From Microaggressions to Legalized Lynching: Weaponizing Police Against Black People

By Cherise Charleswell

Thanks to social media's ability to help news headlines (and those stories that don't even make it out through mainstream media) go viral, Black people and other people of color are beginning to receive some vindication. For many years, our testimonies about our lived experiences with micoaggressions and overt racism have often been dismissed. Yes - too many, we were simply playing "the race card."

We are told that we are being overly sensitive, that white privilege doesn't exist, that we should simply just comply, and oh yes - President Barack Obama's election was proof enough that we now live in a post-racial society. Never mind the fact that the election of 45 was the result of a "white lash," which actually proves that the United States, almost two decades into the 21st century, is anything but post-racial. The deep-seated issues of racism, bigotry, and xenophobia continue to exist, and the election of a President whose entire campaign aligned with those attitudes has literally open the floodgates of hate.

However, those of us with melanin-rich skin know that 45 alone isn't to blame for the rise in hate crimes and white supremacy groups , nor is he solely responsible for the racist vitriol that we have openly seen on display since his election. His blatant (he has moved far past the use of "dog whistles") and continued racism, with stereotypical and hateful language that targets specific groups of people, is a sign or symptom of the prevalence of racism, and the United States has been sick for some time.

Black people and other non-Black People of Color (NBPOC) have spent many years pointing out that racist stereotypes, such as one that claims that we have a predisposition for criminal behavior, have translated to Black people constantly being viewed with suspicion and fear. These viewpoints, steeped in racism, have had dire consequences: From the false accusations launched against Emmet Till that led to his brutal murder, to the 1991 murder of 15-year-old Latasha Harlins and the 2012 murder of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, to the removal of a group of Black women on a Napa Valley wine train . There has been a need for white people/dominant society to police Black bodies, and this legacy continues. It is a legacy that is currently manifesting in a rash of publicized incidents, many of which have now gone viral, where white people are calling the police on Black people for simply existing.

These white people are following a long historical tradition of proactively criminalizing Black people. With each incident, they are able to turn mundane interactions into melodramas, and this is all due to their preconceived beliefs about how Black people behave, where they should be allowed access, how they talk, how they dress, and so on. As always, these incidents are initiated and escalated not by the actions of the Black person, but rather by the white person's prejudiced beliefs.

Something that particularly stands out with these calls is that they are overwhelmingly being made by White women, and this is again a continuation of a historical pattern of racism and white supremacy. It is the exact behavior that led to the aforementioned murder of Emmet Till and the lynching of many people of African descent in the United States. It is a notion that Black people/POC present a threat and danger.

All too often, the cruelties of slavery, colonialism, Jim Crow, apartheid, and so on are attributed only to white men, letting white women off the hook. However, this tactic of tattling, calling law enforcement, and literally producing physical "white tears" is how white women have engaged in white supremacy for centuries. Worse yet is that this tactic is also utilized due to envy and the need to assert their position in the structure of global patriarchal white supremacy, stemming from slave-plantation dynamics. Forced rapes and sexual relationships between white men and women slaves on plantations often produced children - clear evidence of their infidelity, something the slaveowner's wife could not openly acknowledge. Therefore, many chose to utilize passive-aggressive tactics against the enslaved people on the plantation, including the enslaved mistress and her offspring. More than a century later, the same passive-aggressive tactics are now wielded in the workplace and just about every social setting. This form of white privilege is so powerful when wielded because it the power to direct lynchings and other forms of violence against Black bodies.

During the first half of 2018 there has been many instances of weaponizing the police to carry out "legal lynchings" initiated by white women's tears. A quick review of a few of these incidents include:

- An incident in New York where a former White House staffer was accused of breaking into his own apartment.

- The incident where Donnish Prendgast, daughter of Sharon Marley and granddaughter of Bob Marley, had the police called on her by a white woman, while checking out of an AirBnB in Rialto, California with three other filmmakers. She and her cohorts were stopped by at least seven police cars and a helicopter after the white woman who called claimed that they were "stealing stuff."

- An incident with a contractor in Memphis Tennessee where a White woman calls the police on a Black real estate investor inspecting a house next door.

- The infamous incident at a Starbucks in Philadelphia Pennsylvania that led to Starbucks closing thousands of stores for diversity training.

