I thought I understood racism and mass incarceration. But nothing prepared me for what I saw in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. (1/x)
Event
May 20, 2017
Activist details how racism and mass incarceration shape contemporary Baton Rouge
Samuel Sinyangwe observed an unsettling reality while studying mass incarceration in Louisiana. He shared that black prisoners, who have the highest incarceration rate in the state, worked for white officials in echoes of modern-day slavery.
Activist details how racism and mass incarceration shape contemporary Baton Rouge
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Some background: Louisiana has the highest incarceration rate in the *world.* Within that, black people are locked up at much higher rates.
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So I was in theory prepared to see some things. I just didn't know what I would see or how I would experience it.
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First thing I did in Baton Rouge was attend a meeting at state capitol building. I didn't take pics, so I'm using online pics to illustrate.
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I was there to make the case for state legislators to change laws that make Louisiana the hardest state to hold police accountable within.
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LA gives police a *month* before being questioned for killing someone and makes police chiefs classified employees making hard to fire them.
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I was informed almost everyone controlling the state government is former police or corrections or connected to it. It's a huge industry.
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So I'm in the capitol, watching the state legislators moving around. Mostly middle aged white men with blazers, khakis. They're in charge.
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And *then* I noticed that all the people serving food, cleaning, printing papers IN THE STATE LEGISLATURE are prisoners.
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I didn't take pictures. But pictures are available online. Here are some.
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There was also a correctional guard "overseeing" them. A white man. Overweight. It was straight out of a movie on slavery.
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The white (almost all Republican) legislators work to maintain this system while black prisoners are right there. Watching. Working.
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But it goes deeper. They also work in the governor's mansion. You know, the one that looks like this.
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I'm still processing the experience. This was, to me, surreal. Black folks I talked to were matter of fact, unfazed. It's the reality there.
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Of course, that's the tip of the iceberg. Can go much deeper. Lookup Angola state penitentiary in Louisiana and its history, for example.
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Here's an article on the work the prisoners do there. The title tells you a lot about the mindset there. In 2017. nola.com/politics/index
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Specifically, that its viewed as a *privilege* for prisoners to be chosen to work in the state legislature, getting paid next to nothing.
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It's better than the work outside, on the prison grounds. In the fields instead of being in the house.
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It's all right there. In 2017. In the governor's mansion. In the state legislature. In the fields. Slavery, by another name.
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What are we supposed to think about the legislators there? Interacting with prisoners every day. Getting served food, papers printed, etc.
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How do we change these systems when they're all so entrenched? The people in power are all part of it, benefitting from it.
This is intensely worrying and I had no idea it was happening in the states.
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I thought I understood racism and mass incarceration. But nothing prepared me for what I saw in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. (1/x)
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I've always heard stories about how things are but wow...
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I thought I understood racism and mass incarceration. But nothing prepared me for what I saw in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. (1/x)
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Thread. I knew none of this. It is nothing short of slavery by a different name. Chilling.
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I thought I understood racism and mass incarceration. But nothing prepared me for what I saw in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. (1/x)
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