The Role Of Colonialism During The Emergence Of Black And Brown

Bobo, Lawrence, Thompson, Victor 2011. “Racialized Mass Incarceration” Pp 225.-230 in Rethinking the Color Line, 5th Edition, edited by Charles Gallagher. New York, NY: McGraw Hill.

1). Thus, Hacking’s theory of ‘making up people,’ relates to the ways in which Black bodies in the United States have come to be a representation of criminal activity. Within this context of crime, the individual body (Black body) makes up the generalizations of the social body (the entire African-American race). Thus, with the conduction of the 1890’s census, the data recovered showed that African Americans, who made up 12% of the population, made up 30% of the nation’s prison population (Muhammad, Pg.4). Therefore, this was used as the body of information that let to the categorization of Black Americans. The ‘criminalized body’ is also an example of power dynamics from above, as ‘Black’ stood for the absolute signifier of deviation from the normative category of ‘white’ (Muhammad, Pg. 13). Thus, African Americans become an entirely criminalized race due to the different means of production (discovery, description and documentation). Therefore, as the Black body is deemed ‘abnormal’ through various categorizations, it must be controlled. Thus, examples of control include segregation and hyper-policing, as Black bodies have been categorized to represent

Now, when it came to ownership of the land the Native Americans were known for hunting so, they needed their hunting land as well as land to grow crops. They were open for sharing land, “The South’s native people had well-defined hunting territories, fishing grounds, and agricultural plots which they vigorously defended against encroachment. However, they did not regard land as property that could be transferred in perpetuity to another individual or group”. However, the Europeans did not think the land should be shared. So, when they came over they took the land away from the

To offer evidence to the reader of the racial motivations behind mass incarceration, Alexander follows the history of the racial caste system. The history begins with slavery, which was the original form of African American oppression. With slavery, according to Alexander, barriers were created between lower class whites and blacks, which led to decades of racism later (Alexander, 2010). After the death of slavery, the racism lived on and Jim Crow laws were created after Reconstruction to

Racial bias becomes unavoidable when civilization’s image of a criminal is a BAA (Black African

In 1823, in the case of Johnson v. M'Instosh, the argument was between two men who both held titles to the same piece of land. M'Intosh's was sold to him by the government while Johnson's was sold to him by the Plankeshaw tribe. Chief Justice Marshall ruled the land did not belong to the tribe in the first place, so they did not have the right to sell it to Johnson. The law stated that the Native Americans did not actually own the land, only the rights to live on it, and that the discovering nation was the only one allowed to sell the land. This law is not only demeaning, but outrageously inconsiderate towards the Native American tribes who should have been given full rights to the land in the first place.

In the book The New Jim Crow author Michelle Alexander argues that a racial caste system still exists in the United States. Furthermore, this caste system is set up by the social control that is created by the discriminatory practices of the War on Drugs. The War on Drugs and mass incarcerations create a racial “undercaste” of African-Americans, by marginalizing ex-offenders in America. Within her arguments she describes the racist practices of, and policies surrounding, the War on Drugs. These extend from the police force on the ground, who are apprehending the criminals or, in many cases, innocent people, all the way to the practices of prosecuting and sentencing of these people. There are many instances where the injustices extend all the way to the Supreme Court. However, that may not be surprising given the fact that the War on Drugs is a federal government institution. This racism, while inherent, is not always apparent. In this paper I will assess the broken practices that the War on Drugs implements, including mass incarceration, and how racism is the basis for these practices. However, while it does show that racism does exist in these practices, Alexander doesn’t necessarily show that racism is the reason behind the War on Drugs and mass incarceration, but rather a by-product.

In the essay “The Meaning of Property,” C.B. Macpherson states the argument for how property is “a concept of rights (15),” not a thing that can be claimed. The Native Americans loosely used this idea of property in their lives. Their land was a recognized right by the surrounding communities and ownership rights within a territory usually meant what one had made with their own hands. The European colonists had the notion that “Indians seemed to live like paupers in a landscape of great natural wealth (Cronon 50).” Since the Indians utilize many resources from the land, and not totally dependent on farming, Colonists used this to justify taking the their land. Europeans observed how the Indians did not make a permanent, exclusive mark on the land as a “token not of their chosen way of life but of their laziness (Cronon 50).” John Winthrop claimed that the Indians didn’t actually own any land since they failed to inclose any land,“fences and livestock were thus pivotal elements in the English rationale for taking Indian lands (Cronon Fields 66).” The European way of thinking also saw property as a means of wealth, power, and social status. European treatment of nature can be reflected upon their culture. The culture they came from focused on capitalism, so they saw the new lands as a means of profit. Native American culture differed since they collected from the land what they needed. They had respect for the land and even realized the danger of over fishing salmon in the rivers. The Indians would make sure to only catch enough fish to feed themselves and then stopped fishing to let the fish go back upstream to reproduce. European culture on the other hand, depleted the natural resources they found, which could be seen through the depleted beaver population due to the high demand and profitable fur

