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April 1, 2011
"More Black Men Now in Prison System than Were Enslaved"
The title of this post is the headline of this piece from the LA Progressive reporting on a presentation by my Ohio State colleague Michelle Alexander concerning her book "The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness." Here is how the piece starts:
“More African American men are in prison or jail, on probation or parole than were enslaved in 1850, before the Civil War began,” Michelle Alexander told a standing room only house at the Pasadena Main Library this past Wednesday, the first of many jarring points she made in a riveting presentation.
Alexander, currently a law professor at Ohio State, had been brought in to discuss her year-old bestseller, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. Interest ran so high beforehand that the organizers had to move the event to a location that could accommodate the eager attendees. That evening, more than 200 people braved the pouring rain and inevitable traffic jams to crowd into the library’s main room, with dozens more shuffled into an overflow room, and even more latecomers turned away altogether. Alexander and her topic had struck a nerve.
April 1, 2011 at 10:51 PM | Permalink
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Comments
Comparing felons doing time to slavery is idiotic.
Posted by: MikeinCT | Apr 1, 2011 11:13:30 PM
There aren't enough black men in stir because the black crime victim is markedly undervalued by the vile feminist lawyer.
The black survived horrendous stresses in history. It could not survive the onslaught of the vile feminist lawyer. There is no racial difference that accounts in the disparity in crime victimization by race, save for the rate of bastardy. Thank the vile feminist lawyer.
Black folks have to explain why they are so repeatedly stupid and self-destructive as to vote for the Democrat Party, the party of the KKK and of the vile feminist lawyer causing massive incarceration rates.
Posted by: Supremacy Claus | Apr 2, 2011 12:14:48 AM
Supremacy - I hope your offensive comment will be struck as spam. This language/comment contributes nothing to the debate or the standing of this blog.
Posted by: peter | Apr 2, 2011 4:31:34 AM
Peter: What could be more substantive than a small reminder. The V word.
My comment explains the disparity in imprisonment rates. It traces it to its root cause, and provides a proper legal remedy in a change in voting.
Your comment has no content save personal insult. That is all that remains for the left. The facts abandoned the left 100 years ago. And personal attack is all that remains. The left killed 100 million people and still failed to persuade. Your left wing, big government rent seeking, and that of the vile feminist lawyer above are the most offensive of all. There is no debating a self-dealing left wing criminal law failure denier. A direct action group of the families of black crime victims should bring street justice to all the self-dealing, rent seeking, crime promoters. Crime victims include property owners in high crime areas whose property has no value at all. They could not pay anyone to take their properties.
You should be irrelevant. Unfortunately, your government worker, rent seeking amoral disregard of the black crime victim pervades the highest reaches of the lawyer hierarchy. The judges are like lazy, slow shuffling DOT clerk type and nasty toll booth style government workers. All their personal and governmental immunities should end. To deter.
Posted by: Supremacy Claus | Apr 2, 2011 8:50:03 AM
Right,SC. But the thing is there's probably not a loyal reader of this blog who doesn't know your rants by rote. This was the undervalued black victim/vile feminist lawyer/KKK Democrats spiel.
Maybe you could just letter or number them and devote the surplus key-stroke energy to something useful.
Posted by: John K | Apr 2, 2011 1:11:52 PM
MikeinCT hits the nail on the head. It's just astounding that anyone would think a serious idea had been established by noting that there are more black men in prison now than were enslaved 160 years ago.
This tells you just as much as the fact that there are more white men in prison now than were in the Confederate Army.
Hello!!!??? "Idiotic" is exactly the right word.
Posted by: Bill Otis | Apr 2, 2011 3:56:39 PM
Hey SC: John K nails the problem with you standard rants. Unless you refine or refresh your rants, I may start to delete them just to reduce comment clutter
Posted by: Doug B. | Apr 2, 2011 7:42:38 PM
I enjoy people who rant about things. However people need to be more objective. "The KKK leaning left". What a piece of garbage! I know more Republicans who have more bigoted thoughts than Democrats. This individual needs a reality check! I am a retired computer programmer. I didn't just fall off the turnip truck!
Posted by: Leroy | Apr 2, 2011 7:55:16 PM
Prof. Berman: You want to be entertained with more innovative arguments, because what I am saying is for entertainment purposes only. Me too. So, try to refine and refresh your postings. Over and over, even after extensive discussions have been posted, bing, yet another post on budget cuts, on execution drug shortages, on imperfection of verdicts to halt further executions of people where no controversy exists, on crack sentencing. No left wing extremist meeting announcement is too idiotic to be skipped.
I know that this blog is not education. It requires no balance and acknowledgment of both sides of an issue. It reflects your personal preferences. But your repetitiveness is provocative.
Is there anything misleading, not true, or biased in my comments? They are not spam. They are incisive.
