Although to be fair it's probably a much lower proportion of black men now than it was in 1850. There are certainly still problems, but they aren't nearly as bad as they were just a few decades ago.
I don't know how you're reaching this conclusion from reading that we imprison more black men than ever and that the numbers are even higher than slavery numbers.
I feel you, but ultimately I think you're trying to make our still dystopian present easier to swallow, which is understandable.
I really like how 13th on Netflix repeated a simple but devastating stat: the US has 5% of the world's population, but it imprisons 25% of the world's prisoners, with 40% of them being black men.
With most of those black prisoners doing free labour while having their wealth, power, and freedom stripped due to their imprisonment, it really doesn't feel any different than it's ever been. It's just hidden from the public now.
> Although to be fair it's probably a much lower proportion of black men now than it was in 1850.
Probably not; slaves weren't legally treated as persons and weren't generally incarcerated for crimes as such, and while there was certainly racism against non-slave blacks, I've seen no account of massive disproportionate imprisonment.
Now, slavery itself was a bigger problem than the current disproportionate imprisonment, but also different in kind, not merely degree.
Sorry I wasn't being very clear, I meant that the proportion of blacks that were slaves was far higher than the proportion that are now imprisoned. Or even that are ever imprisoned. Really I think trying to paint our present situation as almost as bad as where we were just 150 years ago doesn't really make sense.
> I meant that the proportion of blacks that were slaves was far higher than the proportion that are now imprisoned.
My comment was about black men (ie, adult males) under correctional custody or supervision (ie, probation or parole). I think it's likely that the ratio is close to the 1850 number - by 1850 there were quite a lot of free black men.
But that's not really the issue - I'm more inclined to take issue with
> trying to paint our present situation as almost as bad as where we were just 150 years ago doesn't really make sense
I think the prison system is very, very bad. A horrifically ugly mark on our history. As bad as slavery, and as impactful on black families in many places. Life as a black family in a radically abolitionist state - say, Kansas - was almost surely less disrupted by slavery in 1850 than it is by the prison state today.
