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That doesn't seem to be true at all: Wikipedia says there was around 4 million slaves in the 1860 census while the total number of incarcerated Americans in 201

by plouc 8y ago

That doesn't seem to be true at all: Wikipedia says there was around 4 million slaves in the 1860 census while the total number of incarcerated Americans in 2010 doesnt reach 2.5 millions.

jMyles 8y ago
I didn't say total slaves vs. total prisoners - I said black men. https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/12/michelle-alexander-more-black-men-in-prison-slaves-1850_n_1007368.html https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/12/michelle-alexander... edit: I can't imagine why I'm being downvoted here. My statement was utterly correct, and when challenged I cited a credible source. What'd I do wrong?!
- contourtrails 8y ago
  They broke laws and are being punished as criminals. Many people of all races are punished in the same way. I think drug laws in this country are way too harsh, but those are the laws. People should not break them if they don't want to be jailed. Also slavery was a human problem for thousands of years, it took humanity collectively waking up to the evils of slavery to abolish it. Human governments the world over supported the instition in the past, and now they've evolved. Don't judge them today based on the mistakes of the past.
  - kurczynski 8y ago
    That is the most niave understanding of government and racism.
    - contourtrails 8y ago
      How so? Economic circumstances negatively impact certain people more than others in the world but how are modern western governments perpetuating racism?
      - jMyles 8y ago
        Come on man, your best advice to imprisoned black people is, "well, you shouldn't have chosen what to put in your own body" and you can't see your mistake?
        Sacho 8y ago
        If their diet is what is causing them to commit violent crimes, which is what the majority of prisoners are in for, not weed, then yeah, that diet is a problem. https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-real-answer-to-mass-incarceration https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-real-answer-to-...
  - jMyles 8y ago
    Come on now. What are you even talking about? > People should not break them if they don't want to be jailed. I'm white. That means I can smoke as much herb as I want and not even dream of entering the criminal justice system unless I'm extraordinarily unlucky. Moreover, I don't give a flying fuck what some politician in Washington has to say about my diet. I don't base what I put into my body on bad laws. But if you are black, you have a much more difficult decision to make. > now they've evolved. Don't judge them today based on the mistakes of the past. If drug prohibition is the "evolved" form, then we still have a long way to go. That's the point.
    - contourtrails 8y ago
      I'm with you, prohibition of weed is very backwards. But that's hardly slavery.
      - jMyles 8y ago
        Drug prohibition is indeed slavery - in the case of the text of the 13th amendment, literally so. Moving the bar from "you're enslaved based on your color" to, "you're enslaved based on your diet" is not much of a move.
    - dizzystar 8y ago
      You're suburban. Growing up poor and in a requisite poor area, plenty of your white friends will end up in prison and jail. A lot of mine did.
  - lovich 8y ago
    "I think drug laws in this country are way too harsh, but those are the laws. People should not break them if they don't want to be jailed." This quote might be a defensible argument if the laws were applied equally in the United States. What has happened is that we have so many laws that the government doesn't even know how many laws there are anymore[0]. This has led to something called selective enforcement[1]. When everyone breaks the law, but you are twice as likely to be punished for it if you are one color vs another, then personal responsibility has very little to do with it. The government is setting up an environment where they can punish whomever they want, whenever they want, and then punishing the people they don't like for non law related reasons [0]https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702304319804576389601079728920 https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702304319804576389... [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selective_enforcement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selective_enforcement
- newman8r 8y ago
