American prisons: Where slavery still is constitutional
July 01, 2023
In many ways, religion is trifurcated. Which is to say that it looks to the past, to the present and to the future.
The future holds before people of faith a beautiful vision of what will happen when the world finally works the way God meant it to work and, beyond that, it shows them an eternal place of bliss. The past reminds us of why, because of human error, greed and sin, the world doesn't yet work that smooth way. The present is here to move us to action to fix what's broken now while we appreciate the beauty that's already here.
What's crucial to understand, however, is that the past inevitably shapes the present. Because that's true, we need to understand the past so that we can grasp why future prospects are the way they are and how we might repair what's broken.
That's why this column from Good Faith Media is valuable. It reminds us of something many Americans may not know or remember: In America, "slavery was never fully abolished."
Here's what the article's author, Starlette Thomas, Good Faith Media's associate editor and host of its podcast “The Raceless Gospel,” writes about that:
"According to the 13th amendment, slavery can still be used as punishment: 'Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.' That exception moved slavery from the plantation to the prison system."
Which is why we have a plethora of books about the failures of our prison system, including Michelle Alexander's The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness.
And it's why reform of our criminal justice system is at the heart of improved race relations in the U.S.
Thomas adds this: "According to The Sentencing Project, there are currently two million people in the nation’s prisons and jails. The United States leads the world in incarceration and African Americans suffer disproportionately. It is no wonder that Americans view police officers differently."
Most Americans, I'd guess, including me, rarely think about prisons as a place where today you still can find slavery as part of the constitutional system of justice in the U.S. Perhaps if there were a campaign to undo the slavery portion of the 13th amendment, more of our citizens would understand more fully how much it needs fixing.
In the upcoming presidential and congressional elections, let's ask the candidates if they'd be willing to lead the charge on such a change. That could lead to some fascinating conversation -- and maybe even to change itself.
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A GOOD RECENT SUPREME COURT DECISION
Although the population of the U.S. -- like that of much of Europe -- is becoming less identified with religion, I'm guessing that the recent unanimous Supreme Court ruling in Groff v. DeJoy, which clarified that employers must do more than the minimum to accommodate workers’ requests related to religious observance, has the support of most Americans. Indeed, it's important to make space for Americans to observe the practices of their faith traditions without government mandates or other interference. In this case (not a major ruling but important, nonetheless), a mail carrier was required to deliver mail on Sunday, and he objected because he believed his Christian faith required him to do no work on Sundays. But as this RNS story suggests, the ruling is popular with people of other faith traditions, too, because it also protects their rights. Good work, justices (at least in this case). By the way, here is a pretty good explanation of the court's decision offered by Ian Millhiser a senior correspondent at Vox.
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P.S.: My friend Leroy Seat began attending a Southern Baptist church when he was about seven years old and later got ordained as a Southern Baptist pastor. He even served for nearly four decades as a Southern Baptist missionary in Japan. But, like millions of others, Leroy has left connections with the Southern Baptist Convention, which has moved increasingly to the rigid theological right. Well, I'll let Leroy explain all this. You can read his recent blog post about it here.
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ANOTHER P.S.: Last week in Sweden, an Iraqi immigrant reportedly burned a copy of the Qur'an in front of a mosque, and Sweden said it was simply an exercise of the right to free speech. But lots of protests followed. My boyhood friend Markandey Katju, a former justice on India's Supreme Court, has weighed in on this by urging Muslims not to respond. Hmmm. See if you think that's good advice.
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