writers are ‘doubly marginal’, being female and a writer in prison whereas at the same time black women suffer threefold- as a woman, prisoner, and African American”(Willingham 57). Although both of these women are prisoners, one of them is viewed as prison writer and another women is viewed just as prisoner. Beside they being treated just by their race, even in an African American society, the perception of looking imprisoned men and women are different, African American women are subjected for gender difference. Willingham mentions the thought of a African American woman, “African American men are almost made martyrs and heroes when they come out of prison but when African American women go back to their communities, the are not only unfit people, they are also marked with the title of unfit mother, and it’s hard to trust us”
For example, “ when one black individual dare to violate the restrictions, he or she was used as an example to reiterate to the entire race that the group would continually be held responsible for the actions of the individual. Thus an accusation of rape could lead not only to the accused black man being lynched and burned, but to the burning of black homes and the whipping or lynching of other black individuals as well” (Collins 921).
Similarly talking about racial discrimination, in United States, if somebody commits violent activity, it is judged, viewed and treated differently depending upon that person’s race and gender, For example, Collins mentions “the case of Mumia Abu-Jamal, an African-American journalist, who was accused of murdering a white police officer, received a death penalty and many false evidence, coerced eye-witness and inadequate legal counsel were presented against him to arrest him” (Collins 922). Since he is black race person, he is punished although he is
Gender and Race play the most prominent role in the criminal justice system. As seen in the movie Central Park 5, five African American boys were charged with the rape of the a white women. In class decision we’ve discussed how the media explodes when it reports cross-racial crimes. The Central Park 5 were known everywhere and even terms were being made up during the process such as wilding. Also, during one of the class discussions it was brought up that victims of crime are of the same race of the perpetrator. However, the media likes to sensationalize crime of the victim being of a different race, because it makes for a good story. By doing this, the media does create more of a division of race. As seen in the video Donald Trump was trying
The creation of prisons and penal system was meant to be used to create an institution to detere crime and create rehabilitation. The ideas put into this new institution did not try to fight crime but instead use the institution as a way of social control. Blacks and Hispanics have become the target of social control as a way to keep the whites and minorities segregated through legal ways. The book Assata an Autobiography, follows the story of an African American women’s struggle with the racist south as well as the inhumane treatment of the penal system. Assata demonstrated the unlawful way police and justice system treat blacks, but not only was it this institution but society as a whole. The hypersexualization of being a black female and
Beale, Frances. "Double Jeopardy: To Be Black and Female." An Anthology of African-American Feminist Thought. New York: New, 1995. 146. Print.
In a perfect world, we would not have racial tensions and we would all sing Kumbaya together, however, we do not live inside a perfect world. Racial injustice that relates to incarceration in the United States, specifically to those who are African-Americans, is a literal fabrication of our imperfect world and details the thinly veiled allegory of our social apartheid. According to author Glenn Loury, this aspect of our nation’s prison system is the most damaging to our African-American community, wherein said group are being racially profiled and “trapped in the dark vestiges of the ghetto” (Loury, 2008, 57). In his ethnography, Race, Incarceration, and American Values, Loury highlights these troubling trends concerning the dehumanization of African-Americans through our current sociopolitical landscape.
Institutional racism is racism that is shown through government organizations and political institutions. In a report done by David Baldus in 1998, he discovered that when it comes to the death penalty, blacks are more likely sentenced to death than whites, and those who kill whites are more likely to be given the death penalty than the killing of blacks (Touré). In several cases and studies, there is a substantial amount of racial bias in the criminal justice system. In fact, the 1978 McClesky conviction has proven to support Baldus’s study in 1998. Warren McClesky, an African American male, was found guilty of killing a Georgia police officer. The legal team who represented McClesky exposed a study that showed how biased racial inequality is in the death penalty, but the court contended the argument because “disparities in sentencing are an inevitable part of our criminal justice system” (Touré). Furthermore, race has always been a serious matter in the Supreme Court and other government administrations, but they fail to recognize the
Slavery is a term that can create a whirlwind of emotions for everyone. During the hardships faced by the African Americans, hundreds of accounts were documented. Harriet Jacobs, Charles Ball and Kate Drumgoold each shared their perspectives of being caught up in the world of slavery. There were reoccurring themes throughout the books as well as varying angles that each author either left out or never experienced. Taking two women’s views as well as a man’s, we can begin to delve deeper into what their everyday lives would have been like. Charles Ball’s Fifty Years in Chains and Harriet Jacobs Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl were both published in the early 1860’s while Kate Drumgoold’s A Slave Girl’s Story came almost forty years later
Erin G., 2010, A Woman Doing Life: Notes from a Prison for Women: The Southwest Journal of Criminal Justice. New York: Oxford University Press, 2010. Pp. vi, 202, Vol. 8(2)175.
