There was an exemption
Because of a deeply irritating “They should just get over it already” in the comments I’m going to share a little history lesson from the Library of Congress:
The Convict Leasing System: Slavery in its Worst Aspects, by Lynn Weinstein.
“Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.” Article XIII, February 1,1865
Emphasis added. That “except as punishment” clause was resisted by the radical Republicans, and they were right. That clause was death to a lot of former slaves and their descendants.
While many believe that the 13th Amendment ended slavery, there was an exemption that was used to create a prison convict leasing system of involuntary servitude to fill the labor supply shortage in the southern states after the Civil War. Black Codes regulated the lives of African Americans and justice-involved individuals were often convicted of petty crimes, like walking on the grass, vagrancy, and stealing food. Arrests were often made by professional crime hunters who were paid for each “criminal” arrested, and apprehensions often escalated during times of increased labor needs. Even those who were declared innocent in the courts were often placed in this system when they could not pay their court fees. Companies and individuals paid leasing fees to state, county, and local governments in exchange for the labor of prisoners in farms, mines, lumber yards, brick yards, manufacturing facilities, factories, railroads, and road construction. The convict leasing fees generated substantial amounts of revenue for southern state, county, and local budgets, and lasted through World War II.
Slavery did not end in 1865.Yes the people whose grandparents lived under this system damn well do have a right to be aggrieved.
Screechy or any other US based lawyer can set me straight if I’m wrong, but my understanding was that the legal academics who first proposed critical race theory were examining exactly the effects of such laws and the many laws since that while not specifically stated as targeting black people, disproportionately affect black people.
It’s a lot like the modern, widespread, and very sophisticated gerrymandering and voter suppression (this especially) that the Republicans especially are so good at. Yes, it nominally affects everyone who lives in a certain area. But it also has a massively disproportionate effect on poor people, who in those areas tend to be black or some other minority (for reasons significantly influenced by a long history of laws designed to achieve just that).
I think there’s a simple test. Are there black neighbourhoods and white neighbourhoods? Because everything follows from housing. If you don’t have access to decent housing you don’t have access to very much at all including political power (at least under a system that has no problem with gerrymandering).
I think I missed the deeply irritating comment in question: where did it appear?
Redlining banks didn’t even have to worry about gerrymandering. By not lending in certain neighborhoods they kept black home ownership low, and in those neighborhoods rental managers even still buy up properties that would otherwise be purchased by minorities. It drives up the prices due to demand, but keeps people locked in rental. There’s ways to get around lendng laws meant to break barriers.
Black people don’t need special treatment, they just need the institutions to stop placing artificial barriers in their way.
I recommend the very well-received ‘Black Ghost of Empire: The Long Death of Slavery & the Failure of Emancipation’ by Kris Manjapra, a book that covers the slave empires of Britain, France, Spain, and the Netherlands (among other European nations), and that of pre- and post-revolutionary North America. With its clarity and historical detail, it gives the lie to those who claim that slavery ended with a succession of delightful & liberating bangs as Western nations pronounced, severally, on its abolition; and to those who like to pretend that there is ‘something wrong’ with ‘black culture’ in the USA (as though that exists in some curious space apart from the wider society). It should also educate those who have a strange fondness for genetics (particularly where IQ, race and class are concerned) that appears to have been picked up on right-wing websites, and who are both ignorant of history & and too craven to face truth.
For those who take a serious, and not an ideological, interest in genetics, I recommend Adam Rutherford’s ‘How to Argue with a Racist: History, Science, Race & Reality’ – Rutherford is a scientist & was trained in genetics; and also ‘The Music of Life: Biology Beyond Genes’ and ‘Dance to the Tune of Life: Biological Relativity’ by Denis Noble, Emeritus Professor of Cardiovascular Physiology and Director of Computational Physiology at Oxford, and, until recently at least, president of the International Union of Physiological Sciences.
Thanks for the recommendations Tim.
I really recommend Noble’s books. They address profound problems in a wonderfully clear way, are genuinely enlightening, and leave one feeling lighter in spirit. Among other things, he makes serious and telling criticisms of Dawkins’ ‘selfish gene’ meme – for it is hardly a theory, and even Dawkins has admitted that there is no evidence that might prove that genes are ‘selfish’. But the idea of the ‘selfish gene’ has been taken up by the libertarian & Randian right, as, for example, in the appalling book by James Dale Davidson & ‘Lord’ William Rees-Mogg (the ghastly Jacob’s ghastly father), ‘The Sovereign Individual: How to Survive and Thrive during the Collapse of the Welfare State’ – a book which I certainly don’t recommend, since its basic message, like Ayn Rand’s, is that selfishness is a splendid thing and is shown to be even more splendid when it is ‘justified’ by science; but it is worth reading if one wants to learn about one’s enemies, and the big, brutal, simple ideas that drive them.
Noble is an interesting man. He is, in addition to being a scientist, a classical guitarist and a good singer.
Mike Haubrich #5: ‘Black people don’t need special treatment, they just need the institutions to stop placing artificial barriers in their way.’
Correct. That is fundamentally what people like Frederick Douglass & Martin Luther King have requested. That it is not yet so is the problem.