By J. George M. Walters-Sleyon
There is a generation that does not know its history. Encumbered by wealth, poverty, sociopolitical, economic and racial marginalization, they have forgotten the legacies of their ancestors and their narrative. With no emphasis on the development of their social identity and social consciousness for proactive social engagement and self-development, they miss the resources provided by their ancestors for their “self” awareness and generational propagation. Faced with the marginalization and elimination of Black history in most American schools, Black self-awareness and identification with their heritage has eluded many members of this Black generation. Thus, the age of “Colorblindness” in America has resulted into the age of Mass Black Incarceration: a reflection of great existential depression and annihilation. This brief historical review seeks to capture the philosophical development of systemic racial marginalization as emblematic of the life and struggles of NelsonMandela.
The end of the medieval era and the entrance of the Enlightenment project in Western history marked a pivotal moment in the categorization of human beings based on racial and intellectual particularities. African Theologians, Philosophers and Scientists were subsumed and defined as “Western” intellectuals. This action provided the intellectual justification to dismiss the continent of Africa and its people as bereft of intellectual accomplishments and contributions. African Theologians and Philosophers including St. Augustine of Hippo, Tertullian, Plotinus, and Athanasius were westernized, not forgetting the fact that Aristotle and Plato studied in Africa.
The German Enlightenment philosopher Georg Hegel philosophically partitioned off Africa by dividing Africa into three distinct structures in the early 1800s. In his book: Lectures on the Philosophy of World History, he divided Africa into: “Africa proper, … the second is that to the north of the desert, – European Africa…- a coast-land; the third is the river region of the Nile, the only valley-land of Africa, and which is in connexion with Asia.”
For Hegel, who never travelled out of his native German town, North Africa was considered part of Europe. By westernizing North Africa and Egypt, Africa as a continent could not claim any intellectual accomplishment from this part of Africa. This partitioning of Africa was justified on the grounds that Africans lack the ability to conceptualize God, law, or any intellectual engagement. Hegel and other European philosophers including Emmanuel Kant, David Hume, John Locke and Thomas Jefferson perpetrated the intellectual inferiority of people of African descent. Future White scientists developed their arguments into genetic theories and pseudo-scientific arguments to justify White supremacist ideas and Black inferiority. This philosophical justification of the inferiority of Africans provided the argument to treat Africans as “Children” who needed to be “Christianized”, “trained,” and their intellectual naivety eradicated.
Unfortunately, the Christianization program was economically driven with slavery and induced tribal wars forming the catalysts for the human trade in America, Britain, Belgium and other European countries. For James T. Campbell, author of the Middle Passage, “Some fifteen million Africans were carried to the Americas in chains.” It reflects the systemic disruption of the social, political, cultural, and economic development and viability of these African communities through the overt subjugation of their intellectual capital. But this systemic disruption of communities of people of African descent must not be dismissed as relics of slavery, colonialism, and paternalism. Black men account for more than 40 percent of America’s correctional population excluding Black women and juveniles. Blacks are only 13% of America’s population.
In South Africa, Apartheid/segregation by race was an intentional sociopolitical and economic tool to secure and preserve a White supremacist stronghold. Less than 5 million of the population subjugated more than 10 million of the population. It was not only a feat held together by internal structures but external forces and structures bent on economic and political preservation at the expense of human bondage. Abject poverty and concentrated forms of marginalization were destined for Blacks. Incarceration rates increased under such a volatile situation in South Africa as militant resistance and rebellions emerged. White police officers shot children as young as seven years who joined the resistance with no remorse. Imbued with passion for change with the consequence of over 20 years of incarceration, Nelson Mandela and his ANC compatriots sacrificed their lives for justice, equality, and respect for human dignity.
The sociopolitical and economic climate is different in the United States but the United States incarcerated population surpasses that of South Africa in the heydays of Apartheid. With over 2.2 million in 2013 incarcerated, and Black men, women, and youth accounting for over 50% of the United States correctional population, the United States incarcerates more of its citizens than any other country in the world. Once again, people of African descent are the worst victims. On September 13, 2013, Rep. Spencer Bachus testified at a subcommittee oversight hearing on the Federal Bureau of Prisons that the United States incarceration rate was close to three times as many Blacks incarcerated in South Africa during Apartheid. According to the Prison Policy Initiative the incarceration rate for: “South Africa under apartheid, (1993), Black males: 851 per 100,000. Under George Bush (2003), Black males 4,919 per 100,000.”
Lifetime Likelihood of Imprisonment in 2011: www.sentencingproject.com
All Men: 1 in 9,
White Men: 1 in 17,
Black Men: 1 in 3,
Latino Men: 1 in 6
The Center for Church and Prison, Inc. is a resource and research center working towards community revitalization through prison reform and strategic solution development and intervention in the high rate of incarceration and recidivism in the United States prison system.
Visi us at: www.churchandprison.org
Email us at: churchandprison@gmail.com
Our single most important challenge is therefore to help establish a social order in which the freedom of the individual will truly mean the freedom of the individual.
