Glen Loury asks the provocative question Why Are So Many Americans in Prison? (thanks to Earl for the link)
His answer for many of us isn’t surprising. The fact that he got there in the first place probably is surprising to some of us given his black conservative roots. (I’m not sure if it is on the web or not, but what is fascinating to me was how he was treated by conservatives when he underwent his conversion experience. While the same thing probably would have happened among liberal/leftists had his conversion gone the other way, it is fascinating nonetheless.)
I also like the title he chose. In fact in some ways this article is the counterpart to Martin Gilens book Why Americans Hate Welfare. In that book Gilens makes the claim that Americans hate welfare because it has become associated with black women. (Earl has a video link to Gilens’ presentation somewhere on his site.) The problem with that title is that he isn’t really talking about Americans…rather he’s talking about white Americans. So he ends up doing what many do–take the viewpoints of whites and make them the universal standard.
When Loury does it though, he’s coming from a very different place. The assumption already is that these people aren’t Americans, not only because they are prisoners, not only because they are not white, but because they are black. His attempt to flip this on his head is reminiscent of the move that Albert Murray makes.
The only problem with this work…is that he’s making an assumption about “American values” that is only warranted in brief moments. Loury:
This situation raises a moral problem that we cannot avoid. We cannot pretend that there are more important problems in our society, or that this circumstance is the necessary solution to other, more pressing problems—unless we are also prepared to say that we have turned our backs on the ideal of equality for all citizens and abandoned the principles of justice. We ought to ask ourselves two questions: Just what manner of people are we Americans? And in light of this, what are our obligations to our fellow citizens—even those who break our laws?
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To address these questions, we need to think about the evaluation of our prison system as a problem in the theory of distributive justice—not the purely procedural idea of ensuring equal treatment before the law and thereafter letting the chips fall where they may, but the rather more demanding ideal of substantive racial justice. The goal is to bring about through conventional social policy and far-reaching institutional reforms a situation in which the history of racial oppression is no longer so evident in the disparate life experiences of those who descend from slaves.
Gunnar Myrdal was tasked in the late thirties early forties to write the definitive book on American race relations. Radical for its time the book An American Dilemma made many of the arguments that we now routinely find ourselves having to wrestle with. The argument for example about the debilitating effect of black matriarchies on black men (and black society) was NOT first found in Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s work…but rather in Myrdal’s work written some twenty years earlier. Imagine saying that Negroes would likely be in the same position if racism were removed…and making this claim during the height of Jim Crow!
But given the size and scope of Myrdal’s work, this tidbit was largely ignored. The thing that put Myrdal over the top, argument wise, was his claim that the central American problem was a moral one. Americans had two sets of diametrically opposed values–a set of values they applied to themselves, and a set of values they applied to blacks. This caused whites a great deal of tension, and its resolution was imperative for the health of American society.
Note how Loury is making the same claim above. We make the Rawlsian move towards redistributive justice in order to heal the current rift between our present values as Americans (just what manner of people are we?) and our past ones.
But the problem here, as with Myrdal is a simple one–there is no rift. Better yet, the we above is not a universal we. No black people I know think the current condition as particularly moral. No Latinos I know feel this way. This is peculiar to one distinct population.
Rather than using a philosophical turn to get us (no, not us) to revisit the American justice system, I’d argue for a political turn. Which puts us in another quandry altogether, but still is a more accurate rendering of the problem and the solution we’ve got to employ here.
Oh. One note. He referred to the work of Vesla Weaver. Vesla’s got skills….but Khalilah Brown-Dean has been working on the exact same issue for a few years now.
What is the political turn that you allude to?
As you noted a few days ago PSA’s in the form of rap videos and adages like ‘man up’ and ‘be a good father’ produce little tangible results. Legalizing drugs, however, would be a major step toward ameliorating and probably reversing the crisis.
For the last 30 years we’ve lived with a modern variant of unbridled Dickensian capitalism in the form of the drug industry. Like the slave trade of old families have been left in ruins and dead corpses litter the streets. Children are employed in the trade and the drug overlords have formed there own rules and methods attended by violence to regulate their commerce. The rest of us live under the caprice of their bullets.
Why not legalize drug trafficking the way we do gambling? It’s not perfect but surely it can’t be worse and is worth the effort. Licensure by the state would remove the need for overt violence to acquire and maintain territory. This would be undergirded by the ability to use organs of the state to settle disputes rather than street justice.
Free market proponents like Cobb who advocate for small businesses and midlevel service industries should welcome the addition of a new vehicle for acquiring wealth. Like Koreans in the ethnic beauty supply industry blacks could organize themselves into a powerful but legal cartel.
Low income predominantly black urban locales would have the disproportionate share of these ‘free trade’ zones. Unfortunately, I see no other way. Affluent white communities will resort to the ‘not in my backyard’ arguement and prevent a fair distribution of these zones into their communities. But residential considerations would be taken into account the way they are with any business.
Negotiations would include the distribution of revenues from the taxation of drugs to favor those areas which encompass these zones. Like tobacco and alcohol sales of narcotics would be limited to adults. Violators would suffer heavy fines and eventual felonies that would lead to forfeiture of license and loss of livelihood.
The state would heavily tax narcotics the way it does cigarettes. This combined with PSA’s and laws limiting sales to adults would provide a disincentive to minors becoming consumers. Again, not perfect but better than what we have now.
There will always be a hardcore segment similar to alcoholics and gambling addicts who pose a hazard. The healthcare and legal system would deal with them depending on the circumstances and nature of the offense. But we can’t let such persons determine how we respond and accomodate an industry that serves a need which can’t be eradicated.
This would go further than pithy admonitions and Afrocentric rituals to maintain family integrity.
I forgot to add the cultural benefit of removing the glamor and mystique surrounding drug dealers. What if selling drugs became as mundane as working at the post office? Then rap moguls probably wouldn’t be glorifying it the way they do now. And the participants would be transformed from beguiling outlaws to self employed contractors worried about taxes and limiting overhead costs. Who knows? Maybe rap music would become much like country music and celebrate the little guy.
this is the type of turn i’m talking about. rather than emphasizing arguments about redistributive justice that work only if that type of justice actually MATTERS to citizens, focus on local political solutions. something like this won’t be easy…in fact just the opposite. but this is the type of thing we should be fighting for.
Lester,
Just quickly, your “political turn” contra Loury’s point is much appreciated, brutha.