IT’S GREAT TO BE FREE, WHITE, AND 21!

IT’S GREAT TO BE FREE, WHITE, AND 21!

(Population Reference Bureau, Tyjen Tasai)

(Paola Scommegna, Bruce Western, Becky Pettit, Dan Goodwin)

(The Pew Center, Harrison Guerino, Russian Times, Billy Hyawe, Charles E. Causey)

(Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Probation and Parole in the United States, Frazer Chronicle)

 

I’m out of the race, I’m over the hill, and things whiz by me like I’m standing still, and you want to know the worst part…..I don’t even care. Oh sure some mornings I get outta bed with the vim, vigor, and the fire that I used to have…..but after my usual morning ritual (you know, toilet, shower, shave, and a bowl of my trusty Cheerios), I feel faint and return to the scene of the crime, my bed, and take forty quick winks. What happened to the vim, vigor and that fire thing, they’ll have to wait for another day, right now I feel a nap coming on.

Lost in my seeming innocent morning practices that I’ve assumed since my retirement, is the fact that I’m free to do those things, really, in no particular order. It’s my time, and my life, and I’m free to do, really whatever I want. Nothing I do is against the law and if I chose to live my life “on the wild side” pretty much I’m the only one that’ll be affected.

With this attitude in mind, an article I ran across in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that was penned by James E. Causey that spoke of the percentages of incarcerated American’s jails today. The article was complete with graphs and charts to illustrate Causey’s work, simply stating undeniable facts through his statistics. Some of the numbers were scary and unsettling, as the United States seems Locked in extremes.

There is no country on the face of the earth with more of its population living as guests of local, state, and federal authorities for a whole bunch of different transgressions. Surprising to me was the fact that, according to Causey’s article, Wisconsin topped the nation with 12.8% of its prisoners being black. In fact Wisconsin lead the nation by a wide margin, Oklahoma at 9.7% was second followed by Iowa and Pennsylvania at 9.4, and 9.1 percentages respectively.

Wisconsin must really have some bad black people lurking around, looking to commit a crime, sell drugs, or enslave women into prostitution. I was born in Pontiac, Michigan in 1943, and my folks moved to the upper part of Lower Michigan when I was twelve years old, because a black neighborhood had sprung up that was about a mile down the road from our house.

In Michigan there were race riots in 1943 and 1967, both took multiple lives, injured hundreds and cost millions…..now there’s some bad blacks. Several years ago two to three hundred black youths shoved, beat and robbed people, both black and white, in the states latest racial tension. Funny I saw pictures regarding the riot, and I swear there were whites slugging it out along with the blacks in the attacks.

But for Wisconsin to lead the nation in the percentages of black to whites that are incarcerated…..wow, I never knew that our blacks were that bad. I do know that the black community here in Wisconsin is centered pretty much from Milwaukee to both south and west to the borders of Iowa.

DID YOU KNOW

Here’s another shocker…..at least for me, it is estimated that today, in 2014, there are more BLACK PEOPLE INCARCERATED THAN WERE SLAVES IN 1850. There were, according to the 1850 census, a total of 23,191,876, of which, 3,204,313 were black…..and slaves.

With a minuscule number of blacks that were free at the time that was a hefty number of the black race that, in America were shackled in bondage to white people. For blacks, times were bad, and sadly they would stay that way for decades into the 20^th century, the Civil War notwithstanding.

Today there are over forty million blacks that call themselves U.S. citizens, and of that count, around 950,000 receive their mail at one of the thousands of jails and prisons that are located throughout the country. Can one sect of people be that prone to crime as a way of life, could that color persuasion be that perverse to committing crime?

Talk about being stigmatized, I call it; the moving to the other side of the street move, did you ever notice that white people move to the other side of the street whenever there either is a group of blacks on a street corner, or a group of blacks walking down the same side of the street as you are. I’ve done it, but I gotta admit, I always felt kind of stupid, felt like I was over reacting.

I personally know people who use the “N” word whenever they talk about blacks, and I gotta admit, I’ve been guilty, I’ve also been intimidated by black people, and for a number of years thought that black people had an extra strong or long shine-bone that helped them job better than whites could in basketball. However that myth was forever broken the night that I watched a white basketball player jump flat footed to a height of at least 12’ to retrieve a basketball that was lodged on a ledge that the basket was attached to.

I was 25 or so, and after that revelation, for me, regarding blacks and what they were capable of did a rapid change-er-roué. It was like an epiphany for me. I was learning towards the realization that there were a whole bunch of misconceptions with regards to blacks and what they could do, but Howard Bedore,(the white guy who could jump 12’, broke the flood gates.

In short order I knew that blacks were exactly like white people…..but were lucky enough to have a permanent tan that white people spend hundreds of dollars on but still can’t duplicate. The biggest problem for blacks is the fact that they aren’t afforded the same access to public education as whites. Black kids are blighted, black adults are blighted, black kids do not get equal chances at an education, therefore, black adults do not have the same opportunities as whites in the job market.

BUT I DIGRESS

This blog is all about me…..me, being FREE, WHITE, AND 21, actually I’m several times 21, but me being older means that I’ve see more, and I’ve been blessed with the ability to retain some of it. My genealogy, my roots can be traced in two directions, on my mother’s side, to England, and to Canada, on my fathers side, and being a Canuck, French-Canadian.

So following my lineage, there was little chance that I’ve got any black blood coursing through my veins.  I’m clean, pure bred, maybe an ancestor to a king, or duke…..but I’ll never know what it means to be persecuted because of the color of my skin…..and in a way, that is sad.

I can write for hours about prejudiced activity brought one against another, having a pre-determined opinion, or viewing issues with a jaundiced eye. Prejudice is a really lousy word without a single term that doesn’t mean something bad.

Blacks in the United States today DO take advantages of entitlement programs, almost a million are guests of prisons throughout the United States…..locked away for all sorts of crimes that whites, accused of the same crimes get a slap on the wrist, it has to do with that crossing the street thing.

As a people, until we can come to grips with our differences will be a people separated, and that condition is absolutely…..never a good situation or idea. Racism is a scourge on our country that’ll continue to whip any move to unify our country.

There is a law in Wisconsin…..and other states that is called Truth in sentencing, it can be kind of like a review for those people that are incarcerated for property crimes, drug usage, and in some cases, drug dealing. These crimes and others can be periodically reviewed to assess the legitimacy of the sentence in terms of prison time.

Some blacks in prison for relatively minor offenses have little chance of being paroled any time soon, it’s how black people who are incarcerated are dealt with. It’s unfair, and if nothing else, costs taxpayers billions in support costs.

Sadly as long as our prison system is under the operation of white people guess who will be staying in their six by eight living quarters on the taxpayer’s dime? Anybody ever hear of James Joseph “Whitey” Bulger? He killed scores of people, and was protected and in bed with the FBI, oh ya, he was a white guy who got away with his crimes for years and years.

 

HAVE A NICE DAY!