Feel free to ask me to leave, as was done on Crime and Consequences. I did after being invited to come over. I lost respect for Kent due to his intellectual cowardice, although we are often in agreement. You will be missing self-evident replies, obvious to every academic high school graduate. I am your ambassador from Earth, and carry your high school education that was erased by your law school indoctrination. But these seem outrageous only because the law profession has zero tolerance for any noise from modern times. The lawyer is forgetting who pays for criminal justice system, and its primary purpose, i.e why we have government at all.
Also, I suggest, in a private setting, where there are no sharp corners to fall into, try saying the V word. You can't. If you force it, you may make yourself sick, and even pass out. There must be 1000 mind bendingly repetitive postings here to one glancing collateral reference to the V word. It is always in the context of victim impact, an idea that will end up with a requirement of legal representation of victims to assert their rights at trial, just another scheme for more lawyer employment, not any genuine concern about victims. It is also unlawful to have testimony without opportunity to cross examine, and after a verdict has been reached. It violates current lawyer Rules and is not a really good scheme.
Everyone here is also in total denial of the 90% rate of crime to which there is no legal response, and the likely 20% rate of false conviction. Imagine any other service or product with such levels of failure, and methods from 700 years ago. It is the failure of the criminal law that is repetitive, 23 million times a year.
Posted by: Supremacy Claus | Apr 2, 2011 8:17:52 PM
John K: Did you spot this issue and propose its remedy? No where else.
"These are not drugs for the treatment of a disease, nor to get intoxicated. These substances are intended to cause harm, death by poisoning. They are not in the jurisdiction of the FDA, nor the DEA. At worst, they are in the jurisdiction of the Department of Agriculture as pesticides.
Why can't the state lawyers see that simple distinction and get summary judgments and injunctions against the over-reaching federal agencies of the DOJ?"
Posted by: Supremacy Claus | Apr 2, 2011 8:22:47 PM
"I may start to delete them just to reduce comment clutter"
PLEASE,PLEASE, PLEASE Prof B. and the sooner the better. Many of us already "autoskip" SC's comments as they are boring.
Posted by: Turn Him Off | Apr 2, 2011 11:13:14 PM
Turn: We are begging, now? People do not beg if bored. They beg when in pain. That happens when someone pokes a finger at the tenderest spot of the body of the lawyer, the organ of the rent.
Posted by: Supremacy Claus | Apr 2, 2011 11:38:40 PM
On the other hand, the 13th Amendment does have one exception: people under punishment for a crime. Though that's probably not what Ms. Alexander is getting at (I'm way too tired to actually read the article tonight). I imagine she's really trying to drive home the alarming disparity in imprisonment rates between whites and blacks.
Posted by: C.E. | Apr 3, 2011 3:14:43 AM
"Turn: We are begging, now?"
Begging? Not really, just a little poke and it was quite predictable and boring that you would not recognize it as such and attack a tongue in cheek comment.
You really don't add as much to the discussion as your ego thinks you do.
Posted by: Turn Him Off | Apr 3, 2011 10:26:30 AM
Turn: I provide the only substantive dissent on the fundamental assumptions of the lawyer. These are supernatural and lawless in our secular nation. Before me, did anyone explain to you the meaning of the word, reasonable, and why it was the central word of the common law? The answer is, yes. Your 10th grade World History and college Western Civ 101 teachers. You have no memory of those, do you?
Your boredom and annoyance by my reminders are resistance to the challenge of the supernatural cult indoctrination, and to the cult deprogramming the entire profession needs to undergo. I am the ambassador from Earth and high school education. Derision brings you comfort and delays the time when you will have to face your cult indoctrination.
Posted by: Supremacy Claus | Apr 3, 2011 12:16:08 PM
"Derision brings you comfort and delays the time when you will have to face your cult indoctrination."
I am not a lawyer so there can be no "indoctrination" and you are still ego driven, predictable and boring, boring, boring.
Posted by: Turn Him Off | Apr 3, 2011 4:19:43 PM
Turn, I have no dispute with you. Thanks for your input.
Posted by: Supremacy Claus | Apr 3, 2011 6:20:10 PM
Part of the silliness of your rants, SC, is that you keep bringing up this notion that I and other lawyers are unable to "say the V word." But I have a whole archive of this blog on victims' rights at sentencing, and many lawyers devote their careers to representing victims' interests.
Strangely, I do not get many complaints from others about the "repetitiveness" of my postings, but I do get regular complains from others about your comments. Turn Him Off is not the only one begging for me to ban you from commenting. For various reasons, I have so far resisted requests from many people I respect a lot more than you to ban your comments. But of late I am thinking of conducting a poll to assess just how strong the feelings against your rants run. Ultimately, the problem is clutter more than offense, but you clearly have more time than most to get in others' way with your clutter.
Posted by: Doug | Apr 3, 2011 6:47:37 PM
Prof. Berman: Your left wing, biased readers cannot get enough articles confirming their false, but comfortable beliefs. You cannot be repetitive enough. Repetition is all there is to convince the lawyer of the validity of his methods. There is no other validation.