  The article makes the claim for the year 1850, and your claim is for the year 1860. There were more slaves in 1860 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1860_United_States_Census https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1860_United_States_Census) than in 1850 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1850_United_States_Census https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1850_United_States_Census) In 1860 there were 3,953,761 slaves counted in the census. In 2016, if you count everyone under probation and parole in addition to those in jail and prison, the number is 6,613,500 (https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/cpus16.pdf https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/cpus16.pdf) If you assume 40% of them are black, like the article claims, the number comes out to 2,645,400. This is considerably less than the number of slaves in 1860, or 1850 for that matter. If you have a source to back up your claim then you should post it. I'm actually curious what sources the author might have been using. I don't think you're acting in bad faith, I think you just read that huffpost article and assumed it was correct. I just wanted to reply since you were curious about what you might have done wrong.
  - jMyles 8y ago
    Yep, you're right - I was off by a decade. I initially heard about this not from The New Jim Crow but from this (seemingly awesome) Brown University student: http://www.politifact.com/rhode-island/statements/2014/dec/07/diego-arene-morley/brown-u-student-leader-more-african-american-men-p/ http://www.politifact.com/rhode-island/statements/2014/dec/0... ...but if I'm doing the math correctly, it appears to hold even for 1860 for adult males.
    - newman8r 8y ago
      Actually I see now that you specifically said 'black men', which is a different statistic, so I think you might be correct.
      - ZoF 8y ago
        The difference being of course that slaves were unjustly enslaved and prisoners committed a crime... Just a minor difference. The truth is that some blacks are unjustly imprisoned by bigots, the lie is that imprisoned blacks are not generally deservedly prisoned.
- joering2 8y ago
  You didnt do nothing wrong. Welcome to 2018 hacker news! It hasnt been like this few years ago, now many times i start reading comments from the grayed out to regulars. And i upvoted all of your comments because they were right on the subject, informative, rich in facts and sources, and i genuinely learnt something new today.
- jknoepfler 8y ago
  Although I tend to see most ultra-liberal conspiracy babble as nonsense, experience with my own psychology and observation of those around has led me to believe that white male fragility is a real thing. You're being downvoted because people on HN, who are by and large financially secure, well-educated technocrats (like myself!), feel like there's something deeply irritating about your post, whether or not it is statistically accurate. I've had enough experience doing volunteer work with people trying to complete their GED in/after prison that - despite the fact that I despise ultra-left fresh-out-of-college political babble (it's so disconnected from reality and non-constructive that it's reasonable to squash it with the rest of the noise) - I do believe that there are deep structural injustices in American society, and we really don't have a coherent story for how to fix them. That shift in attitude was born of experience that is not universally shared, though. Most people have their hobbies and their jobs and their families and their insecurities and their resentments, and they don't take kindly to strangers telling them that the American social structure that passively benefits them and makes their lifestyle possible is built in part on some very deep nastiness. Which isn't to point fingers, or level blame, or shame anyone. Those are the rhetorical techniques of demagogues, and they have neither truth value nor do they tend to point society in a better direction. It's just to say that the psychological landscape is complicated.
  - ZoF 8y ago
    Such a tedious comment to say nothing at all.
  - smokeyj 8y ago
    It’s not about the fragility of liberal white males, it’s the fragility of government as a religion. It’s like asking Catholics to admit the atrocities in their history. Ever wonder why every crypto related article is met with disdain? It’s because their faith cannot tolerate questioning. The line between nationalism and religion is blurred intentionally.
    - riffraff 8y ago
      the catholic church has literally said "we're sorry" for their history a bunch of times, for example for anti-semitism, the inquisition, behaviour against non catholics and religious wars. If anything, the problem is they're very vague about stuff, and only admit guilt for their history, and not for present misbehaviour.