- The incident at Yale University where police were called after a Black Yale student fell asleep in the Common room, while trying to work on a paper. More about the caller and her history of racially-charged statements here .

- The Waffle House incident in Alabama that all began when a Black woman asked for a complimentary (which is standard in most dine-in restaurant) plastic utensil.

- The infamous case of BBQ Becky up in Oakland California who called the police on a family trying to have a Cook out at Lake Merrit.

- One carried out by White men against Black women at a golf course in Pennsylvania . Where police were called on the group of 5 because they were apparently golfing "too slow."

- And the most recent case of a white woman, now referred to as " Permit Patty ," threatening to call the police on a Black girl who was selling bottled water outside her apartment building.

Note that a number of these incidents occurred in States and cities that are considered to be more "liberal."

By the time BBQ Becky made yet another false and unwarranted call to the police we had become oversaturated with these stories, and Black people have had to lean on one of our traditional strategies for survival - Laugh Rather Than Cry - because the constant barrage of microaggressions and racism can take its toll. How this stress impacts the health outcomes of Black people and other minority groups is well documented (see here ) and is actually linked to health disparities . This is why laughter as a coping mechanism is necessary. This is something that Black Twitter carries out so well. And when it came to BBQ Becky, the proliferation of memes on social media ( see here) shows why Black Twitter remains undefeated when it comes to producing poignant, thought-provoking, honest, informative, and truthful commentary in a biting, sarcastic, blunt, humorous, and unapologetic manner.

However, after we laugh and cry, we truly need to consider how we will finally deal with this issue, because the problem is far more than implicit bias - which helps to reassure these white callers that the police will most likely side with them in interactions with Black people and other minority groups. It is as if they are certain of this outcome, and that is why they make these calls so quickly. Then there is the fact that minority communities have not had great interactions with law enforcement historically, and are thus less likely to call them for minor disputes, especially when a white person is the aggressor. Just consider the incident that occurred in a Santa Monica California parking lot. Santa Monica is a place which many are led to believe is liberal, "open-minded," "tolerant," etc. The incident involved was a parking lot dispute which quickly elevated when an White man hurled racial slurs against a Black woman, followed by physical violence, where he attempted to kick her.

Then there was an elderly white woman who attacked a pregnant Black US veteran . In both cases, despite being the actual victims, the Black person did not call law enforcement.

Why didn't they call?

Because, they knew that they would most likely be seen as the aggressor, not the victim. And this means that they could be arrested, assaulted, or even murdered.

That is just it - it is the threat of bodily harm and/or lethal force carried out by law enforcement that makes these calls so problematic and sinister (these callers have to know what they are doing!). Despite the consequences, which can include the state-sanctioned murder of Black people and other minority groups, white people continue to make these calls. Thus, it is not only a misuse of law enforcement, it is a matter of using white privilege - and weaponizing law enforcement to carry out "legal" lynchings.

Further, these calls make it difficult for Black people to exist, go on with our lives, and live carefree, simply because of the color of our skin. Even while minding our business, we are being criminalized. We can't barbecue, we can't golf, we can't sit at restaurants, we can't carry out our jobs in peace, we can't go golfing, and we can't even request utensils at a restaurant without a racist making an unjustified call to law enforcement.

It is time to "Strip the power of the White aggressor away"

Knowing that there are dire and legal consequences to these false/unwarranted calls. They need to be treated like a public-health problem. Research is needed, as well as interventions and changes in protocols, as well as policy/legislation.

1. Intermediate interventions that will act as a deterrent for these false calls should involve implementing fines or arrests/charges on these callers, due to misuse of the emergency call system and tax-payer funded law enforcement resources.

2. Changes in policy or protocols should be mandated for 911 operators who receive these calls. They should be trained to quickly assess the legitimacy of these calls - and whether there is an actual emergency occurring. Or whether there is just a racist/bigot on the other end of the phone. In the vast majority of these calls, there was no threat of danger that even mandated officers being deployed.

