Racially Targeted Legislation

As individuals, we are born into social identities that are outside of our control, related to differences in race, social class, gender, first language, ability, religion, sexual orientation, etc (Harro, 1986). As long as there are these differences, there will be discrimination. As long as the dynamic system of oppression is alive and well these social identities will continue to predispose people to unequal roles in it, and I wanted to represent this socialization concept in my piece as well, as it helps explain the "how did we get here?"

For my project, I wanted to experiment with the story teller role, so I used a collage as my medium. I researched past legislation that had/have detrimental impacts on minority communities, specifically legislation that fuels the disproportionate representation of minorities in the prison industrial complex (PIC). I wanted to understand how our country came to have more imprisoned people per capita than any other country in the world. Though people of color make up approximately 15% of the country's demographic (US Census, 2020), people of color make up about 47% of the incarcerated population. (DOP, 2023). Though our society tries to, this disproportionality cannot be explained by blaming the individuals for their own wrong doings. The inclusion of the 13th Amendment, one that outlaws slavery "except as a punishment for crime," was one legislation that my project focused heavily on. In the aftermath of the Civil War and during the era of Jim Crow laws, the loophole of involuntary servitude of those convicted of crimes was immediately exploited. Four million people who were forced into building up the South were now free of their chains, yet the need for labor was still increasing. Thus began the criminalization of Black bodies and racially based convictions. African Americans during this time were arrested in masses, being charged for newly defined crimes such as vagrancy and loitering and were convicted as criminals. This is represented through a variety of images and text in my project, as is the War on Drugs. Though it was officially declared during the Nixon administration, the legislation that acted as a defense on the war on drugs increased significantly during Ronald Reagan’s time in the White House. In my collage, there are a few mentions of this legislations, but the one I wanted to highlight the most was the differences in levels of criminalizations of the crack cocaine verses powder cocaine drug. Though they are virtually the same drug in everything from chemical make up to addictiveness, the penalty for a crack cocaine possession of just 5 grams would equate a 5 year minimum sentense. In order for the penalthy to equal a 5 year sentence with a charge of powder cocaine, one must possess 500 grams of it. This legislation trapped certain groups into a longer sentence, and it wasn’t a surprise when sentencing data came out to say that 80% of those convicted were Black. The loophole in the 13th Amendmnet highlights an opprotunity that was intentionally left open to serve as a net for forced labor, and even though convict leasing programs and chain gangs are no longer in effect, their implications have burned a poisoned sentiment into our history.