Mass incarceration: my eyes needed to be opened!

Supporting the African-American Soul

Reading Michelle Alexander’s book, The New Jim Crow, has literally changed my life! Totally ignorant of mass incarceration, my eyes needed to be opened.

It is appalling that 25% of African-American males languish for years in US prisons often for minor and drug-related offenses.

So many are caught in the impossible situation of having to live in unbearable poverty and the white-American society has seemingly found a way to keep them out of sight and out of mind.

Yet many white Americans, especially the white men queried about this issue, have never heard of it and have no idea that so many people of color and especially African-Americans are imprisoned.

Many white women are aware of the problem which runs so deep in the American past, they do not know how to contend with it.

Most people who have lived in America all or most of their lives know what a serious problem inter-racial relations can be. Yet when I look to my past and the experiences I had as a child, my heart spontaneously fills with love and respect for the African-American who lived among us and became an important and integral part of our life. They were family and oh how I loved Edna. For me it was Edna, my grandmother’s African-American maid, who made me feel loved and worth caring about.

The problem America must face now is the plight of people of color, those marvelous “Ednas” who kept the family and the community running smoothly. Really they were indispensable. Nevertheless when the Second World War came along, many of the African-Americans in our midst quit their work as domestic servants and went to work for the war effort.

Edna found a better job working for the war effort and receiving better pay. I was devastated when she left. In her absence, I found as I grew up that the race problem was generated by white people who took the darker skinned from Africa for their own selfish economic reasons.

European settlers to America knew that to profit as they built a new country, they needed cheap labor. They used Africans who were forced to come here as slaves.

Over the last several centuries it is the white people who have from the beginning of the country abused them and treated African-Americans as lower class citizens.

Doing so meant that white people could continue to live in a pattern of wealth. Thus the Europeans who settled America started exploiting their African brothers and following generations perpetuated the mistreatment and subjugation of blacks and generally of people of color.

The racial problem has two very different faces: (1) the problems of the people in Africa and (2) the problems of African-Americans in America. The concern here is with those who were taken from Africa several centuries ago and brought to America by white people to be their slaves.

The difficulty that white people in America must face and change in relation to Afro-Americans is the African’s need to be free so they can follow the path of their own soul. The black person needs the possibility of being self-responsible. The blacks among us have repeatedly shown that they want to and can cooperate socially given an opportunity.

Mary McLeod Bethune and Eleanor Roosevelt – 1943

For example, with their assistance and bravery, America won World War II. Racial integration continues as the races become friends, intermarry and share common work, cultural and educational experience.

As we examine the problems of the African-American, we must use the inner glasses that enable us to see the hope and promise they can offer over the next several hundred years.

But in order to do that they must be free. African-Americans want so much to help and cooperate. We must, in the name of compassion, guarantee them the human rights we have come to expect for ourselves.

Right human relations remains to be established between African-Americans and European-Americans and that is a major current of current global problems—to develop quality relationships between other races, countries, religions and cultures.

Once white people open their hearts to their African-American counterparts and enable and truly support their soul expression at every level, there is no telling what excellence America can achieve!

WE NEED YOUR SUPPORT

I have heartfully written this Manifesto and aim to gather at least 100,000 signatures on a petition requesting an immediate end to mass imprisonment, government provision for rehabilitation, sustainable development employment training for ex-prisoners and including wording for a strong Constitutional amendment that ends abuse and injustice.

You are invited to sign the petition and donate 1$ or more to help this worthy cause.

Thank you so much for your support!

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© 2014 Rebecca Field