The perpetual outrage that is our prison system (h/t Ampersand)

... According to a 2005 report of the International Centre for Prison Studies in London, the United States--with five percent of the world's population--houses 25 percent of the world's inmates. Our incarceration rate (714 per 100,000 residents) is almost 40 percent greater than those of our nearest competitors (the Bahamas, Belarus, and Russia). Other industrial democracies, even those with significant crime problems of their own, are much less punitive: our incarceration rate is 6.2 times that of Canada, 7.8 times that of France, and 12.3 times that of Japan. We have a corrections sector that employs more Americans than the combined work forces of General Motors, Ford, and Wal-Mart, the three largest corporate employers in the country, and we are spending some $200 billion annually on law enforcement and corrections at all levels of government, a fourfold increase (in constant dollars) over the past quarter century. ...

As the article notes, part of the reason for the scope of the problem is more punitive sentencing, particularly for drug crimes. Sentences can be imposed for drug possession that prosecutors would hesitate to ask for in a rape conviction. But there's also the racial injustice factor, from 1999 data, slightly edited from original:

The disproportionate representation of black Americans in the U.S. criminal justice system is well documented. Blacks comprise 13 percent of the national population, but 30 percent of people arrested, 41 percent of people in jail, and 49 percent of those in prison. Nine percent of all black adults are under some form of correctional supervision (in jail or prison, on probation or parole), compared to two percent of white adults. One in three black men between the ages of 20 and 29 was either in jail or prison, or on parole or probation in 1995. One in ten black men in their twenties and early thirties is in prison or jail. Thirteen percent of the black adult male population has lost the right to vote because of felony disenfranchisement laws. ...

From other government data:

Of the 250,900 state prison inmates serving time for drug offenses in 2004, 133,100 (53.05%) were black, 50,100 (19.97%) were Hispanic, and 64,800 (25.83%) were white. [2005 Bureau of Justice Statistics.]

... According to the federal Household Survey, "most current illicit drug users are white. There were an estimated 9.9 million whites (72 percent of all users), 2.0 million blacks (15 percent), and 1.4 million Hispanics (10 percent) who were current illicit drug users in 1998." And yet, blacks constitute 36.8% of those arrested for drug violations, over 42% of those in federal prisons for drug violations. African-Americans comprise almost 58% of those in state prisons for drug felonies; Hispanics account for 20.7%. [Department of Justice and related bureau data, 1996-2001]

There are more young Black men, according to other data compiled at that last link, in prison than in college. Black women are more likely to be reported to authorities for prenatal drug use, which sometimes results in criminal charges and a pregnancy spent in a jail cell, and they're on balance far more likely to be incarcerated than white women on all charges.

This situation is the direct result of the universal adoption of 'tough' rhetoric about crime, and the Democratic party's fear of sounding weak by talking about the benefits of rehabilitation and drug treatment. This is what happens when you live in a society where it sounds like a good idea to make it harder for former felons to rejoin society, attend college, get economic assistance or turn their lives around. They get life sentences as throwaways.

And this, this is a big part of the reason why underserved minorities in this country are so angry about politics as usual. Blacks have been portrayed and treated as a criminal class at large, Hispanics face similar treatment, as well as the assumption that they're illegal immigrants instead of citizens. Even though many Hispanic families living in the Southwestern United States have been living in the same areas since before there even was a United States. Democrats and progressives as groups don't buy into these stereotypes, but too often, Blacks and Latinos are left to fight this PR battle on their own. Their low income communities have to absorb the hit of having more relatives and friends who are permanently second class citizens by law, instead of 'only' by custom.

It's true that there is simply no way the Democratic Party is likely to lose Black and Latino votes to the Republicans any time soon. Also, many good arguments have been put forward in the netroots about the inherent problems of single-issue advocacy. Yet it weakens the progressive electoral coalition if allies in minority communities feel like they're the only ones who care about topics like these, the only ones who will talk about the rank injustice going on under the sanction of law, because they lose capacity to be able to engage on other topics. It's also crucial to think long term about strengthening ties for the benefit of the next generations of progressives, to make sure that the racial disconnect and all its attendant resentments won't be kicked down the line, like the bill for Bush's tax cuts.

I'm thinking that progressives wouldn't have such a problem with insular camps of single-issue lobbies if more work was done to integrate their specific concerns into the broader discussion, as Republicans have done with their disparate factions. It isn't that this is never done, that's not the point. The point is that more needs to be done to get to the heart of what's important to groups outside the ones that any of us may personally feel an affinity for, and that starts with more listening. Even if we don't like what we hear at first. I'm betting the logic would hold as well for feminists, climate activists, union organizers, etc.

What's my evidence for saying that enough hasn't been done on this front? How about the fact that, at the very least, minority and feminist activists feel broadly excluded from mainstream progressive politics. Just read them. (Your homework assignment, should you choose to accept it, is to track down some supporting links.) Is the simplest explanation that they're all lacking in reading comprehension or disproportionately touchy? It isn't about anyone's intentions, it isn't an accusation of deliberate planning; it's about how business as usual tends to replicate itself everywhere.

We live in a racist, sexist, anti-intellectual society that favors certain communication styles and topics over others. It takes conscious effort to create any subgroup of this larger society that doesn't just fall into the same patterns as the culture that we all grew up in. Just imagine how annoyed I am, for example, when after years spent learning to be a feminist, I still find sexist attitudes lingering in my own reactions to others. I'm a woman, and a feminist, and that infuriating junk still lives in my head. How much then should I worry that the racist attitudes of my society are replicating themselves through my inattention? I don't know, but it's a matter of some concern to me.

Fixing any of this takes reaching out, screwing up, trying again, and likely screwing up again. The screwing up part isn't optional. Unfortunately. It takes being willing to keep listening, even when we feel like a lifetime of resentments are being unfairly laid at our feet. It isn't always about us, and just knowing that someone not personally affected will listen can be a help. It might not feel like you're doing anything worthwhile, it doesn't satisfy as an action item. But it helps in ways you can't even imagine at first.

And if I might be so bold (ha!), I think that larger public platforms confer a larger responsibility for making sure that we build a progressive movement where we all work to speak to, and speak up for, each other. Where we all know that someone else has got our backs when we're not around. That coalition would kick electoral tuchis.