I read the "Letter from Birmingham Jail" online and the current state of affairs online and compared the current state that we face in our judicial system and compared it to the lynching site that we looked at at the beginning of the semester (as well as this week) and it was disturbing. The study shows that Blacks are prosecuted in federal courts more often than Whites for similar crimes, and minorities, young people in particular, are prosecuted more frequently than their White counterparts.
The following stats were quite the eye opener:
Between 10 and 15 percent of Black men are incarcerated in 12 states: Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Texas, West Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming.
Black women are incarcerated at rates between 10 and 35 times greater than the rates of White women in 15 states: Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Rhode Island, Texas, Vermont, West Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming.

These are the important parts of the article. Basically the lynching of black men was racist in that they "did the crime" even if they did not. They were lynched because, in some cases, a balck man did the crime (or not), but regardless, a Black man was going to be hung.

The lynching photographs depected that in the south there was a CULTURE of lynching. Like if you did the crime you got lynched. It was so pervasive that in TV in the the 1920's a elephant was lynched with a crane that killed a boy. They could have shot it but that is not they way that they got justice.

As far as today Black men and women go to jail much more than white folks. They just did a study and if a person in FLorida does a crime and it is their first offense they can get it thrown out with the judges permission. In the study whites OVERWHELMINGLY got this privledge rather than Blacks.

This is crazy.

Corrie, You're right those stats really are eyeopeners. Lynching was horrifying! I mean to lynch a black person even when they may not have even committed the crime! How racist is that?!? I think back about those photos we saw at the beginning of the semester and they still upset me.

As far as the stats from Florida where white people can get their first offense thrown out more often than black people....that is not right! Our justice system needs to look at the crime not the color of the people supposingly committing the crime! You're right it's crazy and messed up!!!