3. Responding officers need to also be held accountable for their role, particularly when it comes to false arrests and imprisonment, which is what occurred when two African American men were arrested and incarcerated after sitting at a Pennsylvania Starbucks restaurant, for a timespan of two minutes, while waiting for a colleague. Many witnesses came forth to attest to the fact that the men had done nothing wrong, yet they were still arrested by police. Many may argue that more training is needed for law enforcement, but they already receive extensive training. And no one should have to be trained to acknowledge other's humanity. So, a different approach is needed. Something more must be done to assist officers in choosing to use discernment if they respond to one of these calls. Alternative strategies can include: subjecting officers with personal fines, responding with lawsuits regarding false imprisonment against police officers and personally against arresting officers, formally defining these incidents as misconduct and making the necessary documentation on the arresting officers personnel file, etc.

In the end, one truly has to ask, is it really that hard to NOT be an asshole?

Here is a flow chart to assist you with determining when it is the appropriate time to call the police.

Try to Live and Let Live and realize that Black people and PoC have a right to exist. In closing, a message to BBQ Becky: instead of calling the police, all you had to do was ask for some food, and understand that we simply do not want to eat your potato salad.

Workers Behind Bars: Private Prisons and Mass Incarceration

By Chris Costello

In the era of neoliberalism, the institution of private prison is the subject of much debate. Proponents argue that the system is a cost-effective option. It allows the government to conserve tax dollars and allows cash-starved states to reallocate the funds. However, these assertions run counter to the vast majority of data. In this essay, I will argue that private prisons are not in fact cost effective. Instead, they serve only to incentivize criminalization and exploit the labor of inmates. Further, their function is one that capitalism-and especially neoliberal capitalism-cannot do without. As such, the abolition of private prisons is impossible under capitalism.

The most important argument offered up by the pro-privatization camp is that for-profit prisons are cheaper than publicly owned correctional facilities. This argument rests on the assumption that cost-cutting is important enough to overlook the violence and exploitation that occurs in private prisons, which strikes me as spurious. A great many activities that harm humanity, such as the cutting of environmental safety regulations, result in greater profits. Despite this, no one (except of course the capitalist) would say that profit stands above the wellbeing of the environment. Why, then, should this logic apply to prison privatization? Regardless, this is a myth that has been employed time and again in defense of private prisons, so it is worth taking the time to deconstruct it.

It is true that there is no database of public and private prisons through which it would be possible to control for things like size, jurisdiction, and so on. This makes a comparative cost analysis admittedly difficult. However, the data that does exist does not support the idea that private prisons are more cost effective than public ones. Data from the Arizona Department of Corrections show that private prisons can cost as much as $1,600 more per year, while many cost about the same as they do in state-run prisons [1].

Further, researchers at the University of Utah concluded in 2007 "cost savings from privatizing prisons are not guaranteed and appear minimal" [2]. Finally, a review of the 24 studies on the cost effectiveness of private prisons revealed inconclusive results regarding cost savings. They also found no considerable difference in cost effectiveness [3]. These studies all show that the myth of the cost-effective private prison is just that: a myth. At best, the data are inconclusive. There is simply no credible way to assert that private prisons are more cost effective than their public counterparts.

There have been several studies that claim to prove this point, however. One was conducted at Temple University by two researchers who claim to be independent. However, the study received funding from Correctional Corporation of America, the United State's largest private prison company [4]. Clearly, studies that are paid for by the very industry they seek to expose cannot be considered credible. There have been very few truly independent studies that have found that private prisons provide a monetary gain to taxpayers. As such, there is no economic justification for the proliferation of private prisons.

If private prisons do not justify themselves from a monetary standpoint, as I have just argued, what exactly do they do? Their purpose cannot be saving taxpayers money, but neither could they exist without a purpose. It must be the case that private prisons perform some function. The question now is, which function? They are certainly not concerned with rehabilitation, and may even incentivize criminalization. Data from one Minnesota report confirm, "that privatization significantly lowers the level of correctional effectiveness, facility security, and public safety compared to what is now provided by the public system" [5]. Private prisons, therefore, cannot be considered more effective or safer than public facilities. Their purpose must be something other than the rehabilitation of criminals.

