The United States of America was founded on the principle of freedom. Every 4th of July, people congregate and celebrate how free American citizens are. Fireworks are set off, barbecue is served, and other festivities are hosted to mask the hypocrisy that is the idea of American freedom. Since the country’s inception, black men have been subject to evolving forms of incarceration that deprive them of their legal and inherent freedoms, starting with slavery in the 1600s. The treatment of black men in the United States directly opposes American principles, yet it has continued throughout the country’s history. The oppression of black men has persisted for more than 300 years, and there exists scholarly literature that scientifically explores and analyzes this prolonged hardship through different methods. The purpose of studying this research is to investigate how racism contributes to the historical and modern enslavement of black men through archival research and interviews. Archival research offers insight into the lives of black men in the past, while more interpersonal research, like interviews, allows researchers to explore the degrees of oppression that black men experience in contemporary America.
Slavery continues to plague the world in different forms, and Dr. Kevin Bales attempts to estimate the current number of global citizens who are victims to contemporary slavery. To orchestrate this research, he firsts inspects the data surrounding the slavery of black people in the United States prior to the 13th Amendment. Using archival research of a prior census, Bales (2017) was able to discover that there were 3,950,529 black slaves in the United States in 1860. The use of the 1860 census in Bales’ research is an example of spatiotemporal data. Bales is specifically looking at the 1860 census (temporal) conducted in the United States (spatial). Though, it is important to discuss the reliability of census data from this period. It is a possibility that this census underestimates the number of black slaves present in the United States in this 10-year time span. Data collection for early censuses was often inadequately done, and compounding that insufficiency with the disregard for black lives and personhood that was rampant throughout antebellum America could suggest that the number of black slaves reported is actually lower than the true number of black slaves in the 1860s. Regardless of the study’s reliability, it is clear through archival research that millions of black men were subject to slavery prior to the 13th Amendment.
In 1865, the 13th Amendment was enacted. The new addition to the United States Constitution outlawed slavery and involuntary servitude, except for when slavery and forced servitude was used as a punishment for those convicted of a crime. Christopher Adamson expounds the socio-economic incentives behind the amendment using prison records. Data in his paper is derived using archival research of prison records in Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, and South Carolina from 1866-1870, which showed that 1355 black people were imprisoned, and black people made up 95% of the prison population at this point in time (Adamson, 1983). The prison population after the 13th Amendment was mostly black men, which shows that racism contributes to the enslavement of this demographic because white people in the South were unhappy with the abolishment of slavery, so they pushed lawmakers to change penal laws so that newly freed black individuals were excessively targeted. Like Bales’ work, Adamson’s study is also an example of spatiotemporal data because it delves into prison records of Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, and South Carolina (spatial) from 1866-1870 (temporal). Adamson’s research encounters the same issue as Bales’: the number of black male prisoners could be an underestimate of how many black male prisoners there actually were for the same aforementioned reasons. However, unlike Bales’ work, Adamson’s findings may have predictive power. Arguably, incarceration could have generational implications. If one individual is subject to incarceration it could influence or directly lead another person towards incarceration. While the relational effects of incarceration are still contested by other scholars and experts, it is still salient to note the potential predictive power of Adamson’s research.
Unfortunately, the ramifications of early American racism have prevailed, and are undeniably ingrained in current institutions, including the legal system. Insight on the lives of black men in the United States is offered through research. A group of researchers haved examined society’s treatment of African American adult males by determining how experiences of everyday discrimination relates to experience with the criminal justice system. 1271 African American males were sampled and interviewed about their experiences with everyday discrimination, and in addtion their experiences with the criminal justice system. For this particular study and how it pertains to the overall research question presented in this investigation, the independent variable is race, as multiple races were interviewed, and the dependent variable is the experience of everyday discrimination. Researchers asked the subjects to explain how they were discriminated (common responses include being told that others are better than them because they are not black, being told that they are unintelligent, and being told that people are afraid of them because they are black), and were asked to explain any contact they have had with the criminal justice system (jail, prison, arrested, etc …). After statistical analysis using Ordinary Least Squares Regression, the researchers found that those who reported high levels of everyday discrimination were also more likely to experience serious contect with the criminal justice system (Taylor, Miller, Mouzon, Keith, & Chatters, 2016). Like the previous two articles, these researchers also collected spatiotemporal data as they are examining modern (temporal) experiences of everyday discrimination of black men in the United States (spatial). Although, this data is much more reliable than the other measurements mentioned above because it was gathered and analyzed in a controlled, scientific manner, whereas the archival data was interpreted secondhand. The data discussed here has predictive power because a strong, positive correlation was found between everyday discrimination and serious interactions with law enforcement.
As previously argued, archival research provides a look into the lives of black men in the past, while interviews allow researchers to explore the oppression that black men experience in current day America. The research methods discussed are both valuable and useful on their own, but archival research is more appropriate for examining historical conditions, and interviews are more appropriate for examining modern experiences. All the researchers introduced in this investigation study the critical topic of how black men endure oppression in the United States, but none of the scholars propose a way to overcome this hardship. Racism persists in this country partly because of institutions and laws with racist roots, so the United States should collectively combat racism by altering these institutions and laws. Racism, discrimination, and incarcertation is a personal, daily problem for millions of black men across America. It is imperative that a personal problem is tackled using interpersonal methods, like interviews and other interactive methods. Data and recommendations from the aforementioned scholarly literature support this counsel.
References
Adamson, C. R. (1983). Punishment after slavery: Southern State Penal Systems, 1865-1890.
Social Problems, 30(5), 555–569. https://doi.org/10.2307/800272
Bales, K. (2017). Unlocking the statistics of slavery. CHANCE, 30(3), 4–12. https://doi.org/10.1080/09332480.2017.1383105
Taylor, R. J., Miller, R., Mouzon, D., Keith, V. M., & Chatters, L. M. (2016). Everyday discrimination among African American men. Race and Justice, 8(2), 154–177. https://doi.org/10.1177/2153368716661849