumed guilty before the case even began. This was further evidenced by the lynch mob that formed immediately following the girl's claims. The African American boys were granted a trial, however they were tried by an all-White jury, denied legal counsel, found guilty of the crime and sentenced to death. It was later revealed that the girls lied, however the Scottsboro Boys had already served a combined 104 years in prison by that time (Walker, Spohn, & DeLone, 2004). For Scottsboro boys, the criminal justice system was the very mechanism used to steal the boy's liberties and ensure their punishment for crimes they did not commit by denying them a fair trial and any protection under the law.

The case of Emmitt Till is another example of the criminal justice system devaluing the life of African Americans. While accused of whistling at a White girl, Emmitt Till was kidnapped, beat beyond recognition, and shot in the head. His offenders were tried for murder. The case was decided by an all-White, all-male jury because women and African Americans were not permitted to sit on juries. The jury acquitted the offenders of all charges and a few months later, they confessed to the crime. Like the Scottsboro case, the case of Emmitt Till demonstrates the inability of the criminal justice system to provide justice to African Americans.

The Scottsboro Boys and the case of Emmett Till are just a few of many examples in which the lives of African Americans are devalued by the criminal justice system. During the civil rights era, White law enforcement officials frequently used clubs, tear gas, dogs, and hoses on African Americans without penalty (Gabbidon and Greene, 2012). Thus proving that the very institution that should have provided protection to African Americans, was the primary source of harm to African Americans. So the idea that the criminal justice system is "broken" is incorrect. Since its inception, African Americans were granted very little justice in the criminal justice system. It was designed that way and continues to operate that way.

The cases of Rodney King, Sean Bell, Oscar Grant, and Lorenzo Collins are just a few contemporary examples of the continued perceptions of the devalued life of African Americans in the criminal justice system. Each of these cases involved an African American victim and a police offender. For these cases, the police offender was either acquitted of all charges or convicted of a much lesser charge. Further solidifying the belief that the lives of African Americans are not valued in the criminal justice system.

Most recently, the verdict in the case of Trayvon Martin reaffirmed the devalued status of African American life. The unarmed, 17-year old boy was racially profiled, shot and killed by an overzealous neighborhood watchman named George Zimmerman who claimed self-defense. The offender's acquittal of all charges, by a predominately White jury, speaks to the historical denigration of African American life in both American society and the criminal justice system. It also reveals the implicit institutionalized racism, birthed from the racialized ideologies of the Antebellum period, which continue to manifest itself within the criminal justice system. The posthumous vilification of Trayvon Martin during the trial and the subsequent verdict parallels a historical trend of injustice afforded to African Americans within the criminal justice system. Furthermore, the verdict contradicts the notion that the system is broken, conversely, it affirms the system is operating the way it was designed to function, which is to suppress, subdue, and socially control African Americans. The system is not broken, it was never right in the first place, and until a substantive systematic change occurs, the criminal justice system will continue to be used by privileged Whites as a means to marginalize African Americans.

References

Du Bois, W.E.B. (1891). Enforcement of the Slave Trade Laws (American Historical Association, Annual Report). Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office.

Du Bois, W.E.B. (1901). The Spawn of Slavery: The Convict Lease System in the South. Missionary Review of the World, 14, 737-745.

Du Bois, W.E.B. (1904). The Suppression of the African Slave-Trade to the United States of America, 1638-1870. Longmans, Green, and Company.

Gabbidon, S.L., & Greene, H.T. (2012). Race and Crime (3rd edition). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Greene, H.T., & Gabbidon, S.L. (2011) (eds.). Race and Crime: A Text/Reader. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Hawkins, D.F. (1893). Black and White Homicide Differentials: Alternatives to an Inadequate Theory. Criminal Justice and Behavior, 10, 407-440.

Hawkins, D. F. (1987). Devalued Lives and Racial Stereotypes: Ideological Barriers to the Prevention of Family Violence Among Blacks. In R.L. Hampton (Ed.), Violence in the Black Family. 189-205.

Higginbotham, A.L. (1996). Shades of Freedom: Racial Politics and the Presumptions of the American Legal Process. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

Johnson, G. B. (1941). The Negro and Crime. The American Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. 217:93-104.

Snell, T. L. (2013). Capital Punishment, 2011 Statistical Tables. Bureau of Justice Statistics. Retrieved from: http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/cp11st.pdf.

Sutherland, E.H. (1947). Principles in Criminology (4th ed.). Philadelphia: Lippincott.

Walker, S., Spohn, C., & DeLone, M. (2004). The Color of Justice: Race, Ethnicity, and Crime in America. (3rd ed.), Belmont, CA.: Thompson Learning.

Wells, Ida B. (1892). Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases. New York Age Print. New York.