As Angela Davis has argued, the true purpose of private prisons is the exploitation of labor. According to Davis, the use of prison as a source of labor began earnestly in the 1980's. She writes, "Companies such as Correctional Corporation of America (CCA) and the GEO Group reaped the profits attracting investments from household names, including the Bank of America, Fidelity Investments and Wells Fargo and also from many universities around the nation" [6]. They gained these profits by forcing their inmates to engage in labor. The inmates are well aware of this. According to one report, as many as 60,000 detained immigrants have engaged in "forced labor" for profit-driven correctional facilities [7]. Private prisons, to put it bluntly, are sites of a new American slavery.

This slavery is completely legal. The 13th amendment prohibited slavery-with one exception. The so-called "punishment clause" mandates that forced labor shall be prohibited "except as a punishment for crime" [8]. This clause was taken directly from the Northwest Ordinance of 1787. The clause reflected a common belief that hard work was essential to the rehabilitation of criminals. From its inception, however, the clause was used to police black citizens and restrict their rights. Frederick Douglass described it this way at the time: "[States] claim to be too poor to maintain state convicts within prison walls. Hence the convicts are leased out to work for railway contractors, mining companies and those who farm large plantations. These companies assume charge of the convicts, work them as cheap labor and pay the states handsome revenue for their labor. Nine-tenths of these convicts are negroes" [9]. Douglass also notes that so many blacks were behind bars because law enforcement tended to target them. This insight remains relevant to discussions of private prisons today. Law enforcement targets vulnerable populations-immigrants and people of color-and force them to labor for the profit of the owners. This is not fundamentally different from the institution of slavery of centuries past. Correctional corporations have used the specter of economic efficiency to perpetuate a barbaric and inhuman institution. For this, there is no excuse.

It is true that criminals should be expected to forfeit some portion of their freedom when they commit crimes. However, many of the aforementioned detained immigrants have committed no offenses beyond entering the country illegally. Many immigrants must contend with immense poverty in their home countries, oftentimes imposed by the United States. The North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA, was intended to promote economic development for the United States and Mexico. According to a report from the CPER, however, "Mexican poverty has risen since the deal's implementation in 1994 as economic growth and real wages stagnated while nearly 5 million family farmers were displaced, propelling Mexico's poor toward migration to the United States" [10]. Immigration is directly attributable to the poverty imposed upon Mexico by NAFTA. Private prisons do not generally house dangerous elements that must be cut off from wider society. They are used to pen in desperate workers who believe they have no other choice.

This is remarkably similar to the processes that beget the development of capitalism in Europe. European capitalism arose out of feudalism, but this was not a natural occurrence. Rather, it came about through the enforced transformation of the peasant masses and feudal retinues into an industrial working class. Peasants were driven off their land and into the cities to work in factories. Drunkenness, pauperism, and vagrancy-the cardinal sin of existing while homeless-these became criminal offences. Prisons began as a means by which to discipline an emergent working class [11]. Even the classical political economists of the time understood the integral role of prison in the exploitation of labor. Bentham, a celebrated economist, detailed plans for a structure he called the Panopticon. In the words of author Michael Perelman, this was, "a prison engineered for the maximum control of inmates in order to profit from their labor" [12]. Although the Panopticon never materialized, the prison system continued to be a weapon for the repression of the workers during this period. This system was widely considered a success at the time, so it is no wonder that the American ruling class has seen fit to replicate it today.

A predictable rebuttal would be that this is an unfair comparison, since there is not a developing working class in the United States as was the case in England. Granted, Mexican farmers and English peasants in the feudal era have very different experiences of day-to-day life. In a broad sense, however, parallels can be drawn between them. Both worked land, often communally, until capitalist states forced them off this land and into poverty. Faced with starvation, both migrated to other areas to work for bosses in exploitative conditions. Many Mexican farmers still perform agricultural labor, while feudal peasants often worked in then-new factories.

Further, feudal peasants migrated within England, whereas Mexican immigrants have been forced to leave their home country entirely. Despite these differences, however, both instances have meant mass migration and an increase in the amount of exploitable labor in a particular area. As such, the characterization of Mexicans displaced by NAFTA as a "developing working class" or an "emergent proletariat" is accurate, at least in the American context.

