awareness

Who is aware of the prison oppression in our country?

Most communities of color know that they are targeted by the police and justice systems. Most lower class people of color know what their fate in this country is and have little to no hope for breaking out of this cycle.

            If it is true that our government spends more money on incarcerating individuals than it does on higher education, something is wrong. How can this government justify this distribution of spending? It is because incarceration, especially in private prisons is often times more profitable because of the businesses that they are using prison labor to make or sell their product. These businesses that solicit prison slave labor then often times donate extremely large amounts of money to our elected officials who make budget decisions regarding prison expansion.

            This is not very well known information. It is often kept very ‘hush hush’ and for understandable reasons. Most members of congress do not want this information known. Therefore, the people who are aware of this information are the people it affects the most who often are the lower class people of color who do not have any power to change this.

             Because our national community is so stratified and through time civic engagement has become less important people have a difficult time organizing to create change. If you are not the group with the power you need many individuals in order to create any kind of change or even be heard. Therefore in order to create change especially on this issue, we need to work together to make our voices heard.