DERRICK Z. JACKSON
US abuse of black men a prelude to scandalDEFENSE Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said the abuse of Iraqi soldiers by American soldiers was "inconsistent with the values of our nation. It is inconsistent with the teachings of the military to the men and women of the armed forces, and it was certainly fundamentally un-American." In his Rose Garden press appearance with King Abdullah II of Jordan, President Bush said he told the king: "I was sorry for the humiliation suffered by the Iraqi prisoners and the humiliation suffered by their families. I told him I was equally sorry that people who have been seeing those pictures didn't understand the true nature and heart of America.
"I assured him Americans, like me, didn't appreciate what we saw, that it made us sick to our stomachs. I also made it clear to His Majesty that the troops we have in Iraq, who are there for security and peace and freedom, are the finest of the fine, fantastic United States citizens, who represent the very best qualities of America: courage, love of freedom, compassion, and decency." Of course, all of the apologizing over un-American behavior comes only after the global equivalent of the Rodney King tape. What happened in Iraq is a natural extension of the humiliation that has gone on for two decades in this country. Whether Americans' behavior in Iraq is due to racial, religious, or other cultural feelings of superiority -- or a numbed acceptance of government sponsored violence -- the abusing soldiers and the commanders who let it happen assumed that they were dealing with people who had no voice. So thought the Los Angeles police who clubbed King in 1991 -- until the videotape. Bush lately is fond of saying, "Freedom is the Almighty's gift to each man and woman in this world." Yet for tan Muslims in Iraq and black men in the United States, the gift is too often incarceration and worse. In the midst of the soldier scandal, it is critical to consider a recent report by the Sentencing Project, a criminal justice think tank. Fifty years after the Supreme Court's Brown v. Board of Education decision declaring segregated schools unconstitutional, the Sentencing Project says there are nine times more African-American men in prison or jail today than in 1954. There are now 884,500 African-American men incarcerated compared with 98,000 at the time of Brown. In 1954, Chief Justice Earl Warren said: "Education is perhaps the most important function of state and local governments. . . . It is doubtful that any child may be reasonably be expected to succeed in life if he is denied the opportunity of an education." In the 1980s and 1990s, prison building accelerated as Americans chose to scapegoat African-Americans for a national drug problem. African-Americans represent 13 percent of monthly drug users, the same as their percentage of the national population. Yet African-Americans make up 32.5 percent of people arrested for drugs. While white youth snorted unseen behind fences and gates, police swept nonviolent black drug offenders off stoops and corners. Continued... |
