The Sun's not yellow it's chicken

betterthingstodothandrugs:

The word guilty is loaded, it implies wrongdoing. Yet the fact remains the majority of black men incarcerated are in that position for non-violent crimes. Namely possession and distribution.

JTEM:

What would you think of a white man going into a black neighborhood and distributing drugs? You’d say he was exploiting the people. You’d say he was enslaving them to drugs, all to enrich himself.

You’d be right.

Illegal drugs is an extremely violent industry. You can’t separate violence from the drug trade, you just can’t. And I’m not talking about the lives ruined by drugs, the families devastated by drug use — the people enslaved to drugs, the exploitation of misery. I’m talking about the intentional criminal violence on top of that — murder, muggings and other violent crime.

There’s the crime committed by people trying to support their drug habits. There’s the violence between suppliers and the police, “turf” struggles between dealers and even whole sale murder by the cartels. You’re selling drugs and you’re part of that — no excuses. You are part of all that and you chose to be a part of all that.

And, yeah, you just confirmed my point about people not being innocent. They’re guilty. They’re in prison and they deserve to be there. They don’t get a pass because of their skin color. Nobody does.

Also being a prisoner throughout history has been synonymous with being a slave.

No. I mean it. You’re demeaning those who suffered under slavery — those who are suffering right now — by pretending that putting convicted criminals to work is anything like slavery.

Nobody is advocating that we pay inmates. Nobody is advocating we let rapists or murderers run free.

Then you have no call to action, do you?

What you’re saying is we should stick with the status-quo.

I made it quite clear that I DON’T support the status quo, that I believe that our entire criminal justice system should be overhauled. I was just pointing out that these prison laborers aren’t slaves, there is no injustice in locking them up and even in a perfect system they’ll all still be there behind bars, laboring away.

One needn’t hold unjustifiable sympathies towards any criminal in prison in order to desire reform.  Reform doesn’t mean “Let the guilty out,” and never has.

        …and it also doesn’t mean “Belittle the suffering of those who endure slavery,” either.

(Source: fuckyeahsocialjusticesally)