“Herein lie buried many things, which, if read with patience, may show the strange meaning of being Black here in the dawning of the 20th century. This meaning is not without interest to you, gentle reader, for the problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line.” Such prophetic words by legendary W.E.B. Du Bois, written over one-hundred years ago in 1903 within the introduction of his classic book, The Souls of Black Folk, continues to ring true in the dawning of the 21st century, for the problem of the 21st century is still the problem of the color line, especially in America.
America has a deep-seated, deadly race problem. Its race problem involves, yet again, the American government and its agencies creating and implementing now seemingly race-neutral laws, policies, and practices designed to racially discriminate against Black people. The problem of America is its institutional racism and structural racism throughout its political and economic superstructure against Black people. Institutional racism is the existence of an institutional, systemic racial discriminatory law, policies, practice and economic and political structures which place minority, racial, and ethnic groups at a disadvantage in relation to an institution’s racial or ethnic majority. Structural racism focuses upon the interactions among institutions of the racial and ethnic majority, interactions that produce racialized outcomes against non-white people. An important feature of structural racism is that it cannot be reduced to individual prejudice or to the single function of an institution.
In America’s political superstructure, institutional racism and structural racism against Black people is prevalent throughout federal, state, and county governmental agencies. The United States Department of Agriculture was exposed in the pick for one and two civil cases of institutional racism against Black farmers. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development was exposed in the sub-prime mortgage criminal scam, targeting Black people, of this institutional racism against Black home owners. The United States Federal Emergency Management Agency, FEMA, was exposed in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina of its institutional racism against Black people of New Orleans, Louisiana needing disaster relief.
The Department of Homeland Security was exposed in this domestic policy of a phony “War on Drugs” and Black people communities of its institutional racism. The educational systems have been exposed in its schools-to-prisons pipeline of Black youth and its institutional racism. The Department of State institutional racism has been exposed in the Pentagon; militarization of police departments and majority Black populated centers nationwide: and the local police departments’ and criminal court systems’ institutional racism against Black people and its racial targeting, criminalization, and mass incarceration of Black people in America. America has a race problem. It’s a lot more sophisticated today, but it still lets you know you are Black.
I am Kerry Shakaboona Marshall, founding member of the Human Rights Coalition, co-founder and editor of The Movement human rights magazine, Prison Radio correspondent, and am a child lifer prisoner at SCI Rockview: P.O box A, number BE7826, Bellefonte PA, 16823, and can be reached at shakaboona41@gmail.com. Thank you for listening.
These commentaries are recorded by Noelle Hanrahan of Prison Radio.
