Prison Radio
Charles Karim Diggs

Okay, the obsession with struggling year after year, asking for justice and equality, has caused many African-Americans and others away from the voting polls. They see no use. They hear the same talk, same issues. There is a moral conscious that is not operating for some Americans. They are the persons who keep speaking about the original intent of the Constitution.

At that time in history, women nor were slaves considered “We, the people.” They are the first three words in the preamble of 1787. The moral principles against slavery was comprised. It appears in 218, and, in the past, many beliefs in freedom, justice, fairness are comprised at the expense of severe poverty, unjust criminal punishment, unfair applications of laws and sentencing and legislative oppression.

The Constitution had to be amended several times because it did not have any concerns for most of the population. The Constitution does not encompass our needs. Africans were enslaved by law. Africans were [inaudible] by law, disenfranchised and segregated by law. And we have gained some progress by law.

Along the way, new constitutional principles have emerged to meet the challenge of a changing society. The present political agenda is to take back all the Constitutional gains. The theme of the Republican regime is state rights, which means the poor is at the mercy of whomever is in power in that state, and the federal government will stay out of the business of the states.

America has always been separate, divided. There was a need for the African-American community to look for change: we are losing so many lives toward early death, imprisonment, ignorance, and hopelessness. The schools are doing a great job and not educating our young.
A new voice and a new message is the only solution to poverty, massive imprisonment, unjust, unfair legislative laws, and inequality and administrative injustice.

Thank you for listening to my essay.

These commentaries are recorded by Noelle Hanrahan of Prison Radio.