White Iowans are too civilized to physically lynch Blacks, but they are barbaric enough to socially lynch Blacks through racial profiling and mass incarceration.
Most white Iowans brag about our progressive civil rights record, but out of ignorance or denial we are silent about our number one in the nation incarceration ratio. Iowa's Black population is only 2 percent, but Iowa's prison population is 24 percent Black ( a few years ago). Either Iowa's Black population is highly criminal or Iowa's white population which runs the criminal justice system is highly oppressive.
Michelle Alexander, author of the best-selling The New Jim Crow, states: "Convictions for non-violent crimes and relatively minor drug offenses---mostly possession, not sale---have accounted for the bulk of the increase in the prison population since the mid-1980s."
Whites, Blacks and Latinos use and sell illegal drugs equally---about 6 percent of each ethnic population. So if the criminal justice system prosecuted illegal drugs equally, Iowa's prison population ratio for Blacks should be 2 and 2, not 2 and 24. The new Prohibition on drugs has a racial twist to it--massive racial profiling.
But there is some potential good news. Yesterday (July 28, 2015), the Des Moines Register reported:
"State and community leaders say the state needs to reduce the disproportionate rate of minorities in Iowa's criminal justice system, and they hope an upcoming [third annual] summit will focus attention on the issue. . . . 'This is nothing short of a crisis,' said Betty Andrews, president of the NAACP. . . . Chief Justice Mark Cady of the Iowa Supreme Court has made reducing racial disparities in the criminal justice system a top priority."
But Iowa may be moving "with all deliberate speed"---quite slowly; a crisis demands quick action, more walk than talk. Will the appalling silence of Iowa's good people continue allowing racial profiling and mass incarceration or is this the beginning of fundamental change? What happens if Iowans don't repent, restitute and repair? Donald Braman (Doing time on the outside: incarceration and family life in urban America [Washington, DC]) describes what is now happening and what will continue to happen:
"Incarceration, something few families faced fifty years ago, is now an integral part of family life [and community life] in urban America [2004]. About one out of every ten adult black men in the District of Columbia is in prison, and, at last count, over half of the black men between the ages of eighteen and thirty-five were under some type of correctional supervision. If these conditions persist, over 75 percent of young black men in the District can expect incarceration at some point in their lives."
". . .impoverished neighborhoods are also deeply injured by mass incarceration. The disassembling of our society's most vulnerable families has wreaked material, emotional and social havoc in the lives of millions, with consequences that will reverberate for generations. . . . families and communities have become collateral damage in the war on crime."
"We need to ask how our criminal sanctions shape the lives not only of criminal offenders but of their children, partners, parents, and communities. . . . accelerating the spiral of entire communities into poverty, illness, and despair. . . . They need real justice, something that is in short supply."
Real justice seems to be in short supply in Iowa; biblically, both the government and the church are called to do justice. For the past 30 years, during the War on Drugs, neither the state government nor the Iowa churches initiated strong efforts to stop mass incarceration and restore justice.. Currently there is talk about doing something, but major, quick and concrete actions are in short supply. The white Iowa churches, if they are biblical, should be leading the way---incarnating the kingdom of God as justice for Iowa's oppressed poor
When chickens were dying by the millions, Governor Branstad declared a state of emergency; he needs to declare another state of emergency to stop immediately racial profiling and mass incarceration.
In conclusion, Braman declares:
"By employing incarceration---the bluntest of policy instruments---as the primary response to social disorder, policymakers have significantly missed the mark. . . . [Instead we need] long-term mandatory drug treatment, public housing programs that move poor families out of the ghetto, employment opportunities . . . and family welfare programs."
This personal and social trauma creates personal and social PTSD, or as Joy Leary prefers PTSS (Post Traumatic Slavery Syndrome). Iowa's churches need to heed Pope Francis' admonition : "Leave the security of the sanctuary and enter into the suffering of the streets."
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