Private prisons are not about rehabilitation. They are not even about crime. Like the prisons of the industrial revolution, they are about disciplining the working class. They serve a purpose that is necessary for the perpetuation of capitalism at this particular moment. The experience of capitalism's beginnings shows that prisons themselves have always been a tool of the ruling class. The privatization of prisons was inevitable, brought about by changes in the relations of production (the movement from feudalism to capitalism). It therefore follows that private prisons cannot be done away with without the abolition of capitalism.

The prison industrial complex, as Davis has termed it, can only be understood in a dialectical sense [13]. Prison profiteering is both the cause and effect of mass incarceration. Capitalism's contradictions spawned the prison system. One of the many causes of crime under capitalism is poverty. The results of one study "imply that if there is a culture of violence, its roots are pronounced economic inequalities" [14]. Capitalism, as a system that pits workers in competition with one another, requires poverty in order to function. Poverty allows capitalists to drive down wages and worsen conditions. If one worker will not accept a particular job, poverty ensures that some other worker will. In this sense, capitalism uses poverty as a tool to perpetuate itself.

German political economist Karl Marx elucidated a similar point in his book The Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844, in which he wrote, "When society is in a state of progress, the ruin and impoverishment of the worker is the product of his labor and of the wealth produced by him" [15]. Because workers under capitalism produce wealth that does not belong to them, the very process of production ensures that workers will be poor. The principle of exploitation states that workers are only ever paid enough money to enable them to continue working, nothing more. This means that the vast majority of workers will be poor.

Even if poverty did not serve the function mentioned above, it would still be an unavoidable aspect of capitalism. This being the case, capitalism is structurally incapable of addressing the root of crime. The system must, therefore, find a way to profit from it. The prison system, as a result, is now a lucrative investment opportunity for innumerable corporations.

Microsoft, Wal-Mart, and Dell, among others, have adopted a system that bares a striking resemblance to the convict-leasing system described by Douglass. In prisons across the country, inmates work sunup to sundown for major corporations. They produce or package every kind of commodity, from weapons intended for military use to Starbucks coffee. According to the Federal Bureau of Prisons, "Sentenced inmates are required to work if they are medically able. Institution work assignments include employment in areas like food service or the warehouse, or work as an inmate orderly, plumber, painter, or groundskeeper. Inmates earn 12¢ to 40¢ per hour for these work assignments. Approximately sixteen percent (16%) of work-eligible inmates work in Federal Prison Industries (FPI) factories. They gain marketable job skills while working in factory operations, such as metals, furniture, electronics, textiles, and graphic arts. FPI work assignments pay from 23¢ to $1.15 per hour" [16].

In addition to private prisons getting away with paying lower wages than private corporations, they also subject their inmates to atrocious conditions. A prisoner forced into agricultural labor describes her experience this way: "They wake us up between 2:30 and three AM and kick us out of our housing unit by 3:30AM. We get fed at four AM. Our work supervisors show up between 5AM and 8AM. Then it's an hour to a one and a half hour drive to the job site. Then we work eight hours regardless of conditions . . .. We work in the fields hoeing weeds and thinning plants . . . Currently we are forced to work in the blazing sun for eight hours. We run out of water several times a day. We ran out of sunscreen several times a week. They don't check medical backgrounds or ages before they pull women for these jobs. Many of us cannot do it! If we stop working and sit on the bus or even just take an unauthorized break we get a major ticket which takes away our 'good time'" [17].

Here, we see the true purpose of private prisons. They are intended to create an easily manipulated workforce who can legally be paid wages that are below the value of their labor power. The exploitation and disciplining of the working class represented the impetus for prisons to exist in the first place, and the same logic is being used to promote their privatization today.

It should be noted that the function of prisons as a method of social control-a tool to discipline the working class-is the primary function of prisons, both public and private, in the United States. While private prisons are in many cases a money-making venture for capitalists, their major function is to control the working class of oppressed nations. When we look at prison populations (whether private or public), we can see where mass incarceration gets its impetus. The vast majority of prisoners are from oppressed nations, even though euro-Americans are the majority of the U.S. population. The prison is not primarily a revenue racket, but an instrument of social control. Although profit-making (and thus exploitation) is a motivating factor in their proliferation, they should be seen as tools to beat the working class into submission [18].