In our society of today, there are many images that are portrayed through media and through personal experience that speak to the issues of black motherhood, marriage and the black family. Wherever one turns, there is the image of the black woman in the projects and very rarely the image of successful black women. Even when these positive images are portrayed, it is almost in a manner that speaks to the supposed inferiority of black women. Women, black women in particular, are placed into a society that marginalizes and controls many of the aspects of a black woman’s life. As a result, many black women do not see a source of opportunity, a way to escape the drudgery of their everyday existence. For example, if we were to ask black mother’s if they would change their situation if it became possible for them to do so, many would change, but others would say that it is not possible; This answer would be the result of living in a society that has conditioned black women to accept their lots in lives instead of fighting against the system of white and male dominated supremacy. In Ann Petry’s The Street, we are given a view of a black mother who is struggling to escape what the street symbolizes. In the end though, she becomes captive to the very thing she wishes to escape. Petry presents black motherhood, marriage and the black family as things that are marginalized according to the society in which they take place.
Racism Review: Scholarship and activism toward racial justice. (2010). Race and the Death Penatly 2: Black defendants, White Victims . Retrieved from Racism Review: Scholarship and activism toward racial justice : http://www.racismreview.com/blog/2010/04/17/race-and-the-death-penalty-ii-black-defendants-white-victims/
Deborah Gray White’s Ar’n’t I a Woman? details the grueling experiences of the African American female slaves on Southern plantations. White resented the fact that African American women were nearly invisible throughout historical text, because many historians failed to see them as important contributors to America’s social, economic, or political development (3). Despite limited historical sources, she was determined to establish the African American woman as an intricate part of American history, and thus, White first published her novel in 1985. However, the novel has since been revised to include newly revealed sources that have been worked into the novel. Ar’n’t I a Woman? presents African American females’ struggle with race and gender through the years of slavery and Reconstruction. The novel also depicts the courage behind the female slave resistance to the sexual, racial, and psychological subjugation they faced at the hands of slave masters and their wives. The study argues that “slave women were not submissive, subordinate, or prudish and that they were not expected to be (22).” Essentially, White declares the unique and complex nature of the prejudices endured by African American females, and contends that the oppression of their community were unlike those of the black male or white female communities.
In today’s time, there were twice as much criminals are locked up in prison. It is devastating that black people have the most percentage of prisoners of the race. They been put to prison for many sexual abuse, drugs, stealing, and robbing stores. The other horrendous fact about criminals is blacks getting killed by whites are high. Police puts black or african american people to prison because of racial experience and high uses of drugs, and high rate of crime
Throughout time the influence between incarceration rate in the African American community has been changed through a course, of the words slavery to criminal. The real first step that the word slavery was change was by the 13th Amendment instead of labeling a free man a Slave you label them as a criminal they will work for you for free as long as they were criminals in the eye of the system. The Next Step was for people to believe that criminals Are created Born Into the world by giving these people a characteristic View to Society many people believe that these people should be labeled as criminal off the bat a movie call The Birth of a Nation did that. All of this happened in the past now in the future the word slavery is just labeled
Transgender individuals are also forced into prisons with different genders because their identity is not validated, even if proper medical records are documented. Forcing transgender individuals into prisons with different genders makes prisoners more likely to be physically assaulted or raped by inmates and prison staff (Lamble, 277). Gender segregation in prisons does not only make transgender inmates more susceptible to self-inflicted and outside violence, it also continues to institutionalize the gender roles which helped establish the prison industrial complex when it first began. Throughout history, prisons have had gender goals which are still present today. In many women’s prisons, they were “designed to transform ‘fallen’ women into
Millions of women in the United States are incarcerated due to the crimes many of them committed. There are roughly 2.2 million people in the U.S. prison system most of whom are men, but with a rapidly increasing female population (Wolfe). Women in prison usually have different problems than a male figure going to prison because of their sex. Many of these women deserve to be in prison because they have broken the law, and yes prison is not supposed to be a fun place for anyone who has broken the law. However, the abuse and the cruel punishment that many women go through while incarcerated is absolutely not right and unfair to all women. Women incarcerated are affected in so many different ways than men in prison such as, women being pregnant, horrible health conditions, and sexual abuse from guards in prison.
African American women writers and thinkers are one of those Postcolonial groups that have asserted their voices and experiences in a world, which has denied them the right to exist. The Patriarchal fathers have silenced women from even the dominant communities into submission, so it was nothing new for Black women to be muted for centuries together by the all powerful white patriarchal powers. Black women have been facing oppression on more than one count. There has been covert resistance and resentment from these women, which have been beautifully depicted in the 2012 movie The Help, but it was only in the late 60’s and early 70’s when Black women overtly came to forefront with the establishment of The National Black Feminist Organization (NBFO).