A black man of my generation born in the late 1960s is more than twice as likely to go to prison in his lifetime then a black man of my father's generation. I was born after the Voting Rights Act, after the Civil Rights Act, after the Fair Housing Act.
Interpretation
The quote illustrates the ongoing racial disparities in the criminal justice system despite civil rights advancements.
James Forman, Jr. addresses the stark reality that, even with significant progress made through landmark legislation like the Voting Rights Act and the Civil Rights Act, systemic issues persist that disproportionately affect black men today compared to those from previous generations. This highlights a critical examination of societal structures and the continued impact of inequality.
In practice
In a speech addressing social justice, I would quote this to highlight the ongoing challenges faced by black men.
In court, judges tell people that their conviction carries a sentence of years, or probation. The truth is far more terrible. People convicted of crimes often become social outcasts for life, finding it difficult or impossible to rent an apartment, get a job, adopt children, access public benefits, serve on juries, or vote.
While mass incarceration is a national crisis, it was built locally.
African-Americans have always viewed the protection of black lives as a civil rights issue, whether the threat comes from police officers or street criminals. Far from ignoring the issue of crime by blacks against other blacks, African-American officials and their constituents have been consumed by it.
Mass incarceration and its never-ending human toll will be with us until we come to see that no crime justifies permanent civic death.
The only news most people ever hear about the inner city comes from grim headlines; the only residents they can name are characters on 'The Wire.' Of course, ignorance of a community doesn't stop outsiders from having opinions about it or passing laws that govern it.
We need to hire more black police officers in this country because these are good jobs, and African Americans should have their fair share of good jobs. But we shouldn't do it because we think that's going to change policing. We have to push for police reform in other ways.
One's destination is never a place but rather a new way of looking at things.
where are the snowdens of yesteryear?
In our period, they say there is free speech. They say there is no penalty for poets, There is no penalty for writing poems. They say this. This is the penalty.
There is no reason to believe that the people who staff the managerial and professional positions in our service institutions are any less qualified, any less competent or honest, or any less hard-working than the men who manage businesses. Conversely, there is no reason to believe that business managers, put in control of service institutions, would do better than the 'bureaucrats'. Indeed, we know that they immediately become bureaucrats themselves.
It is not that the child lives in a world of imagination, but that the child within us survives and starts into life only at rare moments of recollection, which makes us believe, and it is not true, that, as children, we were imaginative?
Who does not see that the same authority which can establish Christianity, in exclusion of all other Religions, may establish with the same ease any particular sect of Christians, in exclusion of all other Sects?
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