Soft on crime is dog whistle racism

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In 1967, Walter E. Headley, the police chief of Miami, Florida, said, “When the looting starts, the shooting starts”. His remarks outraged the black community, because of the racist hue of his remarks. For decades, Republicans have wrapped themselves around the flag of Law and Order, accusing Democrats of being, soft on crime. As with headleys remarks, there is a hue of racism around this seemingly noble perspective. The truth is, soft on crime is dog whistle racism. Recently, Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, warned that any looters that they just might get shot in Florida. DeSantis words are a reminder that the politics that drove Headley are still alive today.

The Prison System has Replaced Slavery

When DeSantis spoke at his press conference, and said, You can have people you know bringing boats into some of these islands and trying to ransack peoples homes. I can tell you, in the state of Florida, you never know what may be lurking behind somebodys home, and I would not wanna chance that if I were you, given that were a Second Amendment state, he was invoking the same racist principles that have inspired Republicans for decades, and led to this mass incarceration problem.

Throughout the history of the United States, the prison population has had a disproportionate number of black prisoners, with 38.4% of the prison population, despite being just 13.6% of the general population. The white population is underrepresented, with 57.6% of the prison population, despite being 75.8%.

Source: Federal Bureau of Prisons

Although the black imprisonment rate has been declining since 2006, black people are still imprisoned at five times the rate of whites. Prisons have been used as a means of coercing and oppressing black people for centuries. When Republicans talk about Law and Order, that is not a race-neutral statement.

The end of slavery was not the beginning of freedom, but, for many black people, it was the start of oppression by other means: through the countrys incarceration system. Police departments were originally created to incarcerate runaway slaves. The United States has the largest prison population in the world, and this is because the system has worked to oppress black people ever since slavery was dismantled.

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