Only 12.3% of the United States of America is black but 34% of the prison population is black. The American government and people have committed genocide against African Americans since the first slaves were brought over in 1619. This statement upsets many. I do not understand why but I assume it is because people think I am minimizing the Holocaust and other "main" genocides. It seems that the world cares more about genocide when it happens to white populations. The United Nations states that genocide is when any of the following acts are committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, such as: killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm, imposing measures intended to prevent births, and forcibly transferring children of the group to another group. Why is it that when genocide is discussed it is always the Holocaust that is brought up? I have learned about the Holocaust ever sense I can remember and how it is my duty as a Jewish woman to make sure this never happens again. It has though, over and over again. What about Armenia, Bosnia, Cambodia, Rwanda and Darfur? These genocides may have killed fewer people but why should the number of deaths matter when people are being killed due to their ethnic backgrounds. Would the world have cared more if the 300,000 Darfuri citizens who were slaughtered had been white and somewhere in Europe? Genocide can be slow and more subtle. The United States may not killed 6 million black people in the course of about 7 years but one could argue that prisons are a form of concentration camp. The prison industrial complex puts away mass amounts of black people and uses them for free labor. The documentary thirteenth, on Netflix, main point is to show how people of color in America are used for profit in prisons, which is current day slavery. The way the United States has used prisons has forced countless families apart, taken education away from people, does not allow for people to have the means to support a family and many other negative consequences. The Jews in Europe were first separated and then things escalated really quickly. Blacks in America have been separated, for example in New York City. I grew up on the upper west side and there are not many black families in this neighborhood. Black communities reach out to deep Brooklyn where the public schools are not as great and public transportation constantly breaks down. The genocide against black people in America may have been slow but has been constant for hundreds of years. First there was slavery, then separate but equal and Jim Crow came along, segregation, the prison industrial complex and now police brutality. Still to this day black people are fighting for their rights the way Rosa Parks and MLK were. There are still many Emmet Tills being killed in racial violence today. School systems are still horribly segregated because of schooling districts and housing affordability continues to put black families into the same neighborhoods. Police brutality continues to claim black lives and the prison industrial complex continues to keep black people enslaved. The genocide of black people in America is ongoing and everyday black communities feel its impact.
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