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Comment by mk89 | Hacker News Reader

If your comment is meant to be sarcastic, then I am failing to see it...

Could you explain what you mean by enslaving as prisoner? So you would let a rapist free or what?

No no, I'm just pointing out that the 13th amendment to the Constitution didn't outlaw slavery entirely, but instead a clause literally beginning with the word "except" - can you imagine? "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except ..." It's candor and obfuscation at the very same time.

Here's the rest of the text:

"...as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction."

So now, today, we have more black men under the supervision of the "criminal justice system" (which, like the NSA, is not now and have never been truly tasked with achieving its formal goals) than were enslaved in 1860.

The concept of prison the way we intend it is relatively new (let's say a couple of hundred years). So I am not surprised to see that there are still some references to slavery here and there, because that was actually the punishment back then.

The reason we have more blacks than white in prison is for dozens reasons:

- legacy - cultural differences - social injustice

Etc.

Don't solve problems, ignore them, expect that people behave the way you want, wait until someone screws up here and here, let it escalate, ignore again and/or apply short term solutions, mix all this stuff, fast forward all of it, and you have the current situation.

Just be lucky to be on the right side and have good parents.

I don't think a single iota of the prison disparity - not one - is attributable to "cultural differences". I also don't think that it is an accident. Drug prohibition was designed precisely - and initially sold expressly - as a way to control black and asian people, and later other people of color.

> Don't solve problems, ignore them, expect that people behave the way you want, wait until someone screws up here and here, let it escalate, ignore again and/or apply short term solutions, mix all this stuff, fast forward all of it, and you have the current situation.

I think that's pretty reasonable. That's pretty much the point I was trying to make about intelligence agencies as well.

>initially sold expressly - as a way to control black and asian people, and later other people of color.

Hippies too; that's why Nixon choose to schedule pot.

https://www.cnn.com/2016/03/23/politics/john-ehrlichman-rich...

That was much, much later. I'm talking about the legislative movement that culminated in the Harrison Narcotics Act.

Got a good link on that? I'm learning some stuff today. Thanks for trading internet points for the chance to teach me.

> Got a good link on that?

I'm sure I do, but I'm not sure exactly which point you're asking about here. :-)

I'll just Google --- you're a busy person.

This should be downvoted to oblivion. The only folks I've ever heard say black people's (we're not "blacks" BTW, we are actually people) problems are attributable to our culture ate racist shitbags. In order to believe that black people have some intrinsic culture of self destruction one would have to believe that culture evolves in some sort of vacuum. This couldn't be further from the truth when talking about African Americans. Black people have never been left to our own devices in this country. The government itself encoded ways to fuck with us and or minds from the very inception of this nation.

Even after we were freed there was Jim crow and the peonage system (I'm sure you'll have to look that up). Even after Jim crow there was red lining.

You don't have to be a history major to know that what your said is beyond dumb. I seriously hope you put a little more thought into the things you believe going forward.

I had to look it up..

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Crow_economy

And in doing so I read this bit about "it may have had as much to do with spreading poverty around"

I presume that white people no longer having the black people to live off meant

A. white people had to do alot more work themselves, and

B. white people had to share much more of the available resources with black people

So that they actively participated in racism to keep more resources for themselves..

Is this a reasonable take on this?

This is the part from the Wikipedia cited above I am referring to..

"However, the African American struggle to earn economic parity, that had made progress during the first half century of the postbellum era, had largely been reversed during the second half. Legally, equality was assured, but that did little to actually promulgate equal conditions in daily life.

Some of the gains in the South's economic relation to the rest of the U.S. can be explained by population shifts to other regions; so, it may have had as much to do with spreading poverty around, as spreading wealth around."

You had to look up Jim Crow laws? If you are American then that is an active level of ignorance. It is taught in most schools systems as far as I am aware, and is frequently brought up in the news and other political commentary, especially in the context of any sort of checks on voter registration. I took OP's comment as you would have to look up the peonage system

If you are not American then it would be perfectly understandable to be unaware

Perhaps you misread; the looking-up wasn't for Jim Crow Laws, but the Jim Crow Economy, which is not taught in most school systems.

That doesn't seem to be true at all: Wikipedia says there was around 4 million slaves in the 1860 census while the total number of incarcerated Americans in 2010 doesnt reach 2.5 millions.

I didn't say total slaves vs. total prisoners - I said black men.

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/12/michelle-alexander...

edit: I can't imagine why I'm being downvoted here. My statement was utterly correct, and when challenged I cited a credible source. What'd I do wrong?!

They broke laws and are being punished as criminals. Many people of all races are punished in the same way.

I think drug laws in this country are way too harsh, but those are the laws. People should not break them if they don't want to be jailed.

Also slavery was a human problem for thousands of years, it took humanity collectively waking up to the evils of slavery to abolish it. Human governments the world over supported the instition in the past, and now they've evolved. Don't judge them today based on the mistakes of the past.

That is the most niave understanding of government and racism.

How so? Economic circumstances negatively impact certain people more than others in the world but how are modern western governments perpetuating racism?

Come on man, your best advice to imprisoned black people is, "well, you shouldn't have chosen what to put in your own body" and you can't see your mistake?

If their diet is what is causing them to commit violent crimes, which is what the majority of prisoners are in for, not weed, then yeah, that diet is a problem. https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-real-answer-to-...

Come on now. What are you even talking about?

> People should not break them if they don't want to be jailed.

I'm white. That means I can smoke as much herb as I want and not even dream of entering the criminal justice system unless I'm extraordinarily unlucky. Moreover, I don't give a flying fuck what some politician in Washington has to say about my diet. I don't base what I put into my body on bad laws.

But if you are black, you have a much more difficult decision to make.

> now they've evolved. Don't judge them today based on the mistakes of the past.

If drug prohibition is the "evolved" form, then we still have a long way to go. That's the point.

I'm with you, prohibition of weed is very backwards. But that's hardly slavery.

Drug prohibition is indeed slavery - in the case of the text of the 13th amendment, literally so.

Moving the bar from "you're enslaved based on your color" to, "you're enslaved based on your diet" is not much of a move.

You're suburban. Growing up poor and in a requisite poor area, plenty of your white friends will end up in prison and jail. A lot of mine did.

"I think drug laws in this country are way too harsh, but those are the laws. People should not break them if they don't want to be jailed."

This quote might be a defensible argument if the laws were applied equally in the United States. What has happened is that we have so many laws that the government doesn't even know how many laws there are anymore[0]. This has led to something called selective enforcement[1]. When everyone breaks the law, but you are twice as likely to be punished for it if you are one color vs another, then personal responsibility has very little to do with it. The government is setting up an environment where they can punish whomever they want, whenever they want, and then punishing the people they don't like for non law related reasons

[0]https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702304319804576389... [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selective_enforcement

The article makes the claim for the year 1850, and your claim is for the year 1860. There were more slaves in 1860 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1860_United_States_Census) than in 1850 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1850_United_States_Census)

In 1860 there were 3,953,761 slaves counted in the census.

In 2016, if you count everyone under probation and parole in addition to those in jail and prison, the number is 6,613,500 (https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/cpus16.pdf)

If you assume 40% of them are black, like the article claims, the number comes out to 2,645,400. This is considerably less than the number of slaves in 1860, or 1850 for that matter.

If you have a source to back up your claim then you should post it. I'm actually curious what sources the author might have been using.

I don't think you're acting in bad faith, I think you just read that huffpost article and assumed it was correct. I just wanted to reply since you were curious about what you might have done wrong.

Yep, you're right - I was off by a decade.

I initially heard about this not from The New Jim Crow but from this (seemingly awesome) Brown University student:

http://www.politifact.com/rhode-island/statements/2014/dec/0...

...but if I'm doing the math correctly, it appears to hold even for 1860 for adult males.

Actually I see now that you specifically said 'black men', which is a different statistic, so I think you might be correct.

Jesus. They're criminals not slaves. Don't do the crime, don't do the time.

Look, I too watched 13th on Netflix. Black people are over-represented in violent crime like assault, murder and rape, and so are over-represented in prisons.

> Don't do the crime, don't do the time.

Isn't this materially the same as, "if you are black, and especially black and male, choose your diet according to what the government says you can put in your body?"

If "the crime" is ingesting cannabis, I do the crime all the freakin' time and I have never, ever imagined that I might suffer any consequence of it.

Is "Don't do the crime, don't do the time" a reasonable thing to say in an environment of such intense selective enforcement?

Where to begin?

> Isn't this materially the same as....

No it's not. Are you suggesting that because a crime is so prevalent it should be ignored? As long as a crime is a crime and people commit that crime you can expect consequences for that crime. We live in a nation of rules and laws.

Anyway let's visit the facts:

- 59% of black prisoners sentenced to more than 1 year in state prison were sentenced for a violent offense, not drug crimes.

- More than half of the extra prisoners added in the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s were imprisoned for violent crimes; two thirds were in for violent or property crimes. Only about a fifth of prison inmates are incarcerated for drug offenses. Only a fraction of those for marijuana.

- Black Democrats and the NAACP were instrumental in enforcing tough sentences for drug crime as drugs were decimating their communities.

So violent crime is still the main reason for the incarceration rates. As for those incarcerated for drug crimes - perhaps there are too many imprisoned but it's mostly for selling hard drugs, not weed. And even if it was weed, it's not slavery.

> Is "Don't do the crime, don't do the time" a reasonable thing to say in an environment of such intense selective enforcement?

Yes, yes it is. And the 95% of blacks (and any race for that matter) that don't do drugs would agree.

http://www.drugwarfacts.org/node/876

http://rainystreets.wikity.cc/naacp-citizens-mobilization-ag...

Your argument would carry more weight if you weren't hung up solely on the weed angle. There are far more injustices than selective enforcement of weed offenses.

That said, it's hard to equate incarceration with slavery unless there's an economic benefit to the state in incarcerating prisoners. Is there?

> If you assume 40% of them are black, like the article claims, the number comes out to 2,645,400. This is considerably less than the number of slaves in 1860, or 1850 for that matter.

As far as I can tell, the tables in: "Recapitulation of the Tables of Population, Nativity, and Occupation" from[1] indicate that there were roughly 800.000 male slaves 15 years or older in 1860 - they're listed next to free coloureds" - but I find no indication about black/non-black slaves (I imagine there were some Native Americans, Chinese at least in non-insignificant number?).

I believe op was talking about adult black males.

On a side note, would be nice if this data was digitized properly and available for easy analysis? I couldn't find any indication that it is?

[1] https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/decennial-census/dec...

You didnt do nothing wrong. Welcome to 2018 hacker news! It hasnt been like this few years ago, now many times i start reading comments from the grayed out to regulars. And i upvoted all of your comments because they were right on the subject, informative, rich in facts and sources, and i genuinely learnt something new today.

Although I tend to see most ultra-liberal conspiracy babble as nonsense, experience with my own psychology and observation of those around has led me to believe that white male fragility is a real thing. You're being downvoted because people on HN, who are by and large financially secure, well-educated technocrats (like myself!), feel like there's something deeply irritating about your post, whether or not it is statistically accurate.

I've had enough experience doing volunteer work with people trying to complete their GED in/after prison that - despite the fact that I despise ultra-left fresh-out-of-college political babble (it's so disconnected from reality and non-constructive that it's reasonable to squash it with the rest of the noise) - I do believe that there are deep structural injustices in American society, and we really don't have a coherent story for how to fix them.

That shift in attitude was born of experience that is not universally shared, though. Most people have their hobbies and their jobs and their families and their insecurities and their resentments, and they don't take kindly to strangers telling them that the American social structure that passively benefits them and makes their lifestyle possible is built in part on some very deep nastiness.

Which isn't to point fingers, or level blame, or shame anyone. Those are the rhetorical techniques of demagogues, and they have neither truth value nor do they tend to point society in a better direction. It's just to say that the psychological landscape is complicated.

It’s not about the fragility of liberal white males, it’s the fragility of government as a religion. It’s like asking Catholics to admit the atrocities in their history. Ever wonder why every crypto related article is met with disdain? It’s because their faith cannot tolerate questioning. The line between nationalism and religion is blurred intentionally.

the catholic church has literally said "we're sorry" for their history a bunch of times, for example for anti-semitism, the inquisition, behaviour against non catholics and religious wars.

If anything, the problem is they're very vague about stuff, and only admit guilt for their history, and not for present misbehaviour.

You're right. Just look at all those men telling us they don't feel safe because of what someone wrote, that the work place needs to be more welcoming to them, that being told they're bossy or domineering is insulting, that having to defend themselves in public debate is unacceptable, that they shouldn't be expected to choose between career and family, and that male hygiene products should be paid for by the government because having a dick and balls is just such a burden.

Wait no, sorry, I got that backwards. It's feminist women who do the female equivalent of this. And who find it deeply irritating if you only imply men do not exist to serve at their beck and call, and have zero obligation to them even if they damsel.

And no, not all women. But definitely even some who do have all the power, money and influence they could want. So who's fragile? Or perhaps more accurately: who succeeds in using their facade of weakness as a lever of power, time and time again?

I don't mind admitting the world is not fair, but it takes a special kind of obliviousness to look at women's position in the West in the 21st century and still see a class of victims and men as the ones who need to suck in their gut and soldier on for once.

Okay. Since the original point — as I understood it — was on the deep seated, institutional racism, racial inequality and how we are oblivious to it — do you mind making your point a bit more clear?

I really don’t get what you are saying. I understand you have a point to make on whether or not women are the biggest victims today — but what is the link to the post?

We've banned this account for using HN primarily for ideological battle. That's a serious abuse because it destroys the intellectual curiosity this place exists for.

If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

although I genuinely couldn't tell if the responder was being serious, I think it's a shame the account was banned. I respect the decision, but I think it's a mistake to equate incoherence with ideology.

I feel duty-bound to engage patiently with people with whom I disagree, but I understand that this might be inconsistent with the more general goal of running a forum.

It gets rather simple pretty quickly if you look at the site as a whole: accounts that repeatedly post like that one did have a destructive effect on the community, just like fire has on a town. We know it's mostly unintentional, but the flames don't burn less for that reason. We want the town to survive, so we can't let people do this here.

The analogy is good in another way too: we don't care what color the flames are, or what was used to start them. People sometimes complain that we moderate red flames more than blue and vice versa, but the issue is the same in both cases.

Thanks for the clarification, I respect your decision. Also thanks for what I imagine to be the rather thankless effort of moderating HN.

One of the most ridiculous manifestations of this is at this prison called "Angola" in Louisiana which is literally built on a cotton field and has forced prisoners to pick cotton since around 1880.

https://mic.com/articles/88461/a-modern-day-slave-plantation...

edit: another link https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louisiana_State_Penitentiary

Seriously man. Imagine for a moment that Germany still had capital punishment. And they decided to use the gas chamber to administer it. I think it's the same level of insensitivity at work with the US continuing Angola as a cotton plantation in the name of administering "criminal justice." Like, have we no shame at all? Do we not care at all about what we did and the spiritual consequences of allowing its imagine to continue?

Also: good to see you. :-)

There's a lot of people in prison for things that they shouldn't be, like marijuana possession. Especially blacks and latinos. The US jails about 10 times more people than other developed nations - there's something very wrong with that picture. In the land of the free you actually have the least amount of people actually living free...

>Could you explain what you mean by enslaving as prisoner?

It means having 25% of the world's prison population but only 4% of the world's population.

It means being a prison state.

It means using BS reasons, like marijuana possession, to imprison a large part of your population.

It means predominantly giving long prison sentences for small offenses, just because of an "Old Testament" idea of revenge -- that is carried forward in the culture from the days of the nutty religious minorities that established the country.

It means having absurd legal constructs, like "3 strikes" laws.

It means exploiting prisoners for free labor, and having private prisons, and other such practices, and being the shame of the western world (and large part of the developing world) in this area.

It means people casually joking of people getting raped or attacked in your prisons.

It means still having the death penalty in 2018.

And other such things...

Prisoners are allowed to be slaves under the 13th amendment.

You don't have to free them to stop allowing slavery in prison.

I suspect that if prisoners are meaningfully unenslaved (ie, enjoy basic rights to body, fair wages, etc) that the system will suddenly realize that drugs aren't so bad after all.

As I matter of legislative priority, however, I think it makes sense to work in the direction direction, ie, to work toward ending drug prohibition with an aim to making a substantial dent in what slavery remains in the USA.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_Jim_Crow

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