The Future is Another Country
The same companies that house prisoners are also paid by the government to house immigrants, creating a problem that sits at the intersection of race and capitalism. The logic behind this is simple. Private companies exist to make money. When you operate a prison, the best way to make money is to make sure that the prison is full.
Trump, akin to Trimalchio, no doubt imagines a glorious political end for himself—long down the road, since he is already campaigning for his next election. But will he leave the White House with the accolades and groans due to an effective senior statesman? If Trump insists on playing Trimalchio, consuming all political attention and agency, leaving little room at his table for anyone with an independent mind, and bullying those he feels beneath him, Petronius would hint no.
A few months ago I had the opportunity to experience a bit of life from a perspective I’m not accustomed to: the inside of a jail cell. I was left with a kind of insight that an academic like me doesn’t always achieve, an experiential insight. And I thought it would be worth communicating my impressions, if only to play some tiny part in giving a voice to the “voiceless.”
The “court-industrial complex” is an ideology that forms the bedrock of Louisiana criminal justice. It will continue to sustain mass incarceration and municipal plunder despite the best efforts of reformers on the ground unless these carceral mechanisms themselves are undone. Until then, the Court will continue to “eat” the poor.
I started the Slants nearly a decade ago because I wanted to change people’s assumptions about Asian Americans. When you combine the great discomfort that people have when talking about racial injustice to the fact that the Asian American experience is rarely considered in these discussions, I realized that opportunities to do so would be extremely rare. I wanted to give racism a chance—a chance for discussing its existence in a way that would be compelling, honest, and yet, subversive.
According to the A.G. Office, prosecutorial efforts will focus on the 59 demonstrators who allegedly are “most responsible for the destruction and violence” that took place during the protests. Nonetheless, it is still unclear what prosecutors mean by “most responsible” and they could still be charging demonstrators who did not directly create the disturbance, which may impinge on their right to protest.
The BOOM exhibit successfully erases the Black experience in Montgomery County during the 1950s.
The Activist History Review