by plouc 8y ago

That doesn't seem to be true at all: Wikipedia says there was around 4 million slaves in the 1860 census while the total number of incarcerated Americans in 2010 doesnt reach 2.5 millions.

jMyles 8y ago

I didn't say total slaves vs. total prisoners - I said black men. https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/12/michelle-alexander-more-black-men-in-prison-slaves-1850_n_1007368.html https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/12/michelle-alexander... edit: I can't imagine why I'm being downvoted here. My statement was utterly correct, and when challenged I cited a credible source. What'd I do wrong?!

contourtrails 8y ago
They broke laws and are being punished as criminals. Many people of all races are punished in the same way. I think drug laws in this country are way too harsh, but those are the laws. People should not break them if they don't want to be jailed. Also slavery was a human problem for thousands of years, it took humanity collectively waking up to the evils of slavery to abolish it. Human governments the world over supported the instition in the past, and now they've evolved. Don't judge them today based on the mistakes of the past.
- kurczynski 8y ago
  That is the most niave understanding of government and racism.
  - contourtrails 8y ago
    How so? Economic circumstances negatively impact certain people more than others in the world but how are modern western governments perpetuating racism?
    - jMyles 8y ago
      Come on man, your best advice to imprisoned black people is, "well, you shouldn't have chosen what to put in your own body" and you can't see your mistake?
      - Sacho 8y ago
        If their diet is what is causing them to commit violent crimes, which is what the majority of prisoners are in for, not weed, then yeah, that diet is a problem. https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-real-answer-to-mass-incarceration https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-real-answer-to-...
- jMyles 8y ago
  Come on now. What are you even talking about? > People should not break them if they don't want to be jailed. I'm white. That means I can smoke as much herb as I want and not even dream of entering the criminal justice system unless I'm extraordinarily unlucky. Moreover, I don't give a flying fuck what some politician in Washington has to say about my diet. I don't base what I put into my body on bad laws. But if you are black, you have a much more difficult decision to make. > now they've evolved. Don't judge them today based on the mistakes of the past. If drug prohibition is the "evolved" form, then we still have a long way to go. That's the point.
  - contourtrails 8y ago
    I'm with you, prohibition of weed is very backwards. But that's hardly slavery.
    - jMyles 8y ago
      Drug prohibition is indeed slavery - in the case of the text of the 13th amendment, literally so. Moving the bar from "you're enslaved based on your color" to, "you're enslaved based on your diet" is not much of a move.
  - dizzystar 8y ago
    You're suburban. Growing up poor and in a requisite poor area, plenty of your white friends will end up in prison and jail. A lot of mine did.
- lovich 8y ago
  "I think drug laws in this country are way too harsh, but those are the laws. People should not break them if they don't want to be jailed." This quote might be a defensible argument if the laws were applied equally in the United States. What has happened is that we have so many laws that the government doesn't even know how many laws there are anymore[0]. This has led to something called selective enforcement[1]. When everyone breaks the law, but you are twice as likely to be punished for it if you are one color vs another, then personal responsibility has very little to do with it. The government is setting up an environment where they can punish whomever they want, whenever they want, and then punishing the people they don't like for non law related reasons [0]https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702304319804576389601079728920 https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702304319804576389... [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selective_enforcement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selective_enforcement
newman8r 8y ago
The article makes the claim for the year 1850, and your claim is for the year 1860. There were more slaves in 1860 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1860_United_States_Census https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1860_United_States_Census) than in 1850 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1850_United_States_Census https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1850_United_States_Census) In 1860 there were 3,953,761 slaves counted in the census. In 2016, if you count everyone under probation and parole in addition to those in jail and prison, the number is 6,613,500 (https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/cpus16.pdf https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/cpus16.pdf) If you assume 40% of them are black, like the article claims, the number comes out to 2,645,400. This is considerably less than the number of slaves in 1860, or 1850 for that matter. If you have a source to back up your claim then you should post it. I'm actually curious what sources the author might have been using. I don't think you're acting in bad faith, I think you just read that huffpost article and assumed it was correct. I just wanted to reply since you were curious about what you might have done wrong.
- jMyles 8y ago
  Yep, you're right - I was off by a decade. I initially heard about this not from The New Jim Crow but from this (seemingly awesome) Brown University student: http://www.politifact.com/rhode-island/statements/2014/dec/07/diego-arene-morley/brown-u-student-leader-more-african-american-men-p/ http://www.politifact.com/rhode-island/statements/2014/dec/0... ...but if I'm doing the math correctly, it appears to hold even for 1860 for adult males.
  - newman8r 8y ago
    Actually I see now that you specifically said 'black men', which is a different statistic, so I think you might be correct.
    - ZoF 8y ago
      The difference being of course that slaves were unjustly enslaved and prisoners committed a crime... Just a minor difference. The truth is that some blacks are unjustly imprisoned by bigots, the lie is that imprisoned blacks are not generally deservedly prisoned.
joering2 8y ago
You didnt do nothing wrong. Welcome to 2018 hacker news! It hasnt been like this few years ago, now many times i start reading comments from the grayed out to regulars. And i upvoted all of your comments because they were right on the subject, informative, rich in facts and sources, and i genuinely learnt something new today.
jknoepfler 8y ago
Although I tend to see most ultra-liberal conspiracy babble as nonsense, experience with my own psychology and observation of those around has led me to believe that white male fragility is a real thing. You're being downvoted because people on HN, who are by and large financially secure, well-educated technocrats (like myself!), feel like there's something deeply irritating about your post, whether or not it is statistically accurate. I've had enough experience doing volunteer work with people trying to complete their GED in/after prison that - despite the fact that I despise ultra-left fresh-out-of-college political babble (it's so disconnected from reality and non-constructive that it's reasonable to squash it with the rest of the noise) - I do believe that there are deep structural injustices in American society, and we really don't have a coherent story for how to fix them. That shift in attitude was born of experience that is not universally shared, though. Most people have their hobbies and their jobs and their families and their insecurities and their resentments, and they don't take kindly to strangers telling them that the American social structure that passively benefits them and makes their lifestyle possible is built in part on some very deep nastiness. Which isn't to point fingers, or level blame, or shame anyone. Those are the rhetorical techniques of demagogues, and they have neither truth value nor do they tend to point society in a better direction. It's just to say that the psychological landscape is complicated.
- ZoF 8y ago
  Such a tedious comment to say nothing at all.
- smokeyj 8y ago
  It’s not about the fragility of liberal white males, it’s the fragility of government as a religion. It’s like asking Catholics to admit the atrocities in their history. Ever wonder why every crypto related article is met with disdain? It’s because their faith cannot tolerate questioning. The line between nationalism and religion is blurred intentionally.
  - riffraff 8y ago
    the catholic church has literally said "we're sorry" for their history a bunch of times, for example for anti-semitism, the inquisition, behaviour against non catholics and religious wars. If anything, the problem is they're very vague about stuff, and only admit guilt for their history, and not for present misbehaviour.