The strongest legal arguments in favour of the Native Americans was the dispute over land rights. The Native Americans have lived here in the United States long before anyone else. Their belief in the inheritance of the land is expressed in the Niles weekly register, which states “The land on which we stand, we have received as an inheritance from our fathers, who possessed it from time immemorial, as a gift from our common father in heaven.” By definition, ownership is said to be original, where the owner has brought the property into human control for the first time, as by occupying land or capturing a wild animal, or derivative, where the owner acquires from the previous owner as in a sale. Therefore, the Native Americans maintained ownership of lands in which they did not either sell or lose in treaties that were signed. The removal of Indians from their homes would not only immoral but illegal. Despite having legally acquired

For several years, the inhabitants of our country were taken advantage of, trade inhabitants d into slavery, victims of killings and singled out by the immigrants who sought entitlements of their territories. Before any European or Spanish authority stepped foot on American coasts, the inhabitants already had their origins rooted in the soil of what was to become the United States of America. Different from the immigrants, the occupants did not have the same approach to declaring and take control of the land. They were seekers who were watchful of the land they were occupants of and deemed themselves equivalents of any, and anything that occupied the area. They pictured the land as open for those who wanted to live there. They were also well

It seems to be a recurring theme in American history that the white people will take land from anyone else. They excuse their actions by claiming to have a right given by God and, if that excuse does not justify their theft, that they are taking the land from lazy incompetent people. Examples of this excuse is found throughout American history and in Europe as well. Before Americans saw profit in taking a chunk of Mexico, they claimed the land of Native Americans on the Eastern shore by pretending that the Native Americans were savages and heathens who should praise the good white people for coming to civilize them and the land. When they saw that the Native Americans did not take advantage of the land the way a white person would they realized

In the first chapter of “The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, “the Rebirth of Caste,” Alexander outlines the history of racial social control in America by a caste system based entirely of race. Slavery, Jim Crow, and mass incarceration are the forms that have existed in this system built on caste. Alexander’s argument and her main idea is to write out how these forms were deliberately made and how the caste system continues to attain its aims of segregation in the present forms of incarceration. For the rest of the chapter Alexander expresses how factors such as economic collapses of low-income cities, racial prejudices, a large budget increase for drug vs. law enforcement, and an attack by media to convince the public on the reality of the drug war, incarcerated African American men. This paper will present a rhetorical analysis of chapter 1 and some of the introduction for further background.

About ninety percent of Native American land had been taken by the US government since by 1894, the US government took more than 90 million acres from the tribes without compensation and sold it to settlers. It’s terrible to think that it was so easy to take land from my Native people and sell it for dirt cheap. They thought that it was just a free for all, taking as much land as they could, not caring about the fact

In a time in the world where we are seeing increased violence and backlash against government and police control, it is necessary to look at the past and see what led our country to the state it exists in. Many issues such as police brutality, court decisions and riots are due to institutionalized inequalities. Desegregation during the Civil Rights Movement had a false appearance of equality that brought about a complex form of discrimination and resistance in response. Black lives were still being neglected and peaceful protests quickly morphed into militancy based in black nationalism. Malcolm X, a black revolutionary, once said that “Algeria was a police state. Any occupied territory is a police state. Harlem is a police state. The police in Harlem are like an occupying force. The same conditions that forced the noble people of Algeria to resort to terrorist-type tactics…those same conditions prevail in every Negro community in the United States.”Malcolm’s idea that a police state leads to terrorist tactics in negro communities is based in historical evidence of colonialism and segregation and can be reinforced by the arguments of Cabral,Covington, Daulatzai, The Battle of Algiers and the Spook who Sat by the Door. In this paper, I will argue that as Malcolm X stated, negro communities in the United States are subject to internal colonialism, segregation and isolation thus leading to the colonized people of these communities revolting against the police state which

The modern definition of property is the allocation of right to valuable resources between and among entities or individuals. In Whiteness As Property, Harris stated that the origins of property rights in the United States are rooted in racial domination, specifically by whites. Cheryl Harris, Whiteness As Property, 106 Harv. L. Rev. 1707, 1715 (1992-1993). Harris states, possession - the act necessary to lay the basis for rights in property - was defined to include only the cultural practices of whites. Id. at 1721. This definition laid the foundation for the idea that whiteness - is valuable and property. Id.