Yet, as it is today, the privileged powers that be have allowed a narrative to spread in our culture that our society is just. That is, in fact, is filled with examples of equality, freedom, and fairness. Failures of family and race thus get laid--by both victim and victor-- at the poor's own doorstep.
If to understand all is to forgive all, then for the inner-city and working-class children, to understand America's social structure is to forgive themselves, their elders, and their race. But those historically in positions of influence have tended to make the teaching of America's class structure something that seems alien, untrue even pro-communist and/or un-American. So the divide between rich and poor grows largely unnoticed. Examples of it or its influence do are ignored by America's media. Thus the outrage its existence might cause does not exist in the Americans mind. Even if it does, since we live in a “meritocracy”, it is unjust to get mad about. America is our hero. Heroes are blameless.
As horrible as a property crime is when something is stolen from you it rarely makes your family members cry. But like death itself, one long prison sentence can make many citizens shed tears, especially on holidays, a time when Americans are expected to be celebrating and bonding. Tears flow year after year from Daughters, sons, mother's, fathers, sisters, brothers, wives, husbands, girlfriends, boyfriends, best friends and anyone else the imprisoned affected positively. In cities like Los Angeles gangs become a part of the culture in its inner cities neighborhoods. Injustice and oppression cannot make a culture ascend nor disappear. In fact, cultures often become even more resolute and stubborn in their traditions. A larger dominating group defining and targeting a smaller weaker group often makes the smaller group further define itself as well as become more fervent towards what it feels is right as opposed to what its oppressors do.
Though all we can have are theories regarding culture, the gypsies, Muslims and Jews of Europe can be used as an example of this. Though the Muslims are really the most obvious example of American punishment not solving our issues, that story is packed with misinformation and its reputation is beyond the scope of this post.
The Romany people, known better as a subgroup of the people known collectively as Gypsies (Gypsy is actually a misnomer likely caused by the mistaken belief that they had originated from Egypt) have been an oppressed minority in Europe for nearly a thousand years. What has resulted from the suppression? An impenetrable people that kept an unwritten language and culture alive and thriving privately amongst themselves.
The Romany people, known better as a subgroup of the people known collectively as Gypsies (Gypsy is actually a misnomer likely caused by the mistaken belief that they had originated from Egypt) have been an oppressed minority in Europe for nearly a thousand years. What has resulted from the suppression? An impenetrable people that kept an unwritten language and culture alive and thriving privately amongst themselves.
The story with the Jewish people can be viewed much the same. Purely for instructive purposes, and nothing else, the Jews and gypsies can be viewed as our original, or “proto-gangs”. European oppression of them by the continents majority helped retain the resolution the Jews and Gypsies both needed in order to maintain a separate and unassimilated identity thus helping to honor themselves in the face of their haters. A less obvious but closer to home example comes from the early Italian-Americans (before they were considered white Americans), none assimilated with their oppressors, and instead shared a brotherhood with each other.
Whoever was to blame, it was these minority groups which embraced tradition and self-sufficiency over the health of outsiders. Luckily for the Jews, they retained a common written language, religion, and since the 1950s, a country. Today both the gypsies as a people, and Israel as a country fight to survive, nearly by any means. It is a lesson that was taught to them the hard way. Do we have outsiders amongst us that we want to remove or punish as did the Catholic church, Spain, Russia and the Nazi’s? Maybe a more important question is: would a ruling class want us to retain these scapegoats in order to distract us?
As for the people now hoping that prisons will reduce the frequency with which future criminal types have babies, would it not be ironic if us locking them up actually do the opposite? Many inmates have been in the criminal justice system since they were children. They have been kept from the opposite sex and may want to rebound. Their culture may also adapt to such needs by looking at certain activities like sexual promiscuity, as admirable. This may lead to this influence then bleeding into the larger culture as a whole. There are several reasons why this may have actually already happened. In prison, fathers are kept from paying child support and changing diapers. Also, the human proclivity of viewing one's past trials and accomplishments--or lack thereof --favorably can increase the likelihood that the imprisoned will see the fact of having “survived” the punishment as an accomplishment. And actually, for many people, prison is a place where one can tame his/her cumbersome drug habit (“get healthy”) and again, be released from the burden of bills like child support a (We front their bills). This protective mechanism may help to cement a criminal mentality as the final relevant developmental stage from what has avalanched from the smallest of
snowballs that began at the beginning of a lost childhood.
Most unsophisticated street criminals grew up in historically underprivileged areas where they witnessed an aggressive justice system bent on punishing them and their loved ones. The community as a whole had all the reason to lose faith in the legitimacy of the system. No good people follow an illegitimate leader that is seen taking more than giving. Many crimes, including drunk driving, are committed by people who believe themselves to be good people--and by many measures they are. Sometimes reactions are unwise and have effects that the reactor would never have directly chosen. This goes for all classes of people who did something detrimental to another, not just people labeled a detriment to society