Scholars Wagner and Rabuy support this idea in their paper "Following the Money of Mass Incarceration". The paper presents the division of costs within the prison industry as the judicial and legal costs, policing expenditures, civil asset forfeiture, bail fees, commissary expenditures, telephone call charges, "public correction agencies" (like public employees and health care), construction costs, interest payments, and food/utility costs [19]. The authors outline their methodology for arriving at their statistics and admit that "[t]here are many items for which there are no national statistics available and no straightforward way to develop a national figure from the limited state and local data" [20]. Despite these obvious weaknesses in obtaining concrete and reliable data, the overwhelming correctness of this analysis stands.

Wagner and Rabuy discuss the private prison industry at the end of the article. Here, they write, "To illustrate both the scale of the private prison industry and the critical fact that this industry works under contract for government agencies - rather than arresting, prosecuting, convicting and incarcerating people on its own - we displayed these companies as a subset of the public corrections system [21]." Private prisons have been justified on the basis that they are more cost-effective than the alternative. Data show that this is incorrect. Even if this were the case, however, that would not justify the rank exploitation of the inmates. Chattel slavery is no longer justified by this logic, so there is no reason that slavery behind bars should be subject to this argument either.

Private prisons, contrary to what proponents argue, have nothing to do with rehabilitation. They are about amassing profits for wealthy corporate owners and, chiefly, controlling undesirable populations. There is no argument, economic or otherwise, that can be used to justify their continued use. Prisons serve only as another tool in the capitalist's arsenal, a weapon with which to wage the war against labor. Private prisons and the capitalist system that necessitates them must be abolished. What this shows is that neoliberalism is simply a new era of capitalist development. In our struggle against it, we should continue to look to Marx and those who came after him.

Notes

Oppel, Richard A. "Private Prisons Found to Offer Little in Savings." The New York Times, The New York Times, 18 May 2011,

Lundahl, Brad, et. al. MSW "Prison Privatization: A Meta-Analysis of Cost Effectiveness and Quality of Confinement Indicators" Utah Criminal Justice Center, College of social work, University of Utah. April 26, 2007.

Oppel, Richard A. "Private Prisons Found to Offer Little in Savings." The New York Times, The New York Times, 18 May 2011,

Petrella, Christopher. "CCA Continues to Cite Misleading Study It Funded." American Civil Liberties Union. American Civil Liberties Union, 26 Apr. 2015

Austin and G. Coventry, "Emerging Issues on Privatized Prisons," Bureau of Justice Assistance, February 2001.

"Dr. Angela Davis - The Voice of the Oppressed." Center for the Study of Democracy, 9 Nov. 2015.

Short, April M. "As many as 60,000 detained immigrants may have engaged in forced labor for private prison companies." Salon.

Kamal, Ghali. "No Slavery Except as a Punishment for Crime: The Punishment Clause and Sexual Slavery." UCLA Law Review, 22 Oct. 2009,

"The Convict Lease System by Frederick Douglass." The Reason why the colored American is not in the World's Columbian Exposition, 1893.

TeleSUR et al. "NAFTA Plunges 20M Mexicans into Poverty: Report." News | teleSUR English, www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Thanks-to-NAFTA-Mexico-Poverty-Grew-Economy-Stagnated-Report-20170329-0033.html.

"Poverty and the workhouse." The British Library - The British Library, www.bl.uk/learning/timeline/item106501.html.

Michael Perelman, The Invention of Capitalism. Duke University Press, 2000, p. 21

"Dr. Angela Davis - The Voice of the Oppressed." Center for the Study of Democracy, 9 Nov. 2015. Op. Cit.

Judith R. Blau and Peter M. Blau, American Sociological Review Vol. 47, No. 1 (Feb., 1982), p.114-129

Karl Marx, "Marx 1844: Wages of Labor." Marxists Internet Archive

"Federal Bureau of Prisons." BOP: Work Programs,

Victoria Law, Truthout. "Martori Farms: Abusive Conditions at a Key Wal-Mart Supplier." Truthout, 2011.

Peter Wagner and Bernadette Rabuy, Following the Money of Mass Incarceration (Prison Policy Initiative), 25 January 2017.

Ibid

Ibid.

Peter Wagner, Are Private Prisons Driving Mass Incarceration? (Prison Policy Initiative), October 7, 2017.

Ibid.