Post 3 Group A: Race as a Dollar Sign by Aly Hernandez

The Bronx Slave Market by Marvel Cooke introduced the topic of racial controversial discourse prevalent before the 1900s, during the 1950s, and significantly present in our day and age. Many who fail to understand the intricate weaving's of American racism often ask themselves “Why is racism even a conversation anymore? With all the programs such as affirmative action in place to help minorities assimilate, why are we still talking about racism?” The question I pose and attempt to answer in this post is this: “Why is The Bronx Slave Market just as important now as it was in the 1950s”?

Here we go…

First, I would like to bring up a book I read a few years ago, The Other Wes Moore by Wes Moore. This book attempts to address a serious problem in African-American youths - the disproportionately high amount of poverty and crime afflicting black communities. How could two people by the same name, from similar backgrounds and neighborhoods, born within a few years from each other grow to have two completely different lives from one another. One is a Rhodes Scholar the other is in prison for murder other crimes. In one of my favorite quotes throughout the book, Wes Moore writes, “This book is meant to show how, for those of us who live in the most precarious places in this country, our destinies can be determined by a single stumble down the wrong path, or a tentative step down the right one.” In this, Moore seeks to provide his readers with an essential life lesson of precaution and awareness. By reading his book, experiencing his life and the other Wes Moore’s life, the reader is already taking measures into taking a step down the right path, but that is easier said than done. Although Moore does provide the readers with an abundance of resources to help in the end of his book, the choice to do better is often a difficult one than imagined. It is difficult because while we all hate to admit it, money is the fruit to our success in this country. You either have it or you don’t and if you don’t you have to find a way to get it. The American dream is drilled into us and our ideas of success. The means to success are too often difficult for some to obtain. Crime is often committed in the absence of money and providing for the necessities in life often proves to be a challenge for a disproportionate number of minorities.

The same ailments that plague the lives of many impoverished African-American youth affected the women of the “Paper Bag Brigade”. They too worked for a lower wage than the minimum wage, often working below their means; after all some money is better than no money. When jobs ran low, what then? One of the fears that Cooke had for the women of the “Paper Bag Brigade” was not that they would work for less than the value of their performance and worth, but that they would succumb to prostitution. Is this not a similar situation in which many minorities such as The Other Wes Moore find themselves? Again, this is simple survival trying to make it paycheck by paycheck. The Bronx Slave market still exits re-branded under a different face known as the mass incarcerations of African-Americans. Bruce Western and Christopher Wildeman write that “Age, race, and educational disparities concentrate imprisonment among the disadvantaged. Figure 3 shows trends in incarceration rates for young black and white men with different levels of schooling”.  That graph demonstrates the contrast between white and black incarcerations based on levels of education. It is important because while we are having the highest incarcerations, a large portion of our incarcerations are blacks. This is the new American slave market where prisons are literally getting funded by the number of inmates they can get. The motto goes that the darker the inmate is the larger the cash flow and such as system is revolting and sickening.

They take their labor, pay them next to nothing, take their liberty, and their hope for a brighter future. When it gets tough it becomes easier for the children of minorities, the children of immigrants, and the children of poverty, to enlist the help and benefits of the criminalized path to success.

So then…Why is racism still important?

Because it makes white people uncomfortable. We live in a system that steadily gives resources to white people at the complete expense of African Americans. The system that takes their labor, their thoughts, their culture, their rights, their freedom, and their music to re-brand to give to white communities. Almost identical to the Bronx Slave Market where the women were stripped of their labor, their freedom, their thoughts, and their rights. You cannot move on from the past until the same group that is being oppressed is given the necessary resources to assimilate and prosper without fear of any kind of reprisal from others who feel threatened. It is important because a large group of people are being incarcerated and used for money and it is not okay.