Learning more about the history of racism in America, it has become so apparent to me that racism has worn many different masks while consistently rooting itself deeper and deeper into our society. While at first glance (and without any historical context) the policing system and the prison industrial complex may not starkly appear as modern day slavery, but when you look at it within its historical context- from 1619 to now, 2020- you so clearly see that it is, without a doubt, a modern day form of slavery. White people have been stripping BIPOC of their personhood since the dawn of our country (and waaaay before, but we will use the beginning of our country as an example for the purpose of this discussion). When looking back at and reflecting on the pre Civl War era, onto reconstruction and the Jim Crow era and into the Civil Rights movement, it is so easy to say "wow so many laws and policies during this time were abhorrent! I would never stand for that!" But our reality is that if you support the police system and prison industrial complex, if you deflect from the BLM movement with things like "..but black on black crime!" if you aren't DEMANDING justice for the murders of black people at the hands of police and the public, you are standing for the exact same things racists stood for in the 1800s-1960s- the prosperity of white power. The racist ideologies that our country is built on have never gone away, and certainly haven't lessened. They have just worn and changed different masks, making it hard for people who are ignorant in history and blind to their surroundings to see the dark and hateful reality of our country- racism is alive and well, and just as wrong as it was two hundred years ago.