Ban the sole substantive dissent on the fundamentals, where your profession is in utter failure, with no prospects, total denial, with catastrophic consequences to our future. You are both a victim and a perpetrator of cult indoctrination, as a law professor. There will be no deprogramming without possession of the body. I understand that. A vote among cult victims is predictable. Don't bother. Ask me to leave, and I will.
Type in "Victims" in your search box. Dozens if not hundreds of posts on victim's rights at sentencing, not one on the right to be free from crime, or to have a crime victimization rate like that of white folks, or best of all like that of white lawyers. The latter rate is the lowest in the world and close to nil. Where the lawyer lives, the police shows up in two minutes, blasting, and the death penalty is dealt at the scene. And as to non-violent crime, a little informal research. Typed in a lawyer residential zip code. Typed in a lawyer work area zip code. Two sex offenders work in in the first, go home elsewhere. Dozens if not hundreds of sex offenders live in the other. That has to be a wild coincidence, I'm sure.
Why victims at sentencing? They will need representation to navigate complex procedures, need hand holding in court, restitution litigation, in pointless, obvious expressions of distress, without cross examination or corroborating independent evidence, violating procedural due process big time. Procedural due process is still in effect at sentencing. Best of all, no effect on the crime rate. Just an empty exercise, and a lawyer con. Nice lawyer employment, make work program. That is the sole time you care about victims, to bring in more rent.
I want you to privately say the V word out loud. You can't. I do not want you to choke on it. It is such a dangerous act for the lawyer, it should not be attempted without a rescue squad standing by.
The word "rant" is a comforting ad hominem. It is just a marker of frustration in the traverse, and personal attack is the sole remaining argument of the left.
Why can't your law education and experience take on my high school education? It is because you know the cult supernatural content is lawless in our secular nation. You know the supernatural fundamentals are false, but bring in a $trillion a year to the lawyer profession. You know the criminal law is utter failure from its atavism in every direction. It does not answer 90% of serious crime. It has the wrong guy 20% of the time it does act. It deals itself lawless immunities, and will never get out.
Posted by: Supremacy Claus | Apr 3, 2011 10:06:35 PM
"I am thinking of conducting a poll to assess just how strong the feelings against your rants run"
Do it professor. As you said so perfectly, "the problem is clutter" and this latest rant is just more of the same. It should be the last straw.
Posted by: Turn Him Off | Apr 3, 2011 11:18:14 PM
Turn: Four. How many more times are you going to repeat yourself?
Without trying to invade your privacy, please, tell us how much of your income comes from government, a wholly owned subsidiary of the criminal cult enterprise that is the lawyer profession.
When the lawyer calls fundamental dissent, clutter, it does not have the face the total failure of the lawyer profession. No one has rebutted the clutter. The word, clutter is an ad hominem showing frustration. It sits there unrebutted, and correct.
There are no facts, no empirical validation exists for what Prof. Berman teaches, and what is practiced by the lawyer in the US. It is all supernatural Medieval garbage. The sole success in his field, sentencing guidelines, lowering crime 40% across the board, is reversed in this time of lawyer under employment. The guidelines meet Daubert standards, and nothing else does.
Address the clutter of crime victimization repeated 23 million times a year. The lawyer has no validated answer to that clutter.
Posted by: Supremacy Claus | Apr 3, 2011 11:58:09 PM
"please, tell us how much of your income comes from government"
ZERO. Nuff said??????
Posted by: Turn Him Off | Apr 4, 2011 10:43:41 AM
Turn: Peace, my good friend. I have no dispute with you. I am sorry to bore you, but I am really talking to the lawyers here. I am not offended if you skip my comments.
Posted by: Supremacy Claus | Apr 5, 2011 12:43:12 AM
Prof. B.:
Although I think SC's schtick can -- and often does -- wear thin, particularly when the comment is simply rant-by-rote, and particularly when there are multiple such comments per article, I do think there are times when he has something worthwhile to say. Generally, it's when his comments are somewhere between "Volokh Conspiracy blogger/poster" and "Volokh Conspiracy blogger/poster who has gone off his meds."
I hope that SC decides to exercise a little more editorial selectivity and judgment. If he doesn't, or can't, I'd use my power to delete selectively, if it were my blog, but I still wouldn't (yet) ban him, ask him to leave, or delete all of his comments. When he's not in full rant-by-rote mode, I think he actually contributes a lot more to the debate and to the blog than a number of your other commenters do.
Posted by: guest | Apr 5, 2011 3:20:29 PM
Guest: Thank you. When you feel any comment is a rant, ask for evidence. I like to think I can go down to 10 layers of argumentation behind every assertion, down to appellate decisions, pro and con.
So back to the article in this post. You have a disparity in black incarceration rates. It is misleading and bad faith to not highlight the lawyer caused race disparity in victimization rates.
Posted by: Supremacy Claus | Apr 6, 2011 2:10:29 AM
I like what you have said,it is really helpful to me,thanks!
Posted by: Big pony | Apr 11, 2011 6:00:11 AM
