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Black/White history

Black/White history. Jim Crow: Late 1800s to 1960s System of formal Black-White segregation After ‘Reconstruction’ in the South Supreme Court: Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) Plessy: ‘of seven-eighths Caucasian, and one-eighth African blood’ Denied a seat on a first class coach in Louisiana

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Black/White history

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  1. Black/White history • Jim Crow: Late 1800s to 1960s • System of formal Black-White segregation • After ‘Reconstruction’ in the South • Supreme Court: Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) • Plessy: ‘of seven-eighths Caucasian, and one-eighth African blood’ • Denied a seat on a first class coach in Louisiana • Court upheld ‘separate-but-equal’

  2. Civil Rights era • Civil Rights era • Supreme Court: Brown v. Board of Ed (1954) • Court overturned Plessy • Rejected ‘separated-but-equal’ • School districts can’t segregate • Social movement mobilization • Challenge to segregation, 1950s-1960s

  3. Civil Rights Act (1964) • Bans employer discrimination based on: • race • sex • religion • national origin • Allows current inequalities to persist • Past discrimination affects qualifications

  4. Murder of James Allen and John Littlefield, Marion, Indiana, 1930 1884-1914: 3,600 lynchings

  5. Executions for rape, 1930-1967

  6. Men in Prison, 2004 Source: BJS, "Prisoners in 2004."

  7. The Rich Get Richerand the Poor Get Prison

  8. U.S. v. the world: Incarceration Rates per 100,000 population: US 2004, others most recent. Source: sentencingproject.org.

  9. People in prison and jail Source: Bureau of Justice Statistics Correctional Surveys. Update: prison clock

  10. People without freedom Source: Bureau of Justice Statistics Correctional Surveys.

  11. Chance of ever going to prison, men Source: Bureau of Justice Statistics, “Prevalence of Imprisonment in the U.S. Population, 1974-2001.”

  12. What the justice system does • Maintain a visible ‘class’ of criminals • Project an image • Threat of crime = threat from the poor • A system designed to fail • Practices that lead to crime, not prevent it • Turns the middle class against the poor • ideological function

  13. And how it maintains crime • Criminalizes victimless crimes • Crimes with no unwilling victim • Arbitrary power for enforcers • Increases alienation, mistrust of the system • Prisons are painful and demeaning • Overcomes any deterrent effect

  14. And how it maintains crime (2) • Failure to provide job training or jobs • Life-long stigma • No voting rights for former felons • Registration laws and police records • No legitimate means of success • No opportunity for ‘legitimate’ means Update: Today’s NYT

  15. With 613,514 disenfranchised ex-felons: Assumes 14% would have voted, 69% of them for Gore. Florida’s ex-felons in 2000 Bush’s margin in Florida: 537 votes If ex-felons could vote: Gore wins by 31,003

  16. Failure to stop crime • Recent declines • Partly the result of anti-crime policies? • But still higher than 1960 rates • Same policies didn’t work for many years • Other explanations • Stabilization of the drug trade • Fewer teenagers • Economic improvement

  17. California, thousands in prison Imprisonment (left) Sources: Bureau of Justice Statistics; Bureau of Labor Statistics.

  18. California prison, murder rate Murder (right) Imprisonment (left) Sources: Bureau of Justice Statistics; Bureau of Labor Statistics.

  19. California prison, murder, jobs Murder (right) Unemployment (right) Imprisonment (left) Sources: Bureau of Justice Statistics; Bureau of Labor Statistics.

  20. Reiman’s Pyrrhic defeat theory Pyrrhic victory: victory at such a high cost, it’s really defeat Pyrrhic defeat Failure to stop crime benefits the powerful so much it amounts to success.

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