Prisons Are Plantations & Police Departments Are Runaway Slave Patrols

The reason that reparations were never made to the African American community was largely because the 13th Amendment still allowed for slavery “as a punishment for crime.” The radical republicans had seriously proposed to give freed slaves land and money, but never could get popular support for reparations. By refusing to give reparations—thereby leaving “freed” slaves without money or land with which to make a new beginning—, it left African Americans susceptible to re-enslavement. Former slaves during the Reconstruction era were left with no way to procure food and shelter except to either (1) work for their former masters for starvation-wages or (2) resort to theft and crime. The former slave would either have to go back to his former master and work in his fields, usually receiving less for his labor than he had formerly received under slavery. It was not uncommon for masters to give slaves wages as an allowance, to encourage them to work harder. The slave might now be hired as a "free laborer" for the very same wages he received as a slave, but without the guarantee of food and shelter. If the former slave could not find work, or could not make enough to survive, they could acquire bread by stealing it from someone else. The “freed” slave, immediately after the war and for decades to follow, was often worse off than before. He could turn to a wage-slavery which was sometimes worse than chattel slavery, far worse than what we call “wage-slavery” today, or he could turn to theft. Theft, of course, meant that he could be convicted and legally re-enslaved. If this happened, he could be sent to work on the plantations without pay through convict leasing. And that was the predicament of the African American in the South—that chattel slavery was really not abolished by the 13th Amendment, and legal slavery in the form of convict leasing persisted until about 1930. Free your slaves, give them no food or shelter when you turn them loose, and then re-enslave them when you catch them stealing food. The runaway slave patrols that existed before the “abolition of slavery” turned into police departments. Now, instead of catching runaway slaves and re-enslaving them, they caught former slaves stealing food, got them convicted, and re-enslaved them. The "crimes" used as justification for re-enslaving former slaves were “crimes” necessitated by the poverty resulting from their former status as slaves―having previously been a slave prior to “abolition” suddenly became the reason for one’s re-enslavement. While buying people from prisons to use as slaves is no longer practiced in America (usually), for-profit prisons still make money off of enslaving people; and involuntary labor is still common in the American prison system. Convicts are cleaning up trash on the sides of the roads and helping fight fires in California. American police are still very much runaway slave patrols, capturing people of color to enslave.

“There are 100,000 total marijuana smokers in the U.S., and most are Negroes, Hispanics, Filipinos and entertainers. Their Satanic music, jazz and swing result from marijuana use. This marijuana causes white women to seek sexual relations with Negroes, entertainers and any others.”—Henry Anslinger (commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics/Drug Enforcement Agency, from 1930-1962)

Laws in America unfairly target African Americans. Marijuana was criminalized specifically for the purpose of targeting people of color. Even when the law doesn't specifically target African Americans, black people routinely receive harsher punishments than whites would receive for the same crime. Although usage of marijuana is just as common among whites as among blacks, black people are 4 times more likely to be arrested for possession. More than 4 out of 5 drug-related arrests are for possession rather than selling. The United States Sentencing Commission, a federal agency, reported that from 2007 to 2009 black people, on average, received 13 percent longer sentences for drug convictions than whites, all other things being equal. The statistics from 1998 up to 2006 were comparable to these latest numbers. Mandatory minimum sentencing for drug possession is targeted to punish black people more than whites. Powder cocaine is more common among white people, whereas crack cocaine is more common among blacks—the drugs are the same!—but a person can possess as much as 500 grams of regular cocaine before a mandatory five-year sentence kicks in, whereas as little as 28 grams of crack gets one a mandatory five-year sentence. The only difference between the two drugs, generally speaking, is the color of the skin of the people who use it. 62% of SWAT raids are drug-related, and the majority of those occur in black neighborhoods, in spite of the fact that drug use and distribution are just as common among whites. When marijuana was first criminalized, the explicit reason was to justify imprisoning black people and other minorities. The largest interest groups that lobby against the legalization of marijuana today are the for-profit prison industry and the prison guard unions. The prison-industrial complex has lobbied against marijuana legalization because legalization would mean fewer prisoners. Furthermore, for-profit prisons usually have terms in their contract that require the government to keep the prisons full, otherwise the government must pay a fine. Without marijuana being illegal, prisons would not be filled to capacity, which means the government would have to pay fines to compensate the for-profit prisons. This is why federal law is not likely to change on marijuana any time soon.

“We knew we couldn't make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin. And then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.”—John Ehrlichman (Richard Nixon’s chief domestic policy adviser from 1969-1973)

Jeff Sessions’ Department of Justice (DoJ) has overturned the hands-off approach of the Obama Administration to enforcement of federal anti-marijuana laws in States that have legalized marijuana. The new DoJ will potentially be allowing the arrest and prosecution of marijuana users and distributors in places where marijuana has been legalized. Additionally, the DEA (under the DoJ) has granted a Schedule II classification to Insys Therapeutics for Dronabinol, synthetic THC. Natural THC, the active ingredient in marijuana, remains Schedule I. Certain forms of synthetic marijuana, however, unlike real marijuana, can be chemically addictive and dangerous. While Insys Therapeutics claims that their synthetic marijuana does not have any significant risk for abuse or addiction, the company also claimed that their opioid fentanyl was not habit forming. Due to the companies fake research and lobbying, their opioid was approved for medical use and actively promoted, leading to an opioid crisis, spike in heroin usage, and spread of HIV. This same company that is now going to have a legal monopoly on medical marijuana has been sued by Arizona, North Carolina, New Jersey, Indiana, Illinois, and other states for its role in causing the opioid crisis. But if the new legal THC happens to be both addictive (we will see) and more expensive due to Insys having a monopoly, then we will see a synthetic marijuana crisis and rise in crime—a crisis that will be used as a justification for “imprisoning” (read as “enslaving”) even more people of color.

The average white person is completely ignorant of the history of slavery and institutional racism in America—racism perpetuated by policing and for-profit prisons—and so cannot even begin to comprehend Black Lives Matter’s push for abolition of policing. Nor can white people, from their position of ignorance, comprehend the prison abolitionist movement. Black people know that prisons are plantations where slaves are forced to work and that police are runaway slave patrols, whereas white people think that all cops are Andy Griffith and that prisons only contain violent criminals.