{"id":51794,"date":"2021-06-22T19:06:37","date_gmt":"2021-06-22T19:06:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wagingnonviolence.org\/forusa\/?p=51794"},"modified":"2021-07-09T15:22:32","modified_gmt":"2021-07-09T15:22:32","slug":"if-we-truly-honored-juneteenth-we-would-end-13th-amendment-exception","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wagingnonviolence.org\/forusa\/2021\/06\/if-we-truly-honored-juneteenth-we-would-end-13th-amendment-exception\/","title":{"rendered":"If we truly honored Juneteenth, we would end the exception in the 13th amendment"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In my inbox this morning from a major nonprofit organization that should have known better was a Juneteenth celebratory greeting: \u201cWe proudly celebrate Juneteenth, the day slavery finally came to an end throughout the South \u2014 historically a monumental feat for American history and now a Federal Holiday.\u201d My heart sank. \u201cGod, save us from the Juneteenth sales and discounts,\u201d I prayed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why is it that the same legislature that does not have the will to pass anti-lynching legislation is willing to quickly legislate my community\u2019s milestone memories into grease for department store cash registers? We deserve more than cotton candy proclamations from our government.<\/p>\n\n\n

Previous Coverage<\/h6>
  • \"\"<\/a> How we got Colorado to become the first state to abolish slavery<\/a><\/li><\/section>\n\n\n\n

    While news of President Lincoln\u2019s executive proclamation reached those in Texas on June 19, 1865, slavery was not \u201cended throughout the South\u201d on June 19. The 13th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution outlawed slavery across the nation but not before it provided the loophole that would ensure the survival of slavery in new forms. With the words \u201cexcept as punishment for a crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted,\u201d the 13th Amendment made it possible for chattel slavery to morph into what Douglas A. Blackmon called \u201cSlavery by Another Name.<\/a>\u201d Mississippi and South Carolina raced to enact the first of the \u201cblack codes<\/a>,” which were laws that enabled \u201cwhite landowners to control the labor force through a system similar to the one that had existed during slavery.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    The system created new forms of bondage specifically tailored for these newly “freed” Black Americans. One can argue that the 13th Amendment\u2019s exception has everything to do with the reason Black folks were segregated into redlined ghettos, why Black communities were starved of positive development and investment; and why Black communities were occupied by the police. This exception is the reason municipalities across the country can use their police force resources not on true public safety, but to \u201csqueeze money<\/a>\u201d out of Black and poor communities. Poor people who can\u2019t pay their \u201cBlack fines\u201d are arrested. Ferguson, Missouri was a leader in driving Black people into the prison pipeline in this way long before Mike Brown was killed, and the cauldron of Black rage boiled over.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    This loophole shapes the character of the current criminal justice system of 2.3 million people<\/a>. While I often rage at the very existence of private prisons like CoreCivic (formerly Corrections Corporation of America), GEO Group, and Management Training Corp, they are but a relatively small beneficiary of this exception. As Prison Policy Initiative reports:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \u2026prisons do rely on the labor of incarcerated people for food service, laundry and other operations, and they pay incarcerated workers unconscionably low wages: our 2017 study<\/a> found that on average, incarcerated people earn between 86 cents and $3.45 per day<\/em> for the most common prison jobs. In at least five states, those jobs pay nothing at all. Moreover, work in prison is compulsory, with little regulation or oversight, and incarcerated workers have few rights and protections<\/a>. Forcing people to work for low or no pay and no benefits allows prisons to shift the costs of incarceration to incarcerated people \u2014 hiding the true cost of running prisons from most Americans<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>Companies benefit from prison labor, but so does the state. We all probably have stuff in our homes right now made by these \u201cexcepted\u201d from the U.S. Constitution\u2019s protection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    What does a federal Juneteenth holiday mean in a country with the largest prison population in the world, a population disproportionately comprised of those descended from enslaved Black people?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    The dominant narrative in the United States would lead us to believe \u201ccrime\u201d happens because people are just bad. These bad people should be incarcerated away from the good people. Except that most crimes are crimes of desperation, born of misery, brokenness, neglect, abuse, and on and on. The United States creates miserable circumstances \u2014 particularly for certain communities \u2014 and is then shocked when people respond miserably.  The narrative of \u201cinferior humanity\u201d supported and justified slavery. The narrative of \u201ccriminally Black\u201d supports and justifies slavery by another name.<\/p>\n